The Most Bizarre & Disgusting Gimmick WWE Fans Have Never Heard Of
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WWE promotes itself as a sports entertainment genre, and to its credit, that genre helped the company grow into a global phenomenon. One of the ways WWE was able to garner mainstream success is by utilizing larger-than-life characters as its main attractions, as the concept of characters has become one of the most essential aspects of the professional wrestling industry. However, there's been many instances where certain characters that are too goofy made its way to primetime TV, characters that make the promoters look bad in the process. One of those characters was the infamous TL Hopper gimmick in 1996, WWE's resident plumber and one of the worst characters in that company's history.
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The Over-The-Top Goofy Gimmicks Of WWE's New Generation Era
It's no secret that WWE was trying to find its stride during the early to mid-1990s, especially with the stiff competition from World Championship Wrestling. Even though WWE eventually overcame the competition with the launch of the Attitude Era in 1997, highlighting a crop of successful talent, it doesn't change the fact that the company had questionable characters getting showcased on TV before this.
During WWE's New Generation Era, the company introduced a list of goofy characters that didn't present the WWE in the best light. And although certain characters didn't get showcased as top acts, the overall goofiness of these characters didn't make WWE look good regarding its creative booking.
One of those characters that had no chance of even sniffing the WWE Championship was the wacky TL Hopper, arguably one of the worst gimmicks in WWE history. Because TL Hopper was short-lived and no one expected that character to achieve any success, some fans may not know much about the "TL Hopper" gimmick or the wrestler portraying the character.
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Tony Anthony's Pre-WWE Background In Professional Wrestling
Those who grew up during the 1980s and 1990s and watched the United States Wrestling Association and Jim Cornette's Smoky Mountain Wrestling may be familiar with the name Tony Anthony, the man who eventually portrayed the "TL Hopper" gimmick in WWE. Before arriving in WWE during the late 1990s, Anthony had been wrestling for about fifteen years.
Debuting in the professional wrestling industry during the early 1980s, Tony Anthony won many championships as both a singles and tag team wrestler in the United States Wrestling Association and Smoky Mountain Wrestling. For instance, Anthony's impressive resume includes being a former three-time Smokey Mountain Wrestling Champion and a former three-time USWA World Tag Team Champion. Wrestling the likes of Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Jerry "The King" Lawler over the years,Anthony had been wrestling for a long time and got the chance to work with some of the very best in the professional wrestling industry.
TL Hopper Was One Of WWE's Most Disgusting Gimmicks In History
It was only a matter of time before Tony Anthony would get a shot at WWE. In 1996, he signed with WWE, but unfortunately for him, he was only going to achieve so much with the gimmick WWE gave him. Getting built as a comedic lower-card talent, Tony Anthony would become TL Hopper in WWE's later years of its New Generation era, as his persona was that he was a dirty plumber. There were vignettes featuring TL Hopper working as a plumber that was meant for laughs, with him appearing in a stained undershirt and hanging jeans.
RELATED: 5 Occupational Gimmicks That Actually Got Over (& 5 That Flopped)TL Hopper made his WWE in-ring debut on a July 1996 episode of WWE Superstars, defeating Duke Droese and going as far as even shoving a plunger in one of the most disgusting things a WWE superstar has ever done on WWE TV. And regarding his most memorable moment, some might remember the comedic sketch of TL Hopper finding a Baby Ruth while cleaning out a pool for poop during a Free For All episode hyping SummerSlam 1996, parodying a scene from Caddyshack.
TL Hopper was there to serve a purpose, to put over wrestlers higher on the card. Throughout Tony Anthony's short run as TL Hopper, he ended up losing an overwhelming majority of his matches until taking time off in mid-1997. And although he got repackaged into a different character upon returning as Uncle Cletus, to this day, Tony Anthony's best known for his short-lived persona as TL Hopper.
