Potential gimmicks mistreated By WWE (Part 1)

A 'gimmick' is a wrestling term used to describe the character of a particular superstar who is playing in the storyline. A gimmick is the heart and soul of a wrestler and can make or break their future in the industry in one appearance. Wrestlers are always careful while choosing their gimmicks, especially in the initial stages of their career as these end up being the first impression that people remember about them. They keep on experimenting with their character for improving it or for bringing something new to the table.

Over the years we have seen some potentially great gimmicks which have success written all over them, but due to mishandling by the management, these gimmicks never took-off and lost its uniqueness. Since there are many examples of such gimmicks, it can't all be included in one article. So, we are going to do it in many parts. Here are the four gimmicks from the recent past that lost its essence due to mishandling by WWE.

(The opinions expressed in the article purely belong to the writer and does not reflect Sportskeeda's stand on the subject.)

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#4 'Heel' Booby Lashley

Bobby Lashley's return after Wrestlemania 34 was lackluster at best, as there was no hype generated for the returning babyface. WWE never bothered to book him as a serious superstar for whom everyone needed to watch out. He went feuds after feuds till the end of September without gaining any momentum. But, then WWE finally realized that Lashley works better as a heel ( because of his run in TNA) and they finally turned him into one in October when he attacked Kevin Owens after their match on Raw.

It seemed like the turn was a desperate move and was executed without any solid plan because the management never bothered to explain about his sudden character switch. One day, he was teaming up with the company's biggest babyface John Cena and then a couple of days later he was beating the hell out of his opponent.

Even after turning heel, Lashley never felt like a true dominating force like Drew McIntyre or Braun Strowman and was just used in different segments to generate unnecessary heat with the help of Lio Rush. Even in TLC, Elias beat him cleanly in the ladders match. Because of WWE's careless booking, Lashley just became another mid-card heel in Raw who at the moment does not have any direction.

#3 'Demon' Finn Balor

It is the name of Finn Balor's dark persona, in which he would erratically slip, in major matches to make it feel more special. It is basically his alter-ego which makes him more powerful and gives him a slight edge over his opponent. WWE has not bothered to explain anything about it, which makes this character insignificant. Balor obviously looks much stronger when he comes in as Demon in any of his matches, but writers have still not made an effort to explain as to why does Balor go his darker side. Last time Balor came as Demon was in Summerslam 2018 to face Baron Corbin. This match has a weak storyline and in the build-up to the match, we can clearly see Finn was more powerful of the two and Baron was a coward heel. So, he surely didn't need the help of his 'Demon' gimmick to defeat him.

I am fine that he uses the gimmicks on special occasions but what baffles me is that on Raw the next day, when Roman Reigns challenged him for Universal Championship, he came to the match as Finn Balor. Roman is quite obviously, a tougher opponent than Corbin and the match was for the most coveted prize in WWE. WWE needs to explain the reason for the 'Demon' Finn Balor's appearances otherwise, this gimmick is just going to be another failed experiment

#2 President of Nakamerica

I won't blame you if you didn't know that this is Shinsuke Nakamura's current gimmick. Every now and then, he shows in one of those backstage interviews to talk about how with his United States Championship, he has become the President and changed the name of America to Nakamerica. This gimmick never got the momentum because Nakamura never backs the promos with his performances in the ring.

If we will just pay attention to the gimmick itself, then we will notice that it has lots of potential as the wrestler who is playing this gimmick could do much more with the US Championship. He could be the coward heel who doesn't defend his title in scheduled matches because he is the President, or he would attack people from behind to choose the next challenger on his own or, he could keep the belt hostage till authority interferes. There are many different permutations that could be used with this likely gimmick.

What Nakamura is doing now is just cutting those baseless promos and not even showing on Smackdown regularly. He does not defend his title even in all pay-per-views. This is just degrading the once prestigious US Championship and his gimmick has lost all the value and now even his fans have stopped caring about his feuds.

#1 'Woken' Matt Hardy

'Woken' character of Matt Hardy was probably the best thing going on in Raw in late 2017. This persona is the reinvention of the 'Broken' gimmick that Matt did in Impact Wrestling in which he is shown reaching his broken point and then he 'woke' for the ultimate deletion. This character was bizarre, to say the least, but was something new and WWE Universe liked seeing Matt Hardy in his new avatar. There were lots of strange stuff related to it like Lake of Reincarnation, Broken Universe and Ultimate Deletion, which added to the charm of the character and he would have definitely found a way to defeat Thanos if this character would have been around for longer.

WWE's record with handling this supernatural gimmicks is pretty dull and they proved it once again. After Hardy's feud with Bray Wyatt ended, he went on to win the Andre the Giant Battle Royal and Raw's tag team champion in the same month, but then it was all downhill from there.

The Deleters of Worlds never got to established themselves as true dominating champions and his gimmick became repetitive. Ultimately, he had to go away because of an injury and the Woken character's run came to an underwhelming end.

Edited by Kingshuk Kusari