5 Famous WWE Stars Whose First Gimmick Failed

#4 Road Dogg (The Roadie)

The Roadie with his buddy Jeff Jarrett

Brian James's WWE career began inauspiciously as "The Roadie" character. In storyline he was Jeff Jarrett's (who had a gimmick as a southern country singer) tour manager/roadie.

Despite the act screaming mid-card, there were some plans in place for James as The Roadie. His charge, Jarrett was to be exposed as not the legitimate singer of his hit song, "With My Baby Tonight" and it was scheduled to be revealed that James was instead (which was true).

However, before those plans were followed through on television, Jarrett abruptly left unhappy that the storyline could harm his career and in a show of loyalty, James followed Jarrett out of the door.

That was a colossal misstep for James as unknown to him, he was set to win the Intercontinental Championship in the eventual Jarrett-Roadie feud.

That never came to pass and when Roadie returned to WWE it was in a glorified jobber role and he was saddled with 1980s star, The Honky Tonk Man and his future New Age Outlaws teammate, "Rockabilly" Billy Gunn in embarrassing segments.

With Gunn, James was repackaged as The Road Dogg and the underutilised pair teamed up as The New Age Outlaws and quickly defeated the legendary Legion of Doom to become Tag Team Champions towards the end of 1997.

James enjoyed far greater success as part of D-X between 1998-2000

In spring 1998, the tandem joined D-Generation X and became major players in the promotion and racked up a then record five Tag Team title wins.

Road Dogg would also have singles success as Hardcore and Intercontinental Champion before personal issues cut his WWE career short in early 2001.

The New Age Outlaws reunited on WWE television in 2014 for a short run as Champions before both men moved into backstage roles in the company.