THAT'S who that was!?!?!! (Six Pro Wrestlers Who Did a Great Job of Disguising Who They Were)

The key to a successful existence as a professional wrestler is to find a gimmick/character that works for you, gets over with the fans and makes both you and the companies you work for a lot of money. For some workers in the profession, they are able to make a single gimmick work for a long period of time, or even their entire career. Bret Hart, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage the names go on and on. Wrestlers who had few or even one gimmick that they were able to draw money pretty much from day one until they retired.

Others, like Ed Leslie for example had a variety of gimmicks. They'd try one thing for a while and then switch over to another. And most of the time you knew it was them. Sure, Leslie had Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, The Zodiac, The Booty Man, The Disciple, and a handful of others, but no matter what he did, you knew it was him. Kevin Nash was Oz, Vinnie Vegas and Diesel but it was always loud and clear that despite what name he went by, it was Kevin Nash in different clothes.

Yet every now and again a wrestler would change his gimmick so much that it wasn't obvious that it was him. It wasn't obvious who it was under the mask or behind the face paint. Wrestlers would lose weight, gain weight, lose muscle mass, gain muscle mass, grow or shave facial hair and you wouldn't know it was them.

During the long and illustrious life of professional wrestling only a few wrestlers have been able to pull this off. Let's have a look at who they were.

6. Al Snow was Avatar 

I'm not the only professional wrestling fan who was surprised to learn that the guy under the mask of Avatar was Al Snow. His mannerisms, the way he carried himself and his techniques in the ring were way different than how he performed as Al Snow. He did moves as Avatar that he never did as Al Snow or as Leif Cassidy. He walked differently and even hit the ropes differently. For years I thought that Avatar was either a Mexican or Japanese wrestler that tested the waters of the WWE for a while before going back to Mexico or Japan. I was quite shocked when I found out that it was Al Snow.

5. Justin Credible was Aldo Montoya 

I guess what threw me off about Justin Credible and Aldo Montoya being the same person was that the two characters were so much different from one another. Credible, closer to the real life P.J. Palaco, was a cocky, full of himself, arrogant, know it all. The type that the older more conservative generation would refer to as a punk or a degenerate. Whereas Montoya was a modest, do the right thing, humble and heroic figure. A shaved head and a leaner body also helped Palaco to shed the jobber gimmick of the man known as "The Portuguese Man of War" for the more suiting hardcore personality of Credible.

4. Doink was Big Josh 

There was no internet back in 1993. Wrestling fans couldn't go into the computer room and quickly look up who it was dressed up as an evil clown gracing the rings of the WWE. We could do nothing but look and speculate as to who it might be. For many fans, including myself, finding out that it was actually Matt Osborne who we had previously known as Maniac Matt Borne and Big Josh, was quite shocking. He had lost a lot of bulk and wasn't nearly as chiseled as he had been earlier in his career. The fact that he was able to fool so many people and pull off the character as well as he did was a true testimony to how great of a performer Borne was.

3. Earthquake later became Golga 

The former HWT wrestler at Louisiana State University, John Tenta had a successful stint in the WWE as the Canadian Earthquake from 1989 to 1993, helping to make the company a success both as a challenger to Hulk Hogan and as one half of the powerful tag team of The Natural Disasters along with partner Typhoon. After he left and came back in 1998, he was hoping to rekindle the Earthquake gimmick. Vince McMahon had another vision. To him Earthquake was yesterday and wouldn't work in the new Attitude Era of WWE. As a result, the now smaller Earthquake, who had lost a significant amount of weight was repackaged as the carefree, lovable and fun Golga. Although along with fellow teammates as a member of the Oddities, the gimmick was short lived, it did get over with the fans and Tenta did seem to enjoy himself. Few knew at the time that Golga was Earthquake under a mask and many were surprised to find out years later.

2. Dustin Rhodes and Goldust are the same person 

Now it's common knowledge. Everyone knows this. They didn't 22 years ago. As far as WCW went, in the early 90's I was a Natural Dustin Rhodes fan. I was very into his feud with Ravishing Rick Rude and upon his departure, often wondered what had happened to him. I figured at the time that he had either given up the professional wrestling business for a different life or he had gone to perform in Japan. When Goldust appeared on WWE television, it never occurred to me for a moment that it was Dustin Rhodes in gold face paint, a gold wig and a gold jumpsuit. When THE WRESTLER magazine did an article on how Goldust was actually Dustin Rhodes, I couldn't believe it. This androgynous, metro-sexual, creepy, perverted, over sensual and sexual character with the deep, slow soothing voice was the redneck, southern cowboy with the fast Texas twang from only a few years prior? It still impresses me to this day not only that Rhodes was able to pull off the Goldust gimmick but how incredibly impeccable he was at doing it.

1. Smash became The Repo Man 

Growing up I was a huge Demolition mark. Even when they turned evil, I was still into them. When Ax left and Crush permanently took his place the magic was gone, but I was still a fan. When the team broke up, I often wondered what became of them. Soon after Crush turned back up with the same name but a completely different character. Gone was the face paint and the Demolition getup and he was now in a bright Orange, Yellow and Purple singlet that resembled the popular soda of the same name. Little did I know, as I continued to wonder what happened to Smash, that this new Repo Man character was the same guy. He had lost weight, shaved his head and grown a goatee. While he did keep a few of the same mannerisms, he did a great job of disguising his voice to make him sound completely different than his Demolition character of Smash.