Phantasio is actually a really cool idea for a wrestling gimmick. A magician who uses tricks to win matches.

The Fake Undertaker in my childhood was great point of discussion. We went hours and hours of arguments and discussion in our school over who is real and who is fake, which one is living and which one is deadman. One of coolest storyline.

A note about the Saba Simba gimmick. While some people saw the gimmick as being racist or beneath Tony Atlas, when the then WWF contacted Atlas and offered him the gimmick, he was broke, unemployed, and homeless, sleeping on park benches at night (when he could get away with it). So as bad as that gimmick might be, it literally saved Tony Atlas's life.

I liked Duke The Dumpster when I was younger. I thought he was fun

According to Vince doing commentary during one of his matches, Mantaur was actually half-man half-Minotaur....

For me when it comes to terrible gimmicks, WCW had the quantity while WWF/WWE had the quality

I loved Tugboat, Red Rooster and Akeem back in the day.

WWE absolutely WASTED DDP, and you will never convince me otherwise.

One important detail to note about the Knuckleball gimmick is that Major League Baseball was on a notorious players' strike at the time, and the gimmick was WWE's attempt to cash in on those headlines. So it's not as random as it seems at first glance, but in context it's clear that the gimmick was pandering and pathetic, which arguably makes it even worse.

1. ECW Zombie was not supposed to be a serious character. 2. Holy crap, I didn't know about the Nazi and Klan gimmicks. How the hell aren't they 1 and 2?

It's funny that the Bastion Booger's finishing move was to teabag his opponent.

The Renegade was literally created because WCW had teased the actual Ultimate Warrior coming on board, but negotiations had fallen through, so they'd gone with the 'we have Ultimate Warrior at home'/Wish version.

The fact they were able to bridge the Festus character And give a smart in universe explanation makes it one of the best. Also made for a great story.

Piggy James was an angle not a gimmick lol

Black Reign and Vinnie Vegas were pretty good, I remember them being well received. And maybe a guilty pleasure, but I personally enjoyed Taker v Taker at Summerslam 94 🤷‍♂️

Batista as “Leviathan” was pretty successful in OVW, actually. His gimmick does not belong on this list.

Have to make a correction for you. Friar Ferguson and Bastion Booger were portrayed by Mike SHAW not Mike Bell.

Bastion Booger was a demonstrably bad gimmick, but 14 year old me loved it, because 14 year old me in the 90s was an immature little asshole.

Punk and Festus was gold.

Kwang, Farooq, Giant Gonzalez shouldn’t be on this list… they were alright

So Nailz, the SA'd ex-convict gimmick who never took his prison outfit off, and the Berserker, a Viking who only ever learned to speak one syllable from birth, were somehow not bad enough to be on this list??

"The Ding Dongs gimmick is hard to explain"...? That line was the highlight of this video for me

Wrestling needs bad gimmicks, adds charm. Better to have bad characters than no characters

One thing the games did good was that Festus was the only character with a scripted match attack. Every single match, he'd perform his taunt and run at you.

The One Man Gang becoming Akeem the African Dream and talking the way he did was Vince McMahon taking another shot at Dusty Rhodes known as the American Dream.

it's amazing how some of the best wrestlers would end up starting their careers with the most god awful of gimmicks. and that's not even mentioning those who started great, only to get worse.

6:05 Correction: Leviathan was OVW, not FCW. And differing opinion, it wasn’t that bad. I was at an OVW show with Leviathan/Batista on the card, and it was easy to see that this guy was going to be a star. The gimmick was a little hokey, but he still wrestled like a badass.

So many of these are not gimmicks, they're just very short storylines (Piggy James, Big Show as a baby, Shelton Benjamin's Momma, etc...)

I'm just glad Rosey's S.H.I.T (Super Hero In Training) gimmick wasn't included. I actually enjoyed it P.S now you should do the Top 100 Best Gimmicks of All Time

The Yeti....oh wait do you mean THE YETAYYYY!!?

The Shark did suck, but everyone liked Shark-boy.

Men At Work were great

The only good thing that came out of Brodus Clay’s Funkasaurus run was that the WWE universe was introduced to Naomi, one of the greatest female performers ever.

SCRYPTS aka Reggie was the first person who came to mind. Also Wendy Choo as well

"We're out of ideas." "Lets try something racist."

Glad to see Papa Shango NOT on the list...but notably bad ones you missed included Loch Ness, Mr Hole in One Barry Darsow and EUGENE

I though the goon was actually a fun gimick, the idea is not that bad, a hockey player that is so violent he has been banned from every leauge, as well has having a hockey stick as a weapon. There are much worst on this list!

Awesome list! But kind of weird how Festus is #3, while Eugene is not listed at all.

Fandango and loch ness should feature

This one of the best videos ever on the channel. There were several gimmicks here I never heard of prior to watching this.

Giant Gonzales was ahead of its time doing a beast titan gimmick

Imagine if there was a top 1000 worst gimmicks of all time. 😳😳😳😳

I find this strangely reassuring....wcw actually did try to use Brad Armstrong apparently! Always thought it was such a waste of talent, now I think he must have pumped someone from creatives' wife! Spiderman gimmick 🤣

In the mid 90s in WWE, there was a gimmick called Xanta Clause, he might have been part of Ted Dibiase's Million Dollar Co-operation. The gimmick didnt exist long (thankfully), it was just some guy with a crew cut being a dark version of Santa Clause.

This is actually a pretty great list by the looks of the thumbnail. But don't you dare include The Repo Man!

Imagine how sore his legs were, curled in an egg for hours...

When I was a kid, gimmicks like Duke, the dumpster, avatar, Aldo Montoya, and max moon were my favorite wrestlers. Don't get me wrong they were never in the upper tier of my faves, Bret hart, owen hart, randy savage, and hbk, but I still liked those characters.

I loved the Tugboat gimmick

I don't think the Damien Demento character was all that bad to be honest. Had they given him some more time and something/someone to work with, things might have turned out differently. PG-13 don't even belong on this list. They were pretty funny and really knew how to work a crowd as heels. There have been gimmicks that were way worse and didn't even make the list, like "Mr Hole-in-One" Barry Darsow, Nailz, Glacier, Well Dunn, The Sultan and Aldo Montoya. Just to name a few.

Eugene not bein in the top 100 is wild

Poor Tugboat 😂 Thanks for dredging these up, I missed a few as a kid.

Bastion Booger was suppose to be on the bill at a Grand Prix wrestling event in Nova Scotia but he didn’t show up. Promoters said “he couldn’t fit on the bus”

the only reason why Giant Gonzales failed, was his outfit I fully believe if he had something like a brown version of the Big Show's he'd been over.

Happy Thanksgiving All 🦃👋

As if we didn't already know that Wrestlelamia was a big Wrestlecrap fan

The Shockmaster is hilarious. If you listen closely the guy doing the voice over is actually laughing himself before he starts his speech.

Great list, but kind of surprised not to see Eugene on there.

That "Gladiator Farooq" has action figures making thousands of dollars in walmart right now 😂

The "Gobbledy Gooker" was bizarre 😅 The Funkasaurus😂

The worst gimmick in the video is the background music

Probably pointed out but Batista was never in FCW he was in the legendary class of OVW that at gave us Cena, Lesnar, and Orton

Vince McMahon came out with most of these stories. And he had no problems with them either.

It's so ironic that Vince buried DDP like that, when he pretty much has DDP to thank for his all time classic Razor Ramon gimmick.

The siliest one I have ever heard was cheeseburger from Ring of honor wrestling company 🍔

How was Wendy Choo not on this list?

I absolutely LOVED the Black Scorpion angle when it originally aired.

Some of these are more angles than gimmicks.

The “Piggy James” gimmick shouldn’t really count. It was a verbal attack, not a real gimmick Mickey ever actually embraced. Just LeCool “mean-girling” her.

If Kamala is on this list I strongly disagree.

I'm not surprised that most of these were during the 90s and I'm surprised how much rip-off gimmicks WCW had from WWE

Smoky Mountain Wrestling started in 1991 and closed in 1995. The Storm Trooper did appear there a few times in 1992 and he did debut in 1988, but he didn't debut in SMW. From what I've found online, wrestled his last match under the gimmick in 2013.

That farooq look definitely inspired the version of juggernaut vinnie jones played in x-men 3.

Repo was brilliant

The KISS Demon was cool...on paper, and I think Dale Torburg did the best he could with it, but the role was originally intended for Brian Adams (as in the former Crush and not the Canadian singer). Adams played the character once but he decided against doing it long term and so a replacement needed to be found and fast. Torburg was barely out of training when he was called up to play a character that was going to have a lot of screen time thanks to the deal with KISS. I think had he been given some more time before being pushed into the spotlight, he could have made it work. KISS were a big deal at the time and there's always been a cross over between wrestling fans and the KISS army, so it could have been a winner. The plan was to eventually have a full KISS stable with wrestlers portraying the 4 iconic KISS characters, but due to changes in WCW management, this never happened. It would have been interesting to see how it might have played out and which wrestlers would have been The Starchild, Space Ace and Catman.

I had forgotten they did that to the one man gang. I really liked OMG and that change just pissed me off. You had this awesome gimmick and they made him some weird dancer.

6:07 OVW. And that Leviathan gimmick was awesome

The Renegade’s gimmick and what people thought at the time was basically Ultimate Warrior on WCW. I think considering the history of The Renegade and how the wrestler ended his life with how WCW treated him after they couldn’t milk the gimmick.

Piggy James was an angle, not a gimmick.

When i first saw the shockmaster fall and rush his helment back on i about died laughing. Dunno.. Usually i have a high laugh threshold but seeing that and hearing one of the other wrestlers off screen laughing and mumbling their disbelief was the cherry on top 😂

This was really well done. Remember when Hogan jumped ship and went to Turner they brought out the “Huckster” and “Nacho Man”?

100 bad gimmicks ? Whoa.

I liked tugboat

I thought that the "Toxic Turtles" would make this list... Apparently Vince thought that they could ride on the coattails of the Ninja Turtles popularity back in the late 80's... Search for them and chuckle...

Hey guys Im pretty sure it's Mike shaw not Mike bell ...love the channel!!

I can't believe Eugene didn't make this list

Piggy James, Molly Holly's Back Side and Shelton Benjamin's mother are not gimmicks. They're just really short storylines and angles

24:31 The funny thing about Kwang is that it is based on Savio Vega's original gimmick here in Puerto Rico called TNT. Instead of a mask he wore facepaint similar to that of Hawk from the Road Warriors. While in the WWF it flopped here in PR is one of the most over characters of all time.

Thank you for the video. Just a note: Mike Shaw, not Mike Bell.

I will not stand for any Repo Man slander.

Al Snow 😭😂

The sad thing is how many people wasted there childhoods believing those gimmicks were real.

Good video it hits everything

In under 20 seconds, KIZARNY!!! I haven't seen the full list yet, but flash funk has to be on here; 😂 (what a waste of 2 cold!)

Im glad you were specific about which Doink made this list. Matt Borne as Doink was pure gold.

great Scott, I remember some of those wrestlers... thank you

This is now my favourite KZfaq video. More please.

According to Bruce Pritchard - Brutus Beefcake, as the Run In Man was simply to get him some time back in the ring and get some confidence back after his accident where he basically had his face reconstructed. Wanted to make sure there would be no medical side affects to it.

Hey...I may have been a kid, but I liked the Vinnie Vegas gimmick.

What made the Oklahoma gimmick worse was having Steve Williams involved. He and JR had a great relationship, so it must've hurt Steve to do that for a job. He also had bills to pay.

The Real Double J could have been something. Garth Brooks was a big star at the time and I think that was what they were going with with that gimmick. Having the former roadie revealed as the real singer is something that has been done in movies and tv shows for years. It was also a good way to have Road Dogg show off his singing voice. It made sense at the time, it just didn't work as well as they had hoped. It did lead to him finding his true calling though as he was always feuding with Rockabilly (formerly and latterly Billy Gunn).