What are some characters that didn’t really get over with majority of the audience that you still really enjoyed?
For me, Repo Man was one of them. Invasion of the BodySlammers was the second wrestling VHS tape I ever watched, and they had a feature on him in the video where he was stealing kid’s bikes and repossessing the cars of people who were 3 days late on their car payments.
I also really got into Bo Dallas when he debuted on the main roster. The victory lap he did around the ring at the end of every victory endeared him to me.
I think that could have been a great heel character. Not a main eventer, but a good spin on the “obnoxious heel” for the midcard. I thought Bo was great at it.
I always had a fantasy scenario in my head where it turns out Bo is the true leader of the Wyatt Family.
I remember reading that “Vince didn’t get it.” But I don’t know if that’s fact, oversimplification or just a thing that guys say when things don’t get over.
Bo Dallas was based on puns and wasn’t much of an outstanding presence on the main roster. Another example of anything that seems popular in NXT not translating when it goes to the masses. It’s like a meme that’s popular in small circles being seen by everyone else, they just look at it blankly and go “I don’t get it”.
I thought JTG going solo was gonna launch him to a good upper midcard babyface role.
When I was younger, I loved Max Moon and Battle Kat. One of my favourite gimmicks ever that should be more over was Doink the Clown. The original one was awesome. He looked like a psycho and his theme fitted the character to perfection.
They dropped the “Hugh Morrus” gimmick at one point and on Smackdown they were pushing Bill Demott as a serious badass, I thought it had potential, but it went absolutely nowhere fast. He probably should have stopped doing the moonsault then too, it really didn’t fit his character. His seriousness at the time was no laughing matter.
Greg ‘The Hammer’ Valentine
He’s over the top selling and that ridiculous Elbow he delivers with such aplomb. His promos were solid for 80’s level mid card too.
The Narcissist Lex Luger
Just look at that shiny body… it’s no wonder he loves himself. Can’t remember if he was using the torture rack at this stage, but I loved that move to.
Nailz
Mentioned this bloke far to many times on this forum, but he was genuinely frightening as a worker back when I was a kid. Shame he had that alleged bust up with Vince.
David Otunga
Still surprised to this day he didn’t have more of a run beyond that tag team title with Cena (remember that?) Great look, good speaker, decent in ring.
That’s funny, I was listening to the Something to Wrestle With Bruce Prichard podcast dedicated to Doink the Clown and Prichard couldn’t have enough praise about the heel version of Doink and it pretty much can be summed to what you explained as to why you loved him compared to the babyface version portrayed by Ray Apollo when Matt Borne got fired.
Simon Dean
Damien Sandow (scholar) (got kinda over for a minute)
Deuce & Domino
Paul Burchill
Kevin Thorn
Ezekiel Jackson
fun characters imo never really got out of the bottom tier mid card
there’s others but kinda hard to define to what level of over we talking about. for Example MVP had a decent mid card run but I saw Multiple World Championships in him especially on SD and the roster at the time never happened however. I guess crowd reaction and Vince didn’t see that.
