10 WWE Superstars you never knew once played very different characters

Wrestling is a weird business, one that's extraordinarily difficult to get a foot into, let alone gain an actual foothold. Many wrestlers come and go, some with a quick yet successful run, while others come in with a promising gimmick that goes south quickly.

In the case of the latter, there are occasions that see those individuals turn things around and make, to put it in family-friendly terms, lemons out of lemonade. It's a struggle to get over, let alone get to the top. Not every wrestler who turns things around to make something of themselves goes on to be a top star, main-event guy, face of the company -- whatever you want to call the 'elite' wrestlers in the business.

Again, it's a very, very weird thing, wrestling. Some guys even have successful careers under multiple personas, although that's pretty rare. Only two of them are on this list, and the first one is the man we'll start with. Indeed, here are 10 WWE Superstars that once played very different characters than the ones you are most likely to be familiar with.

#10 The Godfather and Papa Shango (and more!)

There is perhaps no man in WWE history who has been better or more successfully repackaged than Charles Wright , who you may know best as The Godfather. If you're a bit of an older fan, maybe you know him as Papa Shango. Maybe you know him for his brief stint as The Supreme Fighting Machine Kama. Or when he was given a last name and became Kama Mustafa, a member of the militant Nation of Domination!

Chronologically, the first of Wright's incarnations to make major waves in WWE was Papa Shango, a Voodoo-inspired character who feuded with the likes of the Ultimate Warrior and had high-profile matches with Bret Hart for the WWE Championship and, at SummerSlam 1992 in London, England, against Tito Santana.

Come the mid-1990s, Wright became Kama, a member of Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Corporation, his highest-profile angle coming against the Undertaker, whom he battled at the 1995 edition of SummerSlam. A couple of years later, with his head shaved once again, Wright was repackaged and presented as Kama Mustafa, an early member of the Nation of Domination stable, clashing once again with The Undertaker as well as Ahmed Johnson. He would later become known as The Godfather of the Nation - something which fed into arguably his most popular and well-known gimmick - The Godfather! Charismatic and colourful, The Godfather was a staple of the Attitude Era and, when compared to Papa Shango, was a perfect example of Wright's uncanny ability to reinvent himself.

#9 Rocky Maivia and The Rock

The Great One. The Most Electrifying Man in Sports and Entertainment. The Rock is arguably the most recognizable face in Hollywood, and certainly the highest-paid action hero. Before all of that, however, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson was simply "The Blue Chipper" Rocky Maivia.

Years before he became a multi-millionaire and one of the biggest names on the planet, The Rock was a fresh-faced pup who made his WWE debut at Survivor Series in 1996 at Madison Square Garden. It was a night that set the tone for his career as he became the Sole Survivor in a match that included stars like Jerry Lawler and Jake 'The Snake' Roberts. He soon became the Intercontinental Champion, but it may have been a case of too much, too soon.

Rocky Maivia was designed to be a much-loved babyface champion, but times were changing in the WWF and fans soon turned on this goody two-shoes third-generation Superstar. He joined The Nation of Domination and developed a cocky personality that snowballed into the man he has become today. It was quite the transformation for the man who'd headline WrestleMania and smash box offices all around the world.

#8 Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Triple H

One of the biggest stars of his generation, Triple H is the perfect definition of the total transformation of a professional wrestler.

Back in 1995, Hunter Hearst Helmsley appeared on the WWE scene, with the man we now know as Triple H carrying a few of the traits he'd established previously in his WCW days into his new character in Vince McMahon's organization. This stuck up, snobbish Connecticut Blueblood was designed to draw the ire of his opponents and WWE fans alike, and he managed it with great aplomb. With a real arrogance about him and a British-inspired accent, Helmsley was despised by many and quickly established himself as a force in the company. In the matter of a short couple of years, he became Intercontinental Champion and won the King of the Ring tournament.

Over time, of course, Hunter Hearst Helmsley became abbreviated to HHH, which would later become Triple H. The accent was dropped and a snobbish demeanour was traded for that of a total degenerate - the man himself becoming a founding member of D-Generation X alongside Shawn Michaels. That incarnation was soon overtaken by the Cerebral Assassin, who in turn became The Game and the King of Kings. One man, one career, but an incredible change when you compare the start to the finish.

#7 Kane and Isaac Yankem

The Big Red Machine was once a very dirty dentist...

With the exceptions of The Undertaker and Triple H, there is no WWE Superstar with greater longevity than the man known to most fans as Kane.

The Big Red Machine is for all intents and purposes retired, as the man who plays him, Glenn Jacobs, has embarked on a successful political career. Nonetheless, Kane is a former multi-time champion in WWE, holding the company's top prize on more than one occasion as well as holding the Intercontinental Championship and enjoying many Tag Championship runs. Kane is one of the most dominant forces ever seen in the company. At seven feet tall and over 300 pounds, the monstrous figure battled pretty much all the major names WWE has had to offer between 1997, when the Kane character debuted, and 2016, when his appearances became more sporadic.

You may not be aware of it, but before his career-defining success as The Undertaker's half-brother, Glenn Jacobs portrayed a man called Isaac Yankem. The man with the punny name arrived in 1995 as the evil dentist enlisted by Jerry "The King" Lawler to help him thwart his rival, Bret Hart. Yankem may have cared for the teeth of his patients as a day job, but his own dental hygiene left an awful lot to be desired!

Yes, The Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee certainly went through quite the transformation.

#6 Savio Vega and Kwang

Savio Vega was spawned from the man who played Kwang

Kwang was one of the more mysterious WWE Superstars of the mid-1990s.

The masked athlete was presented as a menacing martial arts specialist, and the only thing feared more than his deadly move-set was the dangerous green mist that he'd spray at his opponents. Managed by the sly and dastardly Harvey Wippleman, Kwang made his first major pay-per-view appearance at the 1994 Royal Rumble before going on to lose televised matches to Razor Ramon, Bret Hart, and The Undertaker. Never really managing to put together any serious momentum as a character, he lasted just over a year before disappearing. Well, kind of...

In a blink-and-you-miss-it type repackage, the man behind that mask was off your television screen for barely a fortnight before appearing in street clothes to defend his pal, Razor Ramon, from a beat down. This man was no longer Kwang, he was Savio Vega! Vega teamed with Ramon to ward off their foes for the forthcoming months before reaching the finals of the 1995 King of the Ring tournament. His most well-known feud was his 1996 rivalry with Steve Austin before that man became Stone Cold.

A heel turn saw Vega align with the Nation of Domination in 1997, before breaking off again to form his own faction, Los Boricuas. That kept him busy in a version of gang warfare that spanned much of the next year or so, before Vega featured less frequently prior to his departure from the company before the turn of the millennium.

#5 Fatu, Rikishi, and The Sultan

Rikishi, and Rikishi as you may not know him...

The man most people know as Rikishi will likely only really remember him as the fun-loving, dancing member of Too Cool who jived his way into the hearts and minds of many fans in the early 2000s.

What many people may not know is that the man had already established quite the body of work for himself during a lengthy WWE career, having debuted in 1992 as one half of the tag team The Headshrinkers. Former Tag Team Champions, Fatu and Samu gnawed their way through all of the competition as one of the top teams in the division, particularly throughout 1993 and 1995. After a brief, unsuccessful singles run, he was repackaged quite dramatically, returning to WWE screens as The Sultan in late 1996; a masked wrestler who spoke only through his devastating in-ring abilities owing to the fact that his character's tongue had been cut out. This run was also brief, but did include a memorable outing at WrestleMania 13 in 1997, where he came up short in his quest to win the Intercontinental Championship from the man who was soon to become The Rock.

By 1999 he was back again, reestablishing himself as Rikishi Phatu. He was carrying considerably more weight, had bleached hair, shades and a set of dance moves to steal the show. He aligned himself with the Too Cool tag team of Scotty Too Hotty and Grandmaster Sexay, dropped the "Phatu", and he became hugely popular in WWE before turning heel at the turn of the millennium when it was revealed he had run over Stone Cold Steve Austin at the 1999 Survivor Series, ending a lengthy Whodunit. That didn't go too well for him, and he didn't last much longer in WWE. His sons are doing pretty well, though.

#4 Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Ringmaster

They say that, in professional wrestling, one has to pay some heavy dues and work through some hardships to get to where they need and want to go - and maybe even a questionable gimmick or two.

There may be no better example of this ethos that arguably the biggest name of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin. The Hall of Famer may now be a genuine legend of the industry, a successful television and movie star and a hero to millions, but it goes without saying that he wasn't always so. Before he was the Texas Rattlesnake, he was merely The Ringmaster.

Managed by the "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, The Ringmaster made his first WWE appearances in early 1996, having immediately been 'crowned' the Million Dollar Champion. While neat and tidy in the ring, there was never really much to write home about from Austin's initial gimmick, save for a WrestleMania 12 outing against Savio Vega as well as a subsequent (pair of) Carribbean Strap Matches.

Austin soon parted from DiBiase and the Texan became a lone wolf. His cold blue eyes led to his repackaging as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and he quickly set about stamping his personality all over the character, with the pivotal moment coming in 1996 when he won the King of the Ring and delivered his infamous 'Austin 3:16' speech. From there, you could say the rest was history, with Stone Cold about as far removed from the Ringmaster as you could possibly imagine.

#3 Chainz and The 'Undertaker'

Brian Lee wrestled as Chainz and 'The Undertaker'

Turn your attention back to the 1990s - 1994 to be exact. The Undertaker, having been beaten from pillar to post at the Royal Rumble in a casket match against Yokozuna, vanishes. Rising, literally (sort of) into the heavens, he wasn't seen again for months.

Come the summer months, and Ted DiBiase began to tout the fact that he had been able to "make contact" with The Undertaker, and that The Phenom was once again under his tutelage. He appeared to make good on those claims, too, when "The Undertaker" reappeared and began taking apart the opposition just as he always had. 'Taker's former manager, Paul Bearer, along with many fans, felt differently, suggesting that something wasn't quite right about it at all. They turned out to be correct -- it wasn't The Undertaker at all! DiBiase, it later emerged, had secured the services of an imposter Undertaker - one that would soon be taken to task when Bearer brought the real Undertaker to SummerSlam in Chicago to put his impostor to rest, delivering three Tombstones and wiping him out of WWE forever.

That was the last we saw of the character who went on to become known by fans as The UnderFaker - but it was far fro the last we'd see of the man playing him. He would be thrust back into the WWE spotlight at the beginning of the most competitive and memorable period in the company's history, the Attitude Era. He wrestled again as Chainz, one of the members of the Disciples of Apocalypse, or DOA, a biker gang who feuded against the likes of The Truth Commission and the Nation of Domination. Chainz would remain with WWE until the summer of 1998 before being released and heading to WCW.

#2 The 1-2-3 Kid and X-Pac

Sean Waltman, the man behind The 1-2-3 Kid and X-Pac

At 47-years-old, X-Pac is firmly established as one of WWE's - and WCW's - most memorable stars of all time, his storied career including spells in the two most dominant factions in the history of the industry - D-Generation X and the nWo.

Known at the time as Syxx, or Syxx-Pac, Waltman left WCW to come back to WWE in 1998 where he was soon rechristened as X-Pac. He helped spearhead the re-launched version of DX after the departure of Shawn Michaels. X-Pac went on to hold a string of major titles, including the Tag Team, Light Heavyweight, and European Championships, whilst also going on to feud - and team - with Kane.

But while many fans will remember this renegade and degenerate for the wild antics he played a part in as a larger-than-life character during the Attitude Era, there is an entire generation of fans who recall him as a very, very different character - the 1-2-3 Kid!

The 1-2-3 Kid was, in the early 1990s, the very definition of an underdog. Seemingly working as an enhancement talent, he shocked the world when he defeated established WWE star, Scott Hall (then Razor Ramon), on an episode of Monday Night RAW. The two enjoyed a heated rivalry for much of the rest of the year as the 1-2-3 Kid (so named because of the 1-2-3 count he secured in beating Ramon -- WWE had been calling him The Kid prior to the match), before teaming together for a while - only for the youngster to turn on his pal and align with the Million Dollar Man.

In his early years, the 1-2-3 kid was part of some fantastic matches with the likes of Bret Hart, Owen Hart and, Jeff Jarrett, a fan favourite and a high-flying daredevil, many of the traits that would serve him so well as X-Pac later in his career.

#1 Phineas Godwinn and Mideon

When you talk about contrasting characters in WWE, you can't look much further than Dennis Knight. If that name doesn't mean an awful lot to you on its own, you'll almost certainly be more familiar with his wrestling name - at least one of them - Mideon. Knight, in that character, was a part of The Undertaker's Ministry of Darkness and later the Corporate Ministry when Undertaker joined forces with Vince McMahon's Corporation. He was a brooding, mysterious, and dangerous figure that did much of The Deadman's bidding.

Around three years earlier, though, Knight was wrestling for WWE under a very, very different guise. He was one-half of the of the comedy tag team of supposed hog farmers, The Godwinns, alongside his 'cousin', Henry O. Godwinn, and was named Phineas I. Godwinn (yes, those abbreviate to HOG and PIG). Between 1996 and late 1997, they took on all comers in the WWE tag team division, twice winning the Tag Team Championship.

He played a different character after the Ministry of Darkness disbanded -- he was still Mideon, but without a group or a partner to travel the roads with, he felt a little... naked. It's best not to talk about that, though.

Ex WWE writer blasts Liv Morgan HERE