Stereotyping: The bane of professional wrestling

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

Pro Wrestling has come a long way and has evolved into something that no person could have imagined when it first started out but one of the things that has remained the same is stereotyping performers. And it is not just limited to any foreign performer being stereotyped as a heel who hates America or a Chinese performer classified as someone who does not understand the American language or their cultures. It astounds me how many times the initial plan to push a wrestler fails and yet promoters insist on those same plans being repeated. In other cases it seems that wrestling promoters have a set gimmick for a guy just on the basis of his background and sometimes on the basis of his looks. Allow me to illustrate with a few examples:

1. The Rock was pushed as a second generation blue chipper who was supposed to be the future of the company. That plan failed disastrously. Yet WWE pushed Randy Orton in the same manner...with similar results. In fact there was another guy who was pushed in the same manner during Rock's time and his name was Scott Putski, the son of Evan Putski. Due to not being talented as either Rock or Orton that guy descened into anonymity.

2. Ted Dibiase Jr is currently flaunting a spoilt rich kid gimmick just because that was his Dad's gimmick. It would not be unfair to say that that gimmick is not exactly working. At the other end of the spectrum we have Cody Rhodes whose gimmick is nothing like that of his dad and he is one of the most promising stars in the WWE currently.

3. Jack Swagger was given the gimmick of a Kurt Angle 2.0 just because of his amateur background. He was even hot shotted the title but nothing came of it.

4. Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H were initially given gimmicks similar to the ones they had used in a failed WCW stint. Doesn't look like the promoters did a hell lot of work in thinking up what would work for either guy. It is no surprise that both careers started off slowly till they changed their gimmicks. On the other hand we have Mankind, a guy who came into WWF from WCW with an entirely new gimmick and was instantly successful.

I can go on with the examples but I believe you get my point. The guys who hire wrestlers hardly think of anything beyond the first impression that a performr gives. I wonder if even in FCW the bookers really try to figure out what else a performer might bring to the table. As a result most of the hidden talents that a wrestler possesses remain hidden for a long time and might never even surface.

There are stories about how Droz was asked to puke in a bucket by Vince in 1999 to see if he could really do so. That was the only thing he was made to d as it was th only thing that Vince was interested in knowing. Despite so many efforts for wrestling to be seen as a mainstream form of entertainment, I believe it will never be seen so because the people who are closely involved in the business still see it as a circus act and conduct the business in a similar manner. It will continue to be so till the stereotyping of performers stay and the wrestling promoters have a stricter audition for wrestlers.

What are your thoughts on this issue?

 

[Uncle Phatso]

It's something that happens quite a lot today, and for the most part it will always happen. You will always get the label of being a second, or third or even in the future possibly fourth generation star. If your family member was a huge draw why don't they try that with you. IF you can pull it off, good. If not your kind of stuck. Ted is a huge one today.

Compare both Ted and Cody. They started out around the same time in a tag team, moved on to a generation superstar who was built to be huge. They broke paths and now Cody is becoming one of the top heels by branching out. And ted is stuck with a stale rich heel gimmick. It worked for his dad, but not for him. Because he isn't working it, even I can't believe he has money. His father oozed that kind of stink that you just wanted to kick him in the teeth for. He needs to branch out and become his own wrestler because he can, he has the wrestling ability and he's alright on the mic.

Simple booking is the #4 problem. It's to simple, they think that hey we could make it work. Most of the time now, and thank god they steer away from that. But both Stone Cold and Trips are fine today. So they didn't really fuck up that bad.


Jack Swagger can be gold in the ring, just as good as DB. But they are limiting him, they want him to replace Kurt and have him as the top Tech wrestler in the company like Kurt was. It won't work, because he's not as talented on the mic as Kurt was. Kurt wasn't great, and it's not even the lisp Swagger has. He is just way to dull for me to believe. He needs to just run the whole gamut, he needs to be that big huge technical wrestler. Give him a better submission for gods sake. Ever think of that?

 

[It'sMyYard]

It'd be interesting to see what the offspring of these people end up being booked as.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but with some exceptions, didn't the wrestlers usually come up with the gimmicks and take it round the territories with them? Like taking one from WCW to WWF if there's no copyrighting.

I agree with your Dibiase/Rhodes comments. Perhaps it could work for Ted though? If he's given the right pushes that is. Only time will tell i guess. How long would it need though...

 

[Alex]

lets not forget race here.

You look at the amount of black wrestlers in wrestling and they usually have a rapper/gangsta gimmick, a sportsman gimmick or not much of one at all.

If you look at Jay Lethal he was one of the few that had a rather unique gimmick (Black Machismo) and they messed it up by giving him a rather generic gimmick.

 

[ABMorales787]

How about that "suave" latino who has that "charming" accent, holmes? I actually take heavy offense to that one. I'm latino and I speak fluid english. I know some come with it naturally, but others don't. Not to mention when they HAVE to plaster their promo with gratuitous spanish then repeat the same sentence in english, you know, drive the point home that they are latino.

Another ridiculous one is the women in mostly, WWE. If they're skinny, nice looking and are babyfaces, bet it that they are your charming Barbie who would even shake hands with a cactus. Your heels are always bratty valley girls. Always.

One that I can't really count as a technical stereotype but is still a redundant quality, especially within WWE are how heels, no matter what has transpired over the course of history, if there's a team with two heels who are not above the mid-card, no matter what, they get along perfectly. As if they were best buds. And with faces, all history the two might have shared of animosity, 8 out of 10, they forget and hug. Just ask Rey and The Great "I once tried to squash your head like I did the basketball" Khali.