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 Sexual Chocolate
In 1998, after the Nation of Domination faction split up, all the different members were becoming solo stars. Charles Wright became the Godfather, The Rock was blooming into a main event star, Farooq was getting a singles run and even D-Lo Brown was getting a push. Mark Henry saw all of this, while being used sparingly on TV. The Attitude Era was in full swing and Henry knew it was difficult to get television time. He realized to get more of an opportunity, he needed a cool gimmick and character.
While traveling on the road with D-Lo, Henry pitched his idea to his friend. He had just seen the Eddie Murphy movie ‘Coming to America’ and suggested to D-Lo that he wanted to become Randy Watson from the fictional band ‘Sexual Chocolate.’ D-Lo doubted that Vince McMahon would even allow the term Sexual Chocolate to be said on TV, let alone become a weekly character. Despite D-Lo’s doubts and reservations about the gimmick idea, Mark Henry was determined to pitch it to Vince.
Henry said he went directly to McMahon with his idea, feeling that if presented to writers or road agents beforehand, the idea would never reach Vince. After explaining the Sexual Chocolate gimmick with Vince, he was immediately turned down. McMahon told Henry that they invested too much money in building Henry as the World’s Strongest Man and did not see him as comedic wrestler. Henry said he begged Vince to let him try the character out just once. Vince gave him exactly 8 minutes to showcase his idea in a match against Val Venis.
Mark Henry used every second to put over the character as a woman crazed individual, ho was more interested in getting a woman’s phone number at ringside than winning a match. After the match was over and Henry returned backstage to the Gorilla position, Vince hugged Mark laughing and said, “Congratulations, Sexual Chocolate!” From that point on, the gimmick was born and lasted for over 2 years becoming extremely popular and helping make Mark Henry into a bonafide WWF star.
To read other entries in the Gimmick Table series…Please Click Here.
