Take up thy wrestling boots and walk - Let me get into Character,,,,,
Submitted by Pt2 on Wednesday, November 24, 2004 at 7:50 PM EST





I’ve been reminiscing on some of my favourite characters recently. In the years I’ve been a wrestling fan, I’ve witnessed and become a fan of many different kinds of character. Back in the days when the wrestlers actually used to have vignettes to introduce them before they aired, you used to get a pretty good idea of a wrestlers character really quickly. 30 seconds of a quality introductory vignette could do the same job as ten minutes of promo time.

Although a lot of the newer guys coming through the ranks into the WWE these days could probably do with vignettes prior to their debuts, there are still good, memorable characters occasionally coming to the fore, even if there aren’t as many as there used to be. So don’t think this is going to be entirely a “How great did things used to be” column. I’m a fan of the old days, sure, but in this column I’ll be giving props to some of the cooler stuff we see on TV today as well.

1989, I first got into wrestling. Hulk Hogan was the biggest star in the company, but he certainly wasn’t the only persona worth watching on a WWF screen. Ravishing Rick Rude was in full flow as the Intercontinental champion at the time, in a feud with another great creation (if not a great wrestler) The Ultimate Warrior. But possibly the best at that time would be a young, undefeated newcomer to the WWF. Curt Hennig, portraying his Mr. Perfect character. Everyone knows the gimmick, but it takes someone like Curt Hennig to really pull it off - he was a great heel, and every time that Hulk Hogan or Kerry Von Erich or Tito Santana or whoever it was wiped the smile of his face, you couldn’t help but love it.

There was a strange period in the early nineties when a lot of the characters became quite forgettable, or cliched. Many of the top names were there playing themselves and didn’t really have a “gimmick” as such. Shawn Michaels had become a vain SOB, but he already was anyway. Diesel had become cool and witty after the first 6 months… again, natural. Bret Hart was another star. But one big name really stands out, because his gimmick was phenomenal, you might say. When you first saw the Undertaker you knew it would work, and it was no surprise that with this guys size and completely unique ring style he was world champion within the year. The idea was so good that they couldn’t keep him heel - the fans just wanted to cheer him. His face run would keep him off the title for a number of years, but the popularity of the gimmick endured. The fact that it’s been changed up from time to time to keep the gimmick fresh just helps, and the man is still with the company today.

When you get into 1995, we start getting some more decent gimmicks back, and in the space of six months two of my favourites ever debuted in the WWF. The first to debut would be Goldust. The Incarnation of Dustin Runnels was a heel that, as Bret Hart described in wrestling with shadows, was intended to “Push a gay, homophobic button, and push it hard”. Goldust did that, and got booed roundly everywhere he went. The mind games he played also made him seem capable of beating any body, and he had a tremendous reign as Intercontinental champion. Once he beat Razor Ramon, a real star in the company, you knew this guy would be a player. He went on to hold the Intercontinental title multiple times, as I’m sure you know. Popular as a face or a heel, Dustin Runnels charisma really made Goldust an enjoyable character to watch.

And the other one is Mankind. The only character to ever scare me the first time I saw him. Technically not the first time, but on the first night, when he attacked and choked out the Undertaker with the Mandible Claw, I was pretty damn scared of him thinking “Nobody does that to the Undertaker!”. The whole incident completely sucked me in - it’s one of the few times I’ve really forgotten that I’m watching “Just a show”. The idea behind Mankind truly was freaky. Seeing him rip his year out, and stab his leg…. It just didn’t seem natural. And fair play to Mick Foley, it was his playing the character to the extreme that really helped get the character over. If it wasn’t for the insane stunts and the strange movement… and those noises…. Basically Foley made the character seem abnormal in every way. When you throw into that the idea of him being impervious to pain, as Vince McMahon and Jim Ross would constantly remind us, then you have a guaranteed draw.

In 1997, D-X formed. It didn’t really do a great deal for Shawn Michaels character. It was pretty easy to imagine a heel Shawn Michaels doing that kind of stuff. What it did do, was wonders for the character of one Hunter Hearst Helmsley. HHH originally had a more than decent gimmick, that of a rich snob who looked down on all those around him, was trained by the best that his money could buy and as a result was a tremendous and callous in ring talent. Not a bad gimmick. What D-X did for him was to change that up a bit - he went from just being the rich snob, to the spoiled rich kid. He had all this money, had all the start in life, and here he was making fun of authority, beating up people in his gang, and acting like a spoiled brat. It gave him a new streak, and was the birth of the cerebral assassin gimmick that would come later, when he finally received his main event push.

The year 2000 was probably my favourite year in the WWF for a long while, but I can’t say that it was based on many great characters. Chris Benoit, and Chris Jericho, two of the gentlemen responsible for that great summer, were hardly characters in the truest sense - and the Rock and HHH were just playing larger than life versions of themselves by this point. However, there was one other, very important reason as to why that year ruled so much….

A certain Olympian by the name of Kurt Angle. This wasn’t the Kurt Angle that he became later on - this was dorky Kurt. Talented, but really a bit of a nerd, who contrasted humorously with the rest of the entire WWF roster. Although Kurt actually was a gold medallist, I can’t believe that Kurt could really behave like that - fine performances by the man himself, however, not only made for some great entertainment on our screens, but also led to his winning the world title in his debut year. If he’d just come in, a la Mark Henry, and tried to play a face gold medal winner, without that great character, I couldn’t see him winning the world title - at least not that quickly.

As you move closer to the present day, a couple of characters have really stood out. First off, has to be John Cena - especially as a heel, I found this character very enjoyable. Enough has been written on the Cena character however, and I’m not going to beat a dead horse. The other two that I’ve been very fond of are the Evolution gimmick, and that of Eugene.

Evolution is simplicity, but it works. You have a stable. They have a lot of money. They have a lot of talent. They’re bad guys. They kick peoples asses. Sound familiar? Should do. But the fact is it works. It’s never going to be the Horsemen because the wrestlers are different, but Randy Orton and Triple H were charismatic enough to help shape Evolution that little bit differently that it seemed slightly fresh - There’s a different pleasure in seeing Randy Orton get beat down than seeing Tully Blanchard get beat down, you might say. The downside to this is seeing Flair suck balls, but I suppose it’s better than not seeing Flair at all - though flight attendants may disagree with that.

Eugene is the complete opposite of Evolution. While Evolution was going back to basics and nailing it, Eugene was a completely fresh concept, and to be honest, it could have crashed and burned very easily. However, it was skilfully handled, Dinsmores natural charisma won through, and people took to Eugene. I fully expected to hate this gimmick, but I think it’s characters of this quality that really make shows. It’s a shame that not all characters could have been handled with this much skill. Maybe Aldo Montoya would be world champion if he got treated that well?

These characters may seem outlandish to some of you. Some of the purists out there may think that they demean wrestling, and that you’d rather just see two guys with no gimmicks jump around at 200 mph for 6 hours or whatever. But I don’t really give a toss. In my opinion, these guys bring diversity and interest to a product that is all about entertainment. I love to see two wrestlers with contrasting gimmicks square off - its’ much easier to suspend disbelief if you can wonder which style or personality traits will prove crucial to the outcome of the match. These guys differences add to the concept, not take away from it. Maybe more characters like Eugene, Goldust, Ravishing Rick Rude is what the product needs. I’d rather see any of them than another generic OVW call up.

I hope you’ll join me for the next column, where we’ll have another booking challenge as Random Guy defends against Xanman! The challenges are out, after much waiting, and we’re ready to go ahead!

If you’d like to contact me with your thoughts on this column, or some of your favourite characters and gimmicks, please feel free to mail me at takeupthywrestlingboots@gmail.com

Take care

Pt2








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