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 Kama ‘The Supreme Fighting Machine’
During his run as ‘Papa Shango’ in the WWF, Charles Wright said he was going through a very bitter divorce. He admitted that his divorce was affecting his work as a wrestler and decided to walk away from the WWF to deal with his issues. After roughly being away from the company for two years, Vince McMahon came calling in 1995 to ask Wright to return. Wright said McMahon pitched several gimmicks and ideas…all of which he turned down. Bruce Prichard said that Wright’s good friend the Undertaker was asked by McMahon to assist on brainstorming ideas for Wright’s return.
The Undertaker was a fan of MMA and told Vince of a popular fighter at the time named Kimo Leopoldo. The Undertaker suggested a gimmick patterned after him for Wright. When McMahon presented the idea to Wright, he initially turned it down. Vince knew that Wright loved to ride motorcycles, and offered to allow this MMA character to ride one during his entrances. That was enough to get Wright to agree to the gimmick. Vignettes were filmed of his new character riding a Harley and presented as a bad ass heel.
He was given the name of Kama, which according to Wright, stood for Kick Any Man’s Ass. They added the nickname ‘The Supreme Fighting Machine’ to better describe the new gimmick. He was paired with ‘The Million Dollar Man’ as his manager because Vince felt that he was weak on promos. McMahon felt that Dibiase could do a better job of making fans understand what the gimmick was all about. Charles Wright said that to prepare for the Kama gimmick, he began training in different forms of mixed martial arts. Kama lasted for a year before being pulled from TV to repackage Wright once again. The original plan was for him to bring back the Papa Shango gimmick, but the day he was to re-debut Shango…McMahon changed course and kept him as Kama and added him to the Nation of Domination faction under the name Kama Mustafa.
You can read other Gimmick Table entries here