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 Man Mountain Rock
Daryl Peterson was a successful amateur wrestler from the University of Iowa State. Peterson first gained national exposure as a pro wrestler competing for World Championship Wrestling under the moniker of ‘Maxx Payne.’ While under the Maxx Payne gimmick in WCW, there were a few select occasions where Peterson played guitar. That garnered attention from the the WWF, who signed Peterson in 1995. According to Peterson himself, he was under the impression that the WWF was going to use him as Maxx Payne as well.
That was not the case, as Vince McMahon felt that that character was too dark and resembled the Undertaker gimmick a little too much. Instead, McMahon had the idea to accentuate Peterson’s guitar playing abilities and came up with the ‘Man Mountain Rock’ gimmick. The name was an homage to a classic wrestler named Man Mountain Dean. Peterson said he had no issues with the idea, but felt that Vince was a bit out of touch on how a rock, guitar playing wrestler should be presented. Peterson said Vince insisted that Man Mountain Rock wear tie dye…which Peterson hated, feeling that was more 1960’s hippy than 1990’s rocker. McMahon also wanted the Man Mountain Rock character to have dreadlocks, which Peterson felt was unnecessary.
Despite the look of the gimmick, Peterson said that Vince McMahon was 100% onboard with it and wanted to push the character hard. Peterson claimed that the WWF got legendary musician Steve Miller to agree to introduce the Man Mountain Rock gimmick, but Miller supposedly dropped out at the last minute. Daryl Peterson said that it was he who put up the money to have a custom guitar made out of the shape of the WWF logo. The Man Mountain Rock gimmick was scheduled to feud with Bob Backlund, however the feud and gimmick of MMR were ultimately scrapped. Peterson had issues both personal and professionally with the Kliq and decided to quit the company in October of ’95.
David Fullam
Amazed at how out of touch with pop culture Vince always was. Maxx was prepping a movie about his time in the WWF that was made up of a lot of footage he shot behind the scenes. And the footage did not shy away from how messed up many of the boys were on drugs at that time. The WWF swooped in and the never never got released.