- 3 hours ago
Stagnation can be terminal in the world of pro wrestling; these superstars need a new lick of paint.
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00:00No matter whether you're a wrestler or just a normal human being, eventually you're going to
00:04need a new gimmick. For example, I often call myself the bald a-hole for obvious reasons,
00:09but eventually I'm going to go to one of those clinics, I'm going to grow my hair really long,
00:13and then people can call me the ponytail. Well, I'm not going to say it. But if we do focus on
00:18WWE right now, I think it's fair to say there are a few people that could go through the
00:23personality car wash. Hello, my name is Simon from WhatCulture, and this is 10 WWE superstars
00:30who are in desperate need of a new gimmick. Number 10, T-Bar and Mace. Somebody please explain this
00:35to me, because Retribution are done, and yet T-Bar and Mace still exist, and for some reason,
00:40WWE has one of them raw and has the other one on SmackDown. I mean, that doesn't make any sense.
00:45It's almost like WWE doesn't have any plans for them, which is a little bit misguided,
00:50because Mace, when he was Dio Madden, showed us that he had something, and obviously T-Bar is
00:55Dominic Dijakovic, and if you have seen Double D in NXT or the indie scene, you know at the very
01:01least he's capable of really good matches, so why don't we let him go do that? The shining light
01:05is that recently, Mace actually did team up with LA Knight on a segment that aired off the cameras
01:10on SmackDown, so let's keep our fingers crossed that something happens there, and as for T-Bar,
01:15well, I have no idea. I mean, he often just turns up on Main Event. I think we can do more than this.
01:21Number 9, Apollo Crews. For a while there, Apollo Crews' new Nigerian royalty gimmick was actually
01:27okay. It was quite clear that Apollo was going to throw himself into this. It got him back onto
01:32television, and he even became the Intercontinental Champion. I mean, this was far better than when
01:37he used to vanish all the time, but after a few months, I think Vince McMahon got bored of this,
01:41and then we were back to this vanishing act. I mean, people soon forgot that he even held this
01:46championship, aside from when he was allowed to fight Big E 7,982 times, and recently he has just
01:52been used as a background figure in other people's segments, so it's time to shelve this and come up
01:59with something new. I also really don't see how the powers that be don't notice what they have with
02:02Apollo Crews, because once again, you can put him against anybody, and even though he's like super
02:08mega jacked, he will fly around the ring like a dove. So even if we have to give him some kind
02:13of manager, because you don't want him to talk for the love of everything, we need new bodies,
02:19and there's one. Really good run there. Number 8, Aaliyah. A running theme on this list,
02:24where the hell did Aaliyah go? I mean, she was breaking fictional Guinness World Records at one
02:29point until she threw up on herself by accident, and ever since then, she hasn't been allowed back on
02:33Smackdown. It probably didn't help that her whole gimmick was just smiley, happy, la-la dancing lady,
02:38although she did have that thing with Ricochet for about one week, but once again, we just threw
02:42that by the side. So what we really need to do here is we need to bring her back to TV and give
02:47her a personality that has some edge, so that when she does go up against the likes of Charlotte Flair
02:52or Becky Lynch, we at home, the fan can sit there and go, well, maybe, just maybe she can win,
02:57even though she'll still definitely lose. So the problem right now is that nobody is really buying her,
03:02that's not Aaliyah's fault. You have to give her the tools in order to do her job.
03:06At the moment, let's face it, if she can even get a wrestling match, that'd be better than where we
03:12are now. Number 7, Xia Li. What is the deal with this? Because apparently, according to the story,
03:17Xia Li is a superhero, but she only turns up to help somebody when she can be bothered.
03:23And I'm sorry, but that is a really crappy superhero. In reality, all of this was tied into Aaliyah,
03:27who we have just spoken about. So when she was not being used, I think everybody also forgot about
03:33Xia Li, which is doubly upsetting here, because at least she had the really cool entrance. Could we
03:38not double down on that? The real problem is that she had only just debuted on SmackDown when this
03:43start-stop momentum started to happen. And you cannot do that when somebody first arrives,
03:48because we, the fans, well, we get a little bit bored. It's like, well, I'm not going to invest on
03:52you, because I don't know what you're going to do next week. I mean, if you do continue this now,
03:56you have to explain, one, why she actually wants to protect people. But what I would do is send her
04:01away for a little while, come up with a brand new idea, and let's try round two. Number 6,
04:06Mad Cat Moss. And finally, to one that makes sense, because the Mad Cat Moss persona actually served
04:12a purpose. We teamed him up with Happy Corbin. They had an obnoxious act for a while, before Mad Cat
04:18have an epiphany and was like, you're not a very nice guy. I don't want to be with you anymore.
04:23They broke up. I'm going to eschew Mad Cat Moss will eventually beat Happy Corbin. And then we're
04:28off to the races. I mean, that is how you do wrestling. And the next step should be Mad Cat
04:32changing all of this so he can establish himself as a unique and individual star. And also, if you do
04:38get rid of the suspenders, maybe, just maybe in the future, he could even be a big deal on a
04:43WrestleMania. And he's got the chops too, because over the last few months, he keeps winning people
04:47over as they go, well, he is a little bit silly, but he clearly does have talent. And it is so nice
04:52to see it done this way. Get the most out of a character, use it to get to the next level,
04:57and then move on to something else. So, of course, I now look forward to Mad Cat Moss being the exact
05:02same person in 12 months' time. Number 5, Happy Corbin. And speaking of Happy Corbin,
05:08he could probably use with a little bit of a shake-up too. A man who does not get the credit he deserves,
05:12because you can throw any kind of idea at him, and he just makes it work. I mean, like me personally,
05:17I would have liked to have seen sad Corbin just go on for ages and ages, because he was actually
05:22getting some sympathy with this. But I would imagine that is why we killed it, because Vince
05:26McMahon was probably like, no, I want you to be a bad guy. Either way, though, Baron just embraces
05:31all of this and absolutely smashes it. But when you do look at the SmackDown roster right now,
05:36something is missing is serious people that could challenge for the World Championship.
05:40So given that Baron Corbin is absolutely massive, something else we forget about, maybe we could go
05:46back to this attitudinal adjustment and give him a big old push. I mean, given how much people did
05:51get behind him when he was broken down on his luck, you could even go the other way. And I secretly
05:56keep my fingers crossed that we do go back to this. But ultimately, it doesn't matter. Baron Corbin
06:01could come to work one day and you say, oh, Baron, you're going to be a fish and he would find a way
06:06to be the best damn fish you've ever seen in professional wrestling. Number 4, Rick Boogs. This will be an
06:11interesting one, given that Rick Boogs just suffered a serious injury at WrestleMania. And as ever as we are
06:16talking about it, all that really matters is that he gets back to 100% health. Wrestling comes in second.
06:23When he does return, though, it may be worth switching things around a little bit when you start to think
06:27about his long term future. Because while I love his 1980 strongman gimmick, I actually think Rick Boogs has some
06:34kind of connection with the WW Universe, to the point, once again, if you did give him something
06:39more serious, well, I could see him going to the top of the card. Also, at the moment, while he is
06:44super fun, his gimmick is basically, I love Katar and I love Shinsuke Nakamura, and that can only go so
06:51far. So we can just bottom what he does have, but present it in a different way. I think this has a
06:55massive upside. I'm not saying that he has to come back and change things instantly. You can plant the
07:01seeds and do it very subtly. But I tell you, keep your eye on Rick Boogs. He is going to surprise
07:07many of us. Number three, the Viking Raiders. Man, this one is tough. Because one thing the WWE
07:11definitely needs when it comes to its tag team division is really good tag teams. They have one
07:16on its books, signed away. And what they decided to do was treat them like literal Vikings. The real
07:24error was the name and the fact that they get told they have to act like they fell out of a time
07:27machine as they eat meat right off the bone. And do you remember everything that happened in that
07:33Usos feud? If you don't, keep it that way. It does not make for happy brain time. And if you need proof
07:39of any of this, just go watch anything they did in NXT or New Japan and you will realize that they can
07:43really go. And instead, in WWE, they have to pretend they're from the ninth century. I mean, it really is
07:51madness because there is a gaping hole here that two giant dudes could absolutely fill. And as of me
07:57saying these words, they have barely been on television, I will shake my head till the end of
08:03time. Number two, Ezekiel. But not yet, because this is excellent. Because if wrestling is solely there to
08:08entertain everything that the former Elias and Kevin Owens is doing right now with Ezekiel, the apparent
08:14younger brother of Elias, is absolutely brilliant. It's absolutely entertaining. And I look forward to it
08:19every single week. Eventually, this will run its course because that's just the way with these kind of
08:23gimmicks. And it's why I really hope that WWE has a long term plan with this, maybe through
08:28SummerSlam. Because then Ezekiel slash Elias will have a brand new lease of life. And you can start
08:34to treat him a little bit more seriously. There's that word again. In a dream world too, what would
08:38happen here is that Owens would go absolutely nuts and get committed or suspended from the show or
08:42something. And then on the very next episode of Raw, Elias comes out with his guitar, but
08:47ding, ding, ding. And he shrugs like, oh, what happened? I don't even know. And I suppose there
08:53is a small chance of this happening. I would say I'll keep everything crossed. I'll do it with my
08:57toes. Number one, Nikki Ash. We did give this a really good go and bless Nikki Ash for going to
09:02Vince McMahon and getting this on TV. For a while, it did really work. And it sent such a good message
09:08to kids. And you can't get mad at that unless you are a sociopath. Certainly now, WWE has turned her
09:14heel. And that has just led her to the 24-7 title picture. And for some reason, no matter the
09:20scenario, she always has to wear her superhero getup. And that ain't helping anybody. Nikki Cross
09:27has also proven time and time again that she more than has a place on the main roster. So we just
09:31have to accept that this has run its course and come up with something new. But isn't it crazy that
09:36we had that awesome storyline with Nikki and Alexa Bliss, and now both of them are lost in the
09:41shuffle. I mean, the one saving grace here, if we're not going to change things around, is to do a
09:45Xia Li versus Nikki Ash storyline, where we have the good superhero versus the villain. But let's face
09:51it, there's more chance of me growing that hair than that happening. So let's just do what this list
09:57is telling us to do and start again. Know of any other WWE stars that desperately need new gimmicks?
10:03Make sure you let us know in the comments below. And don't forget to like the video, share the video,
10:06and subscribe. Then head over to whatculture.com where you can read yourself some articles. Make
10:10sure you come say hello to us on social media. And I tell you, we have a load of videos and they're
10:15calling out your name. Brian! My name is Simon from WhatCulture. Thank you for watching. As always,
10:20you take care of yourself. I'll see you soon.
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