The Vampire genre- WWE can really capitalize on the success of Twilight

[Tenta]

Going to respectfully disagree here. It's very rare to see occult figures make it in the WWE. I'm not sure why, but any occult figure not named Mean Mark Callous just hasn't gotten over too well. Gangrel was decent, and the presentation was good. Still, people just didn't seem to catch on to the guy. Vampiro fizzled out in WCW, in spite of having a vast array of skills, and actually being one of the better workers in WCW, at the time. Kevin Thorne just didn't pan out, nor did that damn Mordecai gimmick. And certainly everyone remembers how poorly Papa Shango failed. So unless you are an excellent worker, being paired with an occult gimmick just isn't going to work well for you.

Besides, one of the things neglected is that the WWE and Twilight have vastly different key demographics. Edward Cullen may make women's panties water, but putting that sort of a gimmick in the WWE is going to be polarizing to those that watch wrestling on a consistent basis, and there's no guarantee that women are going to watch the WWE. Women typically don't make up the typical WWE audience. Unless, of course, they're wishing to be told by Vince how fat they are, and how worthless they'll be if they don't fit into size 0 pants.

Anyway, I just don't see a vampire gimmick, a la Twilight, working.

 

[Spaceman Spif]

I agree with Tenta, a vampire ala Twilight gimmich style just would not work well at all. As has been said, completely different demographics for the most part. Now from my perspective, Twilight and New Moon weren't bad really, I have seen a lot worse movies out there. However while I did sort of in a way enjoy those movies, I would not enjoy seeing that kind of gimmick in the WWE. Two way different type of things to work well together, Gangrel worked because he was a dark, badass gothic vampire type. Twilight vampires ala Edward as not that type of vampire, so it's just not gonna work.

Also the time has come and gone for the 'mystical' type gimmicks to work anymore. In todays world, Undertaker would not make it if he started in 2000's. He has such a iconic, legandary status that he remains so over and loved. Look at Mordecai, he fizzled out in a month, even the Boogeyman fizzled out fairly quickly. A vampire gimmick just wouldn't work.

 

[Killer Tofu]

Anyone who thinks a vampire angle will draw fans of that Twilight movie is an idiot. For goodness sakes, it's wrestling people. They're not going to tune in because Vince tells someone to dress like a vampire on TV. He could have a show full of vampires and these people would never hear about it.

 

[Reddannihilation]

The vampire genre has definitely reached an all time high in popularity,

I'm gonna guess you weren't alive for Buffy?

Beyond that, yes a vampire like faction/character could work in the WWE, but as has been stated it really doesn't fit the PG era. The best thing to come from Gangrel was blood bath matches and they don't have those anymore. On top of that if they copy twilight enough to draw a large portion of the fans there will be a few problems, copyright especially. And beyond that they tried this a few year ago with Kevin Thorn and Ariel, it never panned out according to plan. Similarly how do you put forth a vampire character in today's wrestling? You can't protray them as being super strong because it'd make every match one sided, can't be super fast because they it's impossible, so outside of wearing fake fangs and bringing a cup of "blood", which they probably can't even call blood, to the ring during a match how would you implement it?

Sometimes a supernatural character can work i.e. Undertaker, Kane, The Brood. But most times throughout history it hasn't worked (see: Yeti) and I don't think that in today's PG era a vampire character would work unless it was a cruiserweight jobber who entered through the crowd and was never, ever allowed to present themselves as a serious wrestler. So to the question of a vampire in WWE? Thumbs down.

 

[ashe draven]

Ive never watched any of the twilight films. however i really enjoyed the edge?gangrel/christian angle years ago. it got me interested in all 3 superstars even though the angle ended quickly. I was really expecting a long gangrel/edge fued that never came to fruition. I think a vampire storyline could work today, but would have to be done well. I would be elated if upon edge's return gangrel also came back on the scene in some way, rehashing the beginning of the brood.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

Didn't really expect to see this topic go on for so long. My oh my.

I think an incident last night at TLC will kill off the idea that has been suggested by a few for the whole bad-ass vampire thing; they stopped the match between Christian and Benjamin when one of them got busted open so they could close the wound. If they are continuing this decision with no blood whatsoever then how are they going to fit in people drinking cups of blood? Surely if they take away this mainstay of the vampire folklore then what you're left with is just tarted up pretty boys who will possibly only make a connection to a very small number of the crowd.

I very much doubt that Edge would want to be leader of a brood of some description again after the success of his edge-heads gimmick. Plus, he has won the title I believe 9 times or so in a short space of time (in some very dubious manners), so surely he would be more interested in legitimizing himself as a champ further rather than coming back and leading some gothy troop just because some fantasy films and books are doing well. If this happened, why not go the whole way and have some Harry Potter-esque clan fight with them in case some teenage girls chance upon Raw one night?

Sorry but I just really don't want to see something like this happen as it could lead to further gimmicks constantly having to be acknowledged by the WWE which could start to taint it's own uniqueness

 

[HBK-aholic]

As a big Twilight fan-girl, and an even bigger WWE fan-girl, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I mean, the success of Twilight is due to ‘nice’ vampires, in terms of your Edward’s and Carlisle’s. I don’t think as many of the girls would care if it was the stereotypical vampire, therefore I’m not sure how the WWE could capitalise on the success of Twilight specifically. Also, how many girls would actually tune into the WWE simply because there’s a vampire? The idea seems quite silly to me, and I love the Twilight series.

 

[Tastycles]

Pop culture characters don't really work because as soon as something ceases to be cool, it is immediately the least cool thing in the world. If that happens in the middle of a push of a vampire character, that's a huge problem. That being said, characters, no matter how ridiculous can be a good thing, but I think these characters should be developed independantly of faddy trends.

Vampires have been done a few times before, and both times they didn't get over that well. I loved The Brood, I really did, but it only worked because Edge and Christian were still allowed to be themselves and Gangrel looked the part so well. Kevin Thorn was a pretty big flop.

The WWE should try to invest in character development, but they should be focussing on what works in a wrestling context, and not what the most fickle of fans are going to like. Even if you draw in the teenage girl twilight audience, they aren't going to stick around, so what's the point?

 

[Kesteral]

I think a vampire character in the style of twilight could easily work in the WWE. Instead of the Gangrel type, you'd need a young, good looking guy who's always being hinted as being something out of this world but is never proven to be. Make him look pale and act wise and old, similiar to Edward Cullen. If you don't make anything obvious like drinking blood and spitting it out at people then you'll easily be able to get away with it being PG.

 

[Uncle Phatso]

Are you for real? I'm about to offend any twilight fan in this thread right now. Don't really care to be honest. I find the movies and the books to be a joke now. Any book that gets that big because people find it trendy is a joke in my mind. I've read plenty of vampire books before this and people wern't going batshit crazy over them. No this wouldn't be a good idea for WWE to let the twatlight freaks in here. I have to put up with them at my school not in my wrestling programs. If you want to go read the books or watch the movies... Thats awsome go do it. Do not put it in my tv for me to have to suffer through.

 

[Dagger Dias]

So should the WWE capitalize on the popularity of movies and/or books such as Twilight and The Vampire Diaries and go the route of another vampire group in the WWE?

No offense to anyone who likes Twilight and that type of vampire.... but I think this would be a terrible idea. Sure, it's a popular series.... but there are just as many people out there who hate it (if not more) than there are people who like it. If the character of a vampire that sparkles in the daylight were ever to show up in the WWE then I guarantee that someone like Christian who's good on the mic would easily kill any momentum that character could ever have by making fun of them with just one promo. The character would then be nothing but a joke forever because they would always be made fun of after that. I do support the idea of a vampire group if they stick to the traditional style of vampires because that could be an interesting thing to see again.... but not this type of vampire. Not enough people would take the character(s) seriously and I wouldn't see it lasting long.

 

[HEEL Blazy]

Are you serious? Probably 90% of the people who like Twilight are females from their early teens to mid 20's. You can not tell me that any of these females are fans because they like vampires. They are fans because of the love story aspect and trying to argue otherwise is a complete waste of time.

I know the WWE wants to attract the female audience but this idea will not do it. There is no "vampire" storyline the WWE could do that would attract the female audience without turning off a lot of male viewers.

my cousins wife loves Twilight and now she likes Vampire Diaries. Now idk if that show has love or not in it idk. But its Vampires so maybe some chicks can get into that type of thing. Now hell she already watches wrestling but that's mainly just because my cousin does and I think she watches just to watch with him. But if they did something like this maybe it would get her more hooked and wanting to watch it and I'm sure she's not the only girl out there who likes Vampires and stuff like that. So I mean even thought I wouldn't care for it I think it could really work and drawn in some moe females to the show. The only downside is they could lose more guys then women they gain. So you gotta look at that and ask yourself is it really worth it. So I'm in the middle here with a little towards the no but I also don't see why it would hurt to do it for a few months but not a few years.

 

[Piss Bucket]

I've made Vampire CAWs on WWE Smackdown Vs Raw for the last 3 years running, 2008, 2009 and the new 2010 game, in fact my current Vampire is one of the top WWE Stars in my game, he has the World Heavyweight, IC and one half of the World Tag belts currently.

Okay, well let's change it around then. You remember how dominant Evolution was? How part of their gimmick was their supposed partying with women because all the women wanted them. Now I'm not saying Evolution could have been vampires and what not. But let's say, you have a stable of dominant heels, all portrayed as vampires, and they are so mysterious and eerie, that women want them? Would that not work? Men would get what they want in they would still see dominant wrestlers, and women would get what they want in the sexy, seductive clips/promos that could occur.

Yeah but the "womanizing" segments would be censored to heck, especially on Sky, cos of the PG thing, so there'd be no point.

 

[hArdyPUNKmArk]

Interesting idea but I don't think it could work.

For starters it wouldn't be anything like vampires of Attitude Era or later, guys like Gangrel and Thorne would not fit the description of the Twilight Vamps.

The wrestler would need to be great looking, intelligent, fast and clear speaking. He would need to be Edward through and through. Edward is the only character from the books/movies that could get over. It would be hard to recreate though, very hard.

I don't think they'd go for it though because the character just wouldn't be able to get over as an Edward type persona.

Interesting idea though.