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 Mordecai
In 2004, WWE developmental wrestler Kevin Fertig was brought up to the main roster and put on the Smackdown brand. Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis loved Fertig’s physical presence and felt they could develop him into a superstar. McMahon asked Fertig for ideas of how to present him on the main roster. Fertig immediately took his character that he used in the developmental territory OVW named ‘Seven’ which was based on the seven deadly sins.
Kevin Fertig grew up as a Southern Baptist and wanted to base a gimmick on his experiences with religion from his childhood. It was Fertig who came up with a very intense religious zealot that would wear all white and preach about the sinners in WWE and to rid the company of those so called sinners. Vince was very intrigued and was completely sold on the idea, once Fertig pitched ideas for vignettes to introduce the character. One of which would see his character conduct a confession where he would break through the wall between him and an individual confessing his sins and choke the poor individual out. McMahon fell in love with the idea and began development on this gimmick.
WWE writer and producer Dan Madigan was put in charge of developing the vignettes building up the gimmick and giving the character its name…Mordecai. The name Mordecai was taken from the Bible. Mordecai debuted in May of 2004 at the Judgement Day pay per view where he defeated Scotty 2 Hotty in a quick match. Unfortunately, the actual match was panned by both fans and McMahon. Bruce Prichard said that Kevin Fertig tried way too hard to be gimmicky in his match and it ultimately killed his character. McMahon quickly soured on the gimmick, who Vince at one point wanted to build towards a match against the Undertaker at Wrestlemania 21. All plans were scrapped and Mordecai was eventually dropped not long after. Fertig was sent back to OVW to get more seasoning, but was involved in a bar fight and was released in July 2005. He would eventually be re-signed and change gimmicks of that of a vampire named Kevin Thorn.
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David Fullam
Never heard one good thing about him. It could have worked, but it needed a better performer.