For a professional wrestler, your gimmick is your life. It is who you are and how you are defined in the business. While some gimmicks can stand the test of time and provide career-long success, some can truly put the performer behind the 8-ball and make it tough for the wrestler to achieve any sustained success, regardless of how talented they are. For those, a gimmick change can be a Godsend and revitalize a career.
When change is needed, it takes the collaborative effort of the wrestler and WWE wanting to take a new vision to greater heights. Some of the better examples show just how important change was to the performer and how with the right gimmick in place for the right person, it can lead to great success and in some cases, save a career.
10 Jinder Mahal
Jinder Mahal was a floundering member of the WWE roster, miscast in a 3-man band faction consisting of three men who creative threw together with no true direction. He was struggling to get any tv time and became an easy release candidate which he was when he was released in 2014.
In 2016, Mahal re-signed with WWE, adopting a gimmick more in line with his heritage and a great physique. He would end up on Smackdown where he would challenge Randy Orton for the WWE Championship, and at Backlash 2017 he would win the title and go on to hold it for nearly 6 months. Mahal would add a US Title victory at WrestleMania 34 cementing the fact that his gimmick change paid dividends.
9 Dolph Ziggler
It's difficult to remember the humble beginnings of Dolph Ziggler when you look at the career that he has carved out for himself in WWE. He was initially called up and set up to fail with a horrible gimmick playing sidekick to another horrible gimmick as Kerwin White's caddy. He would then be saddled with the male cheerleader gimmick as Nicky in the Spirit Squad, which had its short run of success on Raw but wouldn't have been sustainable.
As Dolph Ziggler, his achievements are as long as the day: Tag Team Champion, U.S. Champion, multi-time Intercontinental Champion, Money In The Bank winner, NXT Champion, and two-time World Heavyweight Champion. WWE knew they had something in Ziggler, it just took a few attempts at getting it right before they finally did.
8 JBL
John Bradshaw Layfield wore a few different hats in WWE before he would settle into the gimmick that paved the way for his Hall Of Fame induction. Justin Hawk Bradshaw and Blackjack Bradshaw in the mid-'90s. Ministry Of Darkness Bradshaw and APA Bradshaw in the attitude era before finally breaking out on his own in 2004 as JBL.
Before settling in as JBL, WWE had given Bradshaw a singles run in 2002 and early 2003, but it wasn't long before he end up reunited in the APA with Faarooq in the tag team division again, an indicator that there was some lost faith in him as a single. Brock Lesnar's sudden departure from WWE after WrestleMania 20 created a huge void on Smackdown and then WWE Champion Eddie Guerrero needed an opponent. In stepped JBL, and the rest, as they say, is history.
7 Bray Wyatt
Windham Rotunda got his start on WWE television as Husky Harris. Not a name destined for great things. His most notable contributions to the main roster as Husky were taking a lashing initiation to join the Nexus and getting punted in the head and effectively off of TV by Randy Orton. After being sent back down to developmental in 2012, Bray Wyatt was born.
Rebranded as a cult-like leader, Wyatt would re-emerge into our lives and our screens and take us all on a rollercoaster for the next decade that would include various incarnations of the character, none more memorable than the final, and most devious, version of Wyatt, The Fiend. Whether it was WWE management, Wyatt, or a combination of both, what we witnessed for the last 10 years was a lot better than "Husky Harris."
6 Rikishi
The Anoa'i Family has churned out a whos who of wrestling legends and Hall of Famers over numerous decades, and Rikishi would join that list of Hall of Famers when he was inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame in 2015. Before he would go on the run of his career as Rikishi, he struggled to find his path as a singles star taking on several different gimmicks that failed.
WWE branched Rikishi out on his own under the "make a difference" role model character in 1995. By the Spring of 1996, the gimmick was dropped. WWE attempted to use him as "The Sultan" under a mask, which had some legs for two years, but that character too would disappear in 1998. Thankfully, tapping into a gimmick similar to his cousin Yokozuna, Rikishi was born in 1999 just in time to be a part of the attitude era and truly find his greatest successes.
5 Batista
Before he was Drax The Destroyer in the MCU, Batista was winning world championships in WWE. However, before he would be anywhere near titles, he was brought to the main roster as Deacon Batista, sidekick to Reverend D-Von on Smackdown in the early 2000s. Carrying around a "donation box", Batista was cutting his teeth in WWE assisting D-Von Dudley's failed singles run, and it wasn't long before WWE saw the error of their ways and split him apart from D-Von and shipped him to Raw where his career would take off.
Batista would soon be paired up with Ric Flair, and eventually, Evolution, where his career would skyrocket to main event status. Numerous world titles, tag team titles, two royal rumble wins, and a WrestleMania main event would follow carving the path that he would take to the top of the promotion and then into Hollywood.
4 Kane
One could argue that Glenn Jacobs may not have achieved the lofty status of Mayor had he come off of televisions around the world as a psychopathic dentist or some kind of Kevin Nash wannabe, but these were the gimmicks he endured before landing, arguably, one of the greatest character creations in WWE history.
Before there was Kane, there was Diesel, but he wasn't the Diesel, and everyone knew it and was supposed to know it. Before "Fake" Diesel, there was Isaac Yankem, DDS. Needless to say, a crazed man who just so happened to practice dentistry wasn't destined for great things. Taking on the gimmick of Kane, the tormented, presumed dead, younger brother of The Undertaker unquestionably saved the wrestling career of Glenn Jacobs from endlessly going through the revolving door of gimmicks WWE was trying to get to stick. Lucky for us, it did.
3 John Cena
The definition of a saved career could have a photo of John Cena next to it and it would make sense. One of the greatest of all time may not have had the opportunity to showcase his talents had it not been for a fateful bus trip in 2002. Before a career run that is approaching 20 years of unparalleled success full of Hustle, loyalty, and respect, there was generic John Cena. The guy who wore colorful tights had a great body and pushed Kurt Angle to his limit in his debut match. He started with a bang, but by the holiday season of 2002, the shine had worn off.
On that fateful bus trip, Stephanie McMahon overheard some of Cena's rapping ability and suggested he bring that to tv, and he did. 16 world titles and a burgeoning film career would follow but had that change not come when it did, it may not have. Cena himself admitted that he was told he was going to be included in the Christmas cuts of 2002 had that gimmick change not occurred when it did.
2 The Rock
Dwayne Johnson would debut in 1996 as Rocky Maivia, the son of Rocky Johnson and grandson of High Chief Peter Maivia, another product of the Anoa'i family tree. Johnson started hot, eventually winning the Intercontinental Title in his first year in the company, but before long the fans grew increasingly frustrated and hostile towards him with chants of "Rocky sucks" and "Die Rocky Die." The gimmick change couldn't come fast enough.
After an injury took him off the road in 1997, he would return as a heel, adopt the gimmick of talking in the third person referring to himself as The Rock, and join The Nation Of Domination. The Rock quickly took off as one of the most popular characters of the Attitude Era and of all time for the sport making it hard to envision a wrestling world that never would have gotten to smell what The Rock was cooking.
1 Stone Cold Steve Austin
Stone Cold Steve Austin is one of the biggest stars in the history of pro wrestling and is the biggest money draw for WWE. He led the charge of the then WWF and arguably saved the company from its demise as his character caught fire in a desperately needed time when WCW was starting to overtake WWF as the number one promotion in the industry. But it was before any of this that his career was saved when The Ringmaster gimmick was dropped in favor of Austin 3:16.
After already being fired by WCW, and having a brief stint in ECW, The Ringmaster in WWF seemed like the last chance for Austin to have a successful career. He wasn't happy, and the bland gimmick did him no favors. Thankfully, for everyone involved, including us the fans, Stone Cold was born in 1996, carving out one of the greatest careers in wrestling history.