Timeless Toni Storm & 7 Others Who Truly Believed Their Gimmick

While just about every wrestler in the world has to believe in their gimmick, some of the very best wrestling gimmicks are the ones where wrestlers not only believe in their character, but truly embody that persona in and out of the ring.

10 Wrestling Gimmicks That Were Created For Other Wrestlers

While some gimmicks were created for particular wrestlers, plans changed and they ended up being portrayed by other wrestlers.

Those are the kinds of gimmicks that can be very memorable for the entertainment factor - to see just how far into the gimmick a character has bought into it. Sure, it’s all a work, but when the wrestler is always on, even off-screen, fans wonder: “Are they really this way in real life?”

8 Andy Kaufman's Women's Wrestling Championship Run

Stating "I'm From Hollywood" Is All It Took For Memphis To Hate The Comedian

Andy Wasn't The First Celebrity Wrestler, But Perhaps The Most Influential
Totally Into The Sport And The Art form, He Refused To Break Kayfabe
The Infamous Late Night With David Letterman Segment Made Headlines All Across The World

Despite being nearly forty years ago, Andy Kaufman's run in Memphis is still the standard-bearer for celebrities in wrestling trying to be heels - take note, Logan Paul. When Kaufman came to Memphis, the comedian was so incendiary to the Tennessee crowds that the moment Jerry Lawler got in his face, the fans bowed down to The King. Kaufman bought in fully and had the crowds ready to murder the Taxi star. Before the infamous David Letterman incident, Lawler delivered Kaufman the Piledriver, and he refused to leave the ring unless it was on a stretcher. He even had costars like Tony Danza really wanting to take Lawler on.

7 Timeless Toni Storm Is Ready For Her Closeup

Now Hailing From Hollywood, Toni's Gimmick Has Taken AEW By Storm

Toni Storm Is One Of The Most Capable Wrestlers Of Her Generation
Timeless Toni Storm Is The First Gimmick Of Its Kind For Ladies
Working As Timeless Toni Storm Brought Her Back To The AEW World Title

The newest member of this list, and part of its namesake, goes to AEW’s resident blond bombshell, Timeless Toni Storm. Several months ago, the former member of The Outcasts lost her AEW title to Jamie Hayter. The loss didn’t just devastate her - it cracked her. In fixing the broken pieces, a new “Star Is A Born.”

Timeless Toni Storm is wrestling’s answer to Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond from the Hollywood classic Sunset Boulevard. So far, the AEW faithful are eating up the starlet and her movies. Hopefully, she’s got Goldust, Dustin Rhodes helping out to show her how the gimmick can turn her into a cultural icon.

6 Nikita Koloff Changed His Entire Life

In Order To Protect His Gimmick, Scott Nelson Became The Russian Nightmare

Nicknamed "The Russian Nightmare," To Counteract Dusty's "American Dream"
Former NWA World TV Champion
Feud With Magnum T.A. Ended With Magnum's Accident. Nikita Became A Face Shortly After

Not only did The Russian Nightmare, Nikita Koloff believe in his gimmick so much, he believed in it so much that he was annoying the heck out of his fellow wrestlers. He was born Scott Nelson Simpson. He is one hundred percent American born from the upper Midwest, Minnesota. However, as he continued to delve deep into the Russian persona, he not only spoke “faux-Russian,” but he refused to break Kayfabe - even when traveling with guys like Arn Anderson who continuously called him out on being from Minnesota - the coldest / closest he’d ever been to Russia. He legally changed his name to Nikita Koloff in 1988 and his children even bear that surname.

5 The Attitude Era Of The Lord Of Darkness Undertaker

As Other Wrestlers Shed Their Characters, Mark Calaway Delved Deeper Into His

Seldom Breaking Kayfabe Is What Helped This Version Of The Undertaker Get Over
Famously Started Strapping Superstars To His Symbol During This Time
Shortly After The Ministry, The American Bad Ass Was Born

One of the reasons The Attitude Era was so successful was because it was a moment in time where just about every wrestler ditched their cruddy gimmicks from The New Generation and started to dial up their real personalities. But one man chose not to get real and instead make his original gimmick real. When The Undertaker began his evil Ministry Of Darkness, he went from pretending to be an undead wrestling zombie to an evil cult leader - The Lord Of Darkness. To help sell this new side of The Phenom, Vince McMahon came out on an edition of Raw and explained that Mark Calaway now really believes that he is an evil undead entity known as The Undertaker.

4 Afa And Sika's Wild Ride With Hulkamania

The Wild Samoans' Belief In Their Gimmick Was Above The Law

Afa And Sika Are The Forefathers Of The Samoan Bloodline In Wrestling
Held Over 20 Tag Team Titles Around The World
Managed By Captain Lou Albano Helped The Samoans' Gimmick Of Being Savages

Not even in the face of watching Hulk Hogan get carted off for having a pistol would Afa and Sika break character. In recent years, considering the source, it might be difficult to believe. But Hulk Hogan has told a story over the years that he was traveling with The Wild Samoans when police pulled him over for an unregistered handgun in New Jersey. That meant serious jail time if convicted. Rather than speak up and explain that Hulk had recently purchased it and just hadn’t registered the gun yet, Afa and Sika stood fully in the gimmick of being savages and all three men headed to jail for the evening.

3 The Big Red Machine's Long-Held Fears

Kane Was Horrifically Scarred, But Only He Saw It

Won The WWE Title At The King Of The Ring 1998
Made His Acting Debut in 2006's See No Evil, Playing Off His Psychotic Kane Character
Through Kane, WWE Was Able To Pull Off A Lot Of Horror-Themed Storylines

For several years, fans were led to believe, just as he had been led to believe for most of his entire life, that underneath the mask and the tights covering most of his entire body, that Kane was horribly scarred and disfigured. Then he lost a match to Triple H, where the stipulation was he had to unmask and reveal his hideousness for the world to see.

But the real horror was what was done to The Big Red Machine psychologically. He was essentially brainwashed to believe that he was physically scarred from the fire. However, he wasn’t scarred at all, past a different eye color. But years of psychological damage drove Kane completely bananas to the point that he tried to burn RVD, hook up Shane McMahon’s nether-regions to a car battery. He’d even Tombstone Linda McMahon.

2 Whatever Happened To The Excellence Of Execution

Bret Hart Got Sick Of The Product He Was Representing

The Hitman Bent His Real Life Views Into His Anti-American Character
Fans Almost Immediately Forgave Him And He Is Loved To This Day
Despite His Views On Today's Business, Most Fans And Wrestlers Herald The Hitman For His Career

For nearly half a decade, Bret The Hitman Hart hadn’t just been the face of the WWE, he had been a paragon of virtue for fans and a locker room leader. The WWE Universe believed in him as their hero and The Hitman was determined to live up to that level of idolatry. But by 1996, the fans were looking towards new heroes - and brash, cocky, anti-establishment heroes too. Bret believed in his ideals so much that the fans were turning on his character and he had done as Harvey Dent once said, “lived long enough to see himself become the villain.” He would not falter or stumble though, and still desired to be a wholesome good guy the fans could look up to, and at least outside the states the fans still did.

1 Brian Pillman Was Crazy Like A Fox

The Most Innovative Lightweigtht Of The Early '90s Had An Entire Industry Fooled

Brian Pillman's Loose Cannon Character Convinced Eric Bischoff To Give Him His Release
Working For ECW, He Would Earn His WWE Contract
Shortly Before Signing With WWE, He Got In The Horrific Wreck That Ruined His Career

Perhaps no one has quite believed in their gimmick more than The Loose Cannon Brian Pillman. According to folks that knew Brian, like Jim Ross, Pillman never broke character and never clued his friends into what he was doing. JR, on more than one occasion, was frightened of a guy he considered his little brother. He got his release from WCW and showed up in ECW while WWE was negotiating with him. He simultaneously had the entire wrestling world believe he was crazy, all while the top three promotions were vying for his talents.