10 Gimmicks WWE Cancelled For Being Too Successful
Getting over is a good thing, unless Vince McMahon doesn't want you to get over. From Rusev Day to Long Island Iced Z to Fandongoing, these are 10 WWE gimmicks cancelled for being too over.
Transcript
00:00 I know, you've read the title and now you're sad, don't worry I'm sad too.
00:04 Because when something in wrestling starts to get popular, it just lights a fire under
00:08 everyone's ass. We all want to know where it's going to go and then poof, it's gone,
00:12 it's dead, it's over. More fool us for caring. So do you want to relive some of these? Of
00:17 course you do.
00:17 So hello, I am Simon from WhatCulture, please do hit that subscribe button.
00:21 And this is 10 Gimmicks WWE Cancelled For Being Too Successful.
00:25 10. Fandango I don't know whether WWE cancelled this one,
00:29 but man did they get it wrong in the aftermath. Before we do go on, let's do what we have to do,
00:34 and we shall do it together in 3, 2, 1…
00:37 Sorry, I regret it.
00:41 Point is, after WrestleMania 29 when Fandango incredibly defeated Chris Jericho,
00:46 the crowd decided his theme music was awesome, so let's sing it all the time.
00:49 I'm sure it started as a joke, but the flipping song went to the top of some music chart,
00:53 so it all counts, and no matter where the popularity comes from,
00:56 there are many ways to capitalise on it.
00:58 Sadly, WWE thought the best way was to overproduce the hell out of this reaction,
01:02 and turn it into almost a corporate folly, before remembering that Dango was meant to be a heel,
01:07 so did whatever they could to re-establish that. It was so silly because the joy was right there,
01:11 but no, we're not allowed to have fun, go home and be miserable.
01:14 The ballroom dancer never got back to these levels because you usually only ever get one
01:18 shot at it, and who knows how nuts this could have gone. You can dismiss it, but we will never know.
01:23 9. Perry Satton and Moppy
01:25 This is always my go-to when people say wrestling needs to be less goofy in 2022,
01:30 and that we should head back to the good old days of the Attitude Era where things were more serious.
01:34 Okay, so let's discuss 2001, when Perry Satton fell in love with a mop. Yep.
01:39 This happened as punishment after Satton had been way too stiff with an opponent in the ring,
01:43 so somebody came up with the idea that he could be in a relationship with a cleaning utensil.
01:47 I mean it's so absurd it was always going to work in some fashion.
01:50 This is exactly what happened when fans started to make noise when Perry and his mop came to the
01:55 ring. So what did we do? End the whole thing at Unforgiven that year where Satton and Raven's
01:59 feud came to an end. I think this would have been fine too if this was because we had something
02:03 else for the former WCW man to do. I doubt he enjoyed being shacked up with a mop. But no,
02:08 instead he did nothing before getting released. This whole thing was bizarre.
02:13 8. Damien Mizdow
02:14 Now we're getting into the good stuff, because you can't argue this one.
02:18 Not only did Damien Sandow achieve success once with his intellectual saviour gimmick that got
02:22 fans to cheer him despite the fact he was an asshole, he did it again when he teamed up with
02:27 The Miz. This was even more impressive because beforehand he had been given the Money in the
02:30 Bank briefcase and lost it, which never used to happen, so no one was that bothered or fool us.
02:36 Why? Because Sandow became Mizdow and decided he would be a stunt double. That meant throwing
02:41 himself to the ground any time The Miz took a fall, and so ridiculous it became the best thing
02:45 on the show, Damien was oddly good at it. All we had to do was get to WrestleMania 31 of the
02:50 Andra the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and have Mizdow throw out his mentor to finally be done
02:54 with him, and while we did do that, seconds later the big show appeared behind him and eliminated
02:59 him too. Like somebody popping your happy birthday balloon. Damien also lost to The Miz during the
03:04 feud and after cutting a promo saying the stilly stuff was gone, started to pretend he was the
03:09 Macho Man. That one was as bad as it sounded and honestly, what on earth were we doing?
03:13 7. The Jilted Lover Matt Hardy
03:16 I know I say this a lot but I feel it's important. I would rather that no story or character was born
03:20 out of the things we're about to talk about, and thankfully there is no beef between any of these
03:24 folk and everything is good. But back in 2005, Matt Hardy found out his girlfriend Lita was
03:29 cheating on him with best friend Edge and things went bad. Hardy made such a public fuss he got
03:35 released but after a swell of fan support was back on TV in just a few months with an awesome angle,
03:40 he was breaking into events and causing havoc, it just worked so well. All we had to do was push him
03:45 right and remind the crowd how much he had been screwed over, but we didn't. Instead, the Rated
03:49 R Superstar ruined him in the feud, meaning the guy who lost his partner and buddy also got beaten
03:54 up before he got moved to Smackdown and we acted like none of this had happened. What?
03:59 6. Swing King Cesaro
04:01 Do you remember when Paul Heyman was the manager of Cesaro? That did not go to plan. It all happened
04:06 after the Swiss Superman had won the first ever Andre Battle Royal, which seemed like a good sign
04:10 at the time, even more so when he and expected winner Big Show shook hands. Cesaro was always
04:15 going to be a better babyface than Hill too, and it felt like we all knew that, because just as he
04:19 was ready to simmer away, WWE decided to pair Cesaro with Heyman and told everyone to stop
04:25 cheering. They also started to take away all of the moves the audience liked which left us with
04:28 one question, if this is what the company wanted, why did he get the big WrestleMania push? We shall
04:34 never know the answer, which is why I just want to forget about it, although I did just remind you.
04:39 5. The B+ Player Daniel Bryan
04:43 So there are some asterisks to this one, but Daniel Bryan even wrote about it in his book.
04:47 In 2013, when he was becoming the most popular dude imaginable,
04:51 WWE tried to stop this dead. Why Batista won the Royal Rumble in 2014, and why the Yes Man
04:57 wasn't even in the match? We were trying to nip this in the bud. Unfortunately for the powers
05:00 that be, fans weren't going to back down with this one, and with no other choice,
05:04 WWE retroactively tried to fit a story around it. In short, Bryan was flagged as a B+ player,
05:09 which was the real reason he was never able to make it to the main event, and for a while,
05:13 they honestly thought this would keep him in the midcard. Nope. The lies here come because of
05:17 course Daniel overcame all of this to absolutely smash it and win the world title, so it did work
05:22 out. Just don't let anybody tell you this was in the plans, because it wasn't. Thank goodness we
05:27 did follow through though, it's still one of the best moments in recent memory.
05:30 4. Long Island IZ Zack Ryder
05:33 Zack Ryder was so ahead of his time with this, that if somebody wanted to do the same today,
05:37 they couldn't. Taking advantage of YouTube, in 2011, Ryder realised he wasn't getting anything
05:42 on TV, so why shouldn't he just make his own show? It was a wonderful mismatch of insider jokes and
05:47 someone being a fan, and surprise surprise it did the numbers who knew being entertaining would work.
05:52 It got so much steam, fans at shows started to shout his name, and a "We want Ryder"
05:56 chart even happened when The Rock was in the ring, think of that. There was a clear resistance to this
06:01 at first before the popularity was acknowledged, and sure, Zack was the US Champion for a while.
06:06 From then though, my word, the poor guy was treated like he'd slighted the company.
06:11 Before long, his on-screen relationship with John Cena had resulted in Ryder being cheated on by
06:15 girlfriend Eve Torres, and after we made sure he lost all the time, we moved on from this as fast
06:20 as we could. It is still totally crazy, even more so when you see what Matt Cardona is doing today,
06:25 I swear.
06:26 3. Rusev Day
06:28 Right, I've been dreading this one, but we can get through it together, alright. But yeah,
06:32 I love Rusev and I love Rusev Day so much, on one video years ago I stuck Rusev Day signs all over
06:38 my body. I can't justify that, and it is odd, but I just believed in it and this is how I chose to
06:43 express myself. You'll be shocked to hear it didn't help. All the way back in 2017, it did feel like
06:48 we had finally found the breakthrough idea for Rusev, as he teamed with Aiden English and Lana
06:52 and told us every day was Rusev Day. It is ludicrous to say out loud, which made it even
06:56 better, and as this was coming off a 10 second loss to Randy on a SummerSlam, it got people
07:00 talking. It was soon passed off as a fleeting thing, but when every single venue was chanting
07:05 it, buying t-shirts and calendars, it was quite clear that this is the direction to head in,
07:09 so what did we do? Burned it to death.
07:11 Apparently happening after Vince McMahon told the future Miro that fans were only doing this
07:15 as a joke, the group was broken up, and Rusev was put with Shinsuke Nakamura. To this day,
07:20 I do not know why, it was such a waste, and I still cry myself to sleep about it.
07:25 2. Bad News Barrett
07:26 In 2013, Wade Barrett was turned into Bad News Barrett, and quite literally went around telling
07:32 people bad news. You could only do this in wrestling, but because he committed to it,
07:36 it began to work. Fans wanted to hear what awful thing he was going to break every single week.
07:41 Instead of this being a lightbulb moment for someone backstage, however, Wade was pulled aside
07:45 and basically told off for getting these reactions, as he was meant to be a bad guy. As the man
07:50 himself has said, he had to knock it on the head after that because too many people were joining in,
07:54 but that's the point of wrestling. What kind of message that sends to the rest of the locker room
07:58 too I don't know, because it sounds like WWE would rather the crowd was bored by a heel
08:03 rather than be entertained. To cut the whole gimmick short because of this too,
08:07 pfft, no wonder Barrett left when he did, what else could he possibly do after this?
08:11 1. The Stooges
08:13 Didn't see that one coming did you? Well, sometimes it's good to have fun with these lists,
08:17 especially when they've been so upsetting. There are loads you could pick from as well as it's
08:21 happened a lot, but it's far funnier to talk about Pat Patterson and Gerald Brisco as Vince
08:24 McMahon's lackeys, because they were awesome together. They looked like idiots constantly,
08:28 and were so willing to do whatever they were asked that fans started to love these two,
08:32 which is why one day they started to feature less and less I am not kidding.
08:36 Brisco recently talked about this during his podcast and hearing that broke my heart. The
08:40 straw that broke the camel's back was when Vinny Mac saw a bunch of sides in the crowd on Raw,
08:44 and from the mid-2000s they became less of a thing. Don't try and make any sense of this either,
08:49 there is none, just weird decisions by at times a very weird company. Who knows why they do any of
08:55 it when they're meant to be putting smiles on people's faces.
08:58 Know any other gimmicks that WWE cancelled or being too successful? Make sure you let us know
09:02 in the comments below and don't forget to like the video, share the video and subscribe. Then
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09:14 'em, go check it out. My name is Simon for WhatCulture, thank you very much for listening
09:18 to me as always, and remember to shoot for the stars, because up there is where it is shiniest.