RUINED GIMMICKS | Wrestling's Character Assassination! 

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Corporate Kane was just a prototype Mayor Glenn Jacobs.

It's crazy that Bret Hart received criticism for not wanting to drop his belt to Shawn Michaels in Canada, but those people see nothing wrong with Michaels refusing to drop the belt to Vader at all.

Corporate Kane could've worked if they knew what they were doing. As after all, being in power, making people's lives a living hell, fits the whole monster gimmick. But instead, he was treated like a joke, and nothing more. The same 'Devils fave demon' was no more than a clown. They could've put anyone there,and it would've made ZERO difference. A gimmcik that could've worked, but it fell flat on its face.

Corporate Kane felt like they were trying make a modern version of biker taker but instead they went nah lets make him a corporate puppet

I always hated the DDP stalker angle DDP is always been one of my favorite wrestlers and for him to be treated that way it was appalling I think there really could have been a great angle if they would have put DDP and The Rock in a feud over who was the true people's champion or maybe had him be the guy that ran Stone Cold Steve Austin over instead of rikishi I think a Austin and DDP feud would have been amazing

They ruined Kane when they got rid of his voice box. Should have kept that gimmick forever.

He has Terri Runnels at his side and he falls in love with a mop... at the time I thought he was blind as a bat.🤣🤣🤣🤣

2011-2016 was like the reality area the superstars were the most human we have seen, Corporate Kane was the Demon of all Demons… a politician 😂 it made sense looking back

HBK stomping Vader's head just didn't age well.

I would have booked kane like this. Slowly but surely have him slowly do therapy but also slowly being brainwashed so they could control him. And slowly with seth having issues with him and kane after losing or getting too angry have hhh and stephenie quickly try and calm him down. Its odd yes but makes more sense then throwing a suit on him and he became a yes man for the authority

DDP became EDP real quick.

Honorable mention goes to One Man Gang becoming Akeem, a gimmick that we know wouldn't go well in today's wrestling. And in a way, Lance Storm should be mentioned. He had success in ECW and WCW. But in WWE, they had Stone Cold Steve Austin call him "boring" and tried to change his character which included him doing a goofy dance.

Lets be honest kane was doomed from the point he unmasked, it doesnt matter what gimmick he had.

Wrestle With Andy for over 4 years the revolutionary force in professional wrestling

Yeah Kane in a suit was a final blow compared to the other times Kane wasn't the Kane that terrified everyone in the late 90s one minute he's scary and dangerous the next minute he's a big guy with feelings but still a guy that would kick your ass

The biggest problem with DDP's stalker gimmick was that he stalking Undertaker's mid looking wife when DDP's wife was 100x better looking. Vince was wild for that

I’d put Terry Taylor at the top of the list. He went from potentially being the next superstar to a pure joke that some still laugh about to this day. Once he had to dye a red comb in the middle of his head, cluck and flap his wings like a chicken and crow that was it. I think Vince making him The Red Rooster after someone said the new guy is the cock of the walk is one of the worst if not worst cases of malpractice in WWF/WWE history. Cock A Doodle Doo!!!

Vader - In my books he is one of the greatest big men of all time. He had the size, the power, and for someone his size, few men moved like he did (Bam Bam Bigelow would be on that same list for me). It is an absolute shame that WWF never fully utilized his abilities. I love Shawn Michaels, he is one of my favourite wrestlers of all time, but the politics with him and especially at that time definitely ruined a lot of possible opportunities. DDP - A wrestler that was homegrown in WCW, building a huge name for himself as a fan favourite. Huge, relatable baby face that still had plenty of gas in the tank. He could have still gone on at least a few more good runs, but the worst part is what they did do with him. The character assassination was just brutal. It is no way to treat such a great champ... but it was a common thing against the WCW people. The only saving grace is that he would end up bailing on wrestling, focusing on his yoga program, and saving a lot of wrestlers from their own demons and demise. So in that sense, he has been a godsend. Bret Hart - Man, when you have the "best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be" when he was white hot coming into WCW from the Montreal Screwjob. He had the in-ring skill, and he immediately had eyes ready to watch and see what they would do with him. Obviously having someone like Bret WCW would of course do only amazing things with him.... and then they immediately flopped it. Making it worse, WCW at the time had a whole world of incredibly talented mid-card wrestlers that would go on to make a huge name for themselves as incredibly talented in-ring workers that Bret could have put on amazing shows with akin to the days of Hart vs Perfect (which are still to this day some of the best matches out there). Then to really rub salt in the wounds, a bad boot to the head from Goldberg and we effectively lose one of the greats from the industry. He still had so many years of good work left in him when that happened. Truly a shame, meanwhile in WWF they were misusing his brother Owen, throwing him back into the very gimmick routine that would later take his life. The Fiend - Now in general, WWE screwed up a bunch of his gimmicks. If he wasn't such a talented and creative person, he would have been finished after the first character they ruined of his. If it wasn't for his untimely demise, and only a year younger than I am, I am sure that he had a whole world of creativity still left in him. I didn't keep up with wrestling over the years, with the end of the Attitude Era coinciding with my life just becoming busy with adulthood at that point, but I like to keep up on what's going on, see clips, and just generally keep some tabs on the industry and to me, Wyatt just felt like someone who was trying to maintain the last little bits of the classic days of wrestling kayfabe. The character of the Fiend should have, whether directly or indirectly, been the character to effectively replace the Undertaker's role within WWE. Obviously hindsight is 20-20, but I had always said that they never should have ended the Undertaker's Streak at Wrestlemania at all, that he should have retired after his final win there on that stage. I also said at the time that if they were going to defeat him, again that should have been the time and place, make the defeat the career ending fight. Now, as for the hindsight, the Fiend years later would have been the most perfect character to be the one to defeat and retire the Undertaker, at Wrestlemania. If would be a passing of the torch opportunity. Of course, Wyatt would go on to pass decades way too early, but on top of the respect that the character should have received... like jobbing to an old Goldberg...who in no way needed such a win when he had already long proved himself decades ago. Kane - this one was unfortunate, but I can also understand the desire to keep trying to keep the character as fresh as possible, avoiding it getting stale, but I think the issue was more a matter of trying to fix what wasn't broken. Personally, I loved the original Big Red Machine, the Michael Myers inspired masked monster. The simplicity of the character, along with an amazing early look, starting off with an already great move-set duplicating the Undertaker, and by just being a devastating machine, he was perfection for me. Part of the problem is that in order to keep a character like that going for decades, you would need to use him so sparingly, and far less than people wanted to see him. That would make him randomly showing up to monster his way through the night just as impactful as it always was... aside from potentially losing crowd interest from then being seen too seldomly. I appreciated when they changed him up but were able to kind of maintain the essence of the character, such as when Kane and X-Pac as a tag-team duo. Honestly they were such a great and balanced mash up. You had X-Pac, small, fast, and incredibly maneuverable, and a loud mouth character. You had Kane, what more needs to be said than he was the Big Red Machine. His quiet, massive, powerful, and devastating nature just worked so well. If Kane wasn't an indestructible monster on a mission of his own, I preferred keeping him relatively similar, and finding people who could bring the parts that character couldn't. To be fair, the fact that he was able to make the character last as long as he did, changing as much as he did, he has left an incredibly impressive legacy as Kane. Doink - The original version of the character was great. The horror theme, plus his actual in-ring abilities, it was a great pairing. Unfortunately the character may have come a couple years too early. Maybe a couple years later, when you have a lot of the big names being the Undertaker, Mankind, and Kane, and the horror clown could have fit within that realm... I mean we had Gangrel, and I am sure I am blanking on others - heck Edge and Christian were Gangrel's lackies following the vampire theme. Saturn - Considering how well known and popular he was, and the character that he had long built as just a solid beast of a dude, and it was just absolutely shattered for a comedic gimmick. I don't have as much to say on this one, but definitely was sad to see.

Croprate Kane wasn't bad, it just seems bad because all he had to work with was the authority and hear Stephanie voice half the time.

I remember watching Big Van Vader being a unstoppable force in WCW to being a Jobber of the stars in WWE!😢

As a WWE fan, I remember not liking “Corporate” Kane back when The Authority (Triple H and Stephanie McMahon’s heel faction) was around from 2013-2016. But as a pro wrestling fan, when I really look back at what Kane has done late into his WWE career…I start to believe that this gimmick was really decent. And I don’t stop believing it, too. Apparently, I haven’t stopped believing it to this day. I mean seriously, who else besides myself would’ve thought that this Big, Red, demonic, fire-blasting Monster would play a good heel executive role in WWE? It’s like a wolf in sheep’s clothing was actually brought to life. One whose only purposes were to slam bodies all over the floor, and give orders to other Superstars on its creators’ behalf.

Worst thing they did was change and then lose Kanes mask. It was half of his gimmick. And then they jobbed him his last couple of years. No respect for the man.

Kane went as far as he could with the character. I think he just wanted to try somthing new. It certainly didnt hurt his legacy even though corporate kane wasnt a hit. As for perry saturn, cmon, the moppy gimmick was really entertaining. Before moppy he was in the shadow of eddie and benoit and was never going anywhere. I remember laughing so hard when moppy went missing and he was attacking wrestlers backstage saying " Wheres Moppy?!?!?!"😂

Also, Rikishi was in a feud with his coconspirator HHH....and a violent feud at times as well...the whole heel turn was dumb and made no sense. Bob Holly made more sense to run over Austin...lol.

Honorable mention: LA Knight becoming Max DUPRI when joining the Main Roster (thank goodness, it was eventually fixed).

Great list i was going to say DDP and Kane. Riksihi was one of the worst he was so over with too cool it just seemed like they sabotaged riksihi he blamed triple h years later for. Really sad Too Cool and Riksihi didnt get another run. Rikishi turned face again but wasnt as over. Grand master came back from injury but Scotty was out. Then Grand master got released and later passed away a real shame

not sure how much truth there is to it, but it does make sense, i heard Kane's change was because he didn't want to, or couldn't, do bumps so much anymore, so they gave him something that at least kept him on tv without all the bumps.... whether it was for health reasons, or just because he didn't want to be bruised up or limping while campaigning. IF that is actually correct (because who knows anymore) then it wasn't THAT bad, he at least got paid i guess.

Oh I dunno, but mid-level corpo-manager is pretty scary, shame he wasn't allowed to ham it up with the 'ebil businessman' schtick.

Comedy Khali isn't a ruined gimmick or character assassination; his "serious big man" gimmick wasn't successful in the first place. Viewers didn't want to see Khali matches. He was only a main event "star" because Vince McMahon was determined to keep pushing him as such, and that was because Khali was viewed as an in-road to India's market. You could argue comedy Khali was at least an attempt to salvage something from the guy despite his lack of ability. (Regardless of Khali's legitimate ability or lack thereof, he *looked* terrible in the ring.)

"You can argue it was a fun inversion of things, But it wasn't kane" Just summarized the whole run in one sentence man.

Someone finally gives mention to Perry Saturn!? Well, I got 2 words for ya!!!! You're welcome

Wrestle With Andy Absolutely Never Disappoints

Heel Doink is once of my all time favorites

My biggest memory of Parry is any of that. It's actually hanging out with him when he was working at dance club were i live. :) One hell of a nice guy.

Perry Saturn with Moopy is pretty much a rip-off of Chavo Guerrero and Pepe in WCW (except Chavo wasn't infatuated with Pepe).

Kane was already corporate in the late 90s

Imagine big van vader against goldberg

Ok but was corprate kane really the character that ruined kane as a credible monster ? Like what was kane doing before that ? Burying people alive ? Putting people on fire ? Dragging people to hell ? No he was hugging with daniel bryan and saying the yes chants and dressing in graduation clothes and having funny segments with doctor shelbey If we are talking monster kane , 2013/2015 corprate era( when he wore the mask at least ) was 10 times the monster team hell no kane was , so it was actually as step up , some things i don't like about this period is how they didn't make him do more heelish things as an authority figure , they didn't start the two personnality thing earlier , and his wrestling attire as corprate kane ( he shouldn't have wrestled much and only wrestle with the mask on ) And plz stop camparing kane to his early days , not because of his age or anything but it was not PG you're not watching the same program anyomre , you noticed that with kane because he had one of the longest careers with wwe ever but do you think that stone cold steve austin or mankind or undetaker or shawn micheals or any other wrestler would have been the same and didn't change if they were a full time wrestler in pg era like kane was ?

Kane been corporate since the late 90s so that was his second time. And me personally at the time it wasn’t an bad role as yall making it seem, corporate Kane was ok

*There were 3 things I hated about The Authority storyline…* - Stephanie McMahon never receiving any comeuppance - Corporate Kane - The fact that the storyline lasted for three agonizing years

MJF needs to be on this list. That face turn was atrocious

I will always be a WWE guy, but I will NEVERRRRR forgive or forget what they did to DDP. He was and always will be hands down my favorite wrestler

I hated how the WWE buried most of those ex-WCW stars in the 90s and early 2000s (with the exception of Goldberg, Booker, Flair)

Corporate kane was the worst version of kane they ruined a legend

when corporate kane wore the mask again when he faced seth for the championship, he should've won it. he was red hot when they did that storyline ngl

Whenever Rikishi was coming to the ring, he would rub his nose three times, later explaining that it was a tribute to his three sons. The people we all know now as Jimmy Uso, Jay Uso and Solo Sikoa.

Honestly, the great Khali shouldn't have been involved in WWE, considering he could barely move. :/

I would hope since Shawn found God, he would've spent years making amends to those he did wrong to (maybe a few). But I highly doubt he did. And just because you found God, that's not an excuse for the wrongs you've done to others.

Seriously they mention Vader almost paralyzing Foley. That splash on Sting, ruptured his Spleen. He broke a guy's back in Japan. He apparently wasn't good at taking the word no, from the ladies. And ppl winder why he didn't get the WWF title. And there was never a plan for Vader to be WWF Champ. Both Bruce Prichard & Vince Russo have confirmed this. It had nothing to do with Michaels. Perry Saturn got pissed at a green wrestler who did one stiff move. Instead of bring a professional & giving a receipt for the stiff move, Saturn shot on the guy for the remainder of the match. They even had Marlena tell him to chill out. He didn’t listen & kept shooting. Then if that wasn't enough, he hit the guy with a stiff Brain Buster.

they did these guys dirty.

13:43 to 13:47 the WWE should've kept KANE as a monster that didn't talk and he definitely didn't need PAUL BEARER

Assassination, present john cena is just a stepping stone now.

The problem with DDP in WWE started with the fact that WWF decided to change their original plans for him at last moment. It was DDP who was originally supposed to feud with The Rock, as their gimmicks were similar, but for whatever reason at last minute they decided to go with Booker T, who except for similar finisher, had absolutely nothing in common with The Rock gimmick-wise. Therefore, since DDP was one of handful of major WCW stars who made the jump, the others being Booker T and Buff Bagwell, they couldn't just ignore him and move on. It was then that they came up with the stalker gimmick, which in my notion was not as terrible as everybody say in theory, but it was executed terribly. However, just the idea of going after Undertaker, former WCW wrestler who was WWF's biggest star, was sign that WWF had big plans for him. However, sadly, nothing came out of it.

13:00 I actually really enjoyed corporate Kane. Especially when he was shooting with Seth Rollins that was a great storyline. And he played it well he was still The Big Red machine

Vince Mcmahon turning into that ceo who shat on someone's head is probably up there.

Kane’s mask on the thumbnail is so damn bad. Who looked at that and thought; “yeah, this will work!”

Yeah w c w ruining bread is probably the worst you'll ever see

Jumping the WRESTLING Shark. but No "The Clowning if Zack Ryder" / aka Kane:Embrace The hate?

The Kane Corporate Was Like A Bad JBL Just Toned Down With No Fights Or Close Line From Hell

Where is the Montreal screw job story???.

I feel like edge/adam Copeland might be another example. He joined aew and won his first championship in almost 13 years just to get it snatched with him in less than 3 minutes, from performing in front of 65,000 people to a half empty arena.

Coporate Kane was born by the time Glenn Jacobs was about to leave wrestling, so it's not a big deal (and not worse than Isaac Yankem or Fake Diesel).

Booker T had a WWE debut from dreams. Being without a doubt the biggest WCW star that came to WWF, he legitimately injured Stone Cold Steve Austin, WWF's biggest star, in his very first move ever in WWF. Even though it was not planned to go on that way, it was a perfect start for Invasion.

I did not like “ Corporate “ Kane at all because he was basically doing all of the authority’s dirty work when he should be the destructive devil’s favorite demon we all love

Bert and Sting battling for Sharp Shooter vs Scorpion Death Lock could have been a great.🎉

Whats sadder? DDP has a mania victory, tag/European title holder.....Sting couldn't do either

And now Glenn Jacobs has become the real life Corporate Kane. Life imitating art.

most monsters destroyed by cena became jobbers/comedy characters after the cena programs

If you wanna talk about modern ruined gimmicks, undoubtedly "The lone wolf" Baron Corbin should be on this list.

I've never been this early on a video from a Channel that I was really gonna check out lol

What happened to career documentary & AJ Styles Shisuke Nakamura

the worst for gimmick assassinations. WWE, wcw was dumb for it, but WWE was beyond bad, stupid. Creative, yea right.

The proof that Rikishi hit the rock bottom in 2000 and 2001 is the fact that he played absolutely no role at all during the Invasion storyline, along with his former partners Too Cool. They simply did not exist during the entire Invasion.

Corporate kane was actually good, and Kane actually had a personality that shone through, he also showed he was able to hang on the mic, something his other gimmicks never showed us

Lance Storm, "If I Can Be Serious For A Minute!"

What about the time Brock Lesnar did a moonsault at Wrestlemania and fucked up. Completely ruined him.

I miss Gene Snitsky here in the video.

Would not be surprising to find out WCW misusing Bret Hart was due to Hogan using his backstage pull to block Bret from doing anything meaningful. After all, Hogan used that pull to muddy up the finish of his match with Sting that involved the Hitman.

Kane was buried in 2012 when he had the feud with Cena, it killed all his momentum. The team hell no act was entertaining, but he wasn't kane at that point and when "corporate kane" appeared he was killed completely.

Ruining Vader is unexcusable… He was probably my first favourite wrestler.

Corporate kane was the worst gimmick ever in the authority group

"Hi, I'm Bob Kane ... personal CPA."

As an Indian, it makes me so sad to see losers like The Great Khali and Jinder Mahal representing me.

Coporate Kane with the authority looked like WWE champion material.

The invasion angle was not botched, it was awesome

It’s still baffling how WWE fumbled with The Fiend character so much, hell I would go out and say The Fiend could’ve had a little Mania streak akin to the Undertaker’s streak. But alas that sadly never happened.

Andy to Andy Good video before i even watched it lets go

Great video though I will say you had me cringing a couple of times. Couple of “death” punchlines on Mike Awesome when the guy actually died. Yikes!!!

Once Kane went Corporate it ruined the character. Kane was a monster who had mystical powers, one you make him a guy in a suit ya can’t unring that bell. Ya can’t make people forget he is just a guy and not a magical monster. While people may not agree with me I feel the same way about the undertaker. Once he went biker every time he came back as the phenom it just didn’t feel legit compared to his previous version pre-biker.

I always Felt like DDP's Image was too similar To Stone Colds, Which is probably why he got the treatment he got..

12:58 I like that it was refreshing and unique

I dunno. An unhinged Saturn that just snaps and starts doing angry shoot promos because of shity writing and fcks everyone up woulda convinced me. I know he was being punished, but, We all survived the Katie Vick story, so we def woulda gave Saturn another chance.

Come on, great khali could barely walk, let alone wrestle. Never liked the character and never thought of him as a high tier performer. I don’t see any missed chances with him

It was a good storyline for DDP but Yess I’ll agree this was somewhat ruined

I still believed if ddp never got injured he would’ve had a booker t run eventually being world heavyweight champion

Fiend would regain the Universal title from Braun Stroman at SummerSlam only to lose the title a week later to a returning Roman Reigns in a triple threat where Stroman got pinned He never even got a one on one rematch for the title ☹️

The big bosses ruined people

I liked corporate kane. Especially when he was beating up seth rollins. It was ridiculous Kane was getting wins on the WWE champion at his age, but i loved it.

Kane had more than one character assassination. 2003, the unmasking. 2013, betraying The Universe and aligning with The Authority, and Corporate Kane 2.0. Kane got fucked over.