ATH First Round Match 3 : CasterTroy v Omackeral (C)

beakerjoe

And with a poll up in match 1 and match 2 going nicely, we start up match 3 between Nic Cages alter ego, Caster Troy taking on reigning Around The Horn Champion, Omackeral. Can the Face off character topple the champ, lets find out.....

Thanks to Shagnasti for the question!



Heres the rules again :

I will post a topic and you have to post your response including why you made that choice within a given time limit (before the next match is scheduled to begin), take care while making your responses however as the other contestant can counter your arguement i.e pointing out possible flaws in what youve said.

*you can only counter an arguement two times so make sure your point is worth making. If someone's defense of their arguement isnt good it will count against them.

*You can use the same answer as your opponent if you wish i.e you agree with their choice however its hard to win a debate when your making the same points someone has already made

see the OP of the main thread for further details or if any examples are needed check out previous years competitions.

Question 3: From Max Moon to The Goon, WWF/WWE/WCW have had an abundance of fairly awful gimmicks in the past. Your question is to pick one of the naff wrestlecrap gimmicks which littered Wrestling during the nineties and tell us how you would have pushed them into a main event position without completely changing their gimmick. What would you have done differently to what happened in real life and how would you get your superstar over?

after your first post: why would your choice be better than your opponents?

---

g'luck and have at it folks!

1990's Wrestlecrap, so much to choose from yet so little worth salvaging. For the most part, the men behind the gimmicks were just as useless as the characters themselves. But to me, there's one guy who actually could get it done in the ring. He was quite the accomplished grappler having mixed it up with greats like the Macho Man Randy Savage and Bret Hitman Hart. The man I'm talking about is none other than

Doink The Clown.

When Doink debuted in the then WWF, he was this miserable clown who would play mean tricks on the audience and was generally a heel. He even had happy circus music that would degenerate into a creepier, more sinister, tune. I always though that this was only the surface being scratched to be honest. After all, who isn't a little afraid of clowns. Anyway, the fed decided to turn him face in 1993 and from there on out he floundered around the lower mid card. This is where I feel there could have been a change.



I would have used this as a catalyst for a major turn. You could have Doink lose in a friendly enough encounter to a lower tier star like an emerging 123 Kid in a face vs face match twice in a row. The first time, Doink is annoyed at himself but then shakes hands with the Kid. In their next match, he loses again narrowly but this time he refuses the handshake and skulks off. On the following week's Raw Jerry The King Lawler invites Doink and his sidekick Dink onto his chat show called the King's Court, not unlike Miz TV that you see today. He's chastising Doink about his losses and comes out with the line that ''I thought kids were the ones scared of clowns, not the other way around!''. Given that it's a good quip, some of the crowd start to laugh and even Dink has a chuckle at his pal's expense. Doink loses the plot and boots Dink straight into the face hard. He gets on him and starts wailing away. Seeing a short person getting taken out like that upsets a few of the children at ringside. The 123 Kid comes out and grabs Doink off the little guy, and Doink seems instantly sad at what he's done. He gets out of the ring shaking his head while the Kid attends to Dink. Then, out of the blue, the clown gets back into the squared circle and absolutely decimates the Kid with a chair. He sinks in a nasty looking crossface (which we later find out is called No Laughing Matter). The bell is ringing, the officials start pouring out and two of the more innocent and loved babyfaces are laid out because this clown has snapped.



The next week, Doink is in the back but it's not exactly well lit. Instead of the usual camera, he's holding a handheld one himself. We can see that he's traded his bright blues, reds and yellows for more sinister different shades of grey. His poofy hair is more scraggly and flattened down in wet kind of style and, when he pans the camera up, we can see his clown make-up isnt exactly as it was. It's more faded and edgy. He starts to speak in a very cerebral fashion. ''You see, this is the man beneath the paint. The whole get up was just a front for a very sadistic individual who only coloured up because he couldn't deal with what lurked beneath. But you fans laughing at me...AT ME!!! reminded me too much of the days of being teased and taunted and from now on, the World Wrestling Federation is going to have to deal with the real ME!''

This character could be a hybrid of Heath Legders' Joker and an early Mankind before either existed. I would say that he is going by his real name Rene Saunce which is a play on Renaissance (meaning rebirth) He could rise up through the mid card taking out the likes of Bob 'Spark Plugg' Holly and Marty Jannetty with relative ease before coming into contention for the Intercontinental Title against Razor Ramon. A feud with the Undertaker could also be a nailed on cert. Counter culture was creeping in throughout the 90's so I reckon we could have had one of the first tweeners also.

CastorTroy

As I've said, I'm not too familiar with many bad gimmicks from this time, but from who I know I'll have to go with The Mountie for this.

At the time of The Mountie's debut, Big Bossman was feuding with The Heenan family, so he decides bringing in backup in the form of another law enforcement officer would be a good idea.

The Mountie debuts at the Rumble where Bossman is fighting Barbarian, after Bossman saying his Brother in law and order will be there to back him up. Of course Heenan and co just laugh at him in his pressed uniform and very proper appearance overall. (Think Fraser from Due South). But once the match ends and there's an attempt made to beat Bossman down, the Mountie quickly helps to clear the ring.

This leads to an ongoing feud with both guys going against the family for a bit building up The Mountie before Bossman turns on him, saying he knows nothing about real policework.
Following this betrayal, The Mountie is out for revenge. Not maliciously as that would go against who he is, but any time The Bossman has a match, he's watching with the Bossman running as soon as he sees him making a move towards the ring. Through interviews we find out he's biding his time, letting Bossman know "The Mountie always gets his man"

Matches take place over the next 2 PPVs, with The Mountie winning the first due to DQ but with The Mountie requesting the second take place in a steel cage, which he wins.

Based on these matches and the (I'm sure) positive reaction and with the feud with Bossman ended, he's then moved into the IC title picture, with a better run as champ than he had.

Interesting scenario and he wasn't one I initially thought of at all. So kudos there.

I can only see trouble with this though. For starters, I can't really envisage American audiences taking the side of effectively a Canadian law enforcer. I know you could take the fight north of the border but the Mountie schtick was basically barred up there due to complaints from the real Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Even if you tried to play the it babyface, the gimmick is destined to be a heel, and at that, a very tongue-n-cheek cheap heat type of heel. Think along the lines of Repo Man. Don't get me wrong, I think Jacques Rougeau was amazing at getting that cheap heat. He was arrogant and brash and really enjoyed it too! He was as natural as a douchebag heel as you could hope to find. I can't see him getting the same reaction on the good guy side though, far too easy to hate. Plus he's a finely polished and uniformed geek, nobody likes prim and proper.

Another issue with your scenario is that he (as in the character) is only in a wet day so why should the fans really care about this guy over someone they already know and like? Plus The gimmick is quite cartoonish and something the then WWF should have been trying to get away from as the 1990's rolled on, not embracing. It was kinda embarrassing being a fan back then to be honest. Seeing a Policeman fighting a Mountie was bad enough as it was. I don't think it was very salvageable in the vain it was done.

With my own gimmick,the star could go either way. There's more scope for development. He could stay on the villainous track depending on crowd reactions or he could go batsh*t crazy and burst up heels too by having him go the vigilante route. With The Mountie becoming face, you're effectively killing what got him the little notoriety he got in the first place. I think undercard cheesy heel was the characters ultimate calling and in the business, that's needed too.

CastorTroy

So you're suggesting a really dark persona back when probably the darkest character they had wasn't even that dark with Undertaker. And it was still a time when it was mainly being aimed at kids so the character would not get over as the kids would just be scared of a psycho clown. I'm not saying it wouldn't go over well during the later 90s in the attitude era, but for its time it would not have worked. The same way Ambrose or Austin would've been seen as too controversial back then.

Basically, I'm saying the idea is sound and I'd be for it, but it's just the wrong era for it.

I think the main thing here is it was back before the internet and before everyone hated on the faces just because it's the cool thing to do.
With The Mountie, the fans would be behind him, having sided with him thanks to his partnership with Bossman and side with him because he's the victim of Bossman who plays the heel well. And seeing the Bossman running from Mountie when the fans want to see Mountie get his revenge will help build the anticipation and will get a great reaction when the fight begins.
As for the American fans not embracing him because of the uniform, you just have to look at the likes of The British Bulldogs who were covered in the Union Jack. The fans know the uniform is just until he gets to the ring and is all part of getting his opponents to underestimate him. And all else fails, align him with everyone's Canadian in Bret Hart.

And as you said, depending on crowd reaction, they could turn him into the heel he was but at least with my way he got a chance, got the crowd behind him and still got the feud out of Bossman. And even if he was to turn heel, this would prolong the gimmick: Team with Bossman again while he's heel, have Bossman turn face and start that feud again from the other sides.

With yours, true he could go on to be popular but for the crowd of the time, it would probably be a small percentage and the gimmick would fizzle out.

For The Mountie, he gets a run as a face, partnered with an established star, a feud with that star, a face run on his own and at least one backup plan that involves a heel turn.

I'm talking about the New Generation era when the Federation was trying to turn its back from old washed up guys and trying to strike into something fresh. This was around the same era Brian Pillman was doing his Loose Cannon gimmick and fans were getting that bit smarter. They were already fed up with the likes if Hulk Hogan as a white meat baby face. A year after that, you had creeps like Mankind breaking out and, to a lesser degree, Waylon Mercy. Id wager that Mercy's injuries caught up to him in 1995 but the gimmick is one that's still fondly remembered. If the man portraying the character had have been that bit fresher, he could have been a hit. A better example would be the dark and broody Raven character in Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Speaking of ECW, at the time they were doing dark and edgy stuff to the point that ECW chants were being started on Vince's PPV's ; see King of the Ring and SummerSlam 95. The crowd were yearning for a bit of change and were being vocal about it. ECW's ideas eventually did permeate the WWF and catalysed the Attitude Era. So in my mind it most definitely could have worked.

I've given reasons as to why I think the Mountie only works as a heel already but even if you could get him over as a face, he's destined to stay at Santino level without evolving the gimmick a bit, and you haven't really shown that.

CastorTroy

Since this is again the period when they had 4 or 5 PPVs a year, this gimmick would last a couple years, at least, with what I have given him: Tag run, Bossman feud, going on his own, heel turn, another tag run and another feud with Bossman. And the heel persona would take on the cattle prod with the lariat being used to choke the opponents out as well. Just won't be done in such a cheesy way.

Unless you're shifting Doink's debut by a year or 2 as well then it'll be a bit too early for the edgier period. So he'd have the original Doink gimmick for a while, which makes it harder to get away from. At least I'm debuting The Mountie with the gimmick and plan that I'm confident enough in that he can take it, run with it and get it over without having to totally rework it. Even with a heel turn, there's no rework involved, except adding a couple accessories like the cattle prod. No complete makeover as you've envisioned for Doink.

And by the time The Mountie reaches the edgier period, he can change as well as the rest of them. Bossman and Bulldog are 2 long term guys who changed when they needed. And as WWF aren't shy about cashing in on the success of other properties and if he's been moved to the lower card, he would get another decent push with the debut of Due South.

beakerjoe

Bump, still plenty of time to vote. Poll runs out later tomorrow.

beakerjoe

Bump as poll is open for one more day

beakerjoe

Last bump, poll almost closed