The sad thing is, this could have been a Top 100 list, and you would still miss a lot of '90's wrestlers with terrible gimmicks.

It's a damn shame that there were so many guys who could have been great but their careers got cut short because the writers made stupid choices and gave them awful gimmicks.

Phantasio wasn't a bad gimmick, I mean the gimmick fits wrestling to perfection.

Repo Man, IRS, and Brooklyn Brawler, and there was a Hockey Player/Wrestler one time.

Shock Master's lines were not pre-recorded. Ole Anderson was behind the curtain with a mic. Rhodes came out and talked about it. Which is why you can hear Ole laugh at the beginning.

I really liked the dungeon of doom. They had a ton of talent. I had no issues with the darkness theme, but they were too silly about it instead of being more dark and serious like they should have.

Pause this video at 11:39 and just take a good look and bask in the glory of shockmaster. Sparkle stormtrooper helmet,stonewash jeans and black shower curtain. Someone thought this was a good look. I really find that SHOCKing

Glacier could have been something if he was brought in right and used correctly I was a fan of his

Nash was correct about Oz being a place not a person (The Wizard Of Oz). It would be like doing a character on the tv show Hawaii 50 and calling the wrestler Hawaii or the movie Gangs Of New York and calling the wrestler New York instead of Bill The Butcher

The Oz character got over extremely well in Japan because of course it did...

Remember the Red Rooster played by Terry Taylor when he was in WWE formally known as WWF I do surprisingly lol

Phantasio had a lot of potential though, and that guy was quite a good wrestler.

Beefcake should have his own list

Glacier's gimmick had some potential

Fantasio was awesome! Fuckin shame he fizzled put after 1 match, but Mantaur lasted longer and even had PPV matchea.

Undertaker pulling rabbits out of his hat, yeah, that's gimmick infringement alright.

The Shockmasters lines weren't prerecorded. Ole Anderson was off to the side with a mic doing the talking live. As a matter of fact you can hear him laughing a little at the beginning because of the botch. Even Dusty Rhodes confirms this as well

Glacier was an awesome wrestler - imagine what he could have done if we wasn't given the Sub-Zero moniker.

I met Balls Mahoney in Pt. Pleasant once. He actually bumped into me, and, knocked me over. He was super-apologetic, and, really, really nice.

I think the magician would have been an interesting character and he was somewhat fun to watch and the guy was a real athlete it might have been interesting.

Phantasio should've had more of a chance

The Goon was a terrible gimmick... also The Repo Man 🤣🤣🤣

I heard somewhere that Giant Gonzalez was supposed to be The Yeti, but he was not medically cleared to compete.

First match I ever watched in person was in Indianapolis at the Grand Opera House. I remember it like it was yesterday. The main event was a crazy six man tag featuring Sorakichi Matsuda, Frank Gotch and Martin Burns versus The Goldust Trio - Ed Lewis, Billy Sandow, and Toots Mondt. When men were men and giants roamed the earth.

The Patriot was an awesome wrestler that no one talks about

To see the Gobbledygooker and the Shockmaster (Tugboat) dancing together at the end is just magical!! The 2 biggest flops in wrestling history together dancing. Maybe that’s the point in which the Gobbledygooker passes on his bad luck on to Fred and within 3 years he’ll be going down (excuse the pun) in wrestling history for all the wrong reasons too

Glacier went hard bruh!

Schovanni it's the yetaaaaaaaay!!!, priceless lol

How in the hell did professional wrestling survive the 1990s? A good majority of us who were kids during the height of Hulkamania became disinterested in wrestling by the age of 10 or 12. In 1990, I turned 15, so hadn't watched in a few years and never watched any until I was living with my ex's niece (22) in 2002-2003 who was a huge fan of WWE. It was only then I learned of wrestlers like Stone Cold, The Rock, and The Undertaker. It was still, and is today very hokey and corny, but it has a fan base... So.... I'm just glad the 1990s gimmicks ended for the die-hard fans lol

No mention of Friar Ferguson? You know a gimmick is bad when Bastion Booger is an improvement.

Fantasio always looked like Cody Rhodes jumped in a Time Machine in 2015 and went back to the 90s.

U would think at some point there would have been an old mafia gangster type gimmick. Like a Ray liota/ Henry Hill type, or Al Capone. A mafia heel. I think the right wrestler could have pulled that off

Don't forget "The Repo Man", Glacier & Dumpster Guy (Sorry can't remember his actual name, but the guy who was the garbage man who carried a garbage can to the ring.

I remember the royal rumble when Mantaur came out. I kept laughing until I couldn't laugh no more. Kept running around the house "I'm Maaaaantaur" XD Glacier was awesome though.

I wonder how Mantaur would do against Luchasaurus now.

I remember when WWF had the Viking back in the early 1990s and all he ever did during his matches making noises by going "HUFF! HUFF! HUFF!". Or another wrestler who went by the gimmick called Nailz, who was the supposed to have been an ex-convict that the Big Boss Man abused while incarcerated, with a voice synthesizer that altered his voice.

I can just see Vince: "Ok, hear me out: Giant egg, turkey mascot, name? Gobbledygooker." WWF staff: "That's gold, Vince! (Whatever, just keep signing my paychecks)"

It was such a cool time.back then.. If you somehow managed to find a new wcw/wwf/ecw tape, the gods shined upon you. If you missed a show then, you prayed you'd see the rerun. It was magical

Arachnaman must have been inspired by Randy Savage in the first Raimi Spider-man movie. I betcha Randy passed the idea along to WCW creatives. And you didn't talk about the KISS Demon. You have to make a Part 2 to this.

How is a mime magician anything like the Undertaker's character?! Great job, ruined another individual's push for no reason at all.

Glacier is clearly a Mortal Kombat rip off he looks like a white phat overweight sub zero I liked Mortis though he was phat

You deserve so much more subscribers my friend. Thank you for your great videos

I still like watching Madusa dropping the belt in the trash

“Battering him, with his sack….” Poor choice of words

And I honestly KINDA liked the whole Max Moon gimmick FOR ITS TIME. It had a few kinks to work out but I see a bit of potential there. Dunno why!

Some of these gimmicks look like something you’d see in a Mortal Kombat video game.

Vince definitely had bets going on inside the company to see if he could actually get guys to agree to do the most batshit crazy gimmicks ever.

Phantasio only lasted one match and the Gobbely Gooker never wrestled so I'd replace them with TL Hopper and the Red Rooster.

Only just found this channel. Love it. Cant wait to see what u release in the future😍

Shockmaster debuts trips and falls and at the Rhodes home young Cody tells his friends " I think that was Uncle Fred"... according to the story Dusty Rhodes told in WWE's legends of Wrestling Round Table.

If we're accepting Danhausen, we can accept THESE.

Doink and undertaker were the last straw for me.. 80s wwf had the best balance of sport and entertainment

You can probably revive a max moon gimmick if you do a more sleek bodysuit. Make it look more like Raiden from Metal Gear Rising Revengence.

Skinner , Friar Fergus/Bastion Booger, Who , Duke The Dumpster Droese , Damian Demento .

Glacier went hard for a minute until he started losing ,,

We used to have glacier come out to Valdosta Georgia and work with us. His name is Ray Lloyd really nice guy

I never knew Konnan was Max Moon!

Some of these gimmicks would work later down the line Britt Baker is an evil dentist Bear Country similar to man-tar Danhausen it’s similar to fantasio but with charisma

7:15 WhatCulture snickers with delight.

Phantasio worked in USWA before joining WWF.

I can't really hate on glacier . Yeah they ripped off mortal kombat but the dudes intro was pretty cool and I actually met the guy and he's super cool nice guy

I was wondering where that rip off spider man costume came from in the create a wrestler mode for the smack down games 🤣

were the ding dongs early 1990s? Christ that's painful.

About it if balls Mahoney would have just sprung a chair and smack them being Santa Claus lol

Great job

I didn't know Balls Mahoney was Xanta

Don't forget Disco Inferno.

The gimmicks were dumb but more people watched and cared about wrestling at this time than they do now. So yeah more people watched this stuff than today's garbage which is supposedly better wrestling. It seems silly to mock this stuff as a joke when the entire wrestling industry is now a joke.

Wow, when the Red Rooster starts looking like a good gimmick by comparison, you know that it's total crap. When you try to sell sizzle instead of steak, this is what you get.

Remember Billy and Chuck? lmao

That's hilarious around 3.20 onwards you can see Hogan blowing his tache hair away despite the fact he's supposed to knocked out.

I thought Phantasio was fired because he almost burned down Gorilla position with liquid fire.

I always thought the magician guy was in the 2000s boy was I off lol.

Great vid

Water Slow. He's gonna make it!

Some of the gimmicks seen in this video - Battle Kat, for instance - would have worked for luchadores, since wearing animal masks is not uncommon in lucha libre. Even the more absurd gimmicks would have worked as henchmen characters for more serious wrestlers, posing as harmless entertainers so they could ambush the faces on the heels' behalf. WWE actually did this with Adam Rose, a "party animal" stereotype who would lead a parade of costumed characters to the ring; on at least one occasion two of the masked partygoers proved to actually be two other heel wrestlers in disguise (one of them, believe it or not, the future Claudio Castagnoli of current AEW fame). That said, I believe that the best gimmicks should be funny and imaginative, but also grounded in reality. So I believe even the more bizarre gimmicks can work if a semi-sensible kayfabe explanation is given for their existence. (You might remember "The Boogeyman," who was supposedly an actor playing a hideous and scary monster who went insane and began to believe he really was a monster.) But Mantaur? Oz? Arachnaman? Those gimmicks never had a prayer.

10:42 Yes, on first look, it doesnt even look not that bad for 1990s standards.

Waaaat the fvck, Kane was once a frickin dentist?!

So we just going to forget about toxic turtles

I think Kevin Sullivan is the embodiment of a booker who doesn’t know when it’s time to hang up the tiny tights.

Shockmaster will be number 1 forever🤣

Basically Mantaur was Black Taurus before Black Taurus....

How can you validate the legitimacy of Marvel going after Arachnoman, but dismiss as lies Hulk Hogan's image being just as obviously ripped off in other cases? I know Hogan's not a fictional character in the same way as Spiderman but he pretty much just as well is when it comes to his wrestling persona.

R.i.P. Mantaur

Many successful gimmick ideas were also pretty dumb, but other factors made them work.

Anyone who debuts out of a box or an egg, is over Brother

Glacier had potential to be a great concept. Easily, the problem was lousy writing.

2 words...Bastion Booger

Wrestling back then was supposed to be a cartoon with all these guys getting beat by the super hero Hulk Hogan but the only gimmick to succeed is The Undertaker.

2:47 HAWK HOGAN

Another huge mistake was having all these guy jobbing for Goldberg in there debut or shortly after, it killed there credibility it was just to soon to destroy there character, they get beat down in 30 seconds from the world champ so obviously they can’t be a world champion, so what’s left for them? I guess move them down the card since push is completely killed.

To me it's about wrestlers I remember or I don't

Never diss Battle Cat or FurFace.

I loved the gimmick but he did the job 4 every1 so bad in that, the brooklyn brawler. Did he ever win though?

I liked Vinnie Vegas back in the day!

The only two characters that were pure gimmicks that ever got over were Big Bossman and the Undertaker.

Who made the decision to call a mummy a yeti/yetay?

Mantaur was the best thingy!

Don't forget Captain Mike Rotunda which while not terrible, was just sort of lame and odd. And I guess Damien Demento? I don't even know what he was supposed to be but it was stupid and weird.

You forgot the Ding Dongs remember those as a tag team I pmls when I first saw them If Isaac Yankam worked we would never have got Kain