5 Spooky Characters That Didnt Work

 It's spooky season and around this time the conversation always comes up, about "spooky" or "creepy" wrestlers in pro wrestling. It's a very polarizing topic some fans love it and embrace it, others believe there is no place in wrestling for them. For every Undertaker and Kane there is, we also get gimmicks like The Yeti.

Personally I like an spooky gimmick here and there. A promotion cant have an entire roster of those gimmicks, but one or two well developed spooky characters are great for the business in my opinion. The track record for those type of gimmicks isn't there though. Here's five spooky wrestling gimmicks, that for one reason or another just didn't work.

5. The Demon

Back in 1999 WCW was losing the Monday Night Wars, fan support and cash. Using Time Warner's money and connections, Eric Bischoff came up with the bright idea of basing a character around the rock band KISS. Dubbed The Demon and originally played by Brian Adams, who quickly abandoned the role leading Dale Torborg to replace him. Backstage turmoil with Eric Bischoff getting fired from WCW, Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera coming in then leaving, and subsuquent bookers not caring the character got lost and disappeared.

He returned in 2000 after WCW's Eric Bischoff/Vince Russo reboot, feuding with Vampiro for most of the summer before joining him and Dark Muta as the Dark Carnival. Personally I enjoyed the feud between the two, I thought The Demon had a good look and entrance. Ultimately fan's just did not buy the character. Dale Torborg was a ok wrestler but had no charisma, WCW was tanking hard by that point and Kiss were no longer considered cool. Hence the failure of this character. 

4. Rellik

Rellik (Killer spelled backwards) debuted for TNA in 2007. Played by wrestler Jon Hugger better known as Johnny The Bull/Johnny Stamboli from WCW and WWE respectively. Rellik had the look of someone who would scare the shit of out you, however in TNA- land the character wasnt fleshed out. He was paired with Father James Mitchell and Black Reign (Dustin Rhodes) but lost his first match upon his debut. Dustin Rhodes was in no shape to wrestle at that time, and TNA didn't put much effort into the three. The trio went nowhere fast , never getting an proper angle or wins that mattered before Hugger left in 2008. The visuals were there, Hugger was a decent mid-card wrestler, but TNA and fans just didnt buy into it.

3. Mordecai

In 2004 a new wrestler by the name Mordecai began appearing in a series of vignettes on WWE Smackdown. Dressed in all white with long white hair and a white beard, this new character's mission was to come to the WWE to rid the world of sin. He preached purity in the world and was clearly delusional and  purely evil. He made his in-ring debut at WWE's Judgment Day that year, which now that I'm older and think about how the business works was actually a brilliant idea having him debut on that show. He made quick work of his opponet Scotty 2 Hotty in his debut.

He made appearances on Smackdown further promoting his purity, condeming the audience and even leading them in prayer. Legend has it he was due for a huge push against The Undertaker, but he was involved in a bar fight and pulled from TV. He would return a few years later on WWE's version of ECW as a wrestling vampire Kevin Thorn. That gimmick also failed which I'm not sure says that he wasn't a good wrestler or he just had some bad gimmicks.

2. Dunegon of Doom

In 1995 WCW somehow thought it was still 1985 and created a new stable to end Hulk Hogan for good called The Dunegon Of Doom. Led by Kevin Sullivan as The Taskmaster, he answered to a higher power known as The Master played by King Curtis Iaueka. The group mainly consisted of a bunch wrestlers some young midcarders, but many holdovers from WWE (then WWF) with quite a few of them being Hulk Hogan's buddies all having bizzare or spooky gimmicks. 

They had a wide range of wrestlers under their umbrella and the groups biggest claim to fame is introducing The Giant to the world. Looking back at the promos it's very cheesy and laughable hench why the group failed. The cartoonish era of wrestling was dying, Hulk Hogan was nowhere near as popular as he was a few years or even a decade before. Many of the wrestlers in the group were either over the hill or just not good, and the nWo was right around the corner. This group was dead before it started which is why it didn't work. 

1. The Fiend

Let's admit it we loved The Fiend and the idea of the character, but it just didn't work. It primarily didn't work because the powers that be at WWE weren't fully behind it. Also they were so iffy on how the character was portrayed. It's clear it was meant to be a more vicious spilt personality of Bray Wyatt, but often times the character was played for a joke. 

His opponets weren't scared of him, even when he played mind games. His demonic mask which is quite bad ass by the way didn't strike fear in anyone. He lost matches too many times to be taken seriously that his supernatural powers gave him an advantage. Moments like being set on fire in the ring didnt help the mystique of the character. 

He was set to become the next big supernatural wrestler, that however didnt pan out. How much of it was the WWE, how much of it was Windham Rotunda, and how much of it was the pandemic ending live events for a while. Effectively destroying the opportunity to properly guage what was and wasn't working with the character, we will never know. What I do know is a character with so much potential ended abruptly and hopefully we'll get to see a better version of the character soon.