The 5 Stupidest Wrestling Gimmicks That Still Got Over

We've all seen it. It's one of our biggest shames as wrestling fans. The promoter of any wrestling company, (not just Vince, though he is most guilty of it), thinks up the most buttfuck STUPID idea for a wrestler's gimmick or character, convinced we fans would eat it up. Examples come to mind from many feds.

WCW for example had a long storied history of gimmicks that made most fans want to drive sharp implements into our grey matter through our eyeballs. From a masked Tag Team called the Ding Dongs to Kevin Nash's (I took drugs to make it) forgettable stint as Oz, WCW seemed determined to compete with the then WWF's track record for mind-numbingly stupid ideas, such as Duke "The Dumpster" Drose, The Goon, and Abe "Knuckleball" Schwartz, which wasn't even the worst of the gimmicks Steve Lombardi has been saddled with in his WWE carreer.

And then there were those rare times when a wrestler debuted with a completely stupid gimmick we were disgusted by as always, and we would boo as always. And then suddenly we were booing not because the gimmick sucked but because the guy was legitimately drawing heel heat, or worse, we were CHEERING.

Sometimes, even a stupid gimmick can get over huge in the hands of the right man. So here in no particular order except however the fuck I choose to do it are the worst wrestling gimmicks that actually succeeded.

#5; Irwin/Irving R. Shyster AKA IRS (Mike Rotunda)

So it's the early 90's and Mike Rotunda has rejoined the WWF. He's been gone since his brief but successful tag-team run with Barry Windham in the mid-80's. For reasons known only to Vince, he decided Rotunda's personality, suited to a heel role, seemed to say "Obnoxious tax collecter". Now I suppose one could see to a point the inherent logic of the character. Everyone hates the Tax Man, so it garaunteed cheap heat. People were going to boo the shit out of IRS no matter what. But this by ANY stretch of the imagination should have been a one-note character that would be gone in 6 months after a face squashed him.

The first few vignettes preparing for his debut listed him as Irving which, also for reasons known only to Vince, was changed to Irwin after 3 vignettes. Maybe he had a friend named Irving who took offense? We'll never know.

Rotunda however, has always been good in the ring and great on the mic, and managed to stretch 4 goddamned years out of this albatross, to the point that the character STILL gets recommissioned every so often for a cheap nostalgia pop. Rotunda as IRS didn't just settle for the cheap heat of playing a tax collector, he gave us concrete reasons to absolutely fucking LOATHE him.



Hell he was so good at making us hate him that he actually got people to briefly give a shit about Chris "Tatanka" Chavis, who was, as some of the folks on Inside Pulse like to say, Pissed-Off Racial Stereotype #12, the "whooping Indian". Chavis was devoid of any personality or charisma, and as a face no one cared, until Chief Jay Strongbow presented him with a ceremonial Native Headdress for some reason and IRS destroyed it because Tatanka refused to pay a "Gift Tax" on it.

For giving longevity and genuine heel heat to a one-note cheap heat paint by numbers gimmick, Mike Rotunda makes this list. One question though.... why did NO ONE ever just yank his tie that he kept on WHILE wrestling?

#4; The Honky Tonk Man (Roy Wayne Farris)

Seriously? A Goddamned Elvis Impersonator? THAT'S the best Vince could come up with for the cousin of Memphis Royalty Jerry "The King" Lawler? Well, this WAS before the WWF/USWA working relationship, so maybe making Roy into a bad Elvis impersonator was a jab at Lawler. After all Elvis was supposedly the King. (No I'm NOT an Elvis fan, why do you ask?). This is yet another silly stupid gimmick that should have vanished after 6 months maximum. Especially given he was supposed to be a face. Fans turned on it pretty quick though, and it could easily have died right there, if not for Roy's natural charisma pulling off a cocky heel vibe that made the fans care.

As we all know, to succeed as a heel, you can't just get cheap heat and last very long. No heel ever thrived just saying "(insert local sports franchise here) sucks!". Sure he gets booed, and the fans cheer if he gets beaten, but otherwise they get no reaction because the fans have no reason to care. No, to SUCCEED you have to make them hate you so goddamned much they will pay good money JUST to see someone kick the crap out of you.

And Roy did this in spades. He all but perfected the cowardly heel routine once he had the Intercontinental belt, managing to set a still unbroken record for longest IC title reign due to constantly getting himself counted out or disqualified, further enraging fans and making them want THAT much more to see him get his ass kicked eventually.

Roy lived his gimmick so seriously that he not only got it over hardcore beyond anyone's expectations, he went so far as to sing his own theme music, which lead to the second WWF Wrestling Theme album. But his wasn't just a silly fluff song like those of Hillbilly Jim and Junkyard Dog on the first one; Roy actually took guitar and singing lessons to ensure the song was actually GOOD, and hearing it every time he came out only further enraged fans because his very voice drove them nuts. Roy as Honkey could often get drowned out by boos after getting only a few words out.



Like IRS, Honky still gets called back to TV from time to time for nostalgia pops, and has reached the point of being cheered when he shows up. The saddest thing about Honky? For a gimmick that wasn't expected to go very far, more was spent on some of his Elvis Jumpsuits than on most of Ric Flair's robes. One of Honky's jumpers was rumoured to have cost 50 grand to make. I know if I had 50 grand I wouldn't be spending it on one ugly mass of sequins.

#3; Abyss (Christopher J. Parks)

The only man on this list to have ever scored a World Championship reign of any kind, Abyss is the odd occurrance of a stupid gimmick wrestler that took nearly a decade to finally become the joke he should've been by all rights from the start. This can't be blamed on HIM so much as the retarded booking. Actually I take that back; it's an insult to mentally retarded people to cal TNA's booking retarded. Retarded people are smarter and make more sense.

As what could only be described as the bastard gay love child of Mick Foley and Glen Jacobs, this Mankind/Kane halfbreed had rip-off written all over him. In fact I think in the beginning when TNA was, for some inexplicable reason, a weekly PPV, he actually did get chants along the lines of "Fo-ley riiip offff! (clapclapclapapap)".

And then he bled.

Abyss won over the crowd on pure giant iron balls, taking every week what Foley only pulled off at most twice a year to build up to his biggest beatings. Any batshit crazy crap Foley had accomplished by his first decade in the business, barbed wire, tacks, etc, Abyss crammed into his first year. In his first six months alone he could have fed a family of four vampires.



If the WWE HASN'T learned anything it's that wrestling fans loves them some blood and violence. And Abyss was a bloody violent muhfuggah until TNA's booking ruined him. He was violent, destructive, and had no hesitation about being pummelled by, wrapped in or slammed on multiple sharp cutty hurty things. He may in fact be one of the few men in wrestling history to out-bleed Foley and out-WTF??? Sabu.

#2; Goldust (Dustin Runnels)

No, that's not Lady GaGa there. That's Dustin "Rhodes" Runnels, son of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes, in the first real "Gay man" gimmick since Adorable Adrian Adonis. Vince Russo in all his manly glory, *coughdouchebagcough* decided to use DustIN to insult DustY, by turning the son of the Common Man in the least manly thing in the business. Also, Russo thought he could score cheap heat by playing into the high homophobia of the target audience, for which Russo had only contempt as a Jersey douchebag.

And if he'd slapped the gimmick on anyone but Dustin it'd have crapped out in a few months like most of Russo's pointless garbage.

But Dustin was ALWAYS better than anyone gave him credit for, and he was salivating over the chance to truly finally separate himself from his father. Runnels was willing to bust his ass doing damn near anything to escape from Dusty's shadow, and Goldust was about as far from "The Common man/son of a plumber" as you could get.

Dustin DID play on the Homophobia of the audience, but he was goddamned brilliant at it. The psychology in his Royal Rumble match with Razor Ramon with brilliant, doing everything he could to just plain UNNERVE Razor into making mistakes. And his creepy promos made your skin crawl.

And he had longevity with the character, moreso than the other WWF/WWE folks on this list, as he's still on the roster today, because his character evolved. First he took the character to the furthest extremes in his TAFKA phase with Luna Vachon as his manager. When all the true creepiness and homophobia had been squeezed out of the character, (pun intended), he changed Goldust into a comedy act. Unlike Santino, who tries too hard and overdoes everything, Goldust kept his comedy bits simple and to the point; You always knew what the joke was and he never overstayed his airtime.



There was of course a few brief periods where Dustin left the WWE, but Goldust followed him wherever he went. In WCW, Russo, who was pissed that Goldust had become such a success when he intended it to a rib on Dusty, decided to punish Dustin with an even creepier gimmick, saddling him with a ghostly demonic Uncle Fester (the Child Molester) look and gimmick, complete with vignettes filmed outside children's bedrooms. Dustin saw through this crap and took his career into his own hands with one of the best worked-shoot promos ever, having convinced management the character would bite them in the ass but forced to compromise and blame Vince MacMahon and not Russo. Russo further made him agree to trash the Goldust character, which he agreed to do but after leaving WCW explained all of this and returning to Goldust in 2002.



He also had a brief Goldust inspired run in TNA as Black Reign, which we will quietly pretend never happened. I'm looking at you Glazer. Seriously. IT NEVER HAPPENED. I will titslap anyone who claims otherwise.

Now go buy a copy of CrossRhodes. It's awesome.

#1; Doink The Clown I (Matt Bourne)

The reason for this is obvious. Wrestling fans hate when people call wrestling a circus. Or at least at the time we still did. And this was a fucking clown in wrestling. When Doink first started appearing in the crowds on Challenge and Superstars, most serious wrestling fans reacted the same way Glazer does when Mark Henry's music hits; gratuitous self-beatings and repetition of the phrase "Make.... the hurting... STOP...."

And then this happened.



Do you get that? New fans won't remember this shit, but it was fucking awesome. Let me clarify; Most serious fans hated Crush too. He was a bargain basement Hulk Hogan clone after already having destroyed Demolition by phasing out Bill "Ax" Eady. He was being shoved down our throats every week in eye-hurting neon. And this guy in a clown outfit who by all rights we should want impaled on a dull signpost, takes off his arm and beats the shit out of him with it. Brian "Crush" Adams suffered a legit concussion from this attack, that's how vicious it was.

And that was because of one "Maniac" Matt Bourne.

Yes we all know Doink went to shit when Bourne was fired over his rampant drug use and they slapped the costume on Steve Lombardi and paired him with a midget to help begin Bamm Bamm Bigelow's slow decline into mediocrity. But while Bourne was in the costume, Doink fucking ruled.

First of all he was DAMNED good in the ring. He was smooth, fluid, and technically proficient. Watch him have a classic here on an old RAW with Curt Hennig.





On top of that Doink was legitimately frightening. Matt Bourne's cold serial killer facial expressions and manic mood swings made him seem genuinely dangerous, something to be feared. Doink could fucking HURT you. He tapped into the common fear of clowns many people have as children and sometimes retain as adults. He was Pennywise and the Joker, but far more real. And he had arguably the best heel theme of all time next to Demolition's Derringer theme. When people heard it they were unsettled, as something that began so carefree almost immediately devolved into something dark and threatening.



You'll notice that video is pretty much a highlight reel of Bourne's sharp moveset and schizophrenic facial expressions.

Doink makes Number 1 because he took the single stupidest gimmick and got it the most over. Evil Doink kicked ass, period.

Honorable Mention Paul Burchill's Pirate Gimmick

Adding this as an honorable mention because even though it got over hugely and WAS a stupid gimmick, it didn't last long enough to count as a true success, with Vince stupidly shelving it after only a scant few months because apparently he's never heard of Captain Jack Sparrow and was oblivious to the insane pops Paul was getting. Including it as an afterthought because, honestly, this just absolutely rocked.






Sadly the poor bastard would have his career destroyed by Vince's recurring obsession with getting an incest storyline onto Raw. Granted they wisely shelved the incest aspects before he and Katie Lea got TOO intimate, but everyone KNEW the gimmick's original intent and that was enough to destroy Paul's career.

NEXT WEEK; Wrestling's top missed opportunities, including Hogan/Flair in the WWF and Reckless Youth being paid to sit on his ass for a year.

We now return you to whatever life you're living.

John Cena Is A Class Act

So John Cena has twice now publicly spoken out against the compan that employs him and questioned the decision to fire Bryan Danielson/Danial Bryan as a scapegoat to concerns about WWE's PG mandate.

It's nice to see when other people besides me casn see through the shallow bullshit reasons most Cena haters hate him for, that it's not Cena's fault that hischaracter is now bland and watered down.

I like Cena, greatly. He's shown at every possible opportunity that he is a rare genuinely good, nice decent human being, a hard and loyal worker, and a stand-up guy. And while I still personally find him entertaining, (though not near as much as he was before Vince nuetered his character), I can understand those who hate Cena THE CHARACTER for being watered down but understand Cena the PERSON is just a good guy doing the job he's paid to do. While I wish he'd called Bryan by his real name, I'm in the group that doesn't think the E' is anywhere near smart enough to have Cena publicly chastise a company policy decision just to try and earn respect for him. The fact remains that 95% of Cena haters are men who hate him purely out of jealousy because their women and children adore the guy. I doubt most in the 'E are even AWARE of the very small minority whose Cena hate is based on his character being bland and predictable.

I'm personally on the fence about whether or not Bryan's canning is work or shoot, though I lean to shoot because Vince is frankly just too lazy to put THIS much effort into working people that he'll work most of his own staff in the process. But I DO think that Cena's recent public comments are genuine. Cena knows he's passed the Triple H/Undertaker glass wall of how much he can say and not risk getting fired. Unless he pisses on Vince's grandchildren, (at least one of whom I'd bet good money Cena likely sired if Chris Jericho is to be believed), there really isn't anything Cena can say that will get him fired or even in the doghouse. And unlike H/Taker, Cena is never likely to abuse the pull he now has for selfish reasons. He's already used it to get Even Bourne the push we all knew he deserved, and now he's calling his employer out for a bad decision that has no personal effect on him.

John Cena is a class act. I just wish Vince would let him be the Cena we all flipped over again, not the Cena Lite he thinks sells teeshirts.

The Question of a Cena Heel Turn

Author's note; Finally got around to creating a blog to officially revive my old sub-column from Inside Pulse Wrestling as it appeared in the old Monday Night Rabble. I commented rather long on an article there today and decided it was as good a rant as any to start up a wrestling opinion blog with. So here it is.

I think there's only one way for a Cena heel turn to work. Because he's acknowledged the fan split many times and still continued to be a man of admirable character while glibly saying those who boo him have every right to do so, for HIM to become a heel rather than just a face that half the audience boos, you have to give HIM an organic reason to change his attitude, one that's believable that those who love Cena will buy. And that reason will be based on WHY half the audience boos him.

I've repeatedly said I think the bulk of Cena's haters in the audience are guys who resent how much their kids and wives/girlfriends love him. Yes there are a few guys in the IWC and the Smark audience who hate him for more logical reasons, like his overpushing and Vince's watering down of his character, but most of Cena's haters hate him purely out of jealousy.

So to turn Cena truly heel, play on that. Do something to finally get him pissed off enough to actually insult fans and make them believe he's genuinely bitching.

Have him shown on cam, signing autographs for kids. Have one kid ask him "Mister Cena what's a "Douchebag?". Cena of course will be puzzled and ask him why he wants to know. The kid will reply because his Daddy said Cena was a douchebag because he and Mommy like Cena so much, or something similar. This plants the seed. Cena is fine with guys booing him, but teaching their kids to hate because of a personal opinion? That will morally offend him given the kind of man he is.

Now what happens next, in a logical world, would cement him as a face, but WWE fans tend to be assholes. They cheered Mae Young going through a table after all. So what happens next will succeed in making Cena himself an actual heel in the eyes of those fans who like him.

Cena comes out to the ring and cuts a promo about that kid's dad. He loudly vents his disgust that any responsible parent would teach his kid words like douchebag because he's so insecure that he can't handle his family cheering for Cena. This gets boos not only from said insecure douchebags in the audience (because deep down they know he's right), but also the wives and kids start to boo a little because Cena is insulting their husband/dads. Kids, even if they have a shitty disfunctional family, will defend that family. So kids will be mad that Cena is insulting their dads, and wives/girlfriends will be pissed that he's calling their men irresponsible douchebags, even if they ARE, under the "I can insult my man but YOU sure as hell can't" mentality. Cena gets even more pissed off that the wives and kids are defending their mens' deplorable behavior and lets a little rage finally slip, and now he organically shifts to insulting the defenders, the way some people play blame the victim when a battered wife still defends the man she's terrified of. Granted that's an exxageration but the root principle is the same; Cena sees these men doing something that anyone with common sense knows is shallow and wrong, and can't understand why his fans are defending his haters. He outright calls the kids and wives stupid for defending the shallow garbage, and now no one is still cheering him. Cena is outright pissed-off indignant justified heel now. The only kind of heel Cena can convincingly be given the kind of man he is; the one with the moral high ground that you boo because you know deep down he's right and you hate him for it, the kind who points out character flaws you never want to admit you have. And the more justified and true his rants get, and the more vehemently he delivers them, the more the ENTIRE audience hates his guts.

Of course that scenariop requires logic and proper storytelling. So we all know if the E ever does turn him they'll do it in a two week program by having him suddenly snap for no logical reason and beat Rey Mysterio into a pulp, then say he's just sick of half the audience booing him.

But my idea is better. It makes logical sense and is organic to the character Cena plays which is pretty much who he really is. My idea makes perfect sense. Which is of course why it will never happen. The 'E HATES making sense.