Brian Damage
A gimmick is something that is intended to hook the attention of fans to a wrestler. They may be outrageous or steeped more in reality, whatever the case may be…some have succeeded and many others have failed. The Gimmick Table takes a look at the origins of some of your favorite and not so favorite gimmicks of professional wrestlers.
Today We Browse the Gimmick of Just Joe
Joe E. Legend had built a nice resume for himself wrestling in Canada and all over Europe. He was close friends with both Adam ‘Edge’ Copeland and Jay ‘Christian’ Reso that helped land him a tryout with the WWF in 2000. He was ultimately signed that year and met with Bruce Prichard and Vince McMahon to develop a character. The one gimmick that Joe was really excited about was developing a cult leader character.
Vince wasn’t sold on the idea and asked Joe to continue to think about gimmicks that he would be interested in portraying. Several ideas were presented to McMahon and according to Joe were all shot down. The one gimmick Joe felt had the potential to be a money maker was that of a cult leader, so Joe went back to that idea. Joe tried to present the gimmick as not being at all religious, but about manipulating people. Joe said to Vince that he wasn’t a god, but a sort of messenger.
When Joe said that Vince stared into space, rubbing his chin and then called Bruce Prichard in to develop a messenger type of gimmick. It wouldn’t be a cult leader as Joe had hoped, but someone who was polite and nice backstage, but in reality, would be sneaky and self serving. The original concept of the gimmick would have Joe’s character giving advice to wrestlers on how to beat their opponents by selling them inside information on their opposition. Joe’s character had access to medical records and inside scoops on the entire WWF roster. Eventually, the character would stop selling that information and use it for himself to win matches.
Unfortunately, the writer that he was given to come up with segments didn’t share his vision for the character. The writer gave him the generic name of ‘Just Joe’ and instead of selling inside information, he was made into a sort of gossip queen in his backstage segments introducing his character. Just Joe would simply stir the pot between wrestlers and cause trouble and he felt that the gimmick didn’t have a long shelf life that way. Just Joe wrestled a few matches, but was ultimately released from the company in 2001.
You can read other Gimmick Table entries here
Hurgouma Keiser
“Unfortunately, the writer that he was given to come up with segments didn’t share his vision for the character.” This is one of the few times where, if I was one of the creatives, I would have said “I think you forgot one small issue: YOU WORK FOR ME! If I say that this character will be like this, HE WILL BE LIKE THIS! You want your own vision? There’s the door, and there you can look for anyone that wants your vision.”
Bob dole
This is one of the dumbest things I have ever read