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The Doctor of Thugonomics!Gimmick changes can often be beneficial to a wrestler. Take The Undertaker’s change from the Gobbeldy Gooker, for example, and see how far the former has come today.Sometimes, though, gimmick changes don’t exactly work out, and oftentimes the new gimmick remains for a negligible time until it is scrapped. This article looks at a few of those instances in which a new gimmick didn’t work for a wrestler.Perhaps it wasn’t popular or the company really didn’t have any creative plans for the gimmick, but whatever reason it may be, it wouldn’t have lasted very long. This is not in any particular order.
#1 A-Train to (Lord) Tensai
In 2004, Matt Bloom was known as A-Train in the WWE, which was after the gimmicks of Prince Albert and Albert. He then left the company and was in Japan for eight years, until he finally returned to WWE in 2012, under a new monicker – Lord Tensai.
The purpose of the gimmick was clear, as in, it had to be something that was terrifying, but clearly, things didn’t go according to plan. Lord Tensai soon became Tensai, and even this didn't bring any success for him, as he was soon demoted from walking over people with the help of his manager and weird green liquid to becoming a dancing oaf’s (Brodus Clay) dancing tag team partner.
It was really bad!
#2 D-Von Dudley to Reverend D-Von
The Dudley Boyz are arguably the most popular tag team WWE ever had. It would seem odd then, that in 2002, both members were drafted to separate brands and on SmackDown, D-Von would have a drastic gimmick change and go from D-Von Dudley to... an evil reverend?
Did that sound strange to read out?
Because drafting both men to separate brands was a foolish mistake in the first place, but then totally reimagining a popular character may have been another one. The gimmick didn’t last long, of course, as both men were then reunited, but it didn't fall in well with the fans when it existed.
#3 The Godfather to the Goodfather
The Godfather had a popular gimmick. He would come down to the ring surrounded by his ‘hoes’, and would offer his opponents the chance to do anything they wanted with them if they forfeited the match.
This drew the attention of parents, who complained that this wasn’t appropriate for their children to watch. The gimmick was changed to have him lose all his women and be renamed the Goodfather, which was obviously not as popular as his earlier gimmick.
Soon enough, though, it was replaced by the Godfather gimmick again.
#4 Viscera
Viscera, at one point, was a terrifying character in the WWE, with a gothic persona and enforcer for the Ministry of Darkness. Over time, he left WWE, and then later returned with the same gimmick.
Soon enough, though, that changed when he was rebranded with the same name as the World’s Largest Love Machine. He began wrestling in pyjamas, becoming much more sexual than he was with his previously terrifying gimmick, and was even head over heels for Lillian Garcia.
Lillian would eventually propose marriage to him in the middle of the ring, and then would be left ‘heartbroken’, as the aforementioned Godfather came down to the ring with his hoes, and ‘showed Viscera what he would lose with marriage’.
That sounded terrible, didn’t it?
#5 Chavo Guerrero to Kerwin White
Chavo Guerrero was a known Mexican character and remained so for a long time.
At one point in 2005, though, he was drafted over to SmackDown, where he suddenly revealed that his heritage is actually American and dyed his hair blonde, changing his name to Kerwin White, who was a white, middle-class, racist golfer. Strange?
And when I say racist, I mean really racist. His character often disapproved of any other ethnicity and he especially used that against babyface Shelton Benjamin a lot of the time. The gimmick was quite short lived and died out in due time.
#6 John Cena
This entry will be met, no doubt, with controversy, but that’s probably all John Cena is at this point.
John Cena debuted in WWE with a gimmick of a rapper who wasn’t afraid of anybody, nor was he afraid to say anything about anybody. This was met with a lot of praise from fans, and when he changed his gimmick to the boy scout we know today, some people loved it, and some people hated it. Because of that, it has to go down as a bad gimmick change.
Maybe it was the right decision, but for many fans, it hasn’t worked out for the better. What makes it worse is that he hasn’t really had a character change at all for about eleven years now.
#7 Kane
There was only one small change in Kane’s gimmick in 2003, and that was that he took his mask off.
One of the things that made Kane an interesting character was that he was mysterious and an absolute beast under that mask. After he took it off, though, he became exposed, vulnerable, and soon after, was never really the same again.
He soon lost a lot of his spotlight and even though he has had patches over the years, he's never really been the same Kane since he took off that mask. Even putting it back on hasn't helped much.
Perhaps it's one of WWE’s biggest regrets to date.
