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You could make a whole bracket out of just TNA gimmicks, but I'll start with The Johnsons This is Richard "Dick" Johnson and "Rod" Johnson. They are literal penises. That's it, that's the entire gimmick. They're dressed up like dicks and have dick puns for names. Are you laughing yet? Benne fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Oct 22, 2020 |
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Oct 22, 2020 00:14
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The only thing I remember about Truth Commission (other than Kurrgan being the drizzling shits) was that weird gimmick where Callis would stand on an elevated platform above the ring and cut rambling promos while his people squashed opponents. It lasted, maybe, a month tops? Then they moved Callis to commentary to do the same promos and the whole gimmick just kinda fizzled out with no payoff or explanation as to their motivations.
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Oct 22, 2020 07:18
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SamuraiFoochs posted:This is legit the worst gimmick in wrestling history, easily, and it's made worse by the fact that Dinsmore, last I checked, is still voluntarily using it, and, IIRC, it was his idea to begin with, so gently caress Dinsmore. Right there with you dude. Even as a dumb teenager who was hardly "woke" at the time, the Eugene gimmick never sat right with me, and has aged horribly since then. I still cringe whenever people try to defend it as "fun" or "good-natured" or "actually he was a secret wrestling genius so it's cool that he got beat up all the time." This poo poo was always cruel and mean-spirited, and the fact that he's still doing the gimmick and doesn't see a problem should tell you all you need to know. Eugene is a strong contender to go all the way in this tournament.
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Oct 22, 2020 09:35
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Venomous posted:The Modern Day Maharajah, Jinder Mahal Somehow this needs even more context: WWE put the title on Jinder specifically to cater to the Indian market, based on social media numbers that were clearly inflated by click farms but they still bought at face value, because of course. They built their Indian tour around the promise of Jinder coming in as champion, and put a ton of chips on this thing getting over. If you're wondering why WWE was banking on a Canadian/Punjab cheating heel to be a hero for 1.2 BILLION PEOPLE (Michael Cole's exact words every week, look it up), you should obviously see the flaw in their plan. After they spent a solid 6 months destroying both their title scene and fan-favorite contenders with garbage booking to keep a mediocre-rear end Jinder on top, they finally realized their market research was bunk and he wasn't a draw in India in any shape or form. Once Vince found that out, he couldn't pull the plug fast enough -- Jinder dropped the belt to AJ like a bad habit, most of the India tour got cancelled for low ticket sales, and Jinder's big homecoming moment in India was (drumroll) ... losing to Triple H clean and bowing to him after the match. And then he immediately went back to being a jobber, his title reign barely mentioned again. I don't know if Jinder is the worst champion of all time, but he might be the most failed social experiment in wrestling history. Benne fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Oct 22, 2020 |
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Oct 22, 2020 13:25
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For my second nomination I'll go with Original Bone Soldier Hideo Saito was a pretty terrible wrestler, but he found something of a niche doing harmless jobber gimmicks, most notably Captain New Japan. That all changed when he teamed up with Yoshitatsu, who was doing a "Bullet Club Hunter" storyline at the time and trying to take on the BC. Captain New Japan turned on Yoshi because of course, and joined BC where he instantly became the worst member in the group's history (and think of the ground that covers. Is Jeff Jarrett still technically a member?). Saito eventually got fired from New Japan for "gambling problems" (widely speculated to be yakuza ties) and has since vanished from the wrestling scene -- according to Cagematch, his last match was January 2017. The Bone Soldier gimmick was mercilessly mocked by both fans and the Elite afterwards, and essentially got retconned when Taiji Ishimori came in as "the new and improved Bone Soldier."
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Oct 23, 2020 00:03
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Someone needs to nominate Ed Leslie but I don't know which of his 56 lovely gimmicks to choose
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Oct 23, 2020 01:42
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Let's go for a more recent one: Shorty G I don't know if you heard, but Chad Gable is short, you see. And in case you still didn't know, WWE made sure to remind us every single week that Chad Gable is short. He's so short that he's nothing but a puny weakling against taller wrestlers, who keep beating him up because they're tall and he's short. They eventually took this "joke" to its logical conclusion by renaming him Shorty G and dressing him up like a literal child. He looks like the antagonist in a Disney Channel Original Movie where the good guys have to win a basketball game to save the local park from being bulldozed for a strip mall. He's so loving short you guys, he even wears shorts! There were people at the time who argued with a straight face that this was good for Gable's career. Three guesses as to where his career is a year later.
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Oct 23, 2020 10:17
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The field is quickly filling up so we'd be remiss to not mention Black Scorpion In 1990, Sting was on the rise as one of WCW's new top babyfaces and fresh off a "coronation win" over Ric Flair for his first world title. They had the brilliant idea of feuding him with a mysterious masked man named Black Scorpion, who kept taunting/attacking Sting. The problem (among many others) was that they couldn't decide who would actually be revealed under the mask -- at least a half-dozen wrestlers took up the gimmick when wrestling Sting, they'd keep teasing Sting pulling off the mask but not do it, and this poo poo dragged on for months on end until Starrcade 1990, where it was "revealed" to be ... Ric Flair, for reasons mostly unexplained. Sting gets a lot of flack for not drawing well as champion, but poo poo like Black Scorpion certainly didn't help his cause, and this really dragged down his first title reign. He dropped the belt back to Flair shortly afterwards, and arguably didn't really bounce back until the Crow Sting angle a half-decade later. Benne fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Oct 24, 2020 |
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Oct 24, 2020 06:00
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rare Magic card l00k posted:Cancel Culture I love how "Rob Van Dam did a softcore porn segment on Twitch" isn't even the worst part of this
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Oct 24, 2020 21:49
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Rarity posted:I'm gonna include it as the BC Elite sub-faction cause they definitely had a lot of critics for their presence in New Japan. It's not the first entry people have submitted that I'd disagree with and if people don't think it's a terrible gimmick then they won't vote for it. If we're including BC sub-factions then I'll throw in The Firing Squad  This stable had a hot start when the Tongans (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Haku) turned on Kenny and the Bucks in San Francisco, but quickly ran out of steam once it was apparent that nobody in the group was a very good wrestler or over with crowds (the coolest member was Haku and he never showed up again), and they poo poo up the 2018 G1 with constant interference and intentional DQs (perhaps the low point was ruining the one Omega/Yano match we got a year  ). It seemed like a cool idea at the time -- everybody loves a faction shakeup! -- but never really went anywhere and was quietly dropped when the Elite left New Japan.
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Oct 24, 2020 22:00
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Piggie James Arguably more of an angle than a gimmick, but few things symbolize the naked misogyny of 2000s WWE more than this insulting character assassination. It essentially killed off Mickie's first WWE run, she lost the feud without getting any real revenge, and it's a permanent black mark on LayCool, who were otherwise a very good heel act.
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Oct 24, 2020 22:50
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Two Beans posted:To be fair, Bubba was reluctant to do this spot. It wasn't until the 80 year old woman who used to mug sailors on shore leave for shits and giggles told him, "Don't be a pussy" that he went through with it. It's still a really gross spot no matter how carny Mae was
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Oct 24, 2020 23:19
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Pretty easy vote here. If it was anyone less talented than Jon Moxley that gimmick would've been a career killer.
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Oct 24, 2020 23:52
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I nominated Bone Soldier so I'm willing to go down with that ship (also if recent porn trends are anything to go by, Beaver Cleavage was somehow ahead of his time)
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Oct 26, 2020 17:39
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Has Rarity released the full bracket yet or did I just miss it?
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Oct 27, 2020 07:54
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Apparently I'm destined to vote for obvious underdogs in the first round Ed Leslie was famously attached to the hip of Hulk Hogan, riding his buddy's coattails to whatever push and prominent spot he could over the years. The Booty Man was finally the beginning of the end, a gimmick so lovely that not even an nWo invitation could save it. He came back a couple years later as The Disciple, but by then Leslie's career was running on fumes and it didn't last long. He will not win this round because Fake Razor/Diesel was such a shameless copyright ploy, and an early attempt at turning JR heel that Vince would keep trying over the years with more embarrassing results. But let's not forget how stupid The Booty Man was.
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Oct 27, 2020 12:26
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Firing Squad was bad but it wasn't queerbaiting bad
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Oct 28, 2020 00:26
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Oct 28, 2020 00:32
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Billy & Chuck somehow managed to be both queerbaiting and homophobic at the same time
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Oct 28, 2020 07:52
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Hedgehog Pie posted:I know we're past Billy and Chuck now but I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that it was as bad as it was. The crowd were absolutely not meant to cheer the supposedly gay men. I've never seen the full segment before, just bits and pieces. This seriously went 18 loving minutes? 
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Oct 29, 2020 05:10
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They only dropped the Kerwin gimmick when Eddy died so God only knows how long it was supposed to last
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Oct 29, 2020 14:08
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You can just imagine McMahon and Russo in a meeting cackling like hyenas and gasping for breath every time they say "PMS" out loud
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Oct 30, 2020 00:21
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The matador gimmick was dumb but WeelC was good enough to almost justify it
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Oct 31, 2020 00:27
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Isaac Yankem is just a weird career footnote, a trivia answer to "did you know what Kane's old gimmick was???" It was dumb but harmless in the end, especially since the guy who played it had such a long and successful career afterwards. Funaki is almost exclusively remembered for racist gimmicks and his career in the US not taking off like it should have. Nowadays he's just the wacky Japanese announcer on WWE PPVs, with few modern fans recalling him as anything else.
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Nov 1, 2020 13:36
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Quick everyone get your hacky election jokes in before it becomes super depressing!
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Nov 3, 2020 00:12
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Johnsons isn't the most offensive gimmick in this tournament but it's probably the most "who does this even appeal to" gimmick
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Nov 4, 2020 00:59
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Mortis ruled and doesn't belong in this tournament
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Nov 5, 2020 01:09
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Woof, the Gracies got a bad matchup here
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Nov 7, 2020 00:55
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Nightmare Collective was a bad idea, executed badly, and it's a real shame that Awesome Kong's career is likely ending on that wet fart. AEW has otherwise been very patient on gimmicks/angles that have shaky starts but eventually work out and get over (see: Dark Order), so it's notable that they just gave up and pulled the plug on this almost immediately. That said, it gave us Japanese Death Match Legend Original Death Dealer Luther, so it still has more redeeming qualities than "WCW's 342nd failed attempt at giving Brad Armstrong a personality." Benne fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Nov 7, 2020 |
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Nov 7, 2020 12:47
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The Elite is a stable, not a gimmick Not that it matters in this round but that was always a dumb nomination
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Nov 8, 2020 00:34
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What really puts Eugene over the top is that you can't argue the gimmick was foisted upon him, that he did what he could to salvage it, or it ruined a promising career. Nope, Nick Dinsmore loves the gimmick, is still doing it on the indies and doesn't see any problem with it. So gently caress him forever.
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Nov 8, 2020 06:48
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Black Reign was just a sad low point in Dustin's career and personal life. Bray Wyatt is an insufferable fartsniffer who thinks his bullshit is genius.
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Nov 8, 2020 20:16
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The Yetay dry-humping Hogan in the middle of the ring is one of those iconic WrestleCrap moments you never forget How many people even remembered the Nuggets/Lakers thing before this tournament?
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Nov 10, 2020 22:21
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Mr. McMahon at least drew money, which is more than can be said for like 99.5% of the entries in this tournament
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Nov 13, 2020 04:17
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Of course you had to pit two entries I nominated against each other  Black Scorpion was a stupid-rear end gimmick that derailed Sting's first title reign right at the time he should've been cruising as WCW's new top babyface. Very bad. Piggie James was a blatant insult to Mickie, it was basically WWE humiliating her for getting "old" and "not fuckable anymore" and the bully heels getting the last laugh on her way out of the company.
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Nov 13, 2020 13:48
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Shera Shuffle was good 
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Nov 14, 2020 01:10
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Yeah the Zombie was just Heyman taking the piss when Sci-Fi Channel asked for a horror-themed character. Completely harmless as a one-and-done. RIP Tim Arson.
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Nov 15, 2020 04:02
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Voted Jinder because Nakamura never recovered
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Nov 15, 2020 20:06
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The Thuganomics raps had a ton of sexist and homophobic material that was lovely and dated even at the time. I'm kinda surprised Cena was never called on it when he rebranded himself as a woke celebrity hero, that regressive garbage was a huge part of his early career.
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Nov 16, 2020 13:44
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I'm a little surprised it's that close, Zodiac arguably wasn't even the worst Ed Leslie gimmick
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Nov 17, 2020 12:30
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