Posted on by bdamage1
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 Abe ‘Knuckleball’ Schwartz
In 1993, Steve Lombardi’s Brooklyn Brawler gimmick was being phased out by the WWF. Lombardi wanting to remain relevant with the company started to think of different ideas for a new character to present to Vince McMahon. After viewing the movie ‘The Warriors’, Lombardi had an idea to base characters from that film into a WWF gimmick. The characters were known as the Furies…a baseball gang who had their faces painted.
Lombardi first went to fellow WWF wrestler and talented artist…Damien Demento to sketch a picture of his face with a baseball design on it. After getting the drawing from Demento, Lombardi presented his new idea which he dubbed “MVP” to Vince. Lombardi said that initially, McMahon was not too sold on the idea of a baseball wrestler. After some more talk, Lombardi was able persuade Vince to give MVP an opportunity to develop. After a few matches as MVP, Lombardi was chosen to temporarily replace Matt Borne as Doink the Clown. The MVP gimmick was put to the side for a few months…until the 1994 baseball strike happened.
Lombardi felt it was a perfect time to reintroduce MVP as a heel character. McMahon agreed, but felt that the MVP name was too boring and generic. He wanted to come up with a name that sounded like an old timey type of baseball player and the two eventually came up with the name of Abe ‘Knuckleball’ Schwartz. The gimmick last several months until Vince pulled the plug on it. According to Lombardi, Vince felt that there were way too many wrestlers using face paint and decided to eliminate Abe Schwartz.