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 The Juicer
Around 1988, after over a year in the wrestling business, second generation wrestler Art Barr was beginning to meander on the undercard of the Pacific Northwest territory in Portland, Oregon. While initially getting a strong push, his small stature was preventing him from being a top star for the promotion. It wasn’t until ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper came into the territory after a WWF hiatus, that Barr’s fortunes began to change.
Piper sympathized and related to Barr’s dilemma being a small wrestler himself. It was Roddy Piper who had the idea to give Art Barr a gimmick to catch on with fans in the area. Inspired by the Michael Keaton movie ‘Beetlejuice’, Piper convinced Barr to do a gimmick makeover and adapt the Beetlejuice character into a wrestling gimmick. Barr painted his face with white paint and added flour to his hair and ring gear to give him the allusion of being full of dust.
The gimmick proved to be extremely popular with the young fans in the territory and suddenly, Barr became a main event attraction. In July of 1989, Barr’s success would go into a tailspin, when he was accused of raping a 19 year old fan. Initially, Beetlejuice was still being booked in the territory as a kid friendly babyface, but ultimately lost his wrestling license amid the scandal.
Luckily for Barr, Jim Herd of WCW saw a tape of the Beetlejuice character and thought he was perfect for the new, reimagined company. Since WCW was viewed nationally, Barr could no longer use the name Beetlejuice for fear of copyright infringements. His name was cut down and he became ‘The Juicer.’ The gimmick was slowly growing a fanbase when his rape scandal came back to haunt him. Activists from the Portland area started faxing news clippings of his court case to WCW and various local and national newspapers began printing Art’s story. Suddenly, many WCW fans began chanting rapist to the Juicer during matches. Jim Herd made the decision to get rid of Art Barr, before WCW was hit with anymore bad publicity. Barr would make his way down to Mexico and reinvent himself into one of the most successful luchadors of all time as ‘The Love Machine.’
To browse other Gimmick Table entries please click here.