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| Some of these men are among the greats. However, if you don't recognize someone, chances are, they belong to what True calls...the Enhancement Guy Era. |
The New Generation. Designed seemingly to highlight the new era of greatness exemplified in guys such as Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, The 1-2-3 Kid, Owen Hart, Razor Ramon, and more. And while those wrestlers got to showcase what they brought to the table, there was another era building during the tail end of the New Generation period: The Enhancement Guy Era. Now, by Enhancement Guys, I don't mean a super jacked-up steroid freak, but rather a wrestler who is not expected to be very much and exists merely to put over other guys once he's racked up a few wins over jobbers. You see, it's one thing to be a no name jobber, who shows up, gets defeated on an episode of Superstars, then you're not heard from again on TV. Its another thing to get a cheesy vignette, a small feud, pick up jobber wins, then go nowhere. Unfortunately, WWF had a bunch of those guys. Every week, an enhancement guy would make his arrival to WWF TV, beat some no-name, repeat this again the following week, then end up losing from that point on. Hell, even in the previous era, a guy like Repo Man or Skinner could get a feud and PPV spot at times. Once The New Generation got here, an enhancement guy wasn't even good enough for the free for all before the PPV, and was very seldom seen on RAW. The closest thing to an enhancement guy who tasted a little success was probably Waylon Mercy (Ed. Note: The guy who had a Bray Wyatt gimmick twenty years too early) or Duke "The Dumpster" Droese, and not even that lasted too long. I remember Droese having a small feud with Hunter Hearst Helmsey, but aside from that, nothing of note comes to mind. Below are some of those enhancement characters and just how awful they truly were.
