Most Shocking Gimmick Changes Of 2020 (WWE, AEW, More)

Seth Rollins

Although Seth Rollins morphing into the Monday Night Messiah actually began in December 2019, it really continued to grow and evolve throughout this year.

Despite previously being one of the fans’ most popular stars, Rollins had started getting in everyone’s bad books with his controversial Twitter activity, and soon enough the fans legitimately began turning on him.

He took that opportunity to launch his new Messiah persona, proclaiming that he knows best and everyone should follow his lead. He enlisted the services of AOP to help him in achieving that, but his true “disciple” is what made the run interesting.

In January, Rollins invited Murphy into his following, and they went on to become Raw Tag Team Champions a month later, and he had Murphy by his side for a number of months – as well as Austin Theory briefly – which proved a very helpful asset.

After spending the rest of the year in a feud with Rey Mysterio’s eyes, things started falling apart for Rollins when Rey’s daughter Aalyah started becoming romantically involved with Murphy, who ended up turning on his ‘Messiah’ to align with the good guys.

At Survivor Series, Rollins offered himself up to be eliminated by Team Raw “for the greater good” – the real-life reason being so he can take paternity leave ahead of Becky Lynch giving birth.

It’ll be interesting to see if Rollins continues as the Messiah upon his return, or if he tries to reignite his popularity with fans.

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Will Ospreay

Who was one of the biggest victims of Rollins’ Twitter antics? It was New Japan’s Will Ospreay, who had quite the interesting attitude shift in 2020 himself.

Despite possibly being the most popular wrestler in the world outside of WWE and AEW, Ospreay enlisted the help of his wife Bea Priestley and a returning Great O’Kharn to beat Kazuchika Okada in the G1 Climax, thus turning heel and leaving CHAOS.

Since then, he’s been wearing suits, sipping champgane, and generally being a bit of a prick.

The start of 2020 marked his jump to the heavyweight division, and although the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to it at first, he could be on the path towards New Japan’s top prize with some sneaky tricks under his sleeve.

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Alexa Bliss

A lot of wrestling fans have always had some kind of fantasy when it comes to Bray Wyatt and Alexa Bliss… not like that.

But when it came time to put on the fantasy booking hats about ‘who could portray Sister Abigail’ in the past, Bliss was one of the most popular suggestions. In 2020, those fans gots their wish of a Wyatt and Bliss partnership.

It started with Wyatt’s feud with Braun Strowman in the middle of this year. Strowman and Bliss sort of had an on-screen relationship from the Mixed Match Challenge, and The Fiend abused that during their Swamp Fight to get into Strowman’s head.

Their feud then pretty much went from them fighting over the Universal Title to fighting over Alexa Bliss, and it was The Fiend who eventually came out on top and she’s been by his side ever since.

She’s adopted a role in which she has two versions of herself – very much like Wyatt himself – and is very much under the control of The Fiend.

She can go from being a perky, bubbly and friendly to being possessed by The Fiend and spewing weird red goo out of her mouth very seamlessly.

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