Successful wrestlers have a shtick. Something that sets them apart from the others. It might be a catchphrase, a finishing move or even how they look in the ring. Fans are captivated by these kinds of images.
Then, there are those that need a little something extra to make them stand out even more. Sometimes, a manager or tag team partner won’t do. Welcome to the world of wrestling sidekicks. At times, the fans are more interested in who the superstar brings to the ring rather than the performer themselves.
In most cases, the heel is shown up by a much more popular “face” sidekick, which in turn leads to a huge pop for the “other guy” and usually leads to them changing sides.
Here’s a look at the five greatest sidekicks in WWE history.
Damien Mizdow
This is part of the failure by WWE to realize what a tremendous talent Aron Haddad was (Damien Sandow). But as the sidekick of The Miz and a former tag team partner, he played his role perfectly. If art imitates life, then Mizdow duplicated The Miz and his shtick perfectly.
There is something to be said about odd gimmicks that work where there is a mirror image of every move in a wrestling ring. Haddad proved once again how good he is at giving the fans what they wanted to see. They may not have loved The Miz, but Mizdow was wildly popular.
Hornswoggle
I used to love watching midget wrestling while I was growing up. Hornswoggle, on the other hand, left something to be desired.
He debuted in WWE in 2006 as a leprechaun character allied with Finlay. Hornswoggle even won the Cruiserweight Championship before it was retired. He was also part of an awful storyline where is was once thought to Vince McMahon’s illegitimate love child.
For everything we all could like about him, there wasn’t a real place for him – as Raw’s anonymous general manager or as a heel wrestler. He was released from the company early in 2016.
But we still remember him and his antics quite vividly, don't we?
Eugene
As a wrestler who was a few short of a six-pack, Eugene – or Nick Dinsmore – would have been a solid gold hit in the 1980s cartoonish era in the WWE. He did, however, serve a great purpose with his angle involving Regal.
Everyone liked the “slow” character, who was actually solid in the ring. It was an angle that worked in its time. He did win the WWE World Tag Titles with Regal and was also a ten-time OVW Heavyweight Champion.
He debuted as the over-excitable nephew of Eric Bischoff and also had an angle where Jonathan Coachman wanted to ban him from the company.
And who could forget The Rock making a surprise return to save him?
Batista
Batista is he is a six-time world champion, winning the World Heavyweight Championship four times and the WWE Championship twice. But he did not start out that way. He was more of a tag along than anything else.
He started out as Deacon Batista, a villainous enforcer for Reverend D'Von and made his WWE in-ring debut in a tag team match teaming with D'Von against Faarooq and Randy Orton, pinning Orton.
His claim to fame then was a sleeve suit that exposed his bulging muscles. In the beginning, the Animal did not have much of a bite; rather, he was more window dressing than anything else.
The Mean Street Posse
If there was ever a group of preppy, stuck up rich kids that everyone wanted to be like and hated at the same time, these guys were them. Friends of Shane McMahon, they were the quintessential brat pack.
Pete Gas, Rodney, Willie Green and Billy P — Shane McMahon’s boys from Connecticut – always had his back in any confrontation. While McMahon is known as a solid performer when he gets in the ring, it should be known these guys weren’t the best at mixing it up, but they sold the heck out of a spot, just like jobbers should.
That alone, if nothing else, still keeps them in memory.
