10 Worst TNA Gimmick Changes

Although much can and has been said about TNA Wrestling over the years, the promotion rarely messed with a wrestler’s gimmick when that gimmick worked and they even, on occasion, upgraded a rubbish one to a winner.

Sometimes, however, the opposite was true and a bunch of seriously talented performers were saddled with potential career-killing guises.

These are the 10 worst TNA gimmick changes.

10. Amazing Red To Sangriento

It’s no wonder that the Amazing Red drew comparisons to Rey Mysterio.

Red, like Rey, was diminutive by industry standards, but Red (like Rey) made sure his size (or lack of it) was not an issue by being so exciting and revolutionary between the ropes that punters simply didn’t care.

Though Red was obviously inspired by Mysterio, he was very much his own man and helped popularise the continued evolution of the lucha-influenced style the masked man had initially made mainstream.

When Eric Bischoff came to power in TNA, he, like many, saw Red as being the company’s version of the Biggest Little Man. Only, you know, literally.

Yes, Easy E’s grand idea was to repackage the Amazing Red with a new Mysterio-like gimmick, which amounted to no more than ‘let’s change his name and put him in a new costume and see what happens’.

Sangriento – who wrestled three televised matches for TNA, including two victories over Suicide on IMPACT – was given no discernible backstory or any distinguishing features. It was just Amazing Red in a ropey mask. It didn’t work and was quickly dropped, with Red leaving the company not long after.

9. Sonjay Dutt to The Guru

A lot of the X-Division wrestlers got makeovers in the mid-to-late 2000s as TNA tried to give them a little more ‘personality’ to go alongside their exciting in-ring performances.

Sonjay Dutt’s transformation was more pronounced than most, as the high-flying Original Playa from the Himalaya became The Guru. Dressing all in white and incessantly praying and apologising for everything, Dutt would also dish out advice and collect money from the audience.

This was during the time when Kevin Nash (during his Paparazzi Productions phase) would just wander around telling the lower-card guys what to be and it was Big Sexy who (kayfabe) bestowed the Guru moniker on poor Sonjay.

On the positive side, the gimmick change did lead to more television time for Dutt. On the negative side, that television time revolved around the Guru’s love triangle with SoCal Val and Jay Lethal.

After winning the Ladder of Love Match and, thus, Val’s hand in marriage, Dutt’s fortunes took a turn for the worse and he became little more than a glorified jobber prior to his exit from the company just a couple of months later.

8. Okada to Okato

As is tradition, New Japan sent one of their young lions, Kazuchika Okada overseas, to get some more seasoning as part of his ‘learning excursion’, so that he could come back and eventually become a star in his homeland.

Unfortunately for Okada, he ended up in the artistic hellscape that was TNA due to the working relationship between the two companies.

Initially wrestling as simply ‘Okada’, he predominantly appeared on Xplosion, typically in losing efforts. Almost a year into his TNA journey, Okada became Okato, sporting a look strikingly similar to Kato from the Green Hornet series in a complete, unashamed ripoff.

This, of course, happened after the failure of the Green Hornet movie at the box office.

He was only Okato for a couple of pointless months, but New Japan were so angry at how TNA had presented Okada on television that it was cited as one of the reasons they ended their working agreement soon after.

Fences were eventually mended and in 2024, Okada made his return to TNA and revealed he actually loves the promotion.

7. Jay Lethal To Black Machismo

Remember when Randy Savage showed up in TNA for a cup of coffee, refused to take his top off, almost got into a backstage fight with a visiting Hulk Hogan, won a match with a punch and then promptly disappeared from the wrestling business forever? It was hardly vintage Macho Man, was it?

Perhaps that is why TNA had Jay Lethal – who could do an uncanny Savage impression – become Black Machismo, an homage to Randy’s glory days.

With his ostentatious costumes and gravelly voice, Black Machismo was, essentially, a cosplay of classic Savage. And it was a cute bit, for a little while anyway.

Yes, it got Lethal noticed and made him stand out from the pack, but the act just went on for far too long.

People dug the character and everything, but it just dragged on and on with very little evolution. Once you’d seen Machismo say ‘Ooooh yeah’ and drop a big elbow, what else was there, really?

A cute gimmick, sure, but one with a limited shelf-life and low ceiling as far as how high on the card it could go.

6. Lance Hoyt & Jimmy Rave to The Rock 'n' Rave Infection

The story of Lance Hoyt’s TNA career was one of moving from random tag team to random tag team.

Kid Kash, Matt Bentley, Ron Killings – all of them found themselves joining forces with the big man, though none of the teams made much of an impact.

What came next, though, was a name change for Hoyt as he was repackaged as Lance Rock.

Jimmy Rave, for his part, had wrestled a handful of matches during TNA’s first few years – typically as either an enhancement talent or in some multi-man X division match – and was no doubt just happy to have a contract after toiling on the indies for an age.

Flanked by Christy Hemme, the Rock N’ Rave Infection didn’t exactly get off to a blistering start and they just sort of drifted aimlessly until Hemme quietly split from them. Rock and Rave were then released from the company a day apart. Sadly, nobody missed them or their faux instrument-playing ways.

Together for almost 18 months, the Rock N’ Rave Infection was thrown together and rather naff, yes, but it did at least give three talented performers more valuable television time.

5. Daffney To The Governor

A highlight towards the end of WCW, Daffney made an appearance on the second-ever weekly TNA pay-per-view as a contestant in the lamentable Miss TNA Lingerie Battle Royal. She then worked a sole match on Xplosion a year later, before re-emerging in 2008 to put over Knockouts Champion Awesome Kong.

Later that year, Daffney got her first proper break since WCW went under, though, unfortunately it was not as her own gothy self but as a fake version of controversial Alaskan governor (and one-time Vice President hopeful) Sarah Palin.

In a parody similar to what Tina Fey was doing much better on Saturday Night Live at the time, Daffney played The Governor, with the running joke being that she had fooled the Beautiful People into believing it was the real deal.

Thankfully, when it was all over, Daffney reverted to her own persona.

4. Shark Boy to 'Stone Cold' Shark Boy

When Jay Lethal became Black Machismo and it was fine for what it was, even if it did go on for way too long and the joke stopped being funny by the second time you’d heard it.

Black Machismo was positively Hall of Fame-worthy when put up against ‘Stone Cold’ Shark Boy, however. We know wrestling is supposed to be ‘fun’ and we did snicker at the spot-on Steve Austin impersonation the first time we heard it. We also tittered at him asking for people to give him a ‘shell yeah!’ and renaming the Stunner the Chummer.

And who doesn’t love a nice, cold can of clam juice?

But that’s about as deep as it got and the whole thing was noticeably low rent and made TNA come off once again as something a lot less than the supposed ‘second-biggest’ wrestling company in the United States.

3. Samoan Submission Machine to Nation Of Violence

Samoa Joe emerged on the national stage by doing what he did best, AKA wrecking fools with his high-intensity style, which helped him quickly climb up the card and, eventually, bag the TNA World Heavyweight Title.

The Samoan Submission Machine’s work spoke for itself and he got over primarily due to his consistently excellent in-ring performances and believable no-nonsense character.

TNA decided to add some nonsense to the mix, though, and a few months after dropping the TNA World Heavyweight Title to Sting and then being laid out and ‘injured’ by the Main Event Mafia, Joe came back sporting a leather vest, buzzcut, some dodgy brown pants and a face tattoo.

This ‘Nation of Violence’ version of Joe was supposed to position him as a psychotic, sadistic heel, but it was way too tryhard and paled in comparison to what the man had been doing before the repackage.

It was all for nought, anyway, because Joe ‘shockingly’ joined the Main Event Mafia anyway, after waging war against them for months.

2. Phenomenal One to New Nature Boy

AJ Styles was one of the best things in TNA from day one.

Despite an inauspicious debut, Styles would over the course of the next several years establish himself as one of the best workers not just in the Impact Zone, but the entire world.

Though his reputation for in-ring greatness preceded him, TNA felt in early 2010 as though to be the man he had to be the man. Yes, they turned their world champion into a mini-Ric Flair, because why wouldn’t they?

Styles soon began wearing sunglasses and suits and making his entrance for matches in robes, which were as ill-fitting as this whole direction change.

AJ was certainly Flair-like in respect to his talent from bell to bell, but he just wasn’t the sort to put on a three-piece and brag about last night’s romantic conquests, was he?

According to reports, Styles was uncomfortable with some of what was asked of him and flat-out refused to bleach his hair blonde, no doubt sensing that his time as the New Nature Boy probably wasn’t going to last long.

1. Dustin Rhodes to Black Reign

Dustin Rhodes had a couple of TNA stints in the 2000s, showing up whenever he was in between gigs with WWE.

His first TNA run was as the ‘Lone Star’ Dustin Rhodes, a perfectly fine midcard addition that saw Dusty’s son basically just wrestle as himself, as he had done towards the end of WCW.

His second TNA run was something different altogether. He was still Dustin Rhodes, but he was also haunted by the split personality we came to know as Black Reign.

One of the absolute dirt worst wrestling gimmicks ever, there was pretty much nothing redeemable about that wig-wearing, rat-loving freak. The segments and promos were cringe-inducing, while the garbage matches he was involved in – against the likes of Abyss and Rellik (which is ‘killer’ spelt backwards, don’t you know) – were positively rotten.

What makes the whole thing that much worse is that Rhodes was genuinely suffering from serious addiction issues at the time and clearly regrets this whole part of his career.