Worst case of WWE genericing someone up?

[Ryback on a Pole!]

Inspired by the Sandow thread and his current genericness.

For me it's when creative bizarrely decided to make Kevin Thorn not a vampire.... but rather an average looking guy with spiked hair. Why? What in the hell was their reasoning with that one?

Sandow's current ongoing genericisation is a close second.

[Starshine]

It has to be Ziggler. Even WWE realised how bad an idea it was about two weeks later.

[rnrk supports BLM]

When they took away Cody's mask and "disfigured" gimmick and he spent the next year with absolutely nothing to do beyond being a generic arrogant midcard heel.

[Tony Schiavontay]

Nov 20, 2013 0:31:36 GMT -5 Starshine said:

It has to be Ziggler. Even WWE realised how bad an idea it was about two weeks later.

And as a rib he debuted his Evan Borne look by wrestling Evan Borne.

[Deleted]

I wonder how the conversation goes:

Vince: you're in line for a big push but first we need you to stop doing anything entertaining and put these black trunks on. You'll be over huge!

Sandow:.........

[BorneAgain]

Its more obvious in hindsight, but Miz losing a lot of his his 2007/08 quirks and turning into an inconsistent Jericho lite did him no favors.

[Amazing Kitsune]

I don't remember one thing Randy Orton's first face run after Evolution turned on him. He may have suffered from that, because I recall him being super over as a heel--especially after his match with Cactus Jack.

[Heartbreaker]

Cody Rhodes going from a masked lunatic obsessed with hideousness thinking that his face was destroyed to ...a guy with kneepads and a new attire. It would have been amazing if he ended up having a personality clash causing him to go more batshit insane or a Patrick Bateman kind of thing but nope. They actually hinted it which sucks. What sucks more is a writer revealing that they intended for him to go crazier.

[Pooh Carlson]

Jack Swagger IMMEDIATELY going generic AS SOON as he cashed in MitB.

[AwamoriRock]

It's definitely not the worst, but I think Jack Swagger as a raging d-bag bro champ would have worked a lot better than his suit-wearing boring gimmick. Keep the Eagle, wear a letterman jacket, just take Biff Tannen to the next level and he would have been a lot more interesting.

Miz should have gone a similar route, just stayed as a weasle. People love to boo him.

[Brother Nero....Wolfe]

Hell, Swagger would have worked if he kept trying to be as serious as possible just like he was during this title run...
...only the eagle would be there in the background for each and every one of his segments, without Swagger ever acknowledging the insanity of it.

[saintpat]

Well, you have to give WWE some credit when they go the opposite direction:

They completley un-genericoed Sami Zayn

[JoDaNa1281]

Nov 20, 2013 0:42:35 GMT -5 Pooh Carlson said:

Jack Swagger IMMEDIATELY going generic AS SOON as he cashed in MitB.

When he beat Jericho & was handed the title, you could actually see him becoming generic right before our eyes.

[Deleted]

I'd say you could lobby for Ohno.

Not that "Chris Hero" isn't both indytastic and ridiculous, but they saw enough in the dude to sign him and felt the smartest way to ensure his path to E overness was to make him a vaguely foreign nobody that had no actual gimmick? Seems off.

I get their confusion though. Chris himself is kinda off. Outside of his actual wrestling ability, there really isn't anything about him that says big time wrestler. Makes you wonder why they ever even went there.

[Bad Moon]

I hate playing the devil's advocate, but at least they stopped putting ridiculous career killer gimmicks on them, that's something right?

Remember when they repackaged Luke Gallows a mentally handicapped hillbilly and had Monty Brown come out dancing to porno music and calling himself the Sexual Alpha Male?

[EyeofTyr]

Cody, Cody, Cody.

His work through Dashing to UnDashing was brilliant. Even when he initially won the IC title and for a few weeks they had him do little touches that teased continuity in the character, that he was still the unhinged monster from before even without the mask.

...And then it all went away. The next time he got anywhere near an actual character trait or gimmick was when they decided to emphasize the fact that he...grew facial hair..

Facial hair.

A man that cut some of the most genuine sounding dark promos of the past decade or so that delved into the depths of a fractured psyche they felt couldn't handle anything more challenging than having facial hair as his character.

Yup. No. That makes sense.

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2013 1:38:04 GMT -5 Bad Moon said:

I hate playing the devil's advocate, but at least they stopped putting ridiculous career killer gimmicks on them, that's something right?

Remember when they repackaged Luke Gallows a mentally handicapped hillbilly and had Monty Brown come out dancing to porno music and calling himself the Sexual Alpha Male?

Wait Monty Brown became The Sexual Alpha Male how did he not become WWE right then and there

[TOK Is the Target Demo]

Nov 20, 2013 1:25:33 GMT -5 @lesscra said:

I'd say you could lobby for Ohno.

Not that "Chris Hero" isn't both indytastic and ridiculous, but they saw enough in the dude to sign him and felt the smartest way to ensure his path to E overness was to make him a vaguely foreign nobody that had no actual gimmick? Seems off.

I get their confusion though. Chris himself is kinda off. Outside of his actual wrestling ability, there really isn't anything about him that says big time wrestler. Makes you wonder why they ever even went there.

Hero was awesome as Deadpool in the indies, then he generic'd himself up to get a shot at the big time. Dude was amazing as the smart-ass super-athlete.

[EyeofTyr]

Nov 20, 2013 1:45:31 GMT -5 TOK Is the Target Demo said:

Nov 20, 2013 1:25:33 GMT -5 @lesscra said:

I'd say you could lobby for Ohno.

Not that "Chris Hero" isn't both indytastic and ridiculous, but they saw enough in the dude to sign him and felt the smartest way to ensure his path to E overness was to make him a vaguely foreign nobody that had no actual gimmick? Seems off.

I get their confusion though. Chris himself is kinda off. Outside of his actual wrestling ability, there really isn't anything about him that says big time wrestler. Makes you wonder why they ever even went there.

Hero was awesome as Deadpool in the indies, then he generic'd himself up to get a shot at the big time. Dude was amazing as the smart-ass super-athlete.

Seriously.

That Young Knock-Out Kid was okay, his matches were still great to solid even with the gimmick and at least for a time he still had Larry Sweeney there to help make up for it. But I vastly prefer super athlete Chris Hero to that guy. The intentionally goofy outfits or weird facial hair choices, the genre savvy needless flips added to the smallest things, the tiniest of feats treated like he literally lifted the planet onto his shoulders, it was gold. Especially because while he could dip his toes more freely into the comedic side of the media with it, when he needed to, he could go into serious mode and wrestle a great match too.

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2013 1:38:04 GMT -5 Bad Moon said:

I hate playing the devil's advocate, but at least they stopped putting ridiculous career killer gimmicks on them, that's something right?

Remember when they repackaged Luke Gallows a mentally handicapped hillbilly and had Monty Brown come out dancing to porno music and calling himself the Sexual Alpha Male?

There's a difference between being a ridiculous character and an interesting character losing everything that makes them interesting. Imagine if this backwards ass logic was applied back in the day...

"Savage, you're getting real popular, we want you to win the title at Mania... But first... We're gonna stop calling you Macho Man and we need you to lose the robe, glasses and bandana. Also, when you're on the mic, can you just talk normally without any of those little quirks you do? Thanks."