Successful Gimmicks Which Limit Careers

Cactus Colm

Thought it might be an idea to look at gimmicks that achieve a level of success, but ultimately end up hamstringing the career of the wrestler behind it.

Not necessarily talking about bad gimmicks like The Shockmaster, Max Moon, or Isaac Yankem ...

Gimmicks that can help bring a wrestler popularity, help bring him to a level that he can compete for second tier titles (IC), but ultimately prevent him from breaking through the glass ceiling.

I think Val Venis and Eugene are prime examples (although Eugene was a poor gimmick). Val was a pretty talented wrestler, with a good bit of charisma to boot. The pornstar gimmick got him some notoriety, and was his turn to Right To Censor made sense, and should really have served as a spring board upwards, but it stalled there, and he returned to the gimmick a number of times (most recently in TNA).

Eugene's comedy gimmick as a special needs wrestler, is probably the best example. He was over with the crowds, and was great fun to watch. But there was no way that kind of character would ever move beyond mid card comedy, and without a mask, no way Nick Dinsmore could move beyond the gimmick without being off screen for a number of years.

Penn

Festus was definitely one, though they did manage to find a great way out of it thanks to CM Punk

Lord TSC

Would Santino count? He's obviously a decent wrestler (iirc, I read he ran an MMA gimmick in dvelopmental) and the crowd adore him, but because of his comedy character gimmick and the fact he plays the Italian stereotype, he's never going to get far. That said, his size probably hammpers him as well

Oh, another one. That Mark Calloway chap seemed decent but a zombie gimmick will NEVER work. :P

Cactus Colm

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Would Santino count? He's obviously a decent wrestler (iirc, I read he ran an MMA gimmick in dvelopmental) and the crowd adore him, but because of his comedy character gimmick and the fact he plays the Italian stereotype, he's never going to get far. That said, his size probably hammpers him as well

Truth is I had Santino in mind ... but I think there's he's talented enough, and charismatic enough to turn it around ... although it'd be hard going.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Oh, another one. That Mark Calloway chap seemed decent but a zombie gimmick will NEVER work.:P

True .... a gimmick so good they got two wrestlers over with it (Glen Jacobs ftw!)

geeky

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Would Santino count? He's obviously a decent wrestler (iirc, I read he ran an MMA gimmick in dvelopmental) and the crowd adore him, but because of his comedy character gimmick and the fact he plays the Italian stereotype, he's never going to get far. That said, his size probably hammpers him as well

Very good shout. Saw his match at Survivor series and he looked very handy, but his shelf life is seriously limited. I'd give him maybe a year, tops, before he gets wished all the best in his future endeavours.

In the same vein, R-Truth is a crowd favourite but highly unlikely to ever go beyond second fiddle status. Unless the Miz is booked very intelligently, he'll struggle to establish himself as an 'authentic' main eventer [yeah, I know he has the title now, but we'll have to see if it's a swagger-style reign or something that establishes him]. Not sure if Ziggler will rise further than he has with his gimmick, which is perfectly good for mid-card level. Ditto Kofi Kingston. All those guys have the talent to carry a main event, and have gimmicks that work for them now, but it's hard to see them really becoming huge stars with them.

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

Oh, another one. That Mark Calloway chap seemed decent but a zombie gimmick will NEVER work. :P

:pac:

chopperbyrne

Dean820

Eugene?

Mr. Guappa

geeky wrote: »

In the same vein, R-Truth is a crowd favourite but highly unlikely to ever go beyond second fiddle status. Unless the Miz is booked very intelligently, he'll struggle to establish himself as an 'authentic' main eventer [yeah, I know he has the title now, but we'll have to see if it's a swagger-style reign or something that establishes him]. Not sure if Ziggler will rise further than he has with his gimmick, which is perfectly good for mid-card level. Ditto Kofi Kingston. All those guys have the talent to carry a main event, and have gimmicks that work for them now, but it's hard to see them really becoming huge stars with them.

All of those gimmicks are easily tweaked/binned and allow the guys portraying them step up to main-event level, Kofi has even switched from a Jamaican to an African gimmick without anyone batting an eyelid.

IMO opinion there are not many poor gimmicks that cannot be erased with a good push. Hunter Hearst Helmsley was a mid-card gimmick but it was not so memorable that it prevented HHH emerging as a main-eventer.

Eugene is probably the best of example of a character putting a ceiling on the career of the wrestler portraying it - probably because it got over so well for what was always destined to be a short-run. If Eugene had achieved less notoriety then Nick Dinsmore could have easily been repackaged as a serious performer.

Mr.Nice Guy

Val came to mind for me too. Eugene is another good shout. I still think they should have done the idea many wanted to see with Eugene turning heel and crapping over the character. I wouldn't agree on Santino myself. People often mention this great ability he supposedly had but I don't see it. I feel he's a limited worker who has a ton of charisma and I think his gimmick has helped him and that he's where he needs to be.

In a way I think Hurricane. At its height it was a great character, particularly the stuff with Rock, but you're always going to struggle to get longevity out of a character like that. When he tried to break away from that I thought he did OK enough before his injury. When he came back though it was as the Hurricane so he never got out of the shadow of the character and even now on the independent scene he uses the Hurricane stuff.

briany

Doink the Clown is well remembered but it did not give Matt Osborne a WWF/E title shot.

The Mountie.

Disco Inferno.

The Godfather.

Scotty 2 Hotty.

Razor Ramon.

Lord TSC

I wouldn't agree on Santino myself. People often mention this great ability he supposedly had but I don't see it. I feel he's a limited worker who has a ton of charisma and I think his gimmick has helped him and that he's where he needs to be.

The problem comes in the fact you CANT see it because he's playing a comedy (for the most part) jobber. He rarely gets much attack in and when he does, he only gets one or two moves which have to cause pops (ala the Cobra, the splits, etc). A comedy character physically cannot show off impresive skills since that kills the comedy aspect of the character...

Mr.Nice Guy

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

The problem comes in the fact you CANT see it because he's playing a comedy (for the most part) jobber. He rarely gets much attack in and when he does, he only gets one or two moves which have to cause pops (ala the Cobra, the splits, etc). A comedy character physically cannot show off impresive skills since that kills the comedy aspect of the character...

But before he was a comedy character he was awful. Remember he debuted as a serious babyface and was terrible in the role. Becoming a comic character saved his job.

parker kent

With Eugene I always thought they could easily book a story where Eugene got hit by a chair or some other head injury and it basically changes his character into a serious/hardcore type wrestler. It would have been horribly insensitive but the whole character was insensitive anyway.

Goldust is probably the standout suggestion so far. Dustin Runnells can do what he likes, go where he likes, but he will never forget the name of....oooohh....Goldusssst!!

Rjd2

briany wrote: »

The Godfather.

Scotty 2 Hotty.

Not sure about that. The dude who played the Godfather was a shocking wrestler so its doubtful he would have done anything without the Godfather character which especially in the attitude era was money.

Scotty done well with his gimmick, solid midcard and tag team worker worker for the most of his career.

smilerf

Papa Shango, Kama, Kama Mustafa, The Godfather and The Goodfather

ye course he'd do nothing without the godfather:eek:

Bubs101

Raven, a good gimmick but one that stuck that wrestler with that gimmick for the rest of his life and as time moved past the era that made people empathize with Raven he couldn't shake it

Flash92

The Hurricane maybe? Helms was/is a great wrestler and it was a fun gimmick, but he could only go so far with it. His heel turn and Gregory Helms run did show huge potential though, pity he got sidelined with injury.
Goldust is the best example I think, he'll never get away from that gimmick.

gimmick

briany wrote: »

Razor Ramon.

Scott Hall, despite never being a world champ had an extremely succesful career given his limitations. He was at a main event level for long parts of his career.

Bubs101 wrote: »

Raven, a good gimmick but one that stuck that wrestler with that gimmick for the rest of his life and as time moved past the era that made people empathize with Raven he couldn't shake it

Disagree. Raven is a former ECW champion, and for such a limited worker the Raven role made him stand up ont he lower mid card.

flahavaj

gimmick wrote: »

Scott Hall, despite never being a world champ had an extremely succesful career given his limitations. He was at a main event level for long parts of his career.



Disagree. Raven is a former ECW champion, and for such a limited worker the Raven role made him stand up ont he lower mid card.

I agree on Raven, for a guy who is/was a mediocre wrestler at best, he has never been short of work in his career, even when he was hopelessly out of shape.

Cactus Colm

flahavaj wrote: »

I agree on Raven, for a guy who is/was a mediocre wrestler at best, he has never been short of work in his career, even when he was hopelessly out of shape.

I'd have to agree there, in the case of Raven it's a limited wrestler ruining a good gimmick. I might have been aware of him before, but the first I can remember was seeing him on Louis Theroux's weird weekends (I didn't watch WcW or ecw at the time). And I remember thinking, that guy is just an asshole.

RichieLawlor

How about the Honky Tonk Man

geeky

RichieLawlor wrote: »

How about the Honky Tonk Man

The very fact that that useless, hate-and-bull****-filled tub of lard has enjoyed any career of note is purely down to that gimmick. Terrible wrestler elevated by a genius character.

briany

geeky wrote: »

The very fact that that useless, hate-and-bull****-filled tub of lard has enjoyed any career of note is purely down to that gimmick. Terrible wrestler elevated by a genius character.

Yeah, I too enjoyed the Honky Tonk man's character. He's really funny in shoot interviews though even if he is hate filled. Speaking of genius characters.....What about The Genius?

Losty Dublin

geeky wrote: »

The very fact that that useless, hate-and-bull****-filled tub of lard has enjoyed any career of note is purely down to that gimmick. Terrible wrestler elevated by a genius character.

The Honky Tonk is anything but useless or else he'd not have lasted as long as he did in the ring. Part of the gimmick is that he is meant to appear to be far worse than his status befits him; Ferris had to dumb down his ring work to help him fit it better or else he'd have lost most of his heat. His gimmick is good but any gimmick is up to the fans if it works or not. Were it not for the fact that fans despised it from the get go, it would have ended up in the gimmick skip along with the Red Rooster, Rad Radford, Z Man, Johnny B Badd year ago and God knows but a man pretending to be a corpse (Undertaker), a man with a bald head who dislikes people and is rude (Austin) and a man with a stutter (Bubba Dudley) would be as well.

2nd Row Donkey

Yeah, Goldust is the standout example but I could still see him been a world champ. It'll never happen of course but I think he's over enough (or could get over enough) to pull it off. (If the Miz and swagger can do it, surely goldust can). I'd like to see him alter the gimmick abit first.. can't really see him get over in the PG era with the in-your-face psuedo homo erotic stuff.

backrow67n8

What about the road warriors?? they were always a team and when Joe Laurinatis(Animal) got injured in 92-93 Michael Hegstrand(Hawk) didn't have much success on his own and vice versa when Hegstrand died Laurinatis didn't have much success. Maybe it was more that they were better together than the gimmick held them back as single performers?!?

Machismo Fan

backrow67n8 wrote: »

What about the road warriors?? they were always a team and when Joe Laurinatis(Animal) got injured in 92-93 Michael Hegstrand(Hawk) didn't have much success on his own and vice versa when Hegstrand died Laurinatis didn't have much success. Maybe it was more that they were better together than the gimmick held them back as single performers?!?

I think that's more down to them not really being good enough individually rather than their gimmick.

JohnMc1

parker kent wrote: »

With Eugene I always thought they could easily book a story where Eugene got hit by a chair or some other head injury and it basically changes his character into a serious/hardcore type wrestler. It would have been horribly insensitive but the whole character was insensitive anyway.

I always thought when they restarted ECW they should have drafted Eugene and on the night he was supposed to debut out comes Nick Dinsmore and cuts a shoot style promo burying the Eugene gimmick and practically saying **** You Vince for giving me this stupid gimmick [obviously he wouldn't be able to say **** but you get the point]

parker kent

JohnMc1 wrote: »

I always thought when they restarted ECW they should have drafted Eugene and on the night he was supposed to debut out comes Nick Dinsmore and cuts a shoot style promo burying the Eugene gimmick and practically saying **** You Vince for giving me this stupid gimmick [obviously he wouldn't be able to say **** but you get the point]

Weird you say that as I had an ECW plan in mind for Eugene's rebirth a few years ago. Basically mine involved Sandman destroying him with a cane at One Night Stand and then he would re-emerge later in the night as a serious character. The shoot style interview would have been great, but maybe that is an original ECW idea!

He would have been a great addition to the Straight Edge Society too. Had he stayed off drugs and not turned into a fat, lazy waster!

JohnMc1

parker kent wrote: »

Weird you say that as I had an ECW plan in mind for Eugene's rebirth a few years ago. Basically mine involved Sandman destroying him with a cane at One Night Stand and then he would re-emerge later in the night as a serious character. The shoot style interview would have been great, but maybe that is an original ECW idea!

Thanks parker. I'm glad you liked it.

He would have been a great addition to the Straight Edge Society too. Had he stayed off drugs and not turned into a fat, lazy waster!

The problem is that Nick had to let himself go for the Eugene character to be believable. We're supposed to believe Eugene can barely tie his own shoelaces so weight lifting would be a complete impossibility.

Dancor

JohnMc1 wrote: »

The problem is that Nick had to let himself go for the Eugene character to be believable.

parker kent

JohnMc1 wrote: »

The problem is that Nick had to let himself go for the Eugene character to be believable. We're supposed to believe Eugene can barely tie his own shoelaces so weight lifting would be a complete impossibility.

I was talking about his real life substance abuse problems. He was fired because he failed 2 drug tests and showed no sign of improving. He has friends in high places and got re-hired after his original firing but he wasted that opportunity as well.

JohnMc1

parker kent wrote: »

I was talking about his real life substance abuse problems. He was fired because he failed 2 drug tests and showed no sign of improving. He has friends in high places and got re-hired after his original firing but he wasted that opportunity as well.

Thanks parker. I don't follow wrestling much anymore so I didn't know about his drug problems.