In professional wrestling, almost anything can become a successful character for the
ring.
But despite professional wrestling embracing a certain amount of weirdness, not every wrestling
gimmick gets out of the gate.
Here are a few of the most strange and odious pro grappling concepts that didn't survive
very long:
Seven
After Dustin Rhodes, formerly known as Goldust in the WWE, jumped ship to WCW, they decided
to repackage him as a much darker character.
His new character, Seven, was a white-faced demonic entity who lured children into serving
him for God knows what reason, which was messed up on many levels.
The higher ups at Turner Broadcasting Corporation, who owned WCW, got spooked as well, mainly
by the whole child abduction aspect of Seven, so the character was already dead even as
he floated to the ring.
What fans got instead of Seven was Rhodes going off and delivering one of the most vicious
tongue lashings ever witnessed in wrestling.
Dustin raged at WWE for having him be Goldust before turning his scorn on WCW for making
him dress up "like Uncle Fester," and for firing his father Dusty from the company.
Although the whole thing was orchestrated by WCW head writer Vince Russo, wrestling
fans were pretty shocked.
Dustin ultimately got what he said he wanted: the chance to be himself, playing the "American
Nightmare," a persona his brother Cody would make far better use of twenty years later
in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
But in 1999, WCW was where ambition and promise went to die, as far as up-and-coming wrestlers
were concerned, and so Dustin soon returned to WWE, becoming his seemingly despised Goldust
character for good.
Abe "Knuckleball" Schwartz
The Brooklyn Brawler is known to wrestling fans as the world's most legendary loser,
but he’s also had more secret identities than the Justice League, including his baseball
player persona, Abe "Knuckleball" Schwartz.
As it turns out, Schwartz may have been born out of the WWE's desire to make some weak
social commentary.
When Schwartz first stepped into the ring in 1994, a huge strike was happening in Major
League Baseball that would last for nearly a year, thanks to team owners trying to keep
baseball players' salaries from rising.
Schwartz, apparently, was wrestling to make ends meet.
From his first appearance, he made it clear that he was less-than-happy about the strike
happening.
Schwartz's ire was saved purely for the wrestling fans, who apparently were the reason baseball
was so insanely screwed up.
If that logic makes sense to you, then congratulations on getting your internet access privileges
back at the mental hospital.
Backstage, the idea for the character came out of a desire to blast the MLB for their
constant profiteering of the fans, something the WWE would absolutely never, ever do.
Abe proved to be about as useless as the actual knuckleball, and he vanished from WWE television
in short order.
Duke Rotundo
Thanks to a wave of cryptic doublespeak and vicious brutality, Bray Wyatt sits at the
top of WWE.
But before he figured out how to channel his inner cult leader, Bray's first real appearance
in Florida Championship Wrestling was as Duke Rotundo, a wise-cracking dude with a Shaft-esque
partner.
Together, they ran "sports entertainment's number one detective agency," though Duke's
real MO was to show off his chest to any interested women of Florida.
Unfortunately for all those ladies, the agency went bankrupt quick, in favor of Duke being
teamed up with his brother Bo Rotundo, aka the soon-to-be Bo Dallas.
Eventually, he'd join the first season of NXT, and then the Nexus, as Husky Harris.
He's now the creepiest wrestler since Undertaker, and a World Champion to boot.
We'd say that's a mighty fine improvement from "fat dude who thinks he's Sexy Sherlock
Holmes."
Christmas Creature & Xanta Claus
Over his twenty-plus year run as Kane, the scarred, pyromaniac brother of the Undertaker,
Glenn Jacobs has made it into wrestling legend with multiple championship reigns.
But you can't grow a flower without burying it in a couple feet of crap, and Jacobs had
a lot of crap to wade through before he made it to the Big Red Machine.
Probably the most ridiculous of his awful gimmicks was the Christmas Creature.
A giant green apparition clad in the remains of a Michael's Christmas clearance sale, the
only thing diabolical about Christmas Creature was the amount of tinsel strapped to his body.
As fellow wrestler Mad Man Pondo tells it, the character inspired a lot more chuckles
than screams, and thankfully had a short shelf life.
Sadly, Jacobs still had some time as Jerry Lawler's evil dentist to look forward to.
Only after that did he finally become the iconic Kane.
The Christmas Creature wasn't even the worst holiday-themed wrestling gimmick out there,
even though you can't do a damn thing with them from January to November.
There's also Xanta Klaus, the Bizarro to Santa's Superman.
Apparently, Xanta stole presents from good little children, so if you're ever wondering
who these heartless monsters are who swipe from Toys For Tots, here's Suspect #1.
Clad in a black Santa suit, and sporting a coal-black beard, ECW's Balls Mahoney allied
with Ted DiBiase to try and put the screws to Christmas, for no discernible reason.
Old-school bad guys didn't really need a motive to be bad besides "we're bad."
However, even the legendary Million Dollar Man couldn't make Christmas miracles happen
for Xanta Claus, and he didn't even stick around as long as your average snowman.
Oz
Wrestling loves the idea of making famous movie characters into wrestlers, and there
was no more ostentatious attempt at this than Oz, which was Kevin Nash slapped into a goofy
wizarding costume, and sent out to beat down his foes.
Best part is, they didn't even have to worry about those pesky copyright issues, because
Turner Broadcasting owned the rights to The Wizard of Oz!
Everybody wins!
Except Nash.
Oz did get a few victories, and got massively popular over in Japan.
That is, before Ron Simmons stomped a mudhole in him at the 1991 Great American Bash, after
which he apparently clicked his heels three times and bailed back to the Emerald City.
In reality, Oz's push vanished after Nash refused a new pay structure from WCW, and
he disappeared a year later to join Shawn Michaels in the WWF as Diesel.
Eventually, he'd come back to WCW and start the infamous New World Order, because who
wouldn't want revenge on a company that shafted them years back by getting stronger and attempting
to destroy it from within?
The Shockmaster
He was quite possibly the greatest wrestling flop of all time, literally.
Fred Ottman had just left the WWF, and WCW decided the best way to introduce him would
be to slap a bedazzled Stormtrooper helmet on his head, throw a sleeveless XXL bathrobe
around his shoulders, and make him the mystery partner for Sting's team in an eight-man tag
match.
Ottman burst through the wall, then tripped over a piece of the wall in the bottom, toppling
him face-first and knocking his helmet off.
As he struggles to put it back on, you can almost feel the moment die.
Dusty Rhodes, who came up with the Shockmaster gimmick, claimed there was sabotage involved.
WCW tried to make lemonade out of this incident, first by portraying the Shockmaster as a clumsy
goof, then really doubling down by making him the "Super Shockmaster."
Neither worked, and the Shockmaster quickly wound up forever confined to the annals of
hilarious history.
Emmalina
In 2016, after a very well-received heel run unfortunately got cut short by injury, WWE's
Emma announced her return to the ring via a character change: a makeover from Emma to
"Emmalina."
The announcement was accompanied by a lot of photos that wouldn't have been out of place
in a Vanity Fair spread.
Fans didn't seem to show much interest, so while the WWE said Emmalina would be premiering
"soon," her debut ended up happening after over four months of empty promises.
Then, the day finally came.
In a voice that sounded like Fran Drescher getting a colonoscopy, Emmalina informed the
RAW crowd that now they would get to witness the makeover of Emmalina, back to Emma.
Then, she turned around and walked out, leaving absolutely everyone confused.
In the aftermath, the WWE decided the character had to be scrapped… at least for now.
There's a possibility that another woman might get the character, but whoever it is, it certainly
won't be Evil Emma.
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