11 WWE Wrestlers Who Lived The Gimmick In Real Life
Name changes, ego trips and some rather uncanny instances of life imitating art...
It can sometimes be easy to blur the lines between a wrestler’s persona and their real-life self.
Obviously, there are exceptions. No one’s saying that Mark Calaway, the man better known on television as The Undertaker, really is an undead, supernatural mortician outside of the ring. Nor is anybody claiming that Glenn Jacobs, otherwise known as Kane, is a mask-wearing demon who can set things on fire by simply raising his arms and then dropping them really quickly.
Of course, those gimmicks are some of the more outlandish examples but for plenty of others, it can be rather more difficult to differentiate between the wrestling gimmick and the person portraying it.
Whether it’s a result of guys basing their in-ring personas on facets of their own personalities, or others simply getting too immersed in the characters they’ve created and allowing that to bleed over into the real world, we’ve seen heaps of wrestlers—in one way or another—appear to live the gimmick in real life.
From life imitating art to art imitating life, and because ten just isn’t quite enough, here are 11 of the most noteworthy instances.
11. The Godfather
The gimmick:
After limited success as Papa Shango the witch doctor and Kama the “Supreme Fighting Machine,” Charles Wright slowly but surely found his feet as The Godfather.
What had initially started out as a nickname soon became the basis for an entire gimmick, which was essentially that of a pimp-turned-wrestler. Wearing gaudy fur jackets and with his signature cane in hand, The Godfather would lead the crowd in chants of “pimpin’ ain’t easy” whilst flanked with a cast of scantily-clad women who’d been recruited from local strip clubs.
In real life:
Just like his in-ring alter-ego, Wright’s very familiar with the strip club business, having worked at a gentleman’s club named Cheetah’s in Las Vegas prior to embarking on a career in pro wrestling.
Wright then returned to his roots upon retiring from the ring, and he’s now back at Cheetah’s where he runs the place, along with some other clubs outside of the city. He himself admits that of all his characters, The Godfather was the one that most closely reflected his real-life self.