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 The Boogeyman
Marty Wright was initially a contestant on the fourth season of the WWE’s reality competition show ‘Tough Enough’ in 2004. After it was discovered that Wright lied about his age stating he was 30 years old instead of his actual age of 40, he was cut from the competition. After his elimination, Wright said he was persistent with WWE officials to give him a chance to prove he could be a WWE superstar. John Laurinaitis liked his persistence and overall look and invited Wright down in WWE’s developmental territory OVW for a tryout. Wright eventually earned himself a developmental contract and trained for the most part of 2005.
His initial push was a wrestler named ‘The Liar,’ whose gimmick was a wrestler who lied to get his way. Wright admitted the first gimmick was bad and affected him in the ring and with some of his fellow trainees who would antagonize him. One of the few people in OVW that gave him encouragement was Beth Phoenix who told him to ignore the naysayers and keep pushing forward. Feeling his WWE career was going nowhere, Wright said he went to his apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, shut off all the lights in his house, lit a single candle and began to meditate. It was then that Wright saw himself in a mirror and began to laugh and said he came up with the Boogeyman gimmick. It was partially based on one of his all time favorite wrestlers the Undertaker who he always wanted to wrestle and pay homage to.
Wright would pitch his idea to Jim Cornette, who brought the idea to Vince McMahon. McMahon loved the idea and personally called Wright to develop the gimmick and he would be called up to the main roster. Wright said he wanted the Boogeyman to be unlike anything else that was seen in wrestling. He developed the face paint for the character which was symbolic to himself. The tree on his head, that’s the tree of life, and those dots surrounding his face, black and yellow and white dots, those are the forbidden fruits that have fallen off the tree. That black around his eyes is the black owls that are looking through the night. He wanted the slither to the ring instead of walk, he came up with eating various bugs like worms, roaches and maggots all for effect. WWE started airing creepy vignettes hyping his arrival which eventually occurred in October of 2005.
The original plan was for the Boogeyman to debut as a heel, but the gimmick proved to be popular with fans that he was made a babyface instead. The bugs like roaches and maggots were replaced with just worms, as venues across the country worried that they would cause infestations in their arenas. While he was extremely limited as a wrestler, his character was over for a time and added comic relief to shows. The Boogeyman wrestled for the company until 2009 when he was released, but continued to use the gimmick on the independent circuit. He has since signed a WWE Legends contract.
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