10 Occupational Gimmicks From WWE's PG Era

by John Bills

1. Damien Mizdow

Damien Mizdow
WWE.com

Since being released by WWE Damien Sandow hasn't set the world alight at all, and many are now beginning to side with WWE when it comes to not being in favour of pushing the guy. Despite his less than thrilling first few months outside of the corporate machine, it can't be denied that Sandow took what was arguably the lamest of lame duck gimmicks and made it into something special.

Sandow was tasked with being The Miz's stunt double, and despite having absolutely no clue what a stunt double actually did Sandow became one of the most entertaining parts of the entire product. The two would compete in tag matches that would see Miz essentially work a handicap, Sandow mimicking everything on the apron or the outside.

The gimmick got over big time, and it all led to Sandow (by then called Damien Mizdow) throwing off The Miz at WrestleMania 31 and eliminating him from the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. This should have been the start of Sandow's mega babyface run, but instead he was immediately back into the impersonation business alongside Curtis Axel.

Okay, so occupational gimmicks very rarely work in pro wrestling. They will always be around though, and there are surely some out there yet to be tried that will be a huge success. A wrestling bar man? A wrestling chip shop owner? How about a wrestling cultural attache? The sky is the limit.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.