Chairshot Top 5: Wrestlers Who Looked Completely Different Before WWE

Before WWE fame, The Undertaker, Steve Austin, John Cena and other legends had looks and gimmicks almost impossible to recognize today.

Wrestling fans become so accustomed to a superstar’s definitive look that earlier versions can feel like completely different people. Before WWE made them household names, these wrestlers had blond hair, bizarre costumes, forgotten gimmicks and appearances almost impossible to reconcile with what came later.

Professional wrestling careers are filled with reinvention, but the most dramatic transformations sometimes happen before the largest audience ever sees the wrestler. By the time someone reaches WWE television, years of experimentation may already have produced different names, hairstyles, costumes and entire personalities that disappear once the right combination finally emerges.

That makes old wrestling footage particularly strange when the performer eventually becomes iconic. Seeing Steve Austin with flowing blond hair feels wrong because the bald head and goatee became inseparable from Stone Cold, while watching The Undertaker wrestle like an ordinary heavyweight without the hat, coat or supernatural presentation can make even longtime fans look twice.

For this ranking, “before WWE” includes the wrestler’s career before the WWE version that made them nationally famous, whether that happened in another promotion or WWE’s developmental system. The standard is visual transformation rather than simply having a different ring name, and the strongest candidates should make an old photograph feel almost like someone else is staring back.

Plenty of wrestlers changed over time, but these five underwent transformations so complete that their earlier appearances now look almost impossible compared with the stars everyone remembers.

These are the Top 5 wrestlers who looked completely different before WWE.

#5 — John Cena as The Prototype

John Cena eventually developed one of the most recognizable looks in WWE history without wearing traditional wrestling gear at all. The jean shorts, sneakers, wristbands, baseball caps and brightly colored shirts became so strongly associated with Cena that seeing him in conventional trunks already feels slightly unusual.

Seeing him as The Prototype is considerably stranger.

Cena began training in California before joining Ultimate Pro Wrestling, where he developed a character called The Prototype. The gimmick presented him as something close to a genetically engineered wrestling machine, with Cena using a deliberately robotic delivery and emphasizing the extraordinary physique he had built through bodybuilding.

The appearance matched the concept. Early Cena frequently wore traditional wrestling trunks and boots while sporting short hair that was sometimes bleached blond, giving him the visual presentation of a muscular created wrestler rather than the future face of WWE. Once WWE signed him to a developmental contract in 2001, he continued using The Prototype identity in Ohio Valley Wrestling and eventually became OVW Heavyweight Champion.

Nothing about the look suggested hip-hop.

That transformation began after Cena reached WWE’s main roster in 2002. His original clean-cut presentation struggled to create much personality, but a freestyle rap performed during a bus ride helped inspire the Doctor of Thuganomics character. The trunks gradually disappeared, chains and jerseys arrived, and Cena found the identity that prevented him from becoming another athletic prospect who never connected.

The later transformation into WWE’s brightly colored franchise player changed the presentation again, but the basic silhouette remained recognizable: short hair, jean shorts and sneakers instead of traditional wrestling equipment.

Looking back at The Prototype makes the evolution particularly clear. Cena was already enormous and obviously athletic, but almost every visual characteristic people eventually associated with John Cena was still missing.

He had the body. The rest of John Cena had not been invented yet.

#4 — Triple H as Terra Ryzing and Jean-Paul Levesque

Triple H became so associated with long hair, black clothing, leather jackets and the deliberately intense presentation of The Game that his WCW appearance looks like an alternate version of the same person.

Before joining WWE in 1995, Paul Levesque worked briefly in WCW under two different names. He initially wrestled as Terra Ryzing, one of professional wrestling’s more ambitious attempts at wordplay, before becoming Jean-Paul Levesque and adopting an aristocratic presentation that foreshadowed his first WWE gimmick.

The name changes were almost less noticeable than the hair.

Early Levesque appeared with large, flowing blond hair that fit comfortably into early-1990s wrestling but looks remarkably strange beside later images of Triple H. WWE itself has highlighted the contrast in retrospectives about wrestlers who appeared in WCW, specifically noting Terra Ryzing’s big blond hairstyle.

The Jean-Paul Levesque character began moving closer to what WWE would eventually use. He presented himself as sophisticated and European, even adopting a French accent despite being from New Hampshire, and spent time associated with Lord Steven Regal.

When Levesque moved to WWE, the basic aristocratic idea survived as Hunter Hearst Helmsley. The hair darkened and became longer, the presentation became more polished and eventually D-Generation X destroyed almost every remaining piece of the blueblood character. That began another visual evolution.

By the early 2000s, Triple H had become one of WWE’s defining main-event wrestlers, with long wet hair, enormous muscle mass, leather jackets and denim replacing nearly everything visible in those early WCW appearances. Later in his career, even the hair disappeared when he adopted the shaved-head look that became associated with his executive years.

The transformation is especially interesting because pieces of the future Triple H were always present. The size, intensity and aristocratic arrogance can be spotted beneath the earlier presentation if someone knows what to look for.

The giant blond hair makes that considerably harder.

#3 — Kevin Nash as Oz, Vinnie Vegas, Master Blaster Steel

Kevin Nash looks like someone who should have been extremely easy to present.

He was nearly seven feet tall, athletic for his size, naturally charismatic and possessed the kind of appearance professional wrestling promotions spend years trying to find. WCW responded by putting him in costumes.

Several of them.

Nash debuted for WCW in 1990 as Steel, one-half of The Master Blasters, with a post-apocalyptic presentation that involved shaved hair, elaborate gear and enough visual clutter to obscure the fact that an enormous future star was standing underneath it.

Then came Oz.

The character was inspired by The Wizard of Oz and initially involved Nash wearing an enormous silver-colored mask, flowing robes and other fantasy-themed entrance equipment. Kevin Nash somehow looked less like a professional wrestler than an actor waiting backstage for an unusually aggressive community-theater production.

The character eventually disappeared, only for WCW to reinvent Nash again as Vinnie Vegas. This time he became a wisecracking Las Vegas character complete with slick clothing, dark hair and mannerisms inspired partly by casino culture.

That version at least allowed Nash’s personality to appear.

The breakthrough came when Nash left WCW for WWE in 1993 and became Diesel, Shawn Michaels’ enormous bodyguard. WWE removed almost everything unnecessary and dressed him primarily in black leather and denim, allowing his size and natural coolness to become the presentation rather than something hidden underneath it.

The difference is almost comical when the images are placed beside each other.

Oz looks like someone built an elaborate character and then searched for a wrestler to place inside it. Diesel looks like someone noticed Kevin Nash was already seven feet tall and decided to stop interfering.

That simpler presentation eventually helped make him WWE Champion and one of the biggest wrestling stars of the 1990s before he returned to WCW and helped form the New World Order.

Sometimes a wrestler looks completely different because years of age and physical development change the person.

Kevin Nash looked completely different because somebody finally took the costume off.

#2 — “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as Stunning Steve

The definitive Steve Austin look is almost aggressively simple.

Bald head. Goatee. Black trunks. Black boots.

That visual became so completely connected to Stone Cold that photographs of “Stunning” Steve Austin can produce a moment of genuine confusion even when everyone already knows the history.

Austin began wrestling in Texas around 1989 and entered WCW in 1991 with long blond hair and a presentation built around being arrogant, young and good-looking. As “Stunning” Steve Austin, he wore colorful trunks and carried himself like a conventional cocky heel rather than the beer-drinking antihero who would eventually redefine WWE.

The blond hair is the hardest part to process.

WWE has joked in its own retrospectives that seeing Stone Cold with long blond hair simply does not look right, but that appearance belonged to an extremely successful wrestler. Austin won the WCW Television Championship and United States Championship and teamed with Brian Pillman as The Hollywood Blonds, establishing himself as one of WCW’s strongest young performers.

His wrestling identity changed after WCW released him in 1995.

A brief ECW run allowed Austin to strip away some of the polished presentation and develop the frustrated, brutally direct speaking style that would eventually become essential to Stone Cold. When he arrived in WWE as The Ringmaster in January 1996, however, the final visual transformation still had not occurred.

Austin soon shaved his thinning blond hair rather than trying to preserve it.

That decision may rank among wrestling’s greatest accidental cosmetic upgrades.

The bald head made his face look harder, the goatee followed and the colorful gear disappeared in favor of plain black trunks and boots. Everything decorative was removed until Austin looked exactly like the stripped-down, confrontational character he had become.

Within a few years, that appearance was everywhere.

It is difficult to imagine the Steve Austin who attacked Vince McMahon, drove a beer truck into an arena and headlined WrestleMania wearing flowing blond hair.

The transformation worked so completely that Stunning Steve now looks less like an earlier version of Stone Cold than Stone Cold’s suspiciously cheerful older brother.

Honorable Mention — Kane as Unabomb

Glenn Jacobs spent several years searching for the presentation that would finally fit his enormous frame, and one of his pre-Kane appearances may be the most visually jarring of them all.

Before WWE introduced Kane in 1997, Jacobs worked in Smoky Mountain Wrestling as Unabomb. He was a massive heavyweight with curly blond hair and relatively straightforward gear, appearing much more like a conventional 1990s power wrestler than the masked monster who would eventually emerge at Badd Blood.

The historical footage becomes even stranger because Unabomb actually wrestled The Undertaker during Smoky Mountain Wrestling’s SuperBowl of Wrestling in August 1995. Watching the future Brothers of Destruction standing across from each other while Jacobs is blond, unmasked and completely unrelated to Undertaker mythology feels like someone accidentally revealed footage from a different timeline.

Jacobs then went through multiple WWE presentations before Kane existed, most famously Isaac Yankem, D.D.S. and the replacement version of Diesel. Neither provided any clue that one of WWE’s most enduring characters was waiting underneath.

Once Kane debuted, almost every recognizable physical feature disappeared behind the presentation. The curly blond hair was replaced by long dark hair, the face vanished beneath a red-and-black mask and the body was covered in matching gear designed to suggest severe burns.

The transformation was enormous enough to deserve the honorable mention, but Kane stays outside the main five because much of the final makeover happened after Jacobs had already reached WWE.

Still, seeing Unabomb beside Kane proves just how completely the right presentation can rewrite someone’s visual identity.

#1 — The Undertaker as “Mean” Mark Callous

The Undertaker became one of professional wrestling’s strongest arguments that presentation can transform a human being.

Before November 1990, Mark Calaway was simply a very large wrestler trying to establish himself.

Calaway had already worked under several names before reaching WCW, where he became “Mean” Mark Callous and teamed with Dan Spivey as part of The Skyscrapers. After Spivey left, Callous continued as a singles wrestler and worked with established names including Lex Luger.

The future Undertaker was physically recognizable, but almost everything surrounding him was different.

His hair was shorter and reddish-brown rather than the long dark hair associated with the Deadman. His facial hair and conventional ring attire made him look like an intimidating heavyweight from the period, but there was nothing supernatural about him.

Even the wrestling style could feel surprisingly normal.

WWE’s own archive footage of Callous emphasizes that he used athletic offense, including moves that would feel unusual when viewed through the later Undertaker character. There was no slow entrance, no funeral music and no deliberate resurrection after absorbing punishment.

He was simply Mean Mark.

WCW did not see him as a future franchise attraction, and Calaway eventually left. He has since recalled being told by Ole Anderson that nobody would ever pay money to watch him wrestle, a statement that became increasingly extraordinary with every year The Undertaker remained one of WWE’s biggest stars.

Everything changed at Survivor Series 1990.

The hair became darker, the movements became slower and the ordinary heavyweight was wrapped inside the presentation of an Old West mortician who seemed largely immune to pain. Within seconds of walking through the curtain, The Undertaker looked nothing like another professional wrestler.

Over the following three decades, the appearance evolved repeatedly while preserving the essential identity. Purple replaced gray, gothic imagery replaced the mortician details, the American Bad Ass briefly traded supernatural presentation for motorcycles and denim, and the Deadman eventually returned in increasingly elaborate forms.

All of those versions still looked like The Undertaker.

Mean Mark Callous does not.

That is why he takes the top spot over Austin. Stunning Steve at least displayed recognizable pieces of Steve Austin’s personality and eventually evolved gradually into Stone Cold.

The Undertaker felt like WWE took Mark Calaway’s previous wrestling existence and buried it.

Appropriate, really.

Old wrestling photographs can be deceptive because fans already know how the story ends. Looking at a young Steve Austin or Kevin Nash makes it tempting to search for obvious evidence that one of wrestling’s biggest stars was already waiting underneath.

Sometimes the evidence is there. More often, the final version required years of experimentation and at least one promoter willing to remove whatever had been getting in the way.

John Cena had to move beyond The Prototype before his personality could become the presentation. Triple H survived Terra Ryzing and gradually transformed through several identities, while Kevin Nash discovered that being Kevin Nash was considerably more effective than dressing like a character from Oz.

Austin’s transformation demonstrated how subtraction can be more powerful than addition. Losing the blond hair and colorful presentation helped create a wrestler who looked as confrontational as he sounded.

The Undertaker represents something different because almost nothing about Mean Mark Callous predicted the final presentation. WWE took a talented large wrestler and changed his hair, clothing, movement, music, personality and entire fictional existence.

Eventually, Mark Calaway became almost impossible to see underneath it.

That may be the greatest visual transformation professional wrestling has ever produced.

Research included archival and historical material from WWE.com covering “Stunning” Steve Austin’s WCW career, The Undertaker’s run as Mean Mark Callous, Kevin Nash’s early WCW personas, Triple H as Terra Ryzing and Jean-Paul Levesque, John Cena’s Prototype years in UPW and OVW, and Glenn Jacobs’ time as Unabomb in Smoky Mountain Wrestling.