10 WWE Gimmicks That Spiraled Out Of Control

Year after year, many aspiring wrestlers break out into the industry with the dreams of becoming the next big star. They look to follow in the footsteps of the legends of the past who they idolized in their childhood, and the most important thing they have to learn from those legends is that, along with in-ring talent, they also require an equally captivating gimmick to succeed in the business.

Wrestling promotions have introduced wrestlers with many unique gimmicks in the past, but only a few went on to make legendary careers for the wrestlers portraying them as the rest failed due to various reasons. With that said, let's take a look at ten such gimmicks from WWE that spiraled out of control and failed.

10 Tensai

Matt Bloom, who is the current head coach of the WWE Performance Center, is well-known among wrestling fans for portraying multiple gimmicks throughout his career. He went by the names Albert, A-Train, Giant Bernard, Prince Albert, Baldo, and Mongolian, to name a few, throughout his career. However, the last gimmick he portrayed in his career as Lord Tensai became highly controversial and a huge let-down for him.

Tensai had a successful re-debut in WWE and went on to defeat main event stars like John Cena and CM Punk. But a lack of creative direction resulted from a sudden decline in interest from the higher ups led to the Tensai character losing its purpose and becoming a comedy act dancing in lingerie with Brodus Clay. It was the last gimmick Matt Bloom portrayed before he hung up his boots for good and took a backstage role in WWE.

9 Heidenreich

While Heidenreich's first WWE run ended prematurely in 2004, he returned to the company later the same year with a heel psychopath gimmick with Paul Heyman as his manager. WWE reintroduced him with the new gimmick by having him run in during random matches, attack fans, and recite some hateful poetry. Heidenreich slowly started climbing up the ranks in WWE and even had a decent feud against The Undertaker.

However, WWE fans will always remember him for the infamous backstage segment in which he assaulted Michael Cole. He had all it took to become a unique heel character in WWE, but WWE failed to back him up with some interesting storylines, which led to Heidenreich slipping down the card before getting released.

8 The Great Khali

The Great Khali made a thunderous WWE debut by going after The Undertaker straight away. WWE is known for putting more emphasis on giants like Khali, and with the additional advantage of him coming from India, it allowed the company to breach a new market along with introducing a fresh monster heel character to their programming.

Khali did go on to become the World Heavyweight Champion and feud against the major stars of WWE. But the dismal crowd response during his matches and his inability to add more value to his character other than being a giant caused his gimmick to go out of the creative team's control and lose its purpose. He became the Punjabi Playboy, turning from a fearsome giant into a joke.

7 Vladimir Kozlov

Not every wrestler can claim that they possess a clean singles victory against The Undertaker, let alone a new superstar who just made it to the company. But Vladimir Kozlov became the proud owner of that distinction when the company gave him a big push straight away when he made his main roster debut in 2008.

The Moscow Mauler had a similar gimmick to what Gunther is portraying today and decimated his opponents, and had the makings of a future WWE Champion. However, things got out of hand following his draft to ECW, which marked his downfall. Soon he found himself becoming a parody act along with Santino Marella before he got released from the company.

6 Retribution

WWE introduced a new rogue faction in 2020 with the name Retribution and introduced them in a similar fashion as The Nexus. The group vandalized WWE property and attacked wrestlers and the other crew members before they revealed themselves with Mustafa Ali as their leader.

The group had the potential to become major heel attractions on the WWE programming, but some weak storytelling and uninspiring crowd reaction resulted in the group's creative direction spiraling out of control, leading to their downfall within a very short time.

5 "Glorious" Bobby Roode

Bobby Roode made his WWE debut in 2016 as part of NXT and adopted a heel gimmick, and established himself as The Glorious Bobby Roode. He had the perfect theme song, and with the increased crowd support, Roode quickly went on to become the NXT Champion.

His momentum started heading towards a steep downfall following his main roster debut, where he joined his many fellow-NXT colleagues in falling victim to Vince McMahon's creative team. The Glorious gimmick lost all its essence very quickly on the main roster, which resulted in Roode getting rid of it altogether and taking his place on the tag team division with Dolph Ziggler.

4 The Boogeyman

The Boogeyman was one of the most intriguing characters in WWE history as he's well-known for his disgusting antics of eating live worms to terrify his opponents.

His mysterious entrance and his presence inside the ring and in backstage segments gained him tons of fans among the WWE Universe. However, he couldn't get anywhere near the upper card storylines as the company had him do the same thing repeatedly with no intention of putting him in significant angles. At one point, the fans were used to seeing someone eat worms and lost all interest in the character, which eventually led to his exit from the company in 2009.

3 Muhammad Hassan

Not every wrestler can pull off a foreign heel character, but Muhammad Hassan, who made his WWE main roster debut in 2004, played it to perfection. With Daivari as his mouthpiece, Hassan portrayed a perfect villainous character and reaped the rewards for his effort by getting placed in a feud against The Undertaker.

But a controversial segment that coincided with a real-life terror attack prompted WWE's sponsors to ask the company to take the character off television. With the sponsors involved, the situation, along with the character, spiraled out of control, which resulted in Hassan getting sent back to developmental before eventually getting released.

2 Mordecai

Mordecai made his way to the WWE main roster with a religious zealot character who's on a crusade to rid the world of sin. He had a decent on-screen presence and proved that he could pull off the character on bigger stages and storylines.

But WWE continued to use him in lackluster matches without giving him any credible opponents. It appears WWE tested the character for too long without actually seeing its potential, resulting in it going out of their control and hitting rock bottom before he got released in 2005.

1 The Fiend

After Bray Wyatt's cult leader gimmick faced an unexpected downfall, he reinvented himself with The Firefly Funhouse and The Fiend gimmicks. The latter, especially, became an instant sensation among the WWE Universe, and Wyatt's new incarnation haunted the other superstars on the roster and asserted its dominance.

But as usual, some unpopular creative decisions from the WWE creative team resulted in The Fiend's character going out of control, with his loss against Goldberg at the 2020 Super ShowDown PPV being the first strike. The character lost all its mystique after the loss, and despite Wyatt's best attempts to reinvigorate the gimmick, the damage was too big to fix, and coupled with some real-life issues regarding his mental health, The Fiend rode off into the sunset following WrestleMania 37.