The wrestling gimmick. Do not pretend it can't make your career. I mean, we have seen people who are pretty decent become monster stars because they understand the non-wrestling part of wrestling. It all counts. Given that the industry can be cyclical and rather self-aware, lots of individuals then try and take advantage of this, which is what we're going to talk about today, because maybe you see one gimmick and feel like you can do it too, or maybe it's bestowed upon you. I'm Simon Miller, let's go.

Number 15, the Rockers and the Rock and Roll Express. I mean, the name kind of gives it away. I'm not saying that Marty, Genetian, Sean Michaels just lifted what Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson were doing, as both did rule, but the inspiration was there, was high energy, bright colors, and most importantly, they changed the game. People really do forget how important the Rockers were in the 1980s, especially to the WWF. As Vincent Mann tried to tap into a new audience here, you had two guys that felt like they connected to a young audience and were changing the game. Look at the amount of people who basically saw their style and went, you know what I'd like to be a wrestler myself. None of it is possible, though, without the Rocker Roll Express, because my gosh, they were good. The way they sold and their explosive hot tag made them beloved baby faces for years. And even today, they're still going and they just get it. They could be the best team of all time. What we are going to get into today, however, is kind of what happened in reverse with the Rockers, as while they were following the new generation, the new generation also followed them or something the other way around. I'm sorry, what? Well, I mean, what I'm trying to get at as I speak gibberish to you is that over in WCW, Morton actually turned on Gibson, and then six months later, we did the barbershop angle with Sean

Michaels and Marty Genetti. Now, that was an all-timer and launched Sean Singles career,

but was there something to this? It smelled a bit fishy. WCW then undid the rock and roll split

idea because it was a terrible idea. That was not the same in the World Wrestling Federation.

My gosh, they never looked back. Number 14, the Ultimate Warrior and his one warrior nation. The career of the Ultimate Warrior is fascinating to look back on today because it's mad. The rise culminated after WrestleMania 6, and then within a few months, Vincent McMahon changed his mind and down the card he went. He was still a huge star. Let's just face it, he was not the next Hulk Hogan. It got so bizarre from a fan's point in view is when the warrior returned to the company after an absence, he had a new haircut and a smaller physique, so some people thought this was a different human being under the face paint. It was even a rumor the original warrior died. It was bonkers. It was when he got to WCW in 1998 when we got our first rip-off because the powers that B decided they were going to have Renegade, who was just the ultimate warrior. I mean, he was even billed as the ultimate surprise. That's just trolling the audience. The real warrior would then indoctrinate him into his One Warrior Nation group, which made no sense because it was meant to be a One Warrior Nation. It then gets totally weird because in 2008, a dude started to bill himself as one warrior nation. Not sure why the former Jim Helwig was good with this, but it seems like between then and 2013, he had 26 matches, but Joe, he got away with it. I still don't know if promotions wanted to trick the fans or if it was just a strange rip-off, but it didn't make sense and it did not work.

I mean, the ultimate warrior was limited in the ring, but the rest of the presentation got him to the very top. What I'm going to say is that that did not happen here. Number 13, Rick Flair and Buddy Landell. So this actually started with the very public falling out between Shane Douglas and Rick Flair. Douglas has always taken unbridge with how Flair booked him during his WCW run,

and this also likely tied into the time Shane won the NWA title in ECW and he threw the former belt on the floor. He also said the National Wrestling Alliance was a joke and that the ECW Championship was the future. I mean, he wasn't 100% wrong. The very odd connection, however, comes when Douglas was in the WWF and yep, that was bad too. Not only did the click not like him, which is the end of you in the mid-90s, but he was made a teacher. Some of these gimmicks the Vincent Man throughout there were the end. Just before the In Your Five House match between Douglas and Ahmed Johnson, though, Shane announced a replacement instead, and it was Buddy Landel. For some reason, Landel had the big rogue, came out to a very recognisable theme and checked that hair, my friends. He was even dubbed as the nature boy. It was quite clear what we were doing here. Now, Rick had gotten that nickname from Buddy Rogers, so I guess all his fair game. It was a rip-off, though, basically WWF taking a shot at their rivals. Just goes to show the war existed far longer than just the battle on Monday nights. Number 12, Scott Steiner and Little Petey Pump. So this one was planned. You can see in the image that Petey Williams is stood next to Scott Steiner, and yep, they are dressed the same. They're even wearing the same chain mail, which is still an odd choice of wardrobe all these years later. I'm not sure dubbing him Little Petey Pub was the best idea because one, no one could ever be the size of Scotty and two, no cool wrestlers little. I mean, you could figure that one out. This was back in 2007 when they both ended up with feast or fired briefcases, forming this unlikely alliance. They then sort of feuded before Steiner walked away with both bits of luggage and against all odds 2008. Now this actually all came together quite nicely and I would presume that Steiner liked Williams because not only was their constant respect, but Scott even crowned him with that chain mail some sort of weird acknowledgement ceremony. TNA then threw this all the way when Steiner joined the main event mafia, but it did feel like Petey at least found that extra piece to his puzzle. Plus, he had the Canadian Destroyer, which was a revelation at the time, I mean, you will only understand that if you're not a new wrestling fan, but believe you me, we all went nuts. Number 11, Black Machismo and Randy Savage. The TNA had quite clearly enjoyed looking backward to move forwards because Jay Lethal also got in of the act. He essentially showed the world that he did a great macho man impression, so boom, go and be that guy on TV. He did, and it worked against every logical metric. It was damn entertaining. This was also 2007 and even had Kevin Nash gifting him wrestling gear in order to sign off on this, which led us to Black Machismo, with Jay Lethal still getting a little bit of Jay lethal in there. When he had built up quite the Moveset over the years, so Jay pushed these two things together, and I just want to apologise because I said Moveset. The feat came at no surrender when he defeated Kurt Angle for the X Division title, and then it went weird. Teeming it was so Calvow made sense, but the following was a very odd few with

Sanjay Dutt to win Cal's affections, felt a little bit too on the nose. He did this really until 2011 when he did a hard reset in Ring of Bonner, but again, doing these sort of wink and nod gimmicks is so hard to pull off. Flipping Jay, Leithel went and did it. Number 10, the road warriors and demolition. So this story is the best. Vince McMahon wanted to hire the road warriors.

Animal and Hawks said no, so Vince McMahon just made his own version, Welcome Demolition. When you do know that, the face paint and unique look becomes even more, and the best part is, it clicked. By no means should that have happened, but Axe and Smash was so damn good. Nobody was thinking about the future Legion of Doom after a while. They just loved this act. Demolition would go on to win the WWF tag team titles three times as well, and of course became the longest reigning champions for years until the New Day stopped them. The only reason they broke up is because Hawking Animal did come in, that sort of muddied the wars. It is such an awesome success story though because they were told they were CapyCats and they still made it on your own.

That's a proper worker. Number nine, Dave Meltzer and Little Davy Meltzer. This one was stupid, went down on the UWF in 1990 and I suppose promoter Herb Abrams was sick of the reporting from Dave Meltz in the Resting Observer newsletter. I mean, what better way to show that you don't care than by doing a squash match with the Aheartsman talent being called Little Davey Meltzer. I mean, this wasn't subtle at all. There's also Dr. Death Steve Williams of all people who wrecked him, and Herb was on commentary with Bruno Samartino. Not sure he was into that, but Abrams seemed to take pleasure in just saying how stupid Dave was. You will not be surprised to hear. The real Meltzer took all of this in stride. I would imagine he took it as a compliment. Anna Michaels was the wrestler to portray it, and can you imagine being told that sort of pigeonhole by that point? We want you to be a parody version of a well-known journalist we don't like. I mean, you ain't going to main event WrestleMania. Number eight, Penta and Penta Oskuro. Go and read about the law of Penta in Lucha Underground because my gosh, you will see how deep they actually went with this character. I mean, if we were going to go all in, we'd have to make a whole video about it. It's ridiculous. The short version, though, is that he was meant to be an absolute killer. He lost early on and his, so started ripping arms off his opponents as some sort of wrestling trophy. Penta then went and had some of the most insane matches in that promotion, so yeah, I can buy that, the dude is crazy. Vampiro is then revealed as the mastermind of all this, which then for some reason gave us Penta Dark, an even more flubbed up version of the man. Of course, years after this, he would go on to join AW and team with Brother Phoenix before winning the tag titles and then losing them in 2022. This would then use the reason to introduce Penta Oscuro or Dark Penta, so yes, we've gone back to the original idea. We got graves and people come hang out of them and all of that, but really this was a lighter iteration of the persona, which is slightly ironic. I suppose nobody could actually go as far as Lutra Underground did, because that wasn't the mainstream company. A.W. was a more refined take, and one that didn't really last that long. Felt like it was more for a bit of fun before Penta fell back into his old routine, but what? It doesn't matter. Not like it hurt him, and good that man has flown ever since. Number seven, the Blue Meenie and Blue Tilly. I love the Blue Meenie. I've had a few conversations with him over the years and the rumors are true. He is just a damn good dude. We are going to talk about the Blue WO in just one second as well. But actually before then, let's go to TNA. Because of Hardcore Justice in 2010, the promotion was paying amage to ECW where we sort of got life repeating itself. Now, the BWO, and once again, give me one second, were part of that show too, because Stevie Richards, who was also part of the BWO, made his way to the ring, and he was backed up by James Tilquist or the Blue Tilly. Guess what fans did? They booed him. I mean,

they got the reference, but nope, we want the OGs or nothing. That's what happens when copyright gets in the way. And while TNA still wanted fans just to chart the well-known names, it's just so flipping convoluted. Really, this whole card was a mismash of ideas and sort of summed up TNA in 2010 is all over the place. Number six to be WO is the NWO. So let us just talk about it.

We can't just tease, and this was an act of genius from ECW, really. They did not care. If something was funny, they were going to do it. So in 1996, we'll try and get some of the entertainment back, the blue mini as de blue guy, Stevie Richards as big Stevie Cool, and Nova as Hollywood Nova came together. They wore blue. Can figure out the rest. This lot had mocked the band Kiss before settling here too, and the best part is it worked. Maybe that's where the weirdness comes from, because in any other promotion, I'm not sure it would have done, but fans loved this, and it actually took Stevie Richards all the way to the main event. It's as ridiculous as you would imagine too because they weren't pretending that it wasn't. Such a

wonderful example of how to get any gimmick over. Just embrace it and know where you're coming

from. This really was pretty good. Number five, Sunny and Tammy Lynn Bitch. This one was pure

Paul Heyman in the mid-90s. He would introduce Dormarie and said she was now called

Tammy Lynn Bitch. And yes, Bitch was spelt B-Y-T-C-H. She was positioned next to Lance Storm in

1998. And of course, her rival was sunny from the WWF who was called Tammy Lynn Cinch.

It also had a Y. Tammy was valet and Chris Candido, so we did have a standoff, and let's not pretend how they were portrayed, whatever happened today, and even Heyman stopped with this idea because he thought it was ridiculous. Before long, she was just Dormor-Marie, and actually went on to do pretty damn great there. It was important, too, because having that last name was always going to hold you back a bit. The passing joke, it's fine, I suppose.

Actually, it was a bit dumb.

Number four, Razor Ramon, H.G. Look at this image. In no way does that look like Razor-R-R-R-Mont. Hilariously, that is the point. Because go and Google Masaki Summatan, for some reason, he decided he was just going to start calling himself Razor Ramon. He even added the HG to avoid issues, and while you may think it's a television resolution, it actually stood for hot guy. This was crazy. Most of this went down in promotion hustle, which was totally unhinged in the mid-2000s. An old Razor here was wearing PVC gear and entered to the ring to live in Davida Loca. He also loved to thrust. I don't really think that should come as a surprise. A lot of people actually did enjoy this guy between 2005 and 2024. He had a ton of matches that were sort of all right. So he had a stupid name, but he was far from stupid. This is just bizarre. I mean, you stole somebody's name because you liked it, I suppose. That's totally nuts. Number three, another Razor Ramon and Diesel. So you all know this story from 1996, but you can't have a list like this and not include it. I mean, maybe you're not aware. And trust me, you need to be aware. But after Scott Hall and Kevin Ash had left for WCW in the mid-90s, Vince McMahon decided, well, it's not about the person that plays the gimmick, it's about the gimmick themselves. So why don't I go and find two other human beings? They can just be

Ray's Ramon and Diesel. Nobody will care. The truth was everybody cared. And after Jim Ross, who was a heel at the time, which was also a terrible idea, teased for weeks that he did have a big surprise. Out came Rig Bodner and Glenn Jacobs, of course, was going to be Kane in the future.

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