NXT is dead. Long live NXT 2.0.
So this list is being written after the first episode of the brand new, rebranded NXT has hit our screens and it was fine and worrying and ok, and alright but oh lord, talk about looking at a wheel and thinking, you know what this could use some CORNERS.
The dark and brooding NXT has been replaced with a family-friendly arts and crafts show, sponsored by Crayola and wedding planners and whomever it is that decides how many Ks go in someone’s name.
We hope for the best for the future of WWE’s development brand, but let’s talk about rebrands, shall we.
There’ve been some excellent character reboots in wrestling’s past, from dopey haunted house and worms enthusiast Bray Wyatt to The Fiend, from dopey surfer Sting to The Crow, from Bradshaw to JBL and Scott Steiner’s journey from bland varsity wrassler to insane sex knight, arm lunatic and mathmatician Big Poppa Pump.
However, where’s the fun in that, let’s talk about the times when wrestling companies had a pretty good thing on their hands, and decided to explode their credibility with a rebrand that plummeted their stock like it was the Great Depression.
I’m Adam hailing from partsFUNknown and these are the 10 Worst Rebrands in Wrestling History.
Honorable Mention – Retribution
Because obviously, Dominic Dijakovic and Mia Yim used to be actual things, not budget sex thugs, backup dancing in an off-broadway musical called Bad Choices.
Retribution is talked about loads though, so we’ll give you 10 others, just … yeah… whenever there’s a worst in the title of these lists, just assuming Retribution is on there, lurking in the dark. Weeping.
10. Mike Awesome to the Fat Chick Thrilla
First of all, rest in peace Mike Awesome, you did not deserve this. Second of all, back in 2000, Mike Awesome was a pretty big deal.
He started the year as ECW Champion, famed for being part of some of the most eye-wateringly brutal matches in the promotion’s history, as well as executing the kind of ludicrously dangerous high spots that made Joey Styles go ‘oh my goodness gracious me’ or something similar.
In April 2000, he crossed over to WCW and made a big splash by laying out Big Daddy Cool, and a month later executing a Mike Awesome special by hurling Kanyon off the triple cage at Slamboree, marking himself out with a gimmick as the Career Killer.
That is a cool gimmick! Way to go WCW, hope you don’t do something silly with it.
However, hoping for that is like hoping for the tide to not come in as, two months later he was rebranded as … drumroll… The Fat Chick Thrilla, a man with a penchant for BBWs and while good for you, Mike Awesome, body positivity FTW, but also oh no, Mike Awesome.
The gimmick sank hard, and two months later WCW tried again, branding him as the 70s guys and yeah it’s broken, sorry Mike.
9. Paul Burchill: Pirate to Paul Burchill: Family Man
Don’t let my introduction fool you, in wrestling silly and fun are not dirty words. The Hurricane, Evil Doink, Luchasaurus, Toru Yano, silliness in wrestling can be a good thing!
That goes double for Pirate Paul Burchill, a nakedly obvious Jack Sparrow ripoff who had a bloody great finisher and a bloody great entrance, look at him go WHEEEE.
Despite fun matches, and a super fun feud with saucy wench William Regal, Vince was unhappy with the character, believing it wouldn’t get him over as a fan favorite, so took him off TV and brought him back in 2008 with the gimmick of… drumroll… man who f**ks his sister.
You’re right, Vince, that’ll get him over like a f**king ladder. He turned up on Raw with his sister Katie, strongly insinuated that they boned down, and boy howdy does Vince like an incest gimmick.
Beaver Cleavage, the fact that he once pitched for Shane to be the father of Steph’s kid.
What Thanksgivings the McMahons must have. Any way the company turned PG shortly after, and Paul Burchill who could have made serious booty in the PG era as a jolly roger instead was scuttled by wanting to give his sister’s booty a jolly rogering and oh god I hate it so much I’m so sorry moving on.
8. Kane to Corporate Kane
Maybe this isn’t something the younger fans will care about, but damn this felt like a personal betrayal.
When I was but a nipper, Kane was one of my favorite wrestlers ever ever ever. Properly scary, the hellfire and brimstone was endlessly cool, the mask legit gave me nightmares, what a gimmick.
Over time Kane saw his mystique crumble, first they yoinked his mask, then they made him silly with Daniel Bryan, and hey look, at least it was silly because Kane was still a monster in a fish out of water situation.
I can get on board with that, what I cannot get on board with is slacks and slip-ons, AGM hosting, profit-margin-eyeing, boring-ass corporate Kane.
That was the final straw, the last vestige of the monster gone forever, reducing one of the most effective gimmicks of all time to a purposefully generic corporate yes man, just a man in bad trousers and bad shoes, a libertarian mayor where a monster once stood.
Kane is still great, and will never not be a legend, but rewatching the 2015 Royal Rumble, what a f**king fall from grace, or I guess… the opposite when you really think about it.
7. Demolition Smash to Repo Man
Proof that tearing apart tag teams only to rebrand one of them into a shallow grave isn’t a recent invention of WWE’s.
Seeing poor Otis robbed of everything that made him Otis after the passing of Heavy Machinery was sad, but I can’t claim to ever have been the big guy’s biggest fan.
Getting a slightly rawer deal was Smash who saw his run as part of Demolition be erased from people’s minds as he was rebranded… Repo Man, a little weasel with a Sly Cooper mask, shrill laughter and a habit of nicking people’s stuff, which is NOT WHAT A REPO MAN DOES.
As Smash, his career peak was a 478-day run holding the tag titles, which stood as the longest in WWE history for a whopping 27 years, as Repo Man his career peak was stealing Macho Man Randy Savage’s hat.
Again, Randy Savage was a rich man who could afford to buy his hats outright, he wasn’t making payments on it, that’s NOT WHAT A REPO MAN DOES. From Conqueror to Clown in one easy move.
6. Emma to Emmalina to Emma
Bloody hell, where do you even start. NXT 2.0 was a rebrand of an entire television series which took less than a month, Emma being rebranded to Emmalina was a process that took FIVE F**KING MONTHS.
I wish I was kidding. Emma was taken off TV, and the first clip of ‘ooh debuting soon Emmalina ooh, sexy ooh’ aired on October 3, 2016. The vignettes kept airing, and airing, and airing, and airing, and airing.
2016 turned into 2017, still no Emmalina, and Dave Meltzer confirmed that the vignettes were actually just a running joke at this point.
Finally, after five months of quote unquote ‘teasing’, on the February 13, 2017 episode of Raw, over five months since the first vignette, Emmalina walked out, said hello, then said, and now you’ll see the makeover of Emmalina to Emma, and then walked away as the crowd released a few confused and insignificant boos.
Five months of a talent’s life, pissed away in a single joke that probably popped the writers room, but left everyone else just feeling sorry for Emma having the prime years of her career wasted. And speaking of dumbass jokes…
5. One Man Gang to Akeem: The African Dream
I mean, listen, One Man Gang wasn’t exactly Hulk Hogan but he had a few accolades under his belt.
He was a reliable heel gimmick, convincingly portrayed by a tough-looking son of a bitch, main evented against Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, his team won the first-ever Survivor Series main event, he got to the semi-final in the WrestleMania IV championship tournament, he won the unofficial first-ever Royal Rumble, came second in the first Royal Rumble, all in all a pretty good upper midcard heel you’ve got there.
No no, thought Vince, you know what’d be even MORE MONEY, a white guy from South Carolina, pretending to be African, replete with accent (oh no), airquotes ‘traditional dress’ (oh no) and dancing. The ohest of oh nos.
So was born, Akeem the African Dream. A different time. To make matters worse, the whole thing was an inside joke for creative, designed to ridicule the American Dream Dusty Rhodes, right down to his dance moves.
Fun fact, WWE Creative would get a chance to ridicule one of the pillars of the NWA directly a year later later, when Dusty Rhodes debuted in Vince’s company, and they put Mr. Hard Times in bloody hell no really polka dots in yet another example of Vince stamping money to death in the name of banter.
4. Terry Taylor to The Red Rooster
Bit of context needed for this one. Prior to 1988 when he signed with the WWF, the global leader in sports entertainment lest we forget, Terry Taylor was a city on the grow.
He had been a rising star in the NWA and Mid-South where the handsome athletic lad was being groomed to become one of their biggest stars, even defeating Ted DiBiase for the North American Heavyweight Championship.
Vince snapped him up and in an act of career homicide worthy of its own true crime podcast, rebranded him as… The Red Rooster, a man who if not thought he was a chicken, at least acted enough like a chicken for irreparable damage to be done to his credibility as a top drawer.
He wore a sparkly red jacket, gelled up his hair in a dyed red mohawk that even The Miz circa the mid-2000s would look at and say, that looks clucking stupid.
Not only that, but he was actively packaged as an inexperienced loser who needed hand-holding to win a match.
The Red Rooster’s career highlight is beating Bobby Heenan at WrestleMania 5. Good job, chicken. You beat that manager.
The guy was young, had a good look and could swap holds with the best of them, but no one will ever remember that. They just remember the f**king chicken.
3. Chad Gable to Shorty G
The life and times of Shorty G. A Gimmick that was dead on arrival and somehow managed to get more dead as the months went on.
To this day I cannot tell if it was a legit attempt to harness youth interest with as much ambition as a man with no hands trying to harness sand, or if it was just a running-joke because lol look how short this outrageously talented olympian is. F**k me.
A background character in an episode of Scooby Doo where Mystery Inc. investigate a haunted basketball court.
No no, said WWE, he’s calling HIMSELF, Shorty G, it’s empowering, and sure, having the freewill to make the bold decision of shooting yourself in the penis would also I guess be empowering to some degree, but you’ve still made it hard to take you f**king seriously.
Chad Gable, one half of excellent American Alpha, one of the best pure athletes on WWE’s books and the poster child for wasted potential, lived with Shorty G for a full calendar year, and there aren’t enough apologies in the world.
2. Chavo Guerrero to Kerwin White
Hispanic wrestlers really had the raw end of the deal for the longest time in North American wrestling. At least in the top two promotions.
ECW helped guys like Juventud Guerrera, Psicosis and Super Crazy make a huge splash in the big leagues. WWE replied, hey thanks for that, now hop on these tractors, you’re a bunch of silly gardeners, lol eyes crossed emoji.
The worst treatment though, has to be Chavo Guerrero being rebranded as a caucasian man called Kerwin White.
Literally, WWE booked the guy to renounce his heritage (sure, no money to be made with that surname I SUPPOSE) and become a golf club carrying wasp who’d probably have invested hard in red caps circa 2016.
Actually, that’s not entirely fair, he didn’t carry his own clubs, that’d be Dolph Ziggler, hello Dolph.
A bafflingly tone-deaf gimmick that attempted to be a satire on white conservative America with Kerwin saying ‘Shelton Benjamin is not ‘one of us’, ‘if it’s not white it’s not right’ and ‘i’m just saying what you all are thinking’, but everyone was just thinking ‘Please go away, what did you do with Chavo’s body?’
WCW fared better with its hispanic talent, although let us never forget that Eric Bischoff booked Rey Mysterio to lose his mask in one of the worst ideas in the history of merch sales.
1. DDP: Nice Man to DDP: Stalker
He’s SUCH a nice man as well.
Diamond Dallas Page spent a full decade of his life in WCW, working himself up from manager to TV Champion, to US Champion, finally to a three-time WCW Heavyweight Champion, all while being one of the only WCW talent to never join the NWO because he’s a nice man!
He’s such a nice man that when WWF bought WCW he was one of the few to accept a buyout of his AOL contracts, unlike many who preferred to stay home and collect checks, DDP was ready to come to work for Vince straight away.
Vince’s way of saying thanks? By turning former WCW main eventer DDP into a sleazy stalker with a borderline masochism fetish and a kink for being made famous by repeated squashings at the hands of the worst version of The Undertaker.
Biker Taker, don’t you worry, this list sees you. Over the course of a few months from King of the Ring to SummerSlam, DDP was effectively marketed as no-talent scum, and as has been proven time and again in the last few years, the man deserved better.
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