In the early 1990s, the World Wrestling Federation was overrun with some of the lamest gimmicks in history. I don’t even know where they got some of these characters. We had Doink the Clown. A clown! There are just some characters that are not destined to be World Champions, and aside from Gene Snitsky (who I’ll get to later, for his lack of a gimmick), a clown is undoubtedly high up on the list of people just not destined to ever win a World Title. Maybe a bit lower on that list would be a garbage man, so aptly named Duke “The Dumpster” Droese. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? It sure does. But, Duke “The Dumpster” Droese, The WWE Champion, just does not roll off the tongue. In fact, it took me about ten minutes to type it, it was that hard to say.
I can give you a Bastion Booger, hurdle towards you a Papa Shango, chuck out The Goon in your general direction, and even fire away with Isaac Yankem, D.D.S. (yes, there was a dentist/wrestler in the WWE, played by Glen Jacobs, or more widely known as Kane nowadays). There was even a Fake Razor Ramon and Fake Diesel. Wow, talk about no creativity whatsoever. That was the time when Jim Ross had a heel turn. The word “short-lived” doesn’t do that one justice.
Any wrestling fan can tell you that anyone can be a champion. There is a champion right now that I never would have pegged to be a champion, even one year ago, and that man is Batista. What’s his gimmick? He’s a tough guy. Well, every big guy is a “tough” one, but Batista adds something to it that makes him different. He’s calm and cool, but you know that deep within that calm and cool man, who takes every interview in stride, there’s a man who will kick the living hell out of anyone who stands in his way. He’s the man that Matt Morgan and Luther Reigns strived to be. Batista is THE man Gene Snitsky strives to be. Hell, I’ll go one step further and say Batista is the man Big Show wishes he had become. But, while Batista is big, he’s also got talent. He’s not the most talented, but he has talent, and he has improved over the past year more than anyone else on the roster.
With all that said, I think it’s time to take a look at today’s gimmicks (or lack thereof, in certain people). I’m not able to look at everyone, but I am going to rattle off a few gimmick categories, that many fall under in 2005’s WWE. Here now is a look at WWE’s Chronicles of Gimmicks.
The Body Men
Chris Masters - Chris Masters is, plain and simple, a bodybuilder. His gimmick is his body, and to be frankly honest, that’s all he has to go on. Now, Masters is no master on the mic or in the ring (shoot me for that after the column is over), but I’ve seen some building in his work, and he’s gradually improving. But, is the improvement a little too slow? It’s been so long since he debuted, and it’s basically been the same thing forever. Who is going to break that damn Masterlock? Please, let me in the ring, I’ll break it. One boot below the belt, and he’ll be down and out.
The “guy who loves his own body” thing is a little much. Yeah, he looks great. But, we had the same problem with The Narcissist, more likely known to many as Lex Luger. It’s just not a good role at all. I don’t know why, but it just doesn’t translate well to the ring. Once Lex dropped the Narcissist gimmick, he became more popular in the WWE. Chris needs to move on from being all about himself and his body, ditch the Masterlock Challenge, and find something new. Or, just be himself. There’s plenty just being themselves, and I’ll touch on that “gimmick” category later.
Rob Conway - Oh, I’m going to get bashed for this, but I like Rob’s new gimmick. I placed him in the body men category, because he is very much about his body. Listen to the first line of his theme: “Just look at me!”. I must ask, does Randy Newman sing that song? If I heard it on a Disney film, I would not have been surprised at all. I’m sure Randy Newman has better ways of making money than singing Rob Conway’s theme song, but it sounds way too much like him. But enough about Randy Newman…
Rob Conway has a gimmick right now reminiscent of… Shawn Michaels. Of course, most WCW fans will call him a Buff Bagwell wannabe, but I have nothing to go on, seeing as how I rarely (and I do mean RARELY) watched WCW. But, I think this gimmick of being in love with himself is very similar to the mid-1990s heel HBK. Not just after The Rockers split, but before his DX days. Conway is bigger, and likely won’t reach the popularity that HBK achieved, but I think he could easily be a dominant mid-card. And who knows? Maybe someday in a few years, we could see a main-event at Wrestlemania headlined by Rob Conway.
The Crowd-Pleasers
Stone Cold Steve Austin: The crowd-pleasers are the guys who do their work for the fans, and I put Austin in this category first because Austin’s most recent stints were strictly for the fans. When he beat the hell out of Bischoff, it’s for the fans. When he comes out to the ring as General Manager, he did what the fans wanted. When he appeared on Piper’s Pit and again the next night on Simon Dean’s “infomercial”, he was for the fans. Hell, even the backdrop of Austin/McMahon was for the fans, but I’ll get into his early days and McMahon days in a little bit. Simply put, Austin perfected being the babyface in his early years, and had enough of a reputation built that he could be a crowd-pleaser in the most recent years…
John Cena: … but the same cannot be said for John Cena. Look at him. Listen to the fans. You can hear the boos consistently getting louder. Sure, he’s over. WAY over. But, he lacks the punch that he once had as a heel, and I can easily blame it on his “I’m from the streets, I’m the people’s champion” persona, although he wouldn’t use that last line, simply because someone else perfected that (more on him in a moment). Cena relies on playing the part of the guy we can relate to, but we don’t want that. We want tough. We want someone who gets the job done. Cena simply works the crowds, and it gets a little annoying. His rap gimmick is all but dead (he rarely raps on TV anymore), and I think that it could be anytime when Cena will be a heel, just because of the crowds. Early prediction: Kurt Angle will get a better reaction during the match at Unforgiven than Cena. History will likely repeat itself.
The Rock/Hulk Hogan: These two are confusing. Hulk Hogan has spent YEARS with the gimmick he still has today, and it’s taken those years of when kids still could watch the show for him to build such a fanbase. If he had this gimmick just starting in today’s WWE, I can guarantee he would be booed out of the building. But, he’s so respected now, that it’s impossible for Hogan to get a negative response.
The Rock has spent plenty of his career playing on either side of the line. He can be a babyface, he can be a heel, but he’s always The Rock. Whenever he’s the babyface, he has dozens of lines for the fans to shout along with (“If you smell what the Rock is cookin’”; “Finally, The Rock has come back to…”; “It doesn’t matter what your name is!”). He seems immune now, simply because he’s already done the heel gimmick, where he’s Hollywood Rock. People just appreciate the rare appearances he does make, rather than boo him like they did two years ago. Hogan, Rock and Austin are legends, and they are stable in their babyface positions. John Cena is not. Cena wants to go down their road, but he’s going to need to put in some harder work if he doesn’t want to be booed anymore.
The Monsters - (Since there are a lot of big, bad guys in the WWE, I’m going to lump them into the good and the bad. The good have had huge success being the big guys, while the bad just don’t live up to their height.)
The Good: (Kane, The Undertaker, Kevin Nash/Diesel, Brock Lesnar, The Big Show)
Something that adds to Kane’s gimmick and Undertaker’s gimmick is that they are big. They really are monsters. Kane is more along the lines of a psycho, while Undertaker is either the Dead Man, or the tough biker guy, but either way for both, they’re the big, dominant guys. They have proved their worth to the WWE, and they give us hope that not all big guys lack talent. Kevin Nash was great in his earlier days (Diesel in WWE, Nash of New World Order in WCW), and while his later WWE days (2002-2003) weren’t as successful, he still was a big name in the mid-1990s, and still remains a big name in WWE. Lesnar didn’t stick around long enough, and may not be around in the near future, but he was the biggest name in WWE at one point. Big Show is Big Show; he’ll probably be around and be a solid player in WWE until the end of his career.
The Bad: (Luther Reigns, Nathan Jones, Matt Morgan, Giant Gonzalez, Heidenreich, Tyson Tomko)
I tried to keep the names a bit more recent, but I couldn’t help but mention Giant Gonzalez, due to his limited in-ring skills (hitting someone’s back repeatedly doesn’t quite pass as skill). I won’t go through these individually, because they can all be summed up together. They are big guys, hired to play big guys, and trained to be big guys, but none of them had huge talent. They weren’t ever big names in their WWE stays, and most of them didn’t last long at all. The next roster cuts will likely have Tyson Tomko near the top of the list.
The Tough Guys -
Batista - The epitome of tough guy. He may be big, but when you think of Batista, you think tough. He doesn’t look to the fans with any one-liners (despite “You talkin’ to me?”). He no longer stands there, looking like a big, clumsy oaf (like some of the Big Guys). And even though part of his heel days were focused on his body, he doesn’t just stand there and show it off like Masters or Conway. Nope, he’s a full-fledged bad-ass, and the fans love it. The fans love him. You know, I simply cannot believe that I am actually saying that the fans love Batista. What a weird year it has been for the Animal.
Stone Cold Steve Austin - What helped Austin in his prime was that he was a genuine bad-ass. He was a tough SOB. He was the toughest SOB! He did his little bit with the crowd once in a while, like I already talked about, but the main focus was on Austin being a tough SOB. He beat people up for no reason, gave the Stone Cold Stunner to anyone and everyone, and he still was loved by the fans. But, like I said, his later years were more devoted to being a fan favorite than a tough guy, simply because his neck injuries prevented him from being an in-ring performer. It’s tragic that he’s no longer a wrestler, but I guess it’s best to go out on a high note, and not linger on for an eternity, with stale feuds that we’ve seen before, and uninteresting feuds we don’t want to see.
Triple H - I will admit it right now that I miss Triple H. He brings something to the ring that few others will bring. He is disrespected simply because he’s married to the boss’s daughter, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t entertain me every week. I took for granted what he has to offer when he was on Raw, and the only real thing that I dislike is that he’s constantly in the title picture. I would love to see him in a Kurt Angle role, where he has feuds with people not in the title picture.
But, on to his tough persona. He’s completely about being the toughest man in WWE, and usually has a sledgehammer to back himself up if anyone disagrees. The Cerebral Assassin is a legend in WWE, and I think he has earned any titles he has won. People love to hate him, but sadly, few people respect him. There’s plenty to respect, and little to look down upon with him. It’s nice to see new blood in the main-event picture on NWA (since Jeff Jarrett was taking up WAY too much time in the title picture, much like Triple H), but I would like to see Hunter back very soon. It’s just a little sad that it likely will be against John Cena, and not against someone else.
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I can’t say which gimmicks work best, and which gimmicks don’t work at all. They all have a bit of something going for them over the years, but I guess if you’re going to make it, you should go the tough route. Batista does it, Triple H does it, Austin did it. They’re all over big time.
Which gimmicks have been really crowd-pleasin’ though? What about gimmicks that were just that damn good? Which have stood out over the years, in either good ways, bad ways, or just plain bizarre ways (Doink and Dink, anyone?). Feel free to answer the question through my e-mail address, which is carl_macqueen@ns.sympatico.ca . Let me know what your favorite gimmick has been over the years. Maybe it’s Austin’s “Toughest SOB” gimmick. Maybe it’s Lex Luger’s “The Narcissist”. It could be the Head Hulkamaniac, Hulk Hogan. Let me know, and be sure to dig deep if you must. I love unique answers. I admit it.
Well, that’s all for the column today. Come back next time for a look at the WWE divisions (tag teams, divas, cruiserweight). I’m Joey X, and that’s all for now.
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