Total Nonstop Action Wrestling has been around since the early 2000s and is now branded as Impact Wrestling. It has adapted and grown more and more, but like most promotions in professional wrestling, they have had a few creative snags along the way.
A long list of talents have made their way through the doors of the company, but not all of them started out in the best light. Some stars have had a few of the worst gimmicks in the history of the sport. If that gimmick is the one that the star debuts with, it might be hard for them to come back from it.
9 The Nasty Boys
Classic professional wrestling tag team The Nasty Boys truly lived their gimmick and were nasty in every single promotion they worked for. Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags are real-life friends with Hulk Hogan, so when he took over in TNA, he brought them along. They made their first appearance by destroying the locker room of Team 3D.
Given their bad reputation, not many stars wanted to work with Knobbs and Sags, but Team 3D was the perfect fit for them, considering that Bubba and Devon were also in-ring veterans. Their debut was lackluster and did not do anything for either team. The Nasty Boys were released from their contracts shortly after due to an argument with the company's network partners.
8 Aron Rex
Current NWA star, Aron Stevens, has had a pretty decent professional wrestling career. He has put on exciting matches and even won WWE's Money in the Bank contract when he wrestled there under the name Damian Sandow. During his time in TNA however, he had a lackluster gimmick as Aron Rex.
TNA hyped the signing of Rex and got fans really excited about his debut; the problem was that his character was boring. He lacked anything original and just came off arrogant and a shell of his former character portrayals. He then adapted the character to be like famous pianist and actor Liberace, but that never really took off. Stevens has gone on record saying that he was so disgusted by his TNA run that he considered leaving wrestling for good.
7 Rellik
Formerly known as Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli in both WWE and WCW, the former World Tag Team Champion emerged in TNA under the name Rellik. His name was a spin on the novel The Shining, but instead of RedRum (murder spelled backwards) it was killer spelled backwards.
Rellik primarily teamed with Black Reign during the time that he was in TNA. He shared similar feuds with Raven and Abyss then seemingly disappeared from the company after a loss to Team 3D. He wrestled for a few other promotions under the same name after leaving TNA in 2008.
Okato
Kazuchika Okada is highly considered one of the best wrestlers in the world today. With that being said, his time in TNA is also considered one of the biggest flops in professional wrestling. Okada signed with TNA in 2010 and worked multiple matches on their secondary show. He appeared on their main show as a sidekick to Samoa Joe.
TNA gave him the name of Okato, which was a spin on the sidekick from the Green Hornet show/movie, who was named Kato. This upset Okada, his fans, and New Japan Pro Wrestling, because he was such a big star there. NJPW took him back with open arms once his stint with TNA was over, and his "Rainmaker" gimmick was born.
6 Orlando Jordan
In 2010, Orlando Jordan made his first TNA appearance on the three-hour special highlighting the new Hogan/Bischoff era of TNA. Jordan was a rising star in WWE, so many were excited to see him in on the TNA roster. After disappearing for two months, Jordan would reemerge in a gimmick revolving around his real-life bisexuality.
Jordan would work for the company for a little over a year and was involved in some important storylines for the company at the time. He worked with talents like Homicide, Eric Young, and Rob Terry. This gimmick however was very awkward and made Jordan look like he was a sexual predator.
5 Samuel Shaw
NXT 2.0's Dexter Lumis is an up and coming star on the show and has a bright future ahead of him
in WWE. Though, he has become a success in recent years, he once was a struggling star in TNA. He made his debut as Samuel Shaw during 2012's TNA Gut Check, but he'd debut as a regular character in 2013. However, his very first TNA appearance was back in 2010 at the Hardcore Justice pay-per-view under the name Lupus.
Shaw's character was one very similar to Norman Bates from the classic horror movie Psycho. He came dressed as a serial killer and would act the part. Overall, it was an awkward character that did not develop; leaving Shaw in a bad spot on the roster.
4 Rosita
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Zelina Vega is one of the best women on the current WWE women's roster and has accomplished many things while in the company. Her career has not always been rock solid though because her gimmick in TNA was not the greatest. She made her TNA debut in 2011 under the name of Rosita.
Rosita made her debut as part of a tag team with fellow TNA star Sarita, showcasing a Hispanic gangster-style gimmick. The two formed the group Mexican America with Hernandez and Anarquia and they worked as heels in the company. Once the group split up, Rosita was left with nothing for a while, so she parted ways with TNA in 2013 when her contract expired.
3 Brutus Magnus
Nick Aldis has turned out to be one of the best wrestlers of the modern day that has never worked for WWE. He has won world titles in multiple promotions and at one point was a former bodybuilder. However, the first major wrestling debut he made was a bit of a flop.
Aldis wrestled under the name Magnus for most of his TNA career, but the character started out with the name Brutus Magnus and had a gladiator gimmick. This is because he was a former gladiator like character in a British competition show so TNA thought it would work. He dropped the gimmick soon after he debuted, but who knows how far "the Modern-Day Gladiator" would have gotten if it had stuck.
2 The Johnsons
There have been many horrible tag team gimmicks throughout the history of professional wrestling but The Johnsons were one of the worst. Richard and Rod Johnson were a pair of brothers who were managed by Mortimer Plumtree. What made them unique was they came out in skin suits that made the Johnsons look like....Johnsons.
That's right, the point of the gimmick was to have them look like giant penises. The pair would be the NWA World Tag Team Champions for a while but eventually were stripped of the championships due to multiple reasons. They would leave the company and join WWE soon after, wrestling under a different gimmick, of course.
1 The Flying Elvises
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Speaking of embarrassing tag teams, The Flying Elvises were a group of wrestlers who would come out acting like Elvis impersonators. The stable was primarily made up of Jimmy Yang and Jorge Estrada, but they were often joined by Sonny Siaki.
The group actually won the first-ever match of the TNA-NWA era. After a few months, the group would end up having to compete against each other. This would ultimately to Siaki leaving the group and the rest of the team would separate from each other not long after that.
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