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 Skinner
In 1991, Steve Keirn was looking for a job and through his various connections, landed a face to face interview with WWF owner Vince McMahon. Before their interview, Keirn did a little research on Vince and discovered that he was fond of big game hunting. To try and impress Vince, Keirn brought a bunch of alligator skins, teeth and claws that he had recently acquired by going to an alligator harvest (hunting) in Florida. After showing Vince all of his hunting trophies, Vince was impressed….but it didn’t lead to a job offer.
A few weeks later, McMahon called back Steve Keirn and invited him back to Connecticut to discuss an opportunity. McMahon told Keirn of the gimmick he wanted Keirn to play…an alligator hunter from the Everglades of Florida. Vince told Keirn to grow out his hair and beard and don’t bother grooming. Keirn initially was skeptical, because he was used to portraying a good looking babyface….but was willing to do what Vince requested. Vince McMahon told Keirn to watch the movie ‘Deliverance’ to get inspired to what his new character would be like. Keirn informed Vince he had seen that movie 10 times and was very familiar with it.
Vince told Keirn that his new ‘Skinner’ gimmick would be modeled after the star of that film. Immediately, Keirn thought that he would be like a Burt Reynolds babyface…but Vince said no the real stars of that movie were the backwoods agitators that kidnapped Reynolds and his friends. That was who Vince wanted Skinner to be like. It took a bit for Keirn to grow out his hair and beard. Keirn decided to add chewing tobacco to make his character less appealing. Only Keirn used black licorice instead of real chewing tobacco for the imagery. The Skinner gimmick lasted a couple of years until 1993.