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 Ding Dongs
The tag team of Richard Sartain and Greg Evans began in 1987. They formed a team known as ‘The Rock N Roll Rebels’ and competed throughout the Southern territories and independent organizations, most notably Deep South Wrestling run by ‘The Assassin’ Jody Hamilton. It was there that the Rock N Roll Rebels had the most success winning the DSW tag team titles a couple of times. When Deep South folded in late 1988, Jody Hamilton got a job with the NWA/WCW.
Around that same time, Jim Herd was running the day to day operations of WCW after Ted Turner purchased the company. Herd had a vision to take the southern entrenched promotion and appeal to a much wider audience to compete with the World Wrestling Federation. To accomplish that, Herd wanted larger than life gimmicks much like the WWF had. One of those ideas came in the form of a comedic tag team that Herd created called ‘The Ding Dongs.’ Herd’s idea was to have this team wear masks to conceal their identities, wear bells on their wrists and ankles and ring a bell every time the team tagged in to one another.
The inspiration for the Ding Dongs gimmick according to Richard Sartain…came from the WWF’s success with the Bushwhackers. Herd saw the universal appeal the Bushwhackers had with fans young and old and wanted to recreate that for WCW. So the Ding Dongs were created by Herd. He wanted a brand new tag team to portray the characters hailing from Bellville and under the suggestion of Jody Hamilton brought in Sartain and Evans to play the roles. Greg Evans said they were not told what the gimmick was until 24 hours before their debut. Admittedly, Sartain said he and Evans thought the Ding Dong gimmick was too silly, but saw it as an opportunity to make money and get bigger chances within the company.
The Ding Dongs debuted in June of 1989 and were immediately greeted with boos and jeers from fans. Herd seemed shocked by the negative response to his gimmick and decided to quickly end the team’s push. The Ding Dongs then did jobs for teams like the Samoan Swat Team and New Zealand Militia. In August of 1989, just about two months after their debut, the team was “killed off” in a short squash match against the Skyscrapers and then unmasked…ending the run of the Ding Dongs.
er5
The ding dongs make gobbelygooker look brilliant
David Fullam
I remember that debut. Those dang bells on the ankles and wrists kept coming off and getting in the way.
Luke
From what I remember, they were originally supposed to be called the Hunchbacks and have humps with the gimmick that you can’t put their shoulders down to the mat. Ole cut that one short when he said he’d just break their arms and make them submit.
Jim Herd was not a wise man…