Gimmick Failures and Restarts
By Scott Keith on January 21, 2020
In the ’98 Rumble Rant, you mentioned the transformation of
Goldust to “The Artist Formerly Known As” and them eventually walking back and going
to the standard Goldust look and gimmick a few months after they killed it off.
Other than Chavo Jr. in 2005 (for reasons that were done probably for 1 very significant
reason), any other notable gimmicks where a wrestler did a drastic change that
bombed, forcing the company to abandon ship and go back to what worked before?
Goldust to “The Artist Formerly Known As” and them eventually walking back and going
to the standard Goldust look and gimmick a few months after they killed it off.
Other than Chavo Jr. in 2005 (for reasons that were done probably for 1 very significant
reason), any other notable gimmicks where a wrestler did a drastic change that
bombed, forcing the company to abandon ship and go back to what worked before?
I think the most drastic with the biggest consequences for the company was repackaging Steve Austin as the paranoid heel in 2001 for the Invasion, which got walked back completely by Survivor Series into beer-drinking Austin again. By which point it was too late to save the character as a top draw.
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