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Guys who didnt "fit in"


JRH

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Who are some guys who just didnt "fit in" to a promotion? Either they were there way too long while the company was changing its image, or they just didnt fit in there to begin with? LOD's 1998 run definitely comes to mind. It was a desperate attempt to fit into the attitude era, but the outfits looked more like they belonged in an 80s sci-fi film, and once the New Age Outlaws became the top babyface team, there was no real reason to keep them around. I wont even go into the drunk hawk storyline.

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Billy Robinson in Memphis.

 

The Rock 'n Roll Express in 1998 WWF.

 

The Freebirds in the AWA.

 

He was over and it worked, but Bobby Heenan always seemed out of place in Georgia. A guy who was a Northerner/Midwesterner all the way in a southern-fried wrasslin' promotion that wasn't really a managers' territory.

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Watching 1990 WCW, Stan Hansen seemed kind of out of place. Yeah, he did win the US title and had that awesome brawl with Vader, but he didnt seem to fit in (though i could see him fitting in well during the Watts era). It didnt help that they tried to make him slightly more cartoony by giving him the tobacco spitting gimmick.

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Hawk climbing on the titantron and threatening to commit suicide was most certainly a thing that happened in real life and aired on TV and not something I daydreamed, right?

Oh it happened. It was from Lexington, KY. We got tickets late, so our seats were behind the titanron. We could see "Hawk" doll fall as plain as day. It looked like one of those CPR dolls. Right then I knew the LODs careers were buried

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It was only one match (I believe it was vs. Chris Dolman) and of course he lost, but it just blows my mind to think that Bill Kazmaier once fought in RINGS. Kaz is one of the greatest strongmen and powerlifters of all time, quite legitimately The Strongest Man in the World in the early 80s... but holy cow was he ever a terrible pro wrestler! The thought of him in the same ring as Maeda, Kosaka, Tamura, Volk, Fedor... my brain can barely handle the cognitive dissonance.

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I have a soft spot for 1992 AAA, in part because of that brief period when they pushed Angel Azteca as someone important, but realistically that was a bad fit. Rayo Jr, MS-1, and Solar were like that too. I guess the flip side would be Love Machine as a CMLL wrestler for a few months after the split.

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I was watching a random 1994 ECW episode on the network, and they were actually pushing Mr. Hughes as a top heel. Definitely something they wouldnt be doing even a year later. Other ECW oddballs were Hawk (no animal though), Don Muraco, Dark Patriot, Ron Simmons, and Marty Jannetty. Didnt PN News have a heel run there? I know he got squashed by Spike Dudley on an early episode of the TNN show.

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I have a soft spot for 1992 AAA, in part because of that brief period when they pushed Angel Azteca as someone important, but realistically that was a bad fit. Rayo Jr, MS-1, and Solar were like that too. I guess the flip side would be Love Machine as a CMLL wrestler for a few months after the split.

 

Satanico as well. He looked out of place and didn't perform because of that. He's said in multiple times that those months were the most miserable months ever in his career.

 

Pena never believed in the 80s concept of the Atlantis/Lizmark/Angel Azteca/Solar style babyface. Lizmark had a pretty good run there, though.

 

Terri Power in All Japan women.

The Rock and Roll Express in WWF has been mentioned but even on 1996 Nitro they looked like they had been teleported from another era.

Ron Garvin had some fantastic matches in the WWF but it didn't feel right.

 

On the other hand, nobody ever seemed to feel out of place in FMW, WAR or WWC.

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Jim Duggan and Super Crazy as a tag-team in 2005 WWE. Or, Road Warrior Animal and Heidenreich as a tag-team in 2005 WWE. Or, Tatanka and Matt Hardy in 2005 WWE... damn, that was a weird period for the company.

 

Ha I loved those, especially LOD 2k5 I marked for their title win. I want more legends/returning veterans in today's WWE midcard.

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It was never not weird seeing Bret wrestle in a WCW ring. Which is sorta strange because Bret fit the bill of a typical WCW type wrestler more than a WWF one but he just screamed WWF.

 

Dean Malenko in his first few months in WWE was surreal to see.

 

Terry Gordy and Steve Williams in ECW

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The Rock and Roll Express in 1998 WWF was incredibly surreal, although I think the point of the NWA invasion angle was for them to deliberately look out of place.

 

Kevin Nash post WCW never seemed a comfortable fit in WWE on TV either - none of his runs really clicked. The 2003 face run against Triple H was pretty much a disaster on every level, but even when he comes back in 2002 with the nWo there doesn't seem to be much of a reaction. The weird feud with Punk that then transitions back to Triple H again is also very awkward and out of place to what else was being presented on screen at the time.

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