Young Rock: Why WWE Gives So Many New Wrestlers Awful Gimmicks

screenrant.com:

A recent episode of Young Rock showcased the awful, ridiculous characters WWE often asks its wrestlers to portray on TV. The context for this showcase came in presenting a comedic take on The Rock's in-ring debut for WWE, a non-televised match against infamous jobber The Brooklyn Brawler. As with many circumstances on Young Rock, the timeline seems to have been manipulated a bit, but the gist is still mostly representative of reality. He may be a superstar now, but The Rock was by no means an overnight success in the WWE ranks.

While The Rock — initially known as Rocky Maivia, a combination of his father and grandfather's ring names — was given some garishly colored attire and a lame haircut, he's at least lucky he didn't get handed one of the outlandish gimmicks WWE was handing out in the mid-1990s. Mantaur, a hilarious half-bull character seen on Young Rock, was only the tip of the iceberg. There was a wrestling plumber, a wrestling race car driver, a wrestling clown, a wrestling viking, a wrestling dentist, and more.

Related: WWE: Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan — Who's The Biggest Star In Wrestling History?

Of course, these ridiculous gimmicks weren't solely a product of the 1990s, and have been around in some form for basically the entire existence of boss Vince McMahon's WWE. The 1980s had a wrestling rooster, the 2000s had a wrestling leprechaun, and even now there's a wrestling superhero. Outside of McMahon's personal amusement, a big reason these over-the-top characters get handed out to debuting wrestlers so much is that WWE isn't classified as a sport but rather sports entertainment, and kayfabe is dead. WWE relies more on showmanship than any other wrestling company, and to try and get new faces over with the