10 Wrestlers Who Gambled On A New Character
Did CM Punk, Edge and more fail or triumph when tweaking established gimmicks?
It's easy to play the hits.
It's also easy, in the wake of AEW, to quit the major label deal and revert back to the early alternative work that makes a wrestler cool in the first place.
Bryan Danielson isn't so much gambling on a new character, but staying true to his best work. The American Dragon is a sadist whose motives are suspicious: does he actually want the younger wrestlers to show him violence, or is his drive an excuse to deliver violence to satiate his sadism?
Does his value system actually mesh with Jon Moxley's, who, incidentally, has also stepped back into his indie role of the badass brawler who knows his way around a threatening soundbite like no other? Both characters are exceptional, and there's really no reason to experiment with the sake of it on this basis. An extension of oneself works perfectly when done well. There's no reason for Jon Moxley to work a supernatural character because he's cool as sh*t and supernatural gimmicks are bitch AF.
The third major marquee AEW signing of 2021, however, is walking a different path...
10. CM Punk: The Old Guy On The Team
CM Punk is the self-professed "f*cking old guy on the team".
He didn't jump. He went away for seven years. To tell the most believable and immersive story, he couldn't walk in as a wrestler in his prime, as if nothing had happened. The character is layered in its brilliance; he earned the respect of the fans all over again by humbly working his way up the ranks, which both fit into AEW's narrative framework and deftly avoided any accusations of hypocrisy. He wasn’t going anywhere, and had to do the same thing everybody else did to get a main event.
At its core, it's a sports-oriented story of an athlete coming to terms with his greying beard and middle-aged body with the advanced in-ring IQ to get wins. The nuance of the technical work, the traps he sets, the tricks he's learned: Punk's new role as the old master is as bold as it is earned.
Even if it isn't deliberate, the rigours of battle are visible all over his body, which only adds credibility to the persona.
The sweat-drenched mess of hair, convulsing stomach, his agonised selling, the throwback body slam offence and Harley Race/Bret Hart tribute spots: Punk is the old reformed good guy on the f*cking team, and he's so good at it that he was almost born to play it and not the firebrand heel he once was.