The world of wrestling can often be seen as a big overblown comic book come to life.
We’ve had clowns, superheroes, warriors and wizards, and with any comic book setting
you need to have your spooky characters.
The problem is, not many of them work.
Outside of Kane and The Undertaker, have there really been any successful spooky characters
in WWE?
I am Luke Owen, and here are 5 spooky characters that failed in WWE.
Kevin Thorn
WWE’s 2006 revamp of ECW debuted on the Sci-Fi channel, and the company wanted to
appeal to the audience that usually watched that station.
This led to pitches like Harcore Holly as a space man, and the vampire Kevin Thorn.
The man who was once known as Mortdecai debuted in ECW in June and July 2006 along with tarot
card reading vallet Ariel, and was actually supposed to be part of a stable with former
WWF vampire Gangrel.
Following his first WrestleMania, Ariel was released by WWE and Thorn had floundering
feuds with Stevie Richards and Tommy Dreamer, although Thorn claims he was set for bigger
things - including revitalizing his would-be feud with The Undertaker when he was Mortdecai.
Sadly for Thorn, it was these plans for an Undertaker feud that killed his WWE run, and
he was sent back to developmental company OVW in November 2007.
“One day Vince goes, 'why are you dressing like Taker?'
I went, 'because you told me to.
You guys wanted me to wrestle Taker.
That's what Dusty [Rhodes] is telling me.
I don't know.
I don't know what you want me to tell you.'
[Vince said] 'you're trying to copy him'.
I'm like, 'no, I'm really not because you're the one who told me to go all black, remember?
And then, they told me to cut my hair and do everything.
And then, they didn't know how to write for me.
And I'm like, 'okay, why the f*** do we do this?'
And then, Vince goes, 'why'd you cut your hair?'”
- Kevin Thorn, Wrestling Inc, September 20th 2016
The Zombie
Thorn wasn’t the only spooky character to debut in WWE’s revamp of ECW with the June
13th show featuring the first - and only - appearance of The Zombie.
Essentially, The Zombie came out, cut a zombie-like promo, and then Sandman killed him with a
Singapore Cane.
However the reason he is in this list is because The Zombie set a bad precedent and tone for
this new ECW.
On a show that also saw former ECW Champion Justin Credible squashed quickly by Kurt Angle,
WWE were telling its fans not to expect the old ECW - because this one now has zombies.
“Here’s the deal.
This is not your daddy’s ECW.
This is not the ECW that ran shows in the Bingo Hall and revolutionized pro-wrestling.
This is a new WWE brand that just happens to have the initials “ECW”...It doesn’t
matter if Sci-Fi wants vampires and zombies on the show, because Raw’s next PPV is going
to do great business with five cheerleaders in the main event.”
- Bryan Alvarez, Figure Four Weekly #573, June 19th 2006
Papa Shango
Before he was preaching that Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy, The Godfather was known as Papa Shango
- a voodoo practitioner who carried a skull to the ring and could control the arena lights.
He had a very auspicious start, however, when he botched his run-in on the main event of
WrestleMania VIII between Hulk Hogan and Sid Justice.
The idea was that Papa Shago would cause the DQ by breaking up the pin attempt from Hogan
following the leg drop, but missed his cue meaning Sid had to kick out and Harvey Wippleman
caused the disqualification instead.
The Papa Shango character lasted around a year, and his only feud of note was with the
The Ultimate Warrior - infamous for the unintentionally-hilarious moment he placed a curse on The Warrior to
make him vomit.
What’s even worse is that this didn’t lead to a match - with Warrior instead challenging
Randy Savage for the WWF Championship at Summerslam and was then released a few months later.
Even by 1992 standards, fans reacted poorly to Papa Shango, and he was voted Worst Gimmick
and Most Embarrassing Gimmick in the 1992 Wrestling Observer Awards.
His series with The Ultimate Warrior was also voted the Worst Feud of the year.
Phantasio
With all the wild and colourful characters in WWF during the 90s, it’s surprising it
took them until 1995 to do a magician gimmick.
This fell at the feet of Harry Del Rios, himself an amateur magician, when he had his one and
only match in July 1995 as Phantasio.
He walked to the ring wearing a mask that looked like a mime - which he would remove
to show he had the same face paint underneath - turned a stick into a cane and created smoke
from his hat.
His match with Tony DeVito was slow and mostly boring, and finished when Phantasio removed
DeVito’s underwear and school boy’d him.
He then removed referee Earl Hebner’s underwear too - which of course were stripped like his
shirt.
Phantasio never appeared on WWF TV again, and in a 2006 interview claimed it was because
The Undertaker didn’t like the gimmick - saying it was too close to his.
Magician, mortician - you could see why Taker thought it was close.
The Boogeyman
In early 2005 WWE began to show vignettes for an upcoming character called The Boogeyman
- a creepy character with missing teeth who quite liked the taste of worms.
However The Boogeyman hyperextended both knees which delayed his debut and push - which would
be the story of his career in WWE.
His first official match was in December 2005, and then had short feuds with JBL - the highlight
of which saw The Boogeyman biting off Jillian Hall’s mole - and Booker T culminating in
an awful match at WrestleMania.
It was an incredibly short match - and that’s because The Boogeyman had once again injured
himself.
He was promoted to return later that year, but was then sent to Booker T’s training
school and wouldn’t come back to Smackdown until December 2006, defeating The Miz at
Armageddon.
After some non-eventful feuds, Boogeyman was moved to ECW and did nothing of note before
being released from WWE in 2009.
“Marty “Boogeyman” Wright was released on 3/4.
Honestly, I was surprised he lasted this long.
The deal is he did have a unique gimmick that was effective a few years back on Smackdown
because he was so different from everyone else.
But it wasn’t a gimmick that had legs.”
- Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer, March 11th 2009
But what about five gimmicks that nearly happened?
And what was Triple H’s missing faction?
Click the videos to the left to find out more.
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I have been Luke Owen and that was wrestling.