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Title: I Want Gimmicks
Date: 10/19/11
Author: TH



The Wrestling Culture podcast's 3rd installment details nothing but the zaniest gimmicks in wrestling history. While some people talk about wacky characters and get-ups like they're anathema, Dylan Hales, Dave Musgrave and special guest Vandal Drummond talked with such love about gimmicks such as the Squeegee Kid, La Momia de Elvis (translated literally as "Elvis Mummy") and Madam Xandu. As a fan of Chikara, it warmed my heart that I'm not the only one left who still likes when wrestling ventures into the arena of the absurd.

I do realize that fans of Chikara are sometimes few and far between. The fans of the promotion are rabid, but ignorance to the product isn't the only reason why people would get turned off to it. People who know what's going on, but it's too ridiculous because of ridiculous gimmicks. I get why there's this backlash; it's not "realistic". I can see how for those who need exact realism to suspend their disbelief would have problems with wrestling ants being able to feel pain through the antennae on their masks or with a baseball game breaking out in the middle of a wrestling match. I know why they draw the line there and maybe not at the fact that someone won't readily be launched into a running start just on the impetus of being whipped by the arm of their opponent. I just happen to disagree with it. That being said, I can sit here and wonder why if they want realism so badly why they enjoy watching Davey Richards absorb kicks and shrug them off like he's made of granite just don't watch MMA, but at the same time, my snark aside, there are different strokes for different folks. Those who hate Chikara or GIMMICKS~! in general can hate them.


Screw you, haters. Doink was awesome!
At least as a heel he was...
Me, however, I'm with Dylan et al. I love a good gimmick. That isn't to say I like gimmicks for the sake of them. Much like many other wrestling fans in the mid-'90s, the WWF's insistence on rolling out an endless stream of dually-employed workers whose characters were based solely on the job they had outside of wrestling was tiring to say the least. That isn't to say I was opposed to the idea of a wrestling garbageman or a stock car driver who moonlit as a pro grappler on weekends, not at all. My beef was with the execution of these gimmicks. Like, what did Bob Holly ever do to distinguish himself as a stock car driver other than have a checkered flag on his singlet? I'm still waiting for an answer to that.

However, when a gimmick is executed upon perfectly, then what's more entertaining? Look back to that same era in the WWF. Doink the Clown was BRILLIANT. He was a wrestling clown, played creepily so as to play off the fears of young children rather than what he'd become as a good guy, mindless fanservice. The bright colors and obvious non-matching of his outfit wasn't just a hallmark of the WWF's misunderstanding of fashion back then, but it was an awesomely off-kilter appearance to match his off-kilter persona. That's the stuff great gimmicks are made of.

I somewhat wish that WWE today would employ more gimmicks. The entire run of NXT shows their failure in building up characters based solely on being characters like you'd find on TV. Why the fuck should I care about a Johnny Curtis or a Jacob Novak or a Hans Christian Magnusson or whatever the hell the name generator spits out? Why not try to give a new guy a gimmick, whether it's something simple like being a cowboy or something kind of out there? Oh yeah, I forgot, it's because WWE Creative blows.

That being said, I still feel like there is a place in any wrestling promotion for a good gimmick, and not just near the bottom of the card either, like The Embassy seems to be stuck in ROH (although really, outside of the non-wrestlers of Prince Nana, Mia Yim and Ernesto Osiris, the only member of said stable that really should be higher than he is is RD Evans, and they don't even let him wrestle even). Again, I don't need to see La Momia de Elvis, but then again, I'd love to see La Momia de Elvis too. It doesn't matter. Wrestling at heart is absurdist entertainment, so why not embrace it to its fullest extent? I'm not opposed to the "serious" at all, but I think there's more than enough room for there to have gimmicks run wild, and hey, if one of those gimmicks grows up during his or her career and becomes a bona fide serious draw like say, I don't know, The Undertaker, then it's a plus for everyone involved, isn't it?

Check out new blogs on WWE, TNA, Chikara and more every day over at the home of The Wrestling Blogger @ http://wallsofjerichoholic.blogspot.com/
- TH
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