Snitsky's back acne Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Am watching some vintage footage of The Undertaker's VERY early days in late 1990 and when Paul Bearer (a horrible pun name that no doubt the IWC would have groaned at had it been in existance back then) was introduced in early 1991 and thinking 'Okay, this is a gimmick that really SHOULDN'T have worked.'. I'm sure I even recall a shoot interview where other wrestlers were seeing The Undertaker getting kitted up prior to his first few appearances and thinking 'Oh boy, this is going to be painful'.A curly ginger haired chap who is being portrayed as some almost-human monster who enters to the funeral march with a fat Gomez-Addams looking manager with a high voice - it sounds like something right out of WrestleCrap, yet it worked.Anybody else cast in those roles and I have no doubt the gimmick would have bombed but it just worked.So, can anybody else come up with any examples that either on paper or in the embryotic stages really just SHOULD have bombed or died a death but through clever booking, the talent of the person behind the gimmick or any other reason it became great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members martyngnr Posted July 1, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted July 1, 2015 Wrestling at it's best is camp as fuck and Paul Bearer is a fantastic pun name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015 Wrestling at it's best is camp as fuck and Paul Bearer is a fantastic pun name.  Sure, but it shouldnt have worked. Yeah it's campy but there's been loads of campy gimmicks that never worked. I love The Undertaker, he was what got me hooked on wrestling in 1991. I was scared shitless of him. As wrestling fans we 'get it' and we love the gimmick but imagine if that gimmick came along these days - we'd laugh at it and go 'Paul Bearer!? Are you fucking kidding me?'.  It's a gimmick that came along at exactly the right time with the exact right two people playing the gimmicks and a strong, well-booked push that made it work. It's not a negative or a criticism - it's a compliment. It worked. It worked better than any other true 'gimmick' in the history of wrestling has ever worked in my opinion.  ...and yeah, Paul Bearer is in actuality an awesome pun name I just meant it's a 'so-punny it should be shit' name.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon-Carr_92 Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Grado surely is a no brainer. Think about it. A chubby Scot who jigs about to the ring to Like A Prayer and has got over to the point that everyone sings along like an ECW crowd shouldn't work on paper. If you pitched that to creative. You'd get laughed out the building. And he somehow made it work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015  Wrestling at it's best is camp as fuck and Paul Bearer is a fantastic pun name.  Sure, but it shouldnt have worked.  True. Wrestling in 1990 was serious legit business. All the other guys in the Survivor Series match with him must have been thinking "shit, I can't stand campy gimmicks, we'd be taken seriously if it wasn't for the bookers dressing this one bloke up as a cunt. Why cant he be a no-nonsense bad-ass like the rest of us?"      Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ElCece Posted July 1, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted July 1, 2015 Taker was fitting for his time atleast. Umaga and Rusev shouldn't of got over with there gimmicks if you asked me not in this day an age. But the performer got the gimmick over though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015   Wrestling at it's best is camp as fuck and Paul Bearer is a fantastic pun name.  Sure, but it shouldnt have worked.  True. Wrestling in 1990 was serious legit business. All the other guys in the Survivor Series match with him must have been thinking "shit, I can't stand campy gimmicks, we'd be taken seriously if it wasn't for the bookers dressing this one bloke up as a cunt. Why cant he be a no-nonsense bad-ass like the rest of us?"   Why are you being an arse?  I've acknowledged for the time (campy-cartoon era WWF) it was exactly the right fit, just that, in my opinion, it, on paper, should not have been the 25+ year success it has been.  Feel free to disagree if you think The Undertaker gimmick was not one that really shouldn't have worked, but I was hoping this might be a fun little thread instead of just one inhabited by lame keyboard muscle flexing.  It would seem I was wrong.    Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted July 1, 2015 Moderators Share Posted July 1, 2015 Don't quote like a dick, loads of scrolling needed there. Â Anyway, M.I.A. were far far far better than they ever deserved to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porkchopcash Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Who were MIA? Misfits in Action? Vicki Guerrero, a overweight middle aged women with no real outstanding qualities. Benoit to a certain degree if he can be called a gimmick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015 Don't quote like a dick, loads of scrolling needed there. Â Anyway, M.I.A. were far far far better than they ever deserved to be. Â Amended. Â Â Â Â Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snitsky's back acne Posted July 1, 2015 Author Share Posted July 1, 2015 Vicki Guerrero, a overweight middle aged women with no real outstanding qualities. Â Â I would agree with that. She got the sympathy gig after Eddie died (I know she was there before too but she, by her own admission, was God-awful) but Christ she made more of that gig than I reckon probably she even thought she would. Pairing her with Edge was genius, in my opinion, and really allowed her to blossom as a performer but she stood on her own after being separated from him too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted July 1, 2015 Moderators Share Posted July 1, 2015 Yeah, MIA are Misfits in Action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members IANdrewDiceClay Posted July 1, 2015 Paid Members Share Posted July 1, 2015 Sting's crow gimmick, probably. A direct rip off really shouldnt get over, but it did more than anything in Sting's career previously (or after). Like, everything was a total rip off, from the paint to the hair to the coat to the arms stretched out pose. Imagine if in 2015, they dressed Randy Orton (who was as established as a star as Sting was in 1996) like an aging Terminator or some shit. Like they dressed him head to toe like Arnie looks in the new Terminator and didnt reference the Terminator at all. They'd just go "this is a new attitude for Orton" like they did with Sting. The Crow Sting character always seemed like something they just shoved on him hoping to get over, but didnt believe it would because Sting usually choked when it came to getting to the top level. Also, the name Sting itself is a strange one. Sting is a very famous musician (way more famous than Steve Borden), yet he used Sting's name and was established as the wrestler "Sting". You dont even associate the two. One is Sting from the Police and the other is Sting from WCW. If that happened today people would be all over it if WWE debuted a character called "Kanye" or something more ridulous. Â Not really relevant to the thread, but its always been weird to me that Hulk Hogan is probably the most famous wrestler ever, yet he dropped the name for 3 years and nobody really battered an eyelid. He was Hollywood Hogan during his heel run and it didnt make a difference. You'd think that would have been a bit of a risk for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.PeterVenkman Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Was that not to do with saving money on paying Marvel? Always assumed there was a bit of a legal thing with them, since he went massively mainstream anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 I think the fact that Umaga's gimmick didn't fit the contemporary scene is a part of why it got so over. It was a total throwback but felt pretty different and fresh compared to what else was happening at the time. It helped a lot that the wrestler was great at the time, but I wouldn't say he got over despite the gimmick or anything. He went all in with it and it worked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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