Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Professional wrestling can be a very cyclical business. Many times you could be watching a match, a gimmick or a storyline and think to yourself…”I have seen this before.” Sometimes, you may be right, as many things in wrestling do get recycled over the years. Other times, it just may be something similar to something you saw years ago. In any case, Deja View looks at stuff that may or may not have been re-used in wrestling or something that was simply similar in nature that made you go…”Oh yeah, that’s where I remember that from.”
In the Summer of 1995, the WWF re-introduced Dan Spivey under a new gimmick based on the character of Max Cady from the film ‘Cape Fear.’ Spivey would wear white pants, a Hawaiian shirt, dye his hair jet black and talk with a southern accent. Spivey’s new ring name was ‘Waylon Mercy’ (Get it?) and he had a calm demeanor outside the ring, but once inside of it, was vicious and unmerciful. Unfortunately, due to numerous injuries, the Waylon Mercy character only lasted about four months. Spivey would retire and that was the end of the gimmick…or so we thought.
Reportedly, Vince McMahon loved the gimmick idea and was never satisfied with the very brief run it had in 1995. McMahon was always looking for the right person to revive the character, even if it was tweaked a bit. In 2012, enter second generation wrestler Windham Rotunda. Rotunda had used several gimmicks while in developmental including a brief run on the main roster in 2010 as ‘Husky Harris’ before being bestowed a variation of the Waylon Mercy gimmick.
Rotunda even admitted that Dan Spivey once visited the WWE developmental and gave Rotunda his blessing to use the character. While over the years, the Bray Wyatt character has evolved…Rotunda and WWE still gave a nod to the original version of the gimmick by naming the Buzzard puppet ‘Mercy’ and being voiced by Dan Spivey himself.
