Returning to old gimmicks

Chain Smoker

Was just thinking about how weird it was for Billy Gunn to revert to the Mr Ass gimmick in 2003, only 4 years had passed but it felt like a throwback from the distant past. At the same time, what else was there to do with him?

When has it failed miserably? Has it ever actually benefitted the performer beyond scarcely maintaining their relevance for another few months?

Can you think of any especially weird ones?

CastorTroy

Dunno if it counts but Undertaker went back to the Deadman from his American badass.

A Rogue Hobo

I guess you could count Hogan in 1995 when he sorta became a tweener for a few months, dressing in all black etc because fans were audibly booing him anytime he'd appear. Before randomly appearing back in red and yellow with no explanation given for the last few months before the nWo angle happened.

Loughc

Steve Austins awful heel turn. And for no reason he went back to his old face way the night after survivor series.

Pentecost

Mick Foley went back to being Cactus Jack for a while as I recall?

DM_7

I guess we are really talking about people going back because their original change did not work?

Dolph Ziggler would be one, he tried to change his look, ended up looking like Evan Bourne's big brother and had to quickly go back to bleach blonde show off.

Turtyturd

Lana when they teamed her with Ziggler for a few weeks with the ultimate intention of making her an American who was pretending to be Russian. Not sure if it was the engagement to Rusev or poor reception that killed but it was dropped pretty quickly and quietly.

Not quite what the op is asking but Cena went back to rapping for a couple of weeks during his first feud with The Rock.

beakerjoe

Goldust. Going from Goldie to TAFKA Goldust to Dustin Runnells bible basher to Goldust.

Rock Lesnar

D-von Dudley to Reverend D-von and back to D-von Dudley

CastorTroy

Was going to say Kane, but at this point he's like Foley. He could be Corporate Kane, unmasked Kane or the demon Kane.

A Rogue Hobo

Actually Rikishi too, after the big/random reveal he ran Austin over designed to make him a mega heel, he absolutely flopped and was back dancing soon after Austin turned.

Mr. Guappa

Remember that time The Big Show went from monster heel to charming babyface, then back again...........

Insect Overlord

The most tragic one of all must have been the return of the Blue Blazer.

Chain Smoker

CastorTroy wrote: »

Dunno if it counts but Undertaker went back to the Deadman from his American badass.

That's an interesting one, he went back to the gimmick but he kept huge chunks of his newer character.

I would say that's a case where WWE's plan was "lets go back to what it was before" but Calloway himself had the sense to change it up some. Or at the very least he realised he couldn't got fully back to where he was before the american badass so half hearted some of it.


Foley returning to Cactus Jack is a whole different thing, that was more a quirk to the Foley character than returning to Cactus Jack as a gimmick.

As weird as Reverend D-Von was, Bubba Ray remaining Bubba Ray was heaps weirder to me.

Dolph's look may not have been a gimmick change, we never got a chance to see whether it was going anywhere beyond Vince insisting he cut his hair.


Rikishi is probably not far off from Mr Ass, such a tone deaf move to try making him the fun fat dance guy after that ****e turn.