JaymeFuture Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 For this week's podcast, we're looking at examples in wrestling history of bad gimmicks made good, and are keen to get some feedback on cases that you always thought stood out to you in that vain. Couple of ways to look at this one, so feel free to give your stand-out example of either (or both): 1 - A bad gimmick that either the promotion or the wrestler worked hard at and made it work, and what you feel was the reason it did. Or 2 - A bad gimmick that, for whatever reason, worked for you and you personally enjoyed despite the common opinion that it sucked, and why you got into it. Of course the key question is why - the more detail the better. As always the best posts will be read on the show and you'll be credited accordingly, but looking forward to seeing which ones stand out to you guys. EDIT - The podcast discussing Bad Gimmicks Made Good, or ones you just flat out enjoyed, is now available at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/w32phd/SCGRadio38-BadGimmicksMadeGood.mp3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grapplin' apple Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 I really enjoyed Matt Bourne as Doink especially when he was a heel. I thought it was a creepy and effective, particularly his escalating pranks on babyfaces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Downend2005 Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 I loved The Mountie. The Big Boss Man feud was good and produced a decent enough match at Summerslam 1991. The jailhouse skits following are still fondly remembered to this day. After that, he went on to beat Bret Hart to win the Incontinental Title. Granted, his win was tainted and he lost it two days later, but the title itself was still treated as being important at the time, and unlike today, transitional reigns were the exception, not the norm. Just having the title was an achievement in itself, and The Mounties short reign actually made him stand out. Not content with having just one awesome entrance theme as part of the Fabulous Rougeaus, he went out and got himself another one! And he achieved all this whilst under the threat of litigation from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, meaning he couldn't even use the full Mountie gimmick in Canada. It was cheesy, it was camp, it was controversial, but Rougeau definitely made the best of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Motivational speaker DDP. This was an obvious attempt to bury him but he embraced the gimmick and had some really funny segments with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.S. Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Repo Man: It was cheesy as hell and never rose past lower midcard, but Barry Darsow embraced the hell out of it and made it work. Papa Shango: Beware of voodoo, beware of Papa Shango, hahaha! Like Darsow, Charles Wright embraced this character. It also helps that he had a push with the goo/vomiting stuff (which I thought was terrible-awesome), feuds with Warrior and Hogan, etc. Does The Undertaker count? If you think about it, that gimmick in anyone else's hands would've been dead on arrival. Yes, bad pun very much intended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 BikerTaker showed it could always be worse... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dooley Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Repo Man got mentioned, but pretty much anything Barry Darsow got stuck with. Blacktop Bully, Pain Stewart etc. Darsow just committed to the roles so much that you wound up laughing in spite of (or perhaps because of) the ridiculousness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Kamala is kind of an awful gimmick if you think about it too much but dude made a career out of it for like 20 years. I am a mark for The Boogeyman and I'm not ashamed to say it either. That guy went ALL IN on being The Boogeyman and that's what made it endearing to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badlittlekitten Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x40g4z_one-man-gang-becomes-akeem_news Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingSavage Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 A few spring to mind that haven't been mentioned yet. Also, yeah. I may be alone in thinking some of these, but it is what it is... - Akeem, the African Dream. Gang took the ball, ran with it, and just fully embraced the gimmick change. And hey. Plug jive-talking Slick into the mix? And yeah. It gets over huge in this household. A guilty pleasure in every sense for me. - 3 Count. I think Jimmy Hart was onto something with that idea. This group had the typical heel traits & attributes that you'd expect, combined with the added goodness of tapping into a timely trend (at the time). Boy bands were doing gangbusters then, and this actually gave WCW the chance to grab hold of some semblance of pop culture. They fumbled it, but it still had its moments. - Rico, particularly after he became the Adrian Street clone. Maybe I'm just a huge mark for the character, but I thought Rico played (and looked) perfect for that role. His interactions with Charlie Haas, Jackie Gayda, and Dawn Marie turned out to be more entertaining than they had any real reason to be. - The "Super Heavyweight" Holly Cousins, where they'd literally carry scales to the ring & demand their opponents to "weigh in" before each bout. Tremendous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.S. Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Kamala is kind of an awful gimmick if you think about it too much but dude made a career out of it for like 20 years. Good call. Can't believe I didn't mention this myself. Mankind would be another one. Seemed so cartoonish and ridiculous compared to Cactus Jack, but Mick Foley made it work. Same with Dude Love, to a lesser degree, I guess. Repo Man got mentioned, but pretty much anything Barry Darsow got stuck with. Blacktop Bully, Pain Stewart etc. Darsow just committed to the roles so much that you wound up laughing in spite of (or perhaps because of) the ridiculousness. Agreed. Darsow was awesome in any role. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Kamala wins this one hands down. Akeem would rank higher if he wasn't so great as the One Man Gang before making the switch. If OMG had sucked, then I could see enjoying Akeem. But whenever I saw Akeem come dancing out, I chuckle a little, but want OMG back after about 10 seconds. How about Shawn Michaels? Who would've thought a guy who basically played a male stripper for much of his career would go down as one of the all-time greats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bierschwale Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 I'm going to go with Right to Censor. It was a very effective re-purposing for The Godfather and Val Venis and it was Ivory and Stevie's moments in the sun. Perfect silly mid-card heel gimmick for the Attitude Era, and Russo's inability to pull off his own version despite multiple attempts (and I don't think that Heyman did a great job with The Network, either) is the icing on the cake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victory Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 The Missing Link. What a difference from Dewey Robertson. The guy totally reinvented himself. He used his head as a battering ram 90% of the time and used very few other moves. He bought into it and so did I. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 The Boogeyman ate worms. Real worms. Live worms. A lot of them. A lot of different times. That is a man who is dedicated to the craft of professional wrestling and I don't care what else you have to say about him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fantastic Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Eugene was pretty atrocious, until people realised that Nick Dinsmore could A) actually wrestle, and was pretty committed to getting the gimmick work. Sure, it was well past it's expiry date in 2006, but the whole classic underdog stuff (always a winner) and the nostalgia throwbacks with Eugene imitating pro wrestling moves of the past greats was awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Eugene was pretty atrocious, until people realised that Nick Dinsmore could A) actually wrestle, and was pretty committed to getting the gimmick work. Sure, it was well past it's expiry date in 2006, but the whole classic underdog stuff (always a winner) and the nostalgia throwbacks with Eugene imitating pro wrestling moves of the past greats was awesome. This is true. It would have lasted a lot longer as a fun undercard/midcard gimmick, especially if you give him a tag team partner. Him being a wrestling savant was actually really well done the first few weeks but it got too over and once he ran into HHH and Evolution it all went to shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Nah, Doink the evil clown and 3-Count the atrocious boys band were actual good, relevant gimmicks. Here's one for you that I enjoyed since day one : The New Blakjacks. That's the Barry Windham mark in me speaking, and I also enjoyed Bradshaw when he was a pissed off cowboy. They looked sloppy (and fat, as far as Windham goes) but they kicked ass. I wish they had been pushed to tag team champs status and worked feuds with Kroffat/Furnas and Owen/Davey. The tag team scene in 1997 was so odd and fun in a way, with the Head Bangers push and the Godwinns makeover as evil rednecks, mixed in with AJPW gaijins veterans and washed up LOD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted April 27, 2015 Report Share Posted April 27, 2015 Think about Blackjack Lanza for a moment. "grow a big moustache and pretend you're a turn of the century outlaw come cowboy" I think one of the the things with this is that a lot of gimmicks if you really think about them are absurd. Even something that seemed sure fire like Million Dollar Man only worked because they really pulled it off. Could have gone hideously wrong (see Tailor Made Man, VK Wallkstreet). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riggsen Posted May 1, 2015 Report Share Posted May 1, 2015 Think about Blackjack Lanza for a moment. "grow a big moustache and pretend you're a turn of the century outlaw come cowboy" I think one of the the things with this is that a lot of gimmicks if you really think about them are absurd. Even something that seemed sure fire like Million Dollar Man only worked because they really pulled it off. Could have gone hideously wrong (see Tailor Made Man, VK Wallkstreet). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riggsen Posted May 1, 2015 Report Share Posted May 1, 2015 I always had a soft spot for Big Bully Busick. Same goes for Repo Man. Both are really hard to watch in the ring, but I still enjoyed them. When I first started to watch wrestling I was totally blown away by the Widowmaker and was highly disappointed when he left before Survivor Series 89. Because there was no WCW on TV in Germany at that time, it took me years to find out that was Barry Windham. But I am still one of the few who fondly remember that short stint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaymeFuture Posted May 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2015 Just wanted to thank everybody in this thread for the awesome suggestions - the podcast discussing a great many of the Bad Gimmicks mentioned in this thread is now available to listen to at the following link:http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/w32phd/SCGRadio38-BadGimmicksMadeGood.mp3This was a really fun trip down memory lane this week, talking about the dynamics of making bad gimmicks work, and discussing your suggestions such as The Undertaker, Heel Doink, Goldust, Umaga, Kane, Rusev, "The Model" Rick Martel, Akeem, Polka Dot Dusty Rhodes, Barry Darsow, Billy & Chuck and countless more - check it out and let me know what you think! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DownNDirtyTN Posted May 4, 2015 Report Share Posted May 4, 2015 I always had a soft spot for Dan Spivey doing the Waylon Mercy Cape Fear ripoff. He done great with the part for what short time it lasted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Memphis Mark Posted May 4, 2015 Report Share Posted May 4, 2015 Boy Tony . Nothing better than see Tony Falk in drag with pancake maleup on Saturday morning . The whole gimmick was really in poor taste , but I enjoyed his act . I think that Falk's southern accent really help push the Boy Tony character to new levels of awfulness . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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