Right now, if you were to google terrible gimmicks wrestling, your laptop would give you a sad look and start playing the piano melody from the end of the Incredible Hulk TV show. There have been so many articles on the subject over the years, with top tens, top twenties top FIFTIES that its almost like googling breasts: whatever youre actually after, the results will not help you. Professional wrestling is famous for its terrible gimmicks. Theyre supposed to help differentiate performers from each other but in the cartoon era of wrestling during the majority of the 1980s and 1990s, there seemed to be a WWF wrestler portraying an amped up, mulleted version of every occupation under the sun. A cartoon wrestling plumber? Heres T.L. Hopper. A cartoon wrestling garbage collector? Say hi to Duke The Dumpster Droese. A cartoon wrestling sailor? Incredibly, The Shockmaster in WCW wasnt Fred Ottmans first awful gimmick: remember Tugboat? We didnt think so. So many good workers, sandbagged by horrific gimmicks but wrestlers whove managed to get over despite the dead end characters given to them by management, thats a whole other story. Without being repackaged as someone else, there are a variety of ways wrestlers have succeeded despite bad gimmicks: total, blinkered commitment in the role, even in the face of bafflement and ridicule; unwavering support from the office (rare, in these days of stop-start booking); or a gradual movement into something more realistic and in keeping with the performers natural instincts
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
