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 Max Moon
In the early part of January of 1990, Pat Patterson scouted Konnan while he was wrestling for WCW. Patterson met with Konnan and signed him to join the WWF. While meeting with Vince McMahon, Konnan was asked about ideas for a gimmick that they could use for him. Konnan said he was a little perplexed considering he was already a huge draw down in Mexico and Vince seemed either uninterested or completely oblivious to that fact and did not want to capitalize on his drawing power within the Latino community.
Konnan said he came up with a gimmick of a robot from outer space that could fly and shoot fire. The idea was based on an anime cartoon he saw while on tour of Japan. Vince loved the idea and felt it could easily be marketed towards kids. Konnan and Vince went to work on developing the costume for this outer space gimmick. By the time the outfit was completed with jet pack and pyro inside of arm bands, it cost an estimated amount of $13,000. The cost of the gimmick was already beginning to sour McMahon and the relationship between him and Konnan began to strain…even before he debuted the character.
Vince McMahon came up with the name of ‘The Komet Kid’ for the gimmick. After only wrestling a handful of matches under the Komet Kid gimmick, Konnan started to no show appearances. According to him, the Lucha Libre business in Mexico was booming and felt that traveling all over the country carrying around boxes for this gimmick was becoming tiresome. Konnan decided to return to Mexico and thus was fired by the WWF. The Komet Kid gimmick was given to wrestler Paul Diamond. Not because he auditioned for the part, but because he was the only other wrestler who could fit into the outfit. With a new wrestler under the gimmick, McMahon tweaked the Komet Kid name to become ‘Max Moon.’ Diamond remained Max Moon until February of 1993, when he was released from the WWF and thus ending the gimmick.
To browse more gimmick origins of ‘The Gimmick Table,’ please click here.