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In the crazy world of pro wrestling/sports entertainment, the presentation of somebody’s character can make or break their entire career.
Former NWA, WCW and WWE star Terry Taylor, for example, spent over 20 years competing all over the world for various different promotions, but many people immediately think of his awful Red Rooster gimmick as soon as his name is brought up.
On the other hand, there are performers like Mark Calaway and Glenn Jacobs, who had limited success early on in their careers before going on to become two of the most captivating characters in the wrestling business when they were given gimmicks as The Undertaker and Kane by WWE in the 1990s.
No matter how good somebody is as an in-ring competitor, they must be able to develop a character that fans can connect with if they are to carve out successful careers for themselves in the cut-throat wrestling industry.
Every so often, a new gimmick can debut and everybody loves it. On other occasions, it debuts and fails miserably. And sometimes, an idea doesn’t even make it past the creative team.
In this article, let’s take a look at five gimmick ideas that were discussed for WWE Superstars but, thankfully (in most cases), never made it to television.
#5 Brock Lesnar’s stuttering problem
After mostly being used as a sidekick to Brock Lesnar during his first run with WWE, Matt Morgan was given a new stuttering gimmick upon his April 2005 return to SmackDown in an attempt to add some depth to his character.
The gimmick didn’t last long – Morgan was released three months later – and he recently revealed on Robbie E's "Why It Ended" podcast that WWE originally had plans to make Lesnar have a speech impediment.
The former Impact Tag Team champion said Vince McMahon had been looking for a “big, impressive, jacked-up dude” to have a stuttering persona and he had tried to give the gimmick to Lesnar a few years earlier.
It’s not known why “The Beast” didn’t end up with the gimmick, but let’s just be thankful that WWE went down “The Next Big Thing” route instead!
#4 Dean Ambrose as AJ Lee’s boyfriend
The WWE summer of 2012 largely centred around Daniel Bryan, CM Punk and Kane’s relationships with AJ Lee.
AJ, the most featured Diva on WWE television at that time, sent former on-screen boyfriend Bryan to have a psychiatric evaluation during her time as Raw General Manager, but it was revealed in 2017 that ex-creative team member Kevin Eck originally suggested that AJ should be the one who needed evaluating, leading to her going to a mental hospital.
Writing for Press Box in 2017, Eck said AJ could have returned to television alongside fellow hospital patient Dean Ambrose, who hadn’t debuted with The Shield at that point, and the two would have “wreaked havoc” on the rest of the roster.
The idea didn’t come to fruition, of course, and Ambrose debuted a few months later at Survivor Series alongside Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns.
#3 The Undertaker as a Viking
The Undertaker will forever be known as one of the greatest Superstars in WWE and WrestleMania history, with his legendary career spanning multiple wrestling eras and a total of 34 years (and counting).
But, according to a 2017 interview with former WWE creative writer JJ Dillon, the mastermind behind “The Deadman” character, Vince McMahon, originally thought it would be a good idea for Mark Calaway to wear a helmet and horns and portray a Viking gimmick.
Luckily for Calaway and fans of the iconic performer’s work, WWE went down a different route and gave the Viking persona to John Nord (aka The Berzerker) in 1991 instead.
#2 Big E as a postal worker
When New Day member Big E calls time on his WWE career, he’ll go down in history as having one of the most entertaining personas of his generation.
However, things could have been very different for the five-time Tag Team champion if WWE agreed to let him try out a postal worker gimmick that he pitched when he joined the company’s developmental system in 2009.
According to the man himself, his idea to be called Mel Mann was shot down and he was given the name Big E Langston (later shortened to Big E) instead.
As ever with Big E, you can never be sure if he’s being entirely serious, but let’s hope for the sake of a great story that his tweet below from March 2018 has some truth to it!
#1 AJ Styles as a masked wrestler called Velocity
AJ Styles is a two-time holder of the WWE Championship who has been involved in prominent storylines ever since debuting with WWE in January 2016.
Now aged 41, Styles worked for various different promotions before finally joining WWE at the age of 38, and it’s fair to say that his career might not have gone as planned if his original gimmick idea came to fruition.
Speaking to Georgia Rock 100.5's Bailey and Southside in 2017, Styles revealed that when he first started out he wanted to be a masked wrestler called Velocity.
However, after competing in a mask during his first match, he decided not to wear it going forward because it had an effect on his breathing.
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