Almost every new superstar in the last 2 years has been given a full name. If you look at the roster for the three shows there's about 10 people with gimmicky names like Kane, Goldust, Hornswoggle and about 2 of them are people who've debuted in the last few years. Almost everyone from FCW has a name like Tyler Reks or Yoshi Tatsu and it's just incredibly boring. Some of the names are hard to cheer for, boring compared to names like the Undertaker or Triple H and most of the time they just suck. It might be fine if some of these guys had nicknames or any sense of personality but when all you have to cheer for is a surname or forename it sucks. It's so much easier and fun chanting Y2J or RVD or The Undertaker compared to some of these stupid full names. It pisses me off and I honestly think it's hurting the product, everyone seems the same. They're just normal bland people wrestling, but say if a giant came along or the rock it's a hell of a lot more interesting to watch and you instantly see them as threats. So I say bring back more gimmick names, because whenever I see a Tyler Reks I just wonder how long it'll be untill he starts jobbing.
No gimmick names anymore.
- Thread starter Kesteral
- Start date
Ambiguous Turd
Mid-Card Championship Winner
I think your thread title is a bit misleading, as from reading that alone, I thought you were stating that there should be "no more gimmicks or people with gimmick names". After reading your post, I obviously saw you meant otherwise and agree with you.
People going by either their real name (Hall and Nash) or a made-up first and last name was cool around 1996. Although, I personally feel it has worn its course, and I agree with you-- it's boring.
Not only do we need more of a return of gimmick-type names, we need a return of more gimmicks, period. And before everyone starts the crap about TL Hopper, The Goon, and Doink .... I have a newsflash-- those certainly weren't the only gimmicks in wrestling. There are more successful gimmicks you might have heard of like "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, "Macho King" Randy Savage, The Big Boss Man, The Undertaker, Ravishing Rick Rude, The Honky Tonk Man, Mr. Perfect ... and even cult-favorites like Waylon Mercy.
Compare those names to Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin, Ricky Ortiz, Paul Burchill, etc. who have absolutely no gimmick and are as boring as all get-out.
Although, like Jim Ross stated in his blog when he addressed why there aren't Face/Heel Broadcast teams anymore, Vince feels that this concept was "too old school and represented "rasslin", not modern-day wrestling." And I'm sure the same concept applies here. Vince feels that gimmick-names are too old school .... and we all knows that Vince knows what wrestling fans want, better than they do.
slimymeteor
Wellness Policy Violator
Gimmicks do need to make a return (to an extent, of course). Prime example, look at Wildcat Chris Harris. He comes to WWE, where they strip him of his personality and call him Brayden Walker, which was boring and got him canned.
WWF Wrestling Fan
Pre-Show Stalwart
I honestly think its time for Vince Mc Mahon to Retire and spend time with Linda and his grandbabys he has lost his touch and he dont give a damn about The Old School wrestling fans or wait iam sorry I mean Sports Entertainment Fans no i was born in the 1982 and started watching WRESTLING In 84 or 85 i loved hearin Jake '' The Snake '' Roberts George '' The Animal '' Steele The Undertaker and Ricky '' The Dragon '' Steamboat but you know i for get who said but now they have name in the WWE now that are just boring as hell like Tyson Kidd or Ezekal Jackson god his name sounds like a fuckin used car salesman, but this shit needs to stop and Vince wonders why the old school wrestling fans are diein out but cause his product is gettin boring again .
Yeah because there are no more extraordinary gimmicks in WWE.They all gone.Right now there are no more gimmicks other than few exceptions(Undertaker,Festus...)Other than that Cena,Orton,Batista and Triple H are just people with personalities.Cena is someone who respects his opponents,Triple H is someone who is always trying to prove he is on top,Orton is someone who is unstable pshycopath but we can't say these are truly gimmicks.Gimmick's generally are personalities that has no nothing to with wrestling.For example if we look back at 80's we can see Jake Snake Roberts,Iron Sheik,George Animal Steele,Honky Tonky Man,Ultimate Warrior etc.These are the wrestlers whose personalities has nothing to with wrestling so they need a name to describe their gimmicks.But majority of today's wrestler don't need them.You can see someone like John Cena,Orton or Batista in real life and these personalities can be in wrestling but what does someone from other planet or a barber has something to do with wrestling.As long as extraordinary gimmicks that has nothing to do with wrestling(Bodyguard,animal,barber) stay away from wrestling we can't see those kind of gimmick names anymore.
FromTheSouth
You don't want it with me.
I think that gimmicks are pointless. Do we really need a return of a guy claiming to be the toughest barber or a model or matador who likes to fight? I'm sorry, I just enjoy wrestling more when the people are real.
I started watching wrestling in the mid 80's. Back then, everyone had a gimmick. No one was real, except for two guys. Hogan and Savage. These guys had public personas. This is why they were the ones that had real storylines. DiBiase and Heenan brainwashing Andre, or two men fighting over a woman, misplaced loyalty, misunderstandings? HMMM, I'll take the one that could happen.
Gimmicky characters lead to gimmicky stories. Look at Hornswoggle. He is a gimmick and we are supposed to believe he lives under the ring. Now look at HHH and Orton. They are real people (exaggerated versions) and feud over real things like protecting one's family.
In today's climate, it is cool to see the Undertaker do the supernatural things, but the effect is enhanced because there aren't a lot of guys doing it. The Undertaker's supernatural powers would look cheesy if Papa Shango was making Warrior vomit and Jake Roberts was training snakes. However, when it comes after HHH yelling, John Cena cracking jokes, and HBK dancing, it looks way better.
I started watching wrestling in the mid 80's. Back then, everyone had a gimmick. No one was real, except for two guys. Hogan and Savage. These guys had public personas. This is why they were the ones that had real storylines. DiBiase and Heenan brainwashing Andre, or two men fighting over a woman, misplaced loyalty, misunderstandings? HMMM, I'll take the one that could happen.
Gimmicky characters lead to gimmicky stories. Look at Hornswoggle. He is a gimmick and we are supposed to believe he lives under the ring. Now look at HHH and Orton. They are real people (exaggerated versions) and feud over real things like protecting one's family.
In today's climate, it is cool to see the Undertaker do the supernatural things, but the effect is enhanced because there aren't a lot of guys doing it. The Undertaker's supernatural powers would look cheesy if Papa Shango was making Warrior vomit and Jake Roberts was training snakes. However, when it comes after HHH yelling, John Cena cracking jokes, and HBK dancing, it looks way better.
Ambiguous Turd
Mid-Card Championship Winner
If it's done with a modern spin on it ... absolutely ... yes. Anything over these bland, boring personalities that have replaced the gimmicks.
Again, this goes back to Step 1 ... getting people to care about the actual people who are wrestling in the ring, first. If you don't give the people a reason to care, then they simply aren't. So you either need the talents to 1) Have a gimmick that can appeal to people ... and/or ... 2) Place them in a storyline that gets people intrigued enough to follow them.
Having any two Joe Shmoes wrestle isn't going to mean diddly squat to the fans. They want exciting people/characters that they can connect with.
Nothing to apologize for. You are simply the kind of person that would rather compare wrestling more to a real sport than an action/drama program. Again, this is another clear example of Attitude Era and Hogan Era mentalities vs Ring of Honor-like fans.
I'll take all of the above. It provides a nice mix and entertains me. I will be more entertained watching El Matador vs Akeem the African Dream than I would be entertained watching Charlie Haas vs Tyler Reks. The wrestling alone, simply does not cut it.
Again, if I want to see real people, I will watch UFC. Wrestling simply isn't a sport, therefore it needs something else to entertain people, other than simply over-relying on scripted athletic bouts with pre-determined finishes. I derive virtually no Entertainment at all from watching a scripted pro-wrestling bout between two bland personalities who I could care less about.
Again, the problem that people in your camp typically do (as I pointed out above) is that they take the most gimmicky characters they can find, and use that as a tool to say why we shouldn't have gimmicks in wrestling. There is a very wide range of gimmicks in wrestling. Some great. Some good. Some okay. Some poor. And some that are downright terrible.
However, most would agree that Hornswoggle is a character designed to appeal to Kids to keep them happy ... and that this particular gimmick really isn't meant for people our age, to begin with.
And I was fine with that feud, until they yet again toned down Orton's character and had him admit that he didn't have IED, and he "pre-planned the whole thing all along". That effectively erased virtually all of the intrigue out of his character.
But again, notice that it was an actual storyline that he was involved in, as opposed to simply a straight up wrestling feud. Like we talked about, you either need 1) Interesting/Intriguing characters the public can connect with or 2) Involve the personalities in a storyline that captures the public's interest.
All too much of today's WWE does not involve either one of those, and hence why people are bored to tears with it.
I was very unhappy with the Papa Shango angle back then, because I thought it was insulting to my intelligence ... since we were living in kayfabe back then. However, I'm not sure how I would react to that today. Now that we live in a kayfabe-free wrestling world, I probably wouldn't be as upset, because I would look at it as "just an entertainment show". I still probably wouldn't be a huge fan of it, though.
But I think you can push a voodoo character, without necessarily doing the stuff they did with the Warrior (to make it less campy), and that would at least be more interesting than the boring people I see on my TV screen today.
Wrestling was built on gimmicks I don't need to go into the great ones we know who they are. The WWE was at it's best when there was a healthy blend between gimmicks and exaggerated personalities SCSA and Mankind etc. Now it's all normal people which can be ok but some people's personalities suck and are boring plain and simple and we all want to be entertained don't we.
FromTheSouth
You don't want it with me.
I think that it is the evolution of entertainment. The biggest movies in the 80's were movies with elaborate stories. Look at ET, the biggest movie of all time. It was about a child and an alien. The biggest movies today are based on true stories, put fictional characters in real situations, and feature characters that could be your next door neighbor. I'll go further in depth here in a minute. But all we are seeing is wrestling evolving the same way.
Moving further into the idea of the evolution of TV, characters on TV are very real now, or real, in fact. People care very much about the characters on TV shows. The audience of Lost is enormous. The finale of Friends has been seen by 125% of Americans. These are real people. Heroes is popular to a niche audience, and a large one at that, but that is the only show with "gimmicky" characters, but they are just real people with real problems, that happen to have special powers. Reality television is huge as well. From The Real World to Survivor to I'm a Celebrity, people mark out for their favorites. One of their favorites is one of the greatest tag team wrestlers of the century, The Miz. Wrestling has followed the trend in TV, and introduced more real characters. Looking at a timeline, you could see the changes in characters coincide with bumps in ratings for reality.
This is how the TV audience was caught and what pushed out some of the sports audience. I would argue that it is more important to have real characters to keep the TV/Drama audience. It makes for better TV.
But would the bike mechanic with a bad attitude vs. The Buff Actor from action movies sell any better? A couple of well executed promos and an exciting match will get the fans behind them. A story works better than a gimmick. You can change unsuccessful stories. Unsuccessful gimmicks are not easy to change, and can kill an athletes momentum before the word go.
I am not nearly as big on the wrestling as I am on the story. I started in the Hogan era, and I loved the gimmicks. I have grown up with the product, and enjoy the new characters, in the same way I have grown with the product and now enjoy The West Wing more than Perfect Strangers.
Well, that's because Tito Santana was a great performer, and Charlie Haas and Tyler Reks would have been jobbers in the 80's. These guys aren't given stories, and just giving them a gimmick won't make them compelling. It takes stories and promos and segments, and there just simply isn't enough time to develop characters with only one show for them to appear on every week.
But would you care more if one of them was a Trashman with a hardon for pain and the other was the toughest hippie protester ever.
Even The Undertaker wouldn't be as exciting if everyone had a random gimmick. It doesn't matter here. Demolition wouldn't be over today, The Hart Foundation would be. Go back to 1985, and the opposite holds true.
Granted. Sometimes, he makes me chuckle.
Does mental disease turn Orton into a gimmick, or is he just an exaggerated version of someone with rage issues? Abyss is the gimmick version of that angle. He is huge and crazy, Orton is just an asshole with a wild side.
The characters make the stories now. Character driven entertainment has taken over all of television. Story driven entertainment, I.E. Dallas, Dynasty, has disappeared from television. TV used to be about a situation and how characters rectified that situation has disappeared. Now, shows center around relationships, and how those relationships find and solve trouble. These subtle differences are reflected in TV, movies, and wrestling. People care more about people than stories, and this is how wrestling communicated.
I'm not bored. 4% of the TV audience isn't bad. There are 500 channels now. As cable expands, shows will ge tless viewers, as there is something specific for everyone on TV at all times. Roller Derby, MMA, drama, comedy, porn, and news are all fingertips away. It is the number one show in it's slot, and it's audience branches out into other shows on the network. It's advertisers draw tremendous revenue from the commercials they run during Raw. A small percentage of the audience is bored, the rest are buying merchandise and PPV's and tickets and movies.
Exactly my point. The Undertaker is helped by the fact that there aren't other gimmicks. It makes him stand out. Hell, it has given Eugene a second chance.
I disagree, but that's why we're here. I argue that the certain performers now fit into today's TV environment, and thus draw in viewers that are looking for more entertainment than sport.
Lee
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's Supermod!
And yoshi tatsu us named after Saitō Yoshitatsu a japanese Daimyo, so that has some sort of gimmick linked there.
I do agree that we need more gimmicks and gimmick names, it just seems a bit more fun and entertaining, but then we the notion that you won't be taken seriously unless you have a 'real name' Carlito for example went by Carlito Cool, his brother appeared and then he became Carlito Colon, whilst this hasn't affected his overall overness it has made him seem a bit more serious.
It's got to be incredibly hard getting over when you're so damn similiar to every new talent. Why should I care about this guy when all he does is act like a normal guy? There's Cena and Batista for that. What's different about him? Well he's from a different part of the world and he looks different but he's not much different from other people. I could watch FCW and see about 5 people who are exactly the same, which is ridiculous. It's so hard to get over as a face nowadays when you don't have a gimmick unless you're a high flyer like Bourne. Why the hell should I care about Tyler Reks? Because he seems like a cool surfer guy? That isn't enough for me, he has to make me care about him.
Take R-Truth for instance, as Ron Killings he was hardly over in his first stint in the WWE. Then he comes back with this just released from prison gimmick who raps for the crowd and people love him. He wouldn't of gotten over in the first place if they hadn't been building him up through viginettes. Now take all the guys that's come from ROH to the wwe, who's made it? Well only one has, and that's the guy with the gimmick or at least some mystery about his character. CM Punk wouldn't of been half as over had he been James Steel or something stupid, and now he's playing his gimmick up as a fully fledged heel.
In the attitude era, (not that I care about it being attitude or the pg rating but it was just better entertainment) guys like the Godfather, the Big Boss Man, Val Venis, Rikishi, Mr. Ass, Road Dogg, X-Pac and more were the people I cared about when I couldn't watch the Rock/Austin. That's what we need, entertaining gimmicks that keeps us interested up untill the main event.
Take R-Truth for instance, as Ron Killings he was hardly over in his first stint in the WWE. Then he comes back with this just released from prison gimmick who raps for the crowd and people love him. He wouldn't of gotten over in the first place if they hadn't been building him up through viginettes. Now take all the guys that's come from ROH to the wwe, who's made it? Well only one has, and that's the guy with the gimmick or at least some mystery about his character. CM Punk wouldn't of been half as over had he been James Steel or something stupid, and now he's playing his gimmick up as a fully fledged heel.
In the attitude era, (not that I care about it being attitude or the pg rating but it was just better entertainment) guys like the Godfather, the Big Boss Man, Val Venis, Rikishi, Mr. Ass, Road Dogg, X-Pac and more were the people I cared about when I couldn't watch the Rock/Austin. That's what we need, entertaining gimmicks that keeps us interested up untill the main event.
I think it would be great to see more gimmick names to help sorta spice things up a bit. The main reason is because the audience needs to have something to make them want to cheer a guy/boo him..wateva and in order to do that, the wrestler needs something about his character that really engages the audience. There are some guys in the WWE who are faces but why should I care about them if there is absolutely nothing about them that I find entertaining. We need a reason to cheer someone and having a cool gimmick name and the right personality trait within their character will give us a reason to cheer for them or on the other hand something to really hate about them to make us want to just boo them. Only problem though to me is that it's really hard within the current WWE environment to come up with something decent because of how restricted the WWE is with what their aloud to do...or with what Vince views as appropriate.