Professional wrestlers are expected to adopt larger-than-life personas so the crowd has someone to get behind, or someone to hate with a passion.
The flamboyant, and often ridiculously garbed, characters they portray are generally nothing like the wrestler’s real life self, and yet these characters are often so iconic they can’t seem to move past them in the eyes of fans.
But there are worse things to be remembered for than portraying a smooth badass known as The Rock, like playing the role of sappy golden boy Rocky Maivia, who wears a feathered costume that looks like it was made by a first grader.
And then there are those poor wrestlers who have to start out by portraying a stereotype, such as Triple H’s original foppish French persona Jean-Paul Levesque.
Boy have those two guys come a long way from those goofy early days!
See 6 Hilariously Stupid Early Personas Of Wrestling Superstars at Cracked (contains NSFW language)
One thing I miss about Rocky Maivia is his finishing move, the Maivia Hurricane. It's a kind of running wraparound DDT. It is way more flashy than his lame finishers "Rock Bottom" or "People's Elbow". It was definitely my favorite move for the WWE game in the PS1.
The bottom line: Rocky Maivia = Lame face, lame costume, awesome finisher.
Also, I still remember laughing when Hunter-Hearst Helmsley became "Triple H" and then "The Game". What a major re-write. It took a lot of kayfabe magic to pull it off.