10 wrestlers who secretly hated their gimmicks

Cody Rhodes in his Stardust persona he used near the end of his WWE career.

#6 OZ (Kevin Nash)

It's Kevin Nash under that god awful wig, mask, and robe.

When Ted Turner purchased Jim Crockett promotions, he made a ton of questionable decisions. For one, he forbade wrestlers from coming off the top rope. For another, he removed the protective padding at ringside, making wrestlers take hard bumps on the concrete arena floor.

He also came up with -- quite proudly as it turns out -- one of the most head-scratchingly awful gimmicks in pro wrestling history; Oz. Turner didn't come up with the idea because he did intense market research or running focus groups. Instead, it all came down to greed.

Turner had purchased the rights to the Wizard of Oz, a fantasy film based on the work of Frank Baum. Turner wished to cash in on both video sales and showings of the film on his Turner network. In order to cross-promote it, he thought a gimmick based on the wizard from the film would help get better ratings for both his wrestling program and the movie.

He was wrong. So very wrong. The gimmick pretty much stalled out Kevin Nash's career in WCW. Even when he quit using the hated character, he couldn't get over. It would take becoming Big Daddy Cool Diesel to actually make him a star, and make most people forget about his humble beginnings.

Edited by Nishant Jayaram