A lot of us look back at the Attitude Era with rose tinted glasses because of the epic matches, moments and characters that for some of us, were our first memories of wrestling. For all the moments and memories, we tend to forget the ugly side of the Attitude Era – an underwhelming midcard with poor wrestling skills amongst them (until the later stages of the Attitude Era), a fair share of bizarre storylines often with twists for the sake of it and some terrible gimmicks which were often borderline offensive.
Also Read: 20 Worst gimmicks in wrestling history
Today, we take a look at some of the worst gimmicks that the Attitude Era, quite a few of the probably the brainchild of Vince Russo. Can anything top a near-naked wrestler? Read on to find out.
5: Key
I can’t believe Key is number 5. That how bad the other gimmicks on this list are.
Vic Grimes was recruited by Jim Cornette from All-Pro Wrestling and handed a dark match before an episode of Monday Night Raw. Following the match, Grimes was signed on the spot and given the gimmick of Key, a drug dealer. Yes, a drug dealer (key is the street name drug dealers use for kilo).
Key was brought in as Road Warrior Hawk’s drug dealer. Hawk, was in the middle of addiction issues at the time, which made all this even more ludicrous and insensitive. Droz was said to be the one who got Hawk addicted to drugs, in storyline, so that Droz could take his place and tag with Animal.
Unsurprisingly, Key was released within a few months.
4: Kai En Tai
Kai En Tai were a Japanese stable that originally consisted of Funaki, Taka Michinoku, Mr.Yamaguchi and others. Their broken English and stereotypically Japanese gimmick would be considered borderline racist today.
What are Kai En Tai most famous for? It’s their feud with Val Venis where Mr. Yamaguchi threatened Val Venis that he would “Choppy choppy your pee pee!” with a sword after Venis had an affair with Mrs. Yamaguchi.
Kai En Tai continued as a tag-team of comedy jobbers consisting of just Taka and Funaki after the others refused to re-sign with WWE and left.
3: Naked Mideon
Mideon was performing under his real name, Dennis Knight, until he was kidnapped and presumably tortured and thrashed by the Ministry of Darkness after which he re-emerged as Mideon. Yes, the WWF was weird in those days.
If being a slave of the Undertaker wasn’t bad enough for Mideon, what came after his days at the Ministry were worse. His next gimmick was that of a streaker – Naked Mideon. Mideon would have to appear in front of live crowds wearing only a fanny pack, a thong, and boots.
Thankfully, Naked Mideon’s time on television didn’t last too long and he only wrestled a few matches which were unwatchable for more reasons than one.
Interesting Fact: Dennis Knight is currently a chef and a pretty good one from what we hear.
2: PMS and Meat
Did you guys really think that it couldn’t get worse than Naked Mideon? As Donald Trump would say, wrong.
The Attitude Era was so crass in the way it treated women that it almost unthinkable that the same company is thinking of main-evening a PPV with Sasha Banks and Charlotte less than 20 years later. One example of the WWE’s misogyny in those days was PMS – Pretty Mean Sisters.
Apart from the obvious wordplay, PMS consisted of Terri Runnels, Jacqueline, and Ryan Shamrock who, amongst other things, faked a pregnancy (Runnels), went around screwing men over and berating them and at one point got themselves a ‘love slave’ whom they called Meat. Meat would often blame his losses on constantly having to satisfy Terri.
1: Beaver Cleavage
Why WWE why? Who thought this A) terrible and B) borderline incest storyline/character was good and worth putting on television?
There’s something about illicit love that Vince McMahon is fascinated by and can’t get over – after all, this is the same man who reportedly once wanted to do an incest angle with Stephanie. Beaver Cleavage, yes you read the name right, was a product of Vince’s weird fascination.
Beaver, who was played by Headbanger Mosh, and Mrs. Cleavage took part in incestuous vignette’s where Beaver would ask Mrs. Cleavage for “mother’s milk”. Things didn’t get any better for Mosh after the Beaver gimmick got shelved as he was immediately repackaged as Chaz and thrust into a feud with PMS and Meat.
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