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 Willow the Wisp
The character of Willow the Wisp was created back in 1997, from the mind of Jeff Hardy. Jeff had grown up a fan of Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger and wanted to create a masked gimmick based on Liger when he began his career as a wrestler. The Willow mask was designed by Matt and Jeff in the likeness of Liger’s mask. The name for the character was originally chosen from a Marvel comic book villain named Will O’ Wisp. As Hardy delved deeper into the name, he discovered that the Marvel character’s name came from an old English folktale. The story was about a man murdered and his body dumped into a marsh. He would become a ghost called will-o’-the-wisp, who was an evil spirit.
Hardy based his masked gimmick as an alter ego to himself. The opposite of him which would be pure evil aka a heel. He would debut the gimmick at his and Matt’s promotion OMEGA. Jeff would usually work double duty by working as a babyface as himself and then later on the shows wear the mask and become Willow the Wisp and work as a heel. When the Hardy’s joined the WWF, a version of that character would be used very briefly. The WWF didn’t want any issues with trademarks, so Jeff renamed the gimmick Wildo Jynx.
The gimmick remained dormant for several years, until the Hardys joined TNA wrestling. In 2014, Hardy resurrected the character as a darker, more enigmatic version of himself. The character received mix reviews from fans, with most “not getting it.” Willow the Wisp would last from February to June of ’14 before being set aside. Jeff Hardy has stated that before he retires from pro wrestling, he would like to portray the gimmick for one final run.
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