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Gimmicks are the essence of success in the pro-wrestling industry. A gimmick that clicks with the audience can make a performer's character and vice-versa. We have seen performers try a lot of crazy personas that suit themselves in order to make it big and one thing I can say for sure that it is quite rare to spot a performer in this business who hasn't been through a bad gimmick at one point in his/her career.
A certain Stone Cold Steve Austin used to be "The Ringmaster" but later became one of the most influential characters in this business whereas the association with the "Emmalina" character disturbed the equilibrium of Tenille Dashwood's WWE career. Sure exceptions like Kurt Angle are always there who climbed the ladder of success from the get-go.
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Over the time, some performers were able to overcome their respective lacklustre gimmicks and moved on to better ones. However, there have also been a number of performers who couldn't escape thankfully for Jacobs, he had a new lease on his wrestling career when he debuted at The Undertaker's "brother," Kane with the help of the late Paul Bearer. It would spark a great "brother vs. brother" feud.
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Jacobs would quickly become the then-WWF champion, and his career would continue to rise. He has been credited as one of the best "big men" in the history of the WWE. wrath of their dull gimmicks. In this little piece, we will take a look at 5 good performers who overcame the cloud of bad gimmicks and rose to new heights of success and fame.
#1 Kane (from Isaac Yankem to the Big Red Machine)
The 'Devil's Favorite Demon' was not the first gimmick that Kane aka Glenn Jacobs(real name) brought to life in his WWE career. In 1995, he was introduced as "Isaac Yankem", Jerry Lawler's private whom Lawler hired get rid of his nemesis, Bret Hart. Later, he became a jobber to the likes of Jake Roberts and Marc Mero to name a few. In 1996, as the dentist character fizzled out, he was introduced as the Fake Diesel that turned out to be a huge flop.
In 1997, Glenn's career started took off when he debuted as The Undertaker's brother Kane alongside late Paul Bearer. He was involved in a fascinating brother vs brother feud with The Undertaker and never looked back. One of the biggest men in WWE/F's history, Kane is a sure-to-be future WWE Hall of Famer.
#2 Raven (from Johnny Polo to an ECW legend)
After managing Adam Bomb and the Quebecers and occasionally wrestling with "Johhny Polo" moniker, Scott Levy(real name) left WWF in 1994. He headed up to the Paul Heyman's ECW and this is when his career took off to great heights.
Debuting his new character "Raven", a character inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's poem named Raven and Patrick Swayze's character in the movie Point Break, he feuded with Tommy Dreamer, another hardcore legend and together, these two set this industry on fire. Raven went on to become ECW World Heavyweight Champion by defeating The Sandman and was involved in a number of feuds with the likes of Shane Douglas, Chris Jericho and Terry Gordy to name a few.
He continued his success with the Raven character to WWE, TNA and independent circuit.
#3 Alexa Bliss (from fairy to a fantastic heel)
Alexis Kaufman (real name) was signed to the yellow brand in 2013 and her journey to the top has seen its fair share of ups and downs. She made his debut with the ring name Alexa Bliss, portraying a fairy gimmick as she dressed like a fairy with a bright smile on her face and blowing fairy dust. She got injured later on and made her return in 2015.
To her credit, Alexa brilliantly worked on an arrogant heel character which worked out well during her association with the tag team of Blake and Murphy. She made her main roster debut in 2016 and worked wonders with great heel antics, expressions and promos. As of now, the "Five feet of fury" is a 3-time RAW and 2-time Smackdown Women's Champion.
#4 Dolph Ziggler (from a male cheerleader to the WWE World Heavyweight Champion)
Nicholas Nemeth made his WWE debut back in 2006 as Nicky, a member of the Spirit Squad which was a group of 5 male cheerleaders. As a heel faction, the Spirit squad won the Tag titles. They were involved in a feud with a reunited DX and were constantly beaten up. The audience didn't take them seriously for the most part.
As the squad began to drift off, Nicky showed promise and was sent to OVW to be repackaged. In 2008, Nemeth re-debuted on RAW as Dolph Ziggler. Over the time, he grew as a solid performer and was involved in a number of major storylines. He went on to win the audience over with some fabulous performances and became the World Heavyweight Champion in 2013. Dolph went on to win a number of championships in WWE and is well regarded for being a terrific worker.
#5 Cody (from Stardust to The American Nightmare)
Cody Rhodes, as he was known in WWE, took a gutsy decision of quitting WWE back in 2016 owing to frustrations with the creative department and his position within the WWE. Cody became a great example for this industry to have the guts to fight for what one believes in as he went on to become one of the most celebrated names on the independent circuit.
He became the ROH World Champion, a Bullet Club member, and wrestled for PWG, WCPW and TNA. He won titles on the indies and currently works for both ROH and NJPW. Cody had all the tools to become a top star in WWE but he was stuck with the Stardust character, a rehashed version of his brother Goldust's character. Though he did a great job was Stardust, he found his career headed nowhere.
When he quit in 2016, he went on to wrestle some of the top indie names like Chris Hero, Ricochet, Zack Sabre Jr and Joey Ryan to name a few. In ROH and NJPW, he became a top heel, sold out arenas and wrestled great matches with Okada, Kenny Omega, Kota Ibushi, Dalton Castle and many others. Currently, he is one of the most successful non-WWE performers on the planet.
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