10 WWE Stars Who Desperately Need New Gimmicks
Stagnation can be terminal in the world of pro wrestling; these superstars need a new lick of paint.
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00:00 No matter whether you're a wrestler or just a normal human being, eventually you're
00:03 going to need a new gimmick.
00:04 For example, I often call myself the bald a-hole for obvious reasons, but eventually
00:09 I'm going to go to one of those clinics, I'm going to grow my hair really long, and
00:13 then people can call me the ponytail.
00:15 Well, I'm not going to say it.
00:17 But if we do focus on WWE right now, I think it's fair to say there are a few people
00:22 that could go through the personality car wash.
00:24 Hello, my name is Simon from What Culture, and this is 10 WWE Superstars Who Are In Desperate
00:31 Need Of A New Gimmick.
00:32 Number 10, T-Bar and Mace.
00:33 Somebody please explain this to me, because Retribution are done, and yet T-Bar and Mace
00:37 still exist, and for some reason, WWE has one of them raw and has the other one on smack
00:43 her down.
00:44 I mean, that doesn't make any sense.
00:45 It's almost like WWE doesn't have any plans for them, which is a little bit misguided,
00:50 because Mace when he was Dio Maddin showed us that he had something, and obviously T-Bar
00:54 is Dominik Dijakovic, and if you have seen Double D in NXT or the indie scene, you know
01:00 at the very least he's capable of really good matches, so why don't we let him go
01:04 do that.
01:05 The shining light is that recently, Mace actually did team up with LA Knight on a segment that
01:09 aired off the cameras on Smackdown, so let's keep our fingers crossed that something happens
01:13 there.
01:14 And as for T-Bar, well I have no idea.
01:17 He often just turns up on main event, I think we can do more than this.
01:21 9.
01:22 Apollo Crews For a while there, Apollo Crews' new Nigerian
01:25 royalty gimmick was actually okay.
01:27 It was quite clear that Apollo was going to throw himself into this, it got him back onto
01:31 television and he even became the Intercontinental Champion.
01:35 This was far better than when he used to vanish all the time, but after a few months I think
01:39 Vince McMahon got bored of this and we were back to this vanishing act.
01:44 People soon forgot that he even held this championship, aside from when he was allowed
01:47 to fight Big E 7,982 times, and recently he has just been used as a background figure
01:54 in other people's segments, so it's time to shelve this and come up with something
01:59 new.
02:00 I also really don't see how the powers that be don't notice what they have with Apollo
02:03 Crews, because once again, you can put him against anybody and even though he's super
02:08 mega jacked, he will fly around the ring like a dove.
02:11 So even if we have to give him some kind of manager, because you don't want him to
02:15 talk for the love of everything, we need new bodies and there's one.
02:19 Really good one there.
02:20 8.
02:21 Aaliyah
02:22 A running theme on this list, where the hell did Aaliyah go?
02:26 She was breaking fictional Guinness World Records at one point until she threw up on
02:30 herself by accident and ever since then she hasn't been allowed back on Smackdown.
02:34 It probably didn't help that her whole gimmick was just smiley happy la la dancing lady,
02:38 although she did have that thing with Ricochet for about one week, but once again we threw
02:42 that by the side.
02:43 So what we really need to do here is bring her back to TV and give her a personality
02:48 that has some edge so that when she does go up against the likes of Charlotte Flair or
02:52 Becky Lynch, we at home the fan can sit there and go, well maybe, just maybe she can win,
02:57 even though she'll still definitely lose.
02:59 So the problem right now is that nobody is really buying her, and that's not Aaliyah's
03:03 fault, you have to give her the tools in order to do her job.
03:06 At the moment, let's face it, if she can even get a wrestling match, that'd be better than
03:11 where we are now.
03:12 7.
03:13 Xia Li
03:14 What is the deal with this?
03:15 Because apparently, according to the story, Xia Li is a superhero, but she only turns
03:19 up to help somebody when she can be bothered.
03:22 I'm sorry, but that is a really crappy superhero.
03:25 In reality all of this was tied into Aaliyah, who we have just spoken about, so when she
03:29 was not being used, I think everybody also forgot about Xia Li, which is doubly upsetting
03:35 here because at least she had the really cool entrance, could we not double down on that?
03:39 The real problem is that she had only just debuted on Smackdown when this start-stop
03:43 momentum started to happen, and you cannot do that when somebody first arrives, because
03:48 we the fans, we get a little bit bored.
03:50 Because, well I'm not going to invest on you, because I don't know what you're going to
03:53 do next week.
03:54 I mean if you do continue this now, you have to explain one, why she actually wants to
03:58 protect people, but what I would do is send her away for a little while, come up with
04:02 a brand new idea, let's try round two.
04:06 Number 6, Madcap loss.
04:07 And finally to one that makes sense.
04:09 Because the Madcap Moss persona actually served a purpose.
04:13 We teamed him up with Happy Corbin, they had an obnoxious act for a while, before Madcap
04:17 had an epiphany and was like, you're not a very nice guy, I don't want to be with you
04:22 anymore, they broke up, I'm going to assume Madcap Moss will eventually beat Happy Corbin,
04:27 and then we're off to the races.
04:28 I mean that is how you do wrestling, and the next step should be Madcap changing all of
04:33 this so he can establish himself as a unique and individual star, and also if you do get
04:38 rid of the suspenders, maybe, just maybe in the future, he could even be a big deal on
04:43 a Wrestlemania.
04:44 And he's got the chops too, because over the last few months he keeps winning people over,
04:47 as they go, well he is a little bit silly, but he clearly does have talent, and it is
04:51 so nice to see it done this way.
04:53 Get the most out of a character, use it to get to the next level, and then move on to
04:57 something else.
04:58 So of course, I now look forward to Madcap Moss being the exact same person in 12 months
05:04 time.
05:05 Number 5, Happy Corbin.
05:06 And speaking of Happy Corbin, he could probably use a little bit of a shake up too.
05:10 A man who does not get the credit he deserves, because you can throw any kind of idea at
05:14 him, and he just makes it work.
05:16 I mean, like me personally, I would have liked to have seen Sad Corbin just go on for ages
05:20 and ages, because he was actually getting some sympathy with this, but I would imagine
05:25 that is why we killed it, because Vince McMahon was probably like, no, I want you to be a
05:28 bad guy.
05:29 Either way though, Baron just embraces all of this and absolutely smashes it, but when
05:33 you do look at the Smackdown roster right now, something it is missing is serious people
05:38 that could challenge for the World Championship.
05:40 So given that Baron Corbin is absolutely massive, something else we forget about, maybe we could
05:46 go back to this attitudinal adjustment and give him a big old push.
05:49 I mean, given how much people did get behind him when he was broken down on his luck, you
05:53 could even go the other way, and I secretly keep my fingers crossed that we do go back
05:58 to this, but ultimately it doesn't matter.
06:00 Baron Corbin could turn up to work one day and you say, oh Baron, you're going to be
06:03 a fish, and he would find a way to be the best damn fish you've ever seen in professional
06:09 wrestling.
06:10 4.
06:11 Rick Boogs
06:12 This will be an interesting one, given that Rick Boogs just suffered a serious injury
06:14 at WrestleMania, and as ever as we are talking about it, all that really matters is that
06:19 he gets back to 100% health, wrestling comes in second.
06:22 When he does return though, it may be worth switching things around a little bit when
06:26 you start to think about his long term future.
06:28 Because while I love his 1980s strongman gimmick, I actually think Rick Boogs has some kind
06:34 of connection with the WWE Universe, to the point, once again, if you did give him something
06:39 more serious, well I could see him going to the top of the card.
06:43 Also at the moment while he is super fun, his gimmick is basically "I love Qatar, and
06:48 I love Shinsuke Nakamura" and that can only go so far.
06:51 So if we can just bottle what he does have, but present it in a different way, I think
06:55 this has a massive upside.
06:56 I'm not saying that he has to come back and change things instantly, you can plant
07:00 the seeds and do it very subtly, but I tell you, keep your eye on Rick Boogs, he is going
07:06 to surprise many of us.
07:08 3.
07:09 The Viking Raiders
07:10 Man this one is tough, because one thing that WWE definitely needs when it comes to its
07:12 tag team division is really good tag teams.
07:15 They have one on its books, signed away, and what they decided to do was treat them
07:22 like literal Vikings.
07:23 The real error was the name, and the fact that they get told to act like they fell out
07:27 of a time machine as they eat meat right off the bone, and do you remember everything that
07:32 happened in that Usos feud?
07:34 If you don't, keep it that way, it does not make for happy brain time.
07:38 If you need proof of any of this, just go watch anything they did in NXT or New Japan
07:42 and you will realise that they can really go, and instead in WWE, they have to pretend
07:48 they are from the 9th century.
07:50 It really is madness, because there is a gaping hole here that two giant dudes can absolutely
07:55 fill and as of me saying these words, they have barely been on television, I will shake
08:01 my head till the end of time.
08:03 2.
08:04 Ezekiel
08:05 But not yet, because this is excellent.
08:06 Because if wrestling is solely there to entertain everything that the former Elias and Kevin
08:10 Owens is doing right now, with Ezekiel, the apparent younger brother of Elias, it's absolutely
08:16 brilliant and entertaining.
08:20 Eventually this will run its course, because that's just the way with these kind of gimmicks,
08:24 and it's why I really hope that WWE has a long term plan with this, maybe through SummerSlam,
08:29 because then Ezekiel/Elias will have a brand new lease of life and you can start to treat
08:34 him a little bit more seriously.
08:35 There's that word again.
08:36 3.
08:37 Nikki Ash
08:38 So, 2, what would happen here is that Owens would go absolutely nuts and get committed
08:41 or suspended from the show or something, and then on the very next episode of Raw, Elias
08:46 comes out with his guitar, and he shrugs like, "Oh, what happened?
08:50 I don't even know."
08:51 And I suppose there is a small chance of this happening.
08:54 I would say I'll keep everything crossed.
08:57 I'll do it with my toes.
08:58 1.
08:59 Nikki Ash
09:00 We did give this a really good go, and bless Nikki Ash for going to Vince McMahon and getting
09:04 this on TV.
09:05 For a while it did really work and it sent such a good message to kids, and you can't
09:10 get mad at that unless you are a sociopath.
09:12 Sadly now WWE has turned her heel and that has just led her to the 24/7 title picture,
09:18 and for some reason, no matter the scenario, she always has to wear her superhero get up,
09:24 and that ain't helping anybody.
09:26 Nikki Cross has also proven time and time again that she more than has a place on the
09:29 main roster, so we just have to accept that this has run its course and come up with something
09:34 new.
09:35 But isn't it crazy that we had that awesome storyline with Nikki and Alexa Bliss, and
09:39 now both of them are lost in the shuffle.
09:41 I mean the one saving grace here, if we're not going to change things around, is to do
09:44 a Xia Li vs Nikki Ash storyline where we have the good superhero vs the villain, but let's
09:50 face it, there's more chance of me growing that hair than that happening, so let's just
09:56 do what this list is telling us to do and start again.
09:59 Know of any other WWE stars that desperately need new gimmicks?
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10:16 My name is Simon from WhatCulture, thank you for watching as always, you take care of yourself,