The biggest character flops in professional wrestling history

For every one great wrestling character created, there are ten characters that completely flop. I’m going to talk about the biggest character flops in wrestling history. I posted something on Facebook and Twitter asking people for their input and thoughts, and I got tons of names—more than I could possibly count or talk about in one sitting. There have just been so many bad characters and gimmicks throughout wrestling history.

You had trash men, guys pretending to be Spider-Man, characters like Max Moon with the goofy costume, and Damian Demento—who knows what that was supposed to be about? There were just so many characters that made you wonder: what was the company thinking? Or what was the person behind the character thinking when coming up with this idea? Most of the time, it was the company coming up with a bad idea. That’s what it boils down to. So, let’s talk about some of the more notable and infamous character flops in wrestling history.

The Widowmaker (Barry Windham) — Barry Windham was a great wrestler in his heyday, with a strong run as part of the Four Horsemen in WCW and the NWA. He goes to WWE, and they start calling him the Widowmaker. Later, he comes back, and they make him The Stalker. Why? Terrible ideas. Windham had two very disappointing runs in WWE—the Widowmaker and the Stalker—both bad ideas from the start. Why couldn’t he just be Barry Windham and go out there as himself? I never understood that.

Then there’s Alex Wright, who actually had some success in WCW. He was a cruiserweight standout for several years until they decided to repackage him as Berlin. That lasted maybe two or three months before he went right back to being Alex Wright. Everyone knew who he was, so the gimmick fooled no one. It was just a waste of time.

There have been some career-killing gimmicks over the years. When you think of gimmicks that ruined someone’s career, you have to mention Terry Taylor and The Red Rooster. It was bad enough that they gave him that name, but when they added the rooster hairstyle, it became impossible to take him seriously. Terry Taylor never really recovered, which is a shame because he was a talented wrestler saddled with one of the dumbest gimmicks of all time.

Speaking of stupid gimmicks—Beaver Cleavage. This was during the Attitude Era, and while people say the Attitude Era could do no wrong, this was a complete disaster. It was beyond stupid, lasted maybe two or three weeks, and then he went right back to being Headbanger Mosh. That was the end of it.

Another flop was Kizarny. Around late 2008 to early 2009, WWE ran vignettes hyping his debut, but it never went anywhere. It was a weird gimmick that maybe could’ve worked in the 1980s or 1990s, but by 2008 it was completely out of place.

Kenzo Suzuki is another example of a character in the wrong era. It felt like a mid-1980s foreign heel gimmick, yet this was 2004–2005. It was dated and boring.

Vladimir Kozlov was another “foreigner” character, and while those types used to work in the 1980s and 1990s, Kozlov just wasn’t interesting. His catchphrase—“I love double-double-E”—was about the only entertaining thing about him. He even got a main event match with Triple H on pay-per-view, and it bombed. It was terrible. After that, he floundered on Raw for a while, teamed with Santino, and eventually faded away.

Then there’s Mordecai. He was an interesting concept—dressed in all white, sort of an anti-Undertaker character. WWE seemed to be building him up for a feud with the Undertaker, but he had one pay-per-view match, and that was it. The company dropped the character immediately. When you have just one match and get cut, that’s definitely a flop.

Another big flop was Glacier in WCW during the Monday Night Wars. WCW introduced this Mortal Kombat-style character with an elaborate laser-filled entrance, but once the bell rang, nobody cared. The crowd was silent. WCW kept pushing him for years even though it was obvious the gimmick wasn’t working. That was one of WCW’s biggest problems—they didn’t know when to quit.

Now let’s talk about The Godfather being turned into The Goodfather. Talk about ruining a great character. You take everything that made the Godfather popular and strip it away, turning him into a bland, censored version of himself as part of Right to Censor. Nobody cared after that. Godfather never regained his momentum.

Moving to more recent years: Tensai. Formerly A-Train in WWE, he returned after a successful stint in Japan with a new Japanese gimmick. It had potential, but within weeks, fans were chanting “A-Train!” at him. Everyone knew who he was, and the character just didn’t work. By the end, he was in a comedy tag team with Brodus Clay. They gave up on him quickly, and the whole return felt pointless.

Another failed gimmick was Seven in WCW. They ran creepy, mysterious vignettes, and it seemed like it could be something interesting—kind of Undertaker-like. He made his big debut, descending from the rafters in this dramatic entrance, and then immediately cut a promo as Dustin Rhodes, burying the gimmick as “Uncle Fester playing trick-or-treat all year.” Just like that, the character was dead.

And who could forget Braden Walker? He took ECW by storm for about two weeks in 2008. Formerly Chris Harris in TNA’s America’s Most Wanted, he joined WWE with a new name and little direction. The name “Braden Walker” was awful, and the run was short-lived. To his credit, there’s still that legendary “three-disc DVD set” joke that fans remember.

Finally, the biggest character flop of all time—the one that tops them all—The Shockmaster.

He came out wearing a ridiculous glitter-covered helmet, tripped through the wall during his big debut, and instantly became wrestling’s most infamous meme. That was the end of The Shockmaster—his entire career summed up in one pratfall.