Gimmicks you'd like to see developed

[Johnny Guitar]

Off the top of my head I can't think of any particular gimmick that I want to see in wrestling.

 

I do wish wrestling was more on the ball with pop culture though. As far as incorparating it into the product. WWE normally doesn't pick up stuff till its at least 5 years old. Some times longer. Clint Eastwood got over as a bad ass anti hero face in the late 60's/early 70's as The Man with No Name & Dirty Harry. It took WWE over 25 years to push a similar character in that role.

 

And to tie this into popular culture and Loss' point of a wrestler who just happen's to be gay, but it's no big deal. Look at The Wire. Omar is probably the most popular character in it. Certainly the most bad ass. Whilst is sexuality is certainly brought up in a negative light by other characters. At the same time they all acknowledge that he's dangerous, a threat and not to be taken lightly regardless of his sexual orientation.

[subatomic_elbow]

As someone who has spent entirely too much time playing EWR and TEW, I have wasted a lot of brain cells thinking about this sort of thing.

 

1. The Drunk Uncle. Simple gimmick for a veteran who had middling success, preferably in the Attitude Era. Basically, the Drunk Uncle likes to tell the younger wrestlers about all the good times he had back in the day, name drop the guys he rode the circuit with, and generally be a washed up old douche. His comeuppance is obvious enough, in the form of someone he name-dropped stopping by and having no recollection of him. Have the Drunk Uncle claim he hooked up with a classic Diva and she can humiliate him. In the ring, the Drunk Uncle uses all the most hated moves of the 90's and his finisher is an overly elaborate chop or fistdrop. Having him nail a younger wrestler's mom would be pretty funny, as well.

 

2. The 'Legend.' This is a slightly more meta version of the Drunk Uncle and I certainly would not use them both. The 'Legend' is a fake, a fraud, a shyster. He comes in with doctored 'lost' footage of himself winning matches at house shows, touring Japan, and holding titles around the world. The best part is, the Internet fans would likely know he was a fraud from the beginning. The Fed could run an Alternate Reality Game, with people trying to out the 'Legend' as a fake. Could be worked seriously or as a comedy gimmick. Sadly, I originally considered this as a gimmick for Larry Sweeney to use in the Fed, a couple years ago.

 

3. Stamfordbound and Down. I have a perverse love of Eddie Kingston and the idea of him using a Kenny Powers gimmick in the PG WWE makes me chuckle. Imagine a mulleted Eddie Kingston showing up on Smackdown as an unannounced jobber to the US Champ and winning the belt with a fluke knockout, then celebrating like he won the World Series. Keep him unlikable and crass and the gimmick is gold.

[Jingus]

Anyway, more to the actual point of the thread...Loss, are you familiar with Lazz? Quote Pete Stein from an old DVDVR Road Report:

 

If you got it, flaunt it. Number One And The Best about this match was this: Here you are in rural the-South-shall-rise-again North Carolina, and a male wrestler who does a Britney Spears gimmick and lap-dances a security guard during his entrance is the most over BABYFACE on the first half of the show. Unbe-fucking-lievable.

Obviously, that's not what you're talking about, I would need one of the guys who was actually there to tell me how representative, say, OMEGA crowds were of the general population of the south, but it does give one hope. I mean, it's wrestling. You gotta have your Bobo Brazils and whatnot before you can have The Rock. You can't throw them into tolerance and expect them to adapt easily. They need those baby steps away from "boo the evil stereotype" to "cheer the likeable stereotype" before we can get to "the trait we usually stereotype is completely incidental to this character". I'm inclined to think that they'd be able to get there with gay wrestlers, though it seems unlikely at the moment that they'll try.

 

Lazz's gimmick was basically just Adrian Street updated to modern day. I've seen several guys on the indies who did a "flamboyant gay babyface who is cheered for sexually harassing the heels" sort of character like that. It's been around forever; check out a 1950s guy named Ricky Starr, who did a somewhat more old-fashioned and toned-down version of the same thing. When you think about it, it's not too terribly different from all the times Bugs Bunny put on a dress and kissed Elmer Fudd on the mouth.

 

 

1. The Drunk Uncle. Simple gimmick for a veteran who had middling success, preferably in the Attitude Era. Basically, the Drunk Uncle likes to tell the younger wrestlers about all the good times he had back in the day, name drop the guys he rode the circuit with, and generally be a washed up old douche. His comeuppance is obvious enough, in the form of someone he name-dropped stopping by and having no recollection of him. Have the Drunk Uncle claim he hooked up with a classic Diva and she can humiliate him. In the ring, the Drunk Uncle uses all the most hated moves of the 90's and his finisher is an overly elaborate chop or fistdrop. Having him nail a younger wrestler's mom would be pretty funny, as well.

 

2. The 'Legend.' This is a slightly more meta version of the Drunk Uncle and I certainly would not use them both. The 'Legend' is a fake, a fraud, a shyster. He comes in with doctored 'lost' footage of himself winning matches at house shows, touring Japan, and holding titles around the world. The best part is, the Internet fans would likely know he was a fraud from the beginning. The Fed could run an Alternate Reality Game, with people trying to out the 'Legend' as a fake. Could be worked seriously or as a comedy gimmick. Sadly, I originally considered this as a gimmick for Larry Sweeney to use in the Fed, a couple years ago.

WCW kinda did something similar to that with Chris Candido in 2000. He'd make all these grandiose claims about how he beat all the biggest stars back in the old days, while Mark Madden would be babbling on commentary about how Candido had beaten up everyone from Thesz to Andre. Of course, being WCW in 2000, it was dropped and forgotten pretty quickly. Jericho's old fake backstory for his band Fozzy is along the same lines too.

[PeteF3]

Has there ever been a heel who specifically targets the trailer trash element in the crowd? Not in a class-based gimmick, but more of a "look at the way you people live your lives" sort of way.

You could argue that it was "class-based" but that's totally Andy Kaufman in Memphis. Tammy Fytch in Smoky Mountain too, for that matter.

[Death From Above]

Kaufman making friends in the south:

[Victator]

The problem would be bringing it up in a natural way. The only thing I could think of is to drop subtle hints. Then have a heel try to blackmail him and he just plainly states he is gay. Then its never brought up too often, or doesn't become a gimmick.

[Strummer]

wasn't one of the Vince Russo's ideas when he briefly returned to the creative team in 2002 was that the Rock would reveal he was gay? Something like he would start hitting on the male wrestlers and eventually come out

[Jingus]

wasn't one of the Vince Russo's ideas when he briefly returned to the creative team in 2002 was that the Rock would reveal he was gay? Something like he would start hitting on the male wrestlers and eventually come out

Pretty sure that was just Russo making sure he'd get fired and released from his contract, so he could go to TNA. Not even Vinnie Roo is so oblivious that he thinks that hanging a controversial fag gimmick on The Rock would be good for business.

[Johnny Sorrow]

The problem would be bringing it up in a natural way. The only thing I could think of is to drop subtle hints. Then have a heel try to blackmail him and he just plainly states he is gay. Then its never brought up too often, or doesn't become a gimmick.

Yeah. If the guy was gay and it didn't matter, then why would it be brought up unless it was during a "Here's so and so at home" promo video? Cause true equality would be it not even being mentioned. No one says, "Here comes Killer Krusher to the ring. He's a hell of a competitor and he's straight as well as a hell of a former player for Notre Dame."

[MJH]

I've said these before, I think, but a feminist wifebeater and a Richard Dawkins/Christopher Hitchens-style atheist campaigner would be interesting, especially if not actually fed as heels.

 

Also, I don't think there's anything instrinsic in wrestling that means it can't be intelligent.

[Victator]

a Richard Dawkins/Christopher Hitchens-style atheist campaigner would be interesting, especially if not actually fed as heels.

I don't know how you could do them as faces. Unless they were being opposed by some uber hateful Brother Love type.

[MJH]

I think it'd be pretty easilly done, though I wasn't necessarilly saying that they'd have to be faces, as such. Personally, I don't think it's a subject where the writer shoudl cast their own moral judgement, and therein lies its problem being translated to wrestling, but, I mean, there's plenty one could go after against religion to paint that as being the more morally 'evil' of the two perspectives.

[Dylan Waco]

I can't imagine any human being less likable than Christopher Hitchens. He would have been a great heel.

[Jingus]

Is there really a place in wrestling to go terribly deep into those sort of philosophical issues, though? Rassling is mostly about one guy punching another guy right in the fuckin' mouth. Where in all that do you find an appropriate segue into "and by the way, here's my thesis essay upon the subject of the nonexistence of God"? That sort of articulate intellectual debating would require a lot of talking; and as we all know, not too many things tend to ruin a wrestling show worse than too much talking.

 

I can't imagine any human being less likable than Christopher Hitchens. He would have been a great heel.

Yeah. I'm an atheist and I love Hitch's writing, but he was certainly not a cuddly or polite sort of fellow. Kind of like a scholarly version of The Rock, a guy whose mastery of communication skills is usually so much more brilliant than almost any of his opponents that you nearly start feeling sorry for said opponents even when if you violently disagree with their message.

 

 

One thing I've always wanted to see is a completely intergender federation. Men and women routinely compete in the same matches, for the same championships, and it's not considered weird or unusual. Even aside from my various feelings upon gender equality and feminist theory, I think you could draw some money with this kind of world where it's considered okay for men and women to hit each other. Can you imagine the kind of truly soap opera-esque storylines you could have between opponents who can become entangled in romantic plots? "You're supposed to be my boyfriend, but you slept with my arch-nemesis, you son of a bitch! I challenge you to a steel cage match!"

[MJH]

I can't imagine any human being less likable than Christopher Hitchens. He would have been a great heel.

To a point, like Jingus said, I can agree. But, at the same time, I don't know... if you're going against the Bill O'Reillys of the world you kind of have to force your point home and not give him the chance to talk over you like Dawkins did. When Bill slipped and said 'the movement of the tides in and out' (or something to that effect) were 'one of God's mysteries' and Dawkins just casually said 'well, we know why that happens...', you want a Hitchens to slap it back in his face. And, besides, he was always intelligent and articulate in his arguments, and that's an unfortunate rarity.

 

--

 

But, yeah, I'm not sure how it'd work. If someone came out, thanked God, whatever, and this other guy came out and ripped it to pieces, I don't see where the business is in that. I'd also love to see an anti-nationalist angle, but again, how would you apply it to wrestling? The 'how dare he not be patriotic!' would be wretch-inducing. I'm just beyond sick and tired of the religion/patriotism so would mark out if someone came out saying that sort of shit...

[Dylan Waco]

I'm not going to interject politics here more than it should be, but it's notable that Hitchens own brother hates him. Yes Peter has drastically different views but still. Also notable that Hitch shit on guys on like Gore Vidal and Edward Said who were supposedly close friends the moment that he thought there was money to be made or career advancement to be had at their expense. He was openly working a contrarian gimmick and that's pretty much the only way he would have worked in a wrestling context.

[NintendoLogic]

More wrestlers than I can count have worked Hitch's vodka-soaked popinjay gimmick. I don't know if any of them were former Trotskyists, though.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I'm not going to interject politics here more than it should be, but it's notable that Hitchens own brother hates him.

They made up before he died, though.

[JerryvonKramer]

Given that someone mention Edward Said, how about a post-colonial academic gimmick?

 

Would they be face or heel?

 

Imagine the scenes ... they come out and accuse Vince of consistently representing "the racial Other" in a dehumanizing way. They have detailed packages of Kamala, Afa, Sika, the Headshrinkers and so on.

 

Could be interesting.

[S.L.L.]

I'd also love to see an anti-nationalist angle, but again, how would you apply it to wrestling? The 'how dare he not be patriotic!' would be wretch-inducing.

Babyface working an anti-nationalist gimmick. No, I would think not. But looking at it from the other end, I do think we're well past due for a heel working an "ugly American" gimmick. I guess that was one of the aspects of JBL's larger JR Ewing/Tom DeLay gimmick. I can't really recall it being the central focus of a wrestler's gimmick, and I'm inclined to think that most wrestling fans could grasp the difference between "good patriotism" and "bad patriotism" if you spelled it out for them and had a guy who was enough of an insufferable jerk to lend weight to it.

[JerryvonKramer]

Here in the UK, by the way, a nationalist gimmick would almost certainly be a heel. A racist heel basically.

[Loss]

Would 1988 Rougeaus already be "bad patriotism", or is that something different?

[S.L.L.]

Would 1988 Rougeaus already be "bad patriotism", or is that something different?

I would think of that as "false patriotism" for lack of a better explanation. It's actually kinda weird that that happened first. "Guy making obviously false claims of patriotism to appeal to jingoistic fans" seems like an obscure enough concept that you wouldn't get there without going through "guy who's actual sense of patriotism leads him to be a complete asshole" first, but they did.

[PeteF3]

"Bad patriot" was Sgt. Slaughter's gimmick in the summer of 1990 before he was hitched full-tilt to the Gulf War. Before Adnan was brought in, Slaughter's beef was with Americans going soft by cheering that pinko commie Nikolai Volkoff, and in fact I think some of his early vignettes actually criticized the U.S. for not invading Iraq.

 

Traces continued afterward. There's the match in the Tito Appreciation Thread where Slaughter tries to force Santana to salute the Iraqi flag after cutting an anti-immigrant promo.

[NintendoLogic]

I'd like to see a completely mercenary wrestler without any face or heel tendencies. He could just as easily be a hired gun for a heel champion or backup for an underdog babyface. He'd be up for anything as long as the money was right.