Default Gimmicks: Search and Destroy

"A thumbs down was given to 'I have done quite well at another sport, and now I'm wrestling'. Rubbish."

I agree that this gimmick is pretty much always dud but I submit Kurt Angle as a shining exception. His initial heel run seemed something close to a parody of the gimmick. He kept touting himself as a "real athlete" in the vignettes.

Destroy the Anti-American Foreigner stereotype. I'm not against stereotypes in general (how could one be a wrestling fan?) but the details of the thing have to have some sort of creativity. I liked the French Canadian Rouseu Brothers from old school wwf days. They were so cocky and disingenuous. Most foriegn stereotypes are shrill and humourless.

We were bemoaning the lack of good Anti-American heels the other night as well. The Shiek and Nikita Koloff were brought up as good examples of "how to do it right" (Koloff even turning face to symbolise more positive relations between the two superpowers). Lance Storm wasn't too bad during his Team Canada (WCW) phase.

A pro-American McCarthyite heel could be cool, though.

They've got a couple of decent anti-American foreigners in the second tier at the moment, in Rene and Suzuki - both are pretty good in the ring, but they aren't really going across big yet. The funniest is La Resistance, when they say lame things like "Rob Conway is actually American, but he is a Canadian sympathiser."

"A pro-American McCarthyite heel could be cool, though"

Well the closest thing we've ever had is probably WWE champ Justin Bradshaw Layfield. Not exaclty a McCarthy-ite buthe almost comes off like a representation of Bush's America. In Canada he goaded the crowd for not supporting the Iraqi invasion.

The problem I have with Suzuki is that he's too much of an antiquated Japanese stereotype with the ceremonial entrance and the geisha girl. I kind of wish he was icy and ultra-modern.

Actually, now I think about it, in the DragonGate fed in Japan two Japanese wrestlers do a 1980s-esque flag-waving, saluting during the anthem patriotic American gimmick to get them over as heels.

JBL made quite good sense insofar as if they were going to put the title on Eddie Guerrero to capitalise on their Hispanic fanbase, they needed a heel who would be the anti-Christ to those Hispanic southern fans. And a Redneck businessman was the obvious choice.

Other "default" gimmicks we should discuss:

Pretty boy heel
Monster
Redneck
Gay

I don't tend to watch Smackdown (I might now Kurt's back), but isn't K Suzuki's current gimmick that he insists he's a true American and everyone else is worse at it than him? I've never even seen him wrestle but that sounds pretty funny. I am pretty sick of the 'You feelthy AMERIKENS' school of evil furriner heel though.

I like the slightly unhinged screwball heel (who often inexplicably thinks the crowd loves him) eg Matt Hardy V1 and Chris Jericho in WCW. And I guess maybe Bob Backlund during that bizarre early 90s heel turn when he said lots of long words and put people in chickenwings with reckless abandon.

I bet he said 'pabulum' at least once.

The Funk Brothers in the 1980s wwf were good Redneck heels. They covered Lord Alfred Hayes in BBQ sauce and in another promo they covered the camera lens in spit.

When Terry Funk had his amazing 1989 feud with babyface Ric Flair, he was a bit redneck and a bit screwball.

How come nobody told me that this board exists?

I havent watched the shows in about a month, but what the hell is up with this Carlito Caribbean Cool dipshit? Do we need another razor ramon already?

Razor Ramon was awesome I always thought.
I like the Carlito Cool vignettes. Particularly when he hassles the old man who runs the fruit stand.

"I spit in the face of people who aren't cool"

I hope they have a more interesting intro for him than the guy with the German name has had - he had the weekly-trailer build-up too, and looks impressive, but then they just have him pointlessly beat up a couple of guys. No story.

Heidenreich? He was on Raw last year, he got sent down to OVW for repeatedly fucking up and injuring people I think. He is the Suck. They really don't seem to have a high strike-rate for people they've introduced with over-the-top cool video packages - Kenzo Suzuki was meant to be on Raw at main even level, wasn't he? Then there was all that Sean O'Haire as sinister trickster-god amoralist stuff (I really wish they'd given him a chance without shoving him into trainwrecks involving Rikishi and Roddy Piper). And then uh, Mordecai and Nathan Jones.

I thought Heidenreich was meant to be an unstoppable monster in the vein of Brock Lesnar. Paul Heyman is good as the weasily evil handler. Lesnar worked in that role until they turned him face too soon, before the audience really wanted it.
I thought his attack last week effectively got him across as dangerous.

What's up with Sean O'Haire? His schtick was a big(ger) guy who did high flying moves like the senton bomb, right?

Yeah. He was a Natural Born Thriller, thus he was never actually going to amount to anything. Remember Reno? Me neither.

What happened to Mordecai? Big build up, a couple of little fights, then he vanished. Very odd. He didn't seem to get even a decent try. Has he been injured or something?

His push got canned quicker than any one I've seen since Sid Eudy decided that stabbing Arn Anderson with a pair of scissors was a good idea. He's back in OCW trying to learn how to actually wrestle.

Sid tells a different story about that incident, by the way.

I don't understand why they don't like, REALISE THAT PEOPLE ARE LUMBERING AND CRAP BEFORE THEY GIVE THEM A MEGA-PUSH WITH LOADS OF VIDEO PROMOS AND EXPLODING RING ENTRANCES.

The list of hilarious Eudy anecdotes seems near-endless.