If you're looking for Arachnaman, Oz, The Yeti and The Shockmaster, check out my earlier video featuring the dumbest ever 90's wrestling gimmicks: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ntSEgdyKypfIoYU.html

The Renegade was really a sad tale, cause while he was not a "set the world on fire" type of wrestler, Richard Wilson (the wrestler behind the gimmick) was actually pretty OK in the ring. Unfortunately, the REAL Warrior took offense to the Renegade gimmick, and the threat of a lawsuit practically destroyed Wilson's push. Not only was the Renegade squashed in less than two minutes by Paul Orndorff, but being humiliated by Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart on national TV the following week (splashing him with water to remove his face paint, and calling him his real name) practically destroyed his credibility as a wrestler overnight. Wilson's financial woes, combined with the lack of offers from other wrestling promotions, directly led to him taking his own life.

The "Oklahoma" gimmick wasn't dumb, it was downright hateful and cruel. Also, not for nothing, but I love KISS, and even I knew the "KISS Demon" was an utterly DREADFUL idea.

"Jim Herd finally saw sense and rang The Ding Dongs out of WCW." That's the nicest thing I ever heard anybody say about Jim Herd.

As a kid I loved Renegade. I mean I was a Warrior fan, but Warrior has a nasty habit of just disappearing for no reason every now and again. I knew Renegade wasn't Warrior but he was like Warrior. I was hoping he'd stick around longer too.

Just pointing out the Big Bubba Rogers character was not copywright infringment. When Ray Traylor made his debut in Jim Crockett Promotions in 1985, which was before going to WWF and becoming Big Boss Man, it was as Big Bubba Rogers who was a bodyguard for Jim Cornette. JCP became WCW.

As an honorable mention, I'd like to include Brad Armstrong as Buzzkill, an obvious parody of Armstrong's brother Brian, better known as Road Dogg.

Shockmaster - you have to include him. Obviously the trip and everything was bad. Let’s assume the promo worked perfectly for a second. WCW wanted people to cheer for a guy in a bedazzled storm trooper helmet with a bad voiceover? Did they plan on having him wrestle with that on? Was he able to harness electricity and shock people at will?

The Disciple character was hands down his best gimmick..and got give credit for a guy in his 40s to pull off a complete transformation getting into such phenomenal shape..dude was shredded

Every time I see The Demon, I'm reminded of Vince Russo's comments on "The Darkside of the Ring", where he criticizes Jim Cornette for "being stuck in the 70's, bro".

Good Lord! It's almost a miracle that Jim Cornette didn't strangle Russo back in WWF...! Based on what Vinnie Ru did in WCW he is lucky to stay unharmed for so long. 😀

Mocking J.R. was a sickining event. Realy gave up on WCW at that time.

"Vampyro, vampyro, vampyro!" That'll never get old.

10:31 Didn't Gold Dust also go with the Artist Formerly Known As Gold Dust? You had him right after Prince Aiakaya I thought you were gunna mention it but went on to Seven. But I deffo remember Prince knock off thing with Gold Dust too.

Arachnaman was a playable character in Ultimate Spiderman on ps2 as an unlockable skin. I didn't know where he came from until seeing him in your video.

And this is why Eric Bischoff tried to save WCW BUT the "higher ups" weren't trying to hear him out. These were definitely some beyond horrible gimmicks.

"If Ed Leslie is any part of an ass, it's definitely the hole." Bless you, sir.

Superstar Dream Match: The Ding Dongs vs The Conquistadors

Awesome was one of the largest wastes of opportunities in WCW history along with Bret Hart and Dustin Rhodes

As much as I miss WCW, to me, the David Arquette thing was the, if not THE worst thing that WCW had EVER come up with. Heck, even "Ready to Rumble" was a massive flop.

This is why I LOATHE Vince Russo & Ed Ferrara. They MURDERED WCW!!!

I'm still convinced that the Seven gimmick was never really intended to be a real gimmick, the whole thing has an intentional fourth wall break vibe to me, like the whole Beaver Clevage gimmick in WWF, which also never rang true to me... I refuse to believe that anyone in either company thought that either of these gimmicks would actually get over. And, in the case of Beaver Clevage, we'd never seen an angle before where a wrestler just quits on his gimmick so it gets points for originality, Seven was just a retread of that.

Dustin Rhodes is one of just a few wrestlers that kept a gimmick successful, albeit in different encarnations, for 25 straight years!

You saying Ding Dong in that accent while seeing those goofballs run around has me on the floor

I thought that Oklahoma was funny!"candy candy candy" and "pinata pinata pinata"LMAO!

The Seven gimmick was crap, but his entrance as Seven was pretty good.

Why didn't anybody in management sue Vince Russo for tanking WCW? I dont get how you can be hired to write for the show and then proceed to tank said show. I mean at the very least somebody should have beat his ass? '

The dude who wrestled as The Renegade killed himself after getting the boot from WCW.

There was also that Sub-Zero knock off they had, the dude was a good wrestler tbf

:34 I'm sure it's already been pointed out that Big Bubba Rogers in WCW predated The Big Bossman in WWF. So when he returned to WCW he just assumed his old gimmick not imitating his WWF gimmick. Although for a short time he was The Guardian Angel or some dumb shit like that lol

I had a chance to meet Dale Torborg. Nice guy and a HUGE KISS fan. Also interviewed “The Living Legend” Larry Zbyszko and he said it was the stupidest gimmick in WCW.

Very good video. I feel to do the worst gimmicks ever in WCW properly, the list would have to be out of 200. Maybe 300.

Some guys can get a booty related gimmick over- Bad Ass/Daddy Ass Billy Gunn, Scott "Big Bad Booty Daddy" Steiner, etc. Brutus Beefcake was NOT one of those guys.

It's funny looking back at the ridiculous gimmicks I didn't like when they made fun of jr that wasn't funny

Fun fact that everyone ignores: Oklahoma started in the WWF because Vince McMahon was having a giggle at the time.

James Gandolfini would have played a great Earthquake if they had made a movie about him ..RIP to both

7:16 Repo Man was not in the New Generation…he was during the tail tail end of the 80’s golden era

Thanks for explaining the gold dust/seven characters

Got news for you. Gene Simmons was not the lead singer of kiss. It was Paul Stanley. Simmons was a bass guitarist. About Barry Darso, he had a number of good and famous gimmicks. Krusher Kruscheff was well known, Crush as part of demolition, as well as repo man.

Would of been better if he brought out the Renagade out came Lorenzo Lamas 😏

I've been a huge KISS fan for over forty years. Even I looked at the WCW gimmick and wondered what the hell they were doing.

Mike Awesome was incredibly misused. I remember watching him and was always impressed with his in ring work. He was a big guy that was acrobatic to a point. He was a really good wrestler.

Barry Darsow's most well-known gimmick was not Repo Man.

I just know the yeti is gona be on here🤣🤣

WCW definitely shot themselves in the foot and died an agonizing terrible death with their stupid gimmicks, especially from Russo. My God, I can push a bag of Doritos and create a gimmick

5:12. The Ding Dong tag team was not a creation of Jim Ross, but former WCW CEO of that time, Jim Herd. Here we go again, not doing proper research.

i loved how Dusten fully did the make up/outfit/venyetts/intro stood in the middle ov the ring cashed the check THEN said 'this shit is stupid... look at how stupid i am. fuck this shit im out"

I was 18 and target demographic for WCW, and they brought KISS in. And myself, and all of my friends were like 🤨.Nobody our age gave a damn about KISS. Then they tried to fix it by bringing in master P, but it was already too late.

Best known as "Repo man"? Maybe....but what about "Smash" of "Demolition"?

FYI, Ray Traylor aka Big Boss Man's first gimmick in the UWF was Big Bubba Rogers, so not, it wasn't a copyright infringement. Please do your research before making these videos. Lets see what other videos I can dissect

this channels gold

That was actually Russo's plan to make Prince Iaukea the most over WCW wrestler in Minneapolis.

All the worst gimmicks were either rip-offs of characters from other media or rip-offs of other wrestlers' gimmicks or their own gimmicks in other companies. Basically, don't rip off a gimmick and you already have a leg up on these guys.

Ps--- SEVEN actually COULDA been good.... if... ya know... he wasn't hanging around fcukin CHILDREN 😆 😂 🤣

my brother was a big fan of gold dust and i got to say him and his father pulled off 2 of the worst gimmicks ever the fact he hit it big with gold dust and his dad with the dot thing is amazing people really liked gold that tells u how good he was .

Kiss was still popular. On tv, they played an over thirty years old song.

Gene Simmons was not the lead singer of kiss. He was the bassist. The lead singer was Paul Stanley. The other members sang lead on some songs but that's it.

RIP to The Renegade!

Big bubba was years before big bossman

I was one of those fans back then anticipating the Ultimate Warrior. (What the hell? Is that an "R"?...)

Oklahoma was hilarious to me at the time. Now that I’m an adult, I find it horrible.

KISS is generic crap, I honestly don't know how to categorize them. Ego-rock. They stopped being relevant about the time they Unmasked in the 80s, people were like "Oh, they're just a bunch of ugly dudes. Put the makeup back on, you're scaring the children."

Who WAS the brain child behind The Yeti? I forget, but it feels like a Russo idea.

7:53 "The Clit Master" ? 🤔

The KISS segment was the lowest rated segment in Nitro history

To be fair live music seems to bomb on every wrestling event I've seen. Even Ozzy Osbourne failed to get a pop

That Oklahoma gimmick tho 😂😂😂😂

Gold dust was always one of my favorites.

Am I seriously the only one that was intrigued and excited by Seven and was really looking forward to it only for it to be canceled before it got off the ground?

Berlyn and The Wall should have been on this list

Jimmy Graffiti

Okay, if you're gonna make fun of rival announcers, make fun of them. If you're gonna make fun of rival characters, make fun of them. Do NOT make fun of any disabilities they have. That's just classless. You do that within your own company for YOUR heels to gain cheap heat. You don't do that for guys outside of your company. The reason being is that you have the chance to ask the person you're targeting if they are all right with it. If they are cool and they allow you to do it to get heat, then they gave their consent. But again, you can't do that with those outside your company. That'd be like if WCW made fun of Droz with a tattooed wheelchair bound punk character and didn't expect any repercussions.

Vince Russo almost killed the wrestling business 😢

How could WCW fail so miserably? Oh.........

The KISS shit was weird. Hell, KISS in general is weird to me.

Dizzy Hogan in Pacific Northwest Wrestling

If he didn't do the paralysis gimmick, Oklahoma would have worked

the kid in the seven video was cody.

Dang. They really ripped of Spiderman and one of his Villains Shocker in 1 character. Not sure if that's impressive or sad.

Seven actually wasn't too bad honestly. It was probably the most 1999 thing ever.

Im sorry but oaklahoma was so funny hahahahha

Mike Awesome

Kiss demon was about the time I stopped watching wcw

I liked the prince wrestler.

What about Oz? Lol

stupid thing wcw ever did was NWO

Russo probably was sent by vince to destroy wcw

What about the yeti

Excuse me. Nothing involving KISS, THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE WORLD, is a bad idea!!!!

I'll never get tired of watching Nash sell the finger poke of doom

Don't forget Beaver Cleavage! A rip off of Beaver Cleaver that thrasher of the tag team The Headbangers played for a time during the attitude era. What a shitshow. And even though it got over and it's legendary... Gillberg deserves a nod. Awful copy gimmick played by Duane Gill. It was so bad and pathetic that people HAD to put it over because of how ridiculous it was. WWF was in on the joke of that one. And you can kind of mutually accept and put over something as bad as a Gillberg. But when you have them putting a guy into an incest gimmick who's obsessed with his own mom's tits and goes by the name Beaver Cleaver... It's got a tad more seriousness to it in some weird way, even though WWF are, of course, in on the joke of that character... It was still not seen as funny or over because it was presented as a joke, yet, in a way, a serious joke. Just like Shockmaster in WCW. Yes, over time, he got over as a joke. But even though it was awful and we could see that it was a storm trooper mask with glitter and his body was more of a dad bod instead of a wrestlers body, it was awfuuuuuul! But, it didn't get over, even as a bad or funny joke, because WCW were SERIOUSLY trying to push that character, even though,not WAS a joke character. I hope that makes sense.

I don't care what anyone says.... WCW FOR LIFE!!!!

During the Stewart Pain gimmick, he changed his name to Mr. Hole in One after the real Payne Stewart was killed in a plane crash. Thankfully.

Wow 😯

The KISS Demon could have worked, but bischoff screwed it up before Day 1

The ding dong's remind me of the new day

Oklahoma was funny as hell.

Renegade was a male stripper. In case you're confused, he wasn't a female stripper.

Man, I used to love wrestling when it was the WWF in the 80's and 90's. Golddust actually turned me off to wrestling all together. Dusty just never had the physique of the other wrestlers and to be honest he looked like shit and was just creepy as hell as golddust.

Ed Ferrara pissed Jim Cornette off with the Oklahoma gimmick.