11 World Champions Who Survived Bad Gimmicks In Their Early Careers

5) Kevin Nash

Kevin Nash will remain in the WWE history books until the end of time. He was a part of the legendary NWO faction and a multiple-time World Champion.

Before he found his footing as ‘Diesel’ and under his real name, he had some BAD gimmicks in WCW.

His first gimmick was the orange-mohawked wrestler known as Steel, one half of the ‘Master Blasters’ tag team. After the team broke up he was known as simply: The Master Blaster as a singles wrestler for a brief time.

He would be repackaged as OZ, a character based on the Wizard of Oz. After that didn’t work, he was repackaged as Vinnie Vegas, a mobster type character.

Even though he had several awful gimmicks, he eventually caught the eye of Shawn Michaels who wanted him in WWE as his bodyguard. The rest is history.

Nash has gone to become one of the most successful wrestlers in history and a multiple-time World Champion. Thankfully, none of the bad gimmicks given to him ended up hurting him too badly.


4) Booker T

Booker T has had an incredibly successful career in both WCW and WWE. He is a multiple-time World Champion for both companies.

In his early days, he took on an interesting gimmick. He was known as G.I. Bro, which was a play on the Gulf War and the Sgt. Slaughter character in WWF.

Booker would later team with his brother Stevie Ray as ‘The Ebony Experience’. In WCW, they were renamed ‘Harlem Heat’ and would go on to have a successful run as a tag team.

Booker would eventually revert back to his G.I Bro gimmick for a brief time in WCW.

Booker would eventually end up in WWE where he had a successful run with the company, even becoming World Champion.

Safe to say the G.I Bro character never caught on.

Use the buttons below for more WWE stars who survived bad gimmicks in their early careers. 

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