Gimmick

In professional wrestling, a gimmick is a wrestler's personality, behavior, attire and/or other distinguishing traits while performing.

Nature of a Gimmick
The nature and plausibility of gimmicks vary widely. In recent years, the emphasis has been on more realistic gimmicks which portray the wrestler as an actual person, albeit with exaggerated personality traits, as opposed to previous years during which gimmicks could be best described as cartoonish (most of the World Wrestling Federation's product in the 1980s and early 1990s fits this category).

Gimmicks can be described as heel or face. A face gimmick is one that is designed to be popular with crowds, often through adopting endearing mannerisms. A heel gimmick is one that is designed to be hated by crowds, usually to make the face more popular in any storyline in which they may both be involved (for example, pretending to betray a trusting face). A tweener gimmick falls between the two extremes.

Over a wrestler's career, he or she may be expected to portray many gimmicks, most of which may be implausible or inconsistent (see kayfabe). Sometimes a wrestler may undergo a complete on-screen personality change from one week to the next.

Promotions will often recycle past gimmicks, giving them to newer wrestlers. Typically, a promotion will wait several years before trying to recycle a gimmick in order to allow fans' memories to fade.

Examples of Gimmicks

 * The Rock: a cocky and charismatic bully, who refered to himself in the 3rd person, and who coined memorable catchphrases such as, "If you smell what The Rock is cooking."
 * Hulk Hogan: an all-American patriotic good guy who carries the United States flag to the ring, protects the underdogs, has a theme song about being a "real American," etc.
 * Gorgeous George: a heel wrestler who came to the ring in sequined robes, sprayed disinfectant on himself and cheated on every opportunity. Although he did not invent the professional wrestling gimmick, he popularized it for generations to come.
 * Mick Foley: most recently portrayed, under his real name, as a wrestling legend and all-around good guy or bad guy. Previous gimmicks include Cactus Jack (a violent tough guy), Mankind (a mentally ill man wearing a leather mask) and Dude Love (a fun-loving hippie).
 * Shawn Michaels: known as The Heartbreak Kid or HBK. After leaving the tag team The Rockers, he was presented as a flamboyant, arrogant and charismatic male stripper who in his entrance theme called himself a "sexy boy." This persona evolved into that of a juvenile and vulgar heel renowned for his arrogance and insatiable ego while in the WWE's D-Generation X stable of 1997 and early 1998. Since his WWE return and (real-life) conversion to Christianity his persona has been altered to that of a legend of the business whose popularity stems from his past reputation and achievements rather than his on-screen flamboyance. In his return to DX, now a face tag team, Michaels has been more the straight man of the duo (often talking Triple H out of especially risque actions or being distracted by Triple H so he can do them out of Michaels's sight).
 * The Undertaker: his initial gimmick was of an undead wrestling phantom/zombie. During the Attitude Era he was the cult leader of the Ministry of Darkness stable. He was later humanized into his American Badass gimmick, that of a biker with red hair. At WrestleMania XX he readopted the Dead Man gimmick.
 * The Dudley Family: of Extreme Championship Wrestling, all of whom were half-brothers in ECW storylines, despite varying wildly in physical characteristics and race. The most enduring partnership in the stable, the Dudley Boyz, are now in Total Nonstop Action.
 * Doink the Clown: originally an evil clown loosely based on Pennywise, until he received a midget partner named Dink, then the gimmick was changed to more of a regular circus clown.
 * Irwin R. Schyster: an Internal Revenue Service tax collector who is also a professional wrestler. I.R.S. epitomizes the "day job" era of the early 1990s WWF, in which a wrestler's gimmick was often defined by a second job they supposedly did away from the ring.
 * The Hurricane: an outlandish superhero in the vein of the Batman TV show. This gimmick developed to the point that he was given a sidekick "Super Hero in Training (S.H.I.T.)," Rosey. He later betrayed Rosey, moved from Raw to SmackDown and removed his costume. He started going by his real name of Gregory Helms and adopted the gimmick of a vengeful, serious competitor who is determined to overcome the stigma of his silly former persona through success in the ring.
 * John Cena : a rapper who for several years wore a large metal chain around his neck and a throwback sports jersey connected to the city where he was performing. In 2006 he starred in the movie The Marine and began wearing military-related attire to the ring, including camouflage shorts, dog tags and a T-shirt with the words "Chain Gang Assault Battalion", and giving a salute as he enters the arena.
 * The Boogeyman: a worm-eating psychopath with facepaint, a smoke-emitting staff and a clock he smashes against his head, who yells "I'm coming to get you" and scares the living daylights out of his opponents.
 * Randy Orton: a cocky, self-proclaimed "Legend-Killer" who humiliates and disrespects veterans and respected wrestling personalities. Also sometimes known as RKO, his initials (Randall Keith Orton, which is also the name of his finishing maneuver).
 * Edge: the "Rated-R Superstar," who does shocking things like having sex in public and shooting on fellow wrestlers. Originally he was in a tag team with Christian as a goofy surfer. In his first years in the WWF/WWE he was portrayed as a loner type character, usually entering through the crowd to the ring and at one point had a vampire persona alongside Gangrel and Christian who formed The Brood. Edge's current gimmick is similar to that used by "Loose Cannon" Brian Pillman towards the end of his World Championship Wrestling run.
 * Eugene: a mentally challenged wrestling savant.
 * Kane: also known as The Big Red Machine or The Big Red Monster. A sadistic, uncaring "monster" who appears to suffer from schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder and Munchausen syndrome, among other mental illnesses. His character is the half-brother of The Undertaker and supposedly burned over 98% of his body as a child, though he wears nothing but wrestling tights to the ring now. Viewers later found out that the burns were never physical but rather mental. Originally he wore a full-body red and black wrestling suit, gloves and a mask, but later he removed the mask and upper-body attire and shaved his head.
 * Chris Jericho: also known as Y2J, a play on the Y2K phenomenon in the year 2000, and The Human Highlight Reel. A cocky, trash-talking rockstar with popular catchphrases such as "I'm the king of the world" and "Assclown." (In real life he is a rockstar, vocalist of Fozzy, but humble and friendly unlike his wrestling persona).
 * John Bradshaw Layfield: a rich Texan businessman living in New York. This character appears to be patterned after J.R. Ewing from the popular 1980s television show, Dallas or even possibly George W. Bush (in real life, Layfield is a successful stock market investor and is featured in the financial news media). Bradshaw was previously cast as a hard-drinking Texan trailer-park cowboy while in the Acolytes, then Acolyte Protection Agency, with tag partner Farooq.
 * Red Rooster: a talented Southern "rassler", Terry Taylor was brought to the WWF to look and occasionally act like a rooster in the ring, complete with a streak of red hair that stood on top of his head. Despite being a long-time veteran, Taylor also played a rookie in this role. This is an example of the use of a gimmick to bury a wrestler who is not well-liked by a promoter.
 * Mr Perfect: an incredibly skilled multi-discipline athlete who constantly brags about his numerous flawless performances.
 * Bobby "The Brain" Heenan: a wrestling manager who was known for his deceit and cheating to get his wrestlers over. Heenan would often distract the referee, hand illegal objects to his wrestlers, and do anything to win. Heenan portrayed a character who acted tough until he was confronted, then he would hide in the background, while his wrestlers would take care of his problems. Heenan later became a "broadcast journalist" later in his career, continually supporting heel wrestlers and cheating in the ring. His catchphrase "It doesn't matter if you win or lose as long as you cheat," sums up his personality.
 * "The Million Dollar Man" Ted Dibiase: a rich man who tried to buy the championship, whose gimmick is seen as the predecessor to Bradshaw's JBL gimmick listed above.
 * Sting: started as a blonde surfer with facepaint much like a Hulk Hogan-style fan favorite, but after being thought of as a traitor (which was proven wrong), he returned in black and white with darkened, longer hair and a trench coat in a gimmick mimicking The Crow comics and specifically movie look. After keeping silent as that character until he gained redemption, he started speaking again, as in his previous gimmick, except with a mean streak thereby combining the characters.
 * Jake "The Snake" Roberts: used the memorable gimmick of bringing his python Damien into the ring to strangle his opponents. The snake was effective against André the Giant, who was terrified and it actually did bite Randy Savage.
 * Muhammad Hassan: (as well as his manager Daivari) used a highly controversial gimmick of an angry Arab American who was sick of the discrimination towards him after 9/11. Mark Copani (his real name), actually an Italian-American, was later released due to the public backlash against the character following an angle which aired shortly after terrorist attacks in England (but was taped before), in which masked men working for Muhammad attempted to strangle The Undertaker with wire, evoking sensitive publicized incidents of terrorist beheadings. His character was killed by The Undertaker at the next pay-per-view by a last ride to below the entrance ramp.
 * Mark Henry: first a heel character who was obsessed with romance and known as Sexual Chocolate. He later returned with The World's Strongest Man gimmick (more realistic, as he participated in weightlifting at the 1996 Olympics). This gimmick would show Henry as a man who possessed tons of strength and would go on a path of destruction, injuring many wrestlers.
 * Mae Young: a woman in her early eighties who is usually seen stripping or parading scantily clad on WWE television. Young is an example of a gimmick influenced by popular culture; her character is heavily based on Mae West.
 * The Hollywood Blondes: a tag team generally composed of two young, blonde wrestlers. Generally, the gimmick involves the wrestlers being cocky heartthrobs, causing the predominantly male audience to boo out of jealousy. In the 1970s, Jerry Brown and Buddy Roberts had the team name. In the 1980s, it was Rip Rogers and Ted Oates and in the 1990s, it was Steve Austin (as Stunning Steve Austin) and Brian Pillman, who were the better-known team owing to their nationwide exposure on Turner Broadcasting System. In the late 1990s, Lenny Lane and Lodi gave this concept a homosexual spin as the West Hollywood Blondes. The former tag team of MNM (Mercury-Nitro-Melina) is an example of this gimmick with an attractive female manager in Melina, as are the young tag team of The Teacher's Pets (Idol Stevens and K.C. James, although Stevens has darker hair) and their naughty teacher valet Michelle McCool.
 * Tiger Mask: a famous junior heavyweight wrestler in Japan, who wears a tiger-themed mask and uses high-flying moves in the ring. Four wrestlers have portrayed the Tiger Mask character.
 * Spirit Squad: a five-man male cheerleading team known for performing disrespectful cheers and ultra-athletic moves, sometimes involving a trampoline and annoying their opponents with an air-horn.
 * Mickie James: originally an energetic preppie girl who displays bipolar, obsessive and lesbian behavior, among other strange actions. She was similar in some aspects to Kane but is now a face, retaining only her enthusiasm and vicious streak.
 * Melina and Johnny Nitro: the Hollywood couple who think they are better than everyone around them. The relationship between Nitro and Melina became emphasized when the tag team of MNM broke up after Mercury's departure.
 * "Stone Cold" Steve Austin: also known as The Texas Rattlesnake. He was a beer-drinking, foul-mouthed renegade who has blatant disregard for authority and lives by the creed "Don't Trust Anybody (DTA)." His feud with Mr. McMahon was a driving force behind the Attitude Era and late 1990s wrestling boom. Stone Cold had numerous popular catchphrases such as "Austin 3:16 says 'I just whipped your ass'" and "And that's the bottom line because Stone Cold said so" and often gave opponents (and the audience, to their delight) the finger, in between gulps of beer. He had arguably the most popular gimmick in wrestling history, combining traits of a blue-collar everyman with those of a rebellious, independent antihero. Although he attempted to portray a heel character in his comeback and alliance with The Corporation in the early 2000s, the crowd saw Stone Cold as a permanent face. His catchphrase from that period of "What?" is still commonly repeated by crowds interrupting the promos of heels.
 * Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake: a barber who rendered his opponents unconscious before cutting their hair.
 * Big Boss Man: a former prison guard who fought for law, order and justice as a face while savagely beating his opponents up with his nightstick, as a heel.
 * "The Kings": this gimmick was used by several superstars such as Jerry Lawler, Harley Race, Jim Duggan, Kurt Angle (King Kurt), Randy Savage (Macho King), Owen Hart (King of Harts), Mabel (King Mabel), Triple H (The King of Kings, a gimmick which may be seen as a combination of his The Game persona and his early Jean-Paul Levesque/Hunter Hearst Helmsley personas) & most recently Booker T (King Booker). In most cases, the superstar/s who used this Gimmick came after winning the King of the Ring tournament thus it was during one of their heel runs.
 * Kevin Thorn and Ariel: two more modern vampires who tend to bite each other and their opponents and dress in complete black and red and resemble the masquerade vampire books characters. David Heath used the name of Gangrel used a similar vampire gimmick during his WWF/WWE run in the 90's and is more closely portrayed as a vampire from Anne Rice's vampire chronicles.
 * Montel Vontavious Porter: known as MVP, a play on the term Most Valuable Player, he is a cocky free agent who thinks he is not only the best wrestler but the best athlete ever. He approaches the ring out of an inflatable entrance structure similar to those in the National Football League and wears an ostentatious jumpsuit resembling a Power Ranger. He also performs the Ballin' "fadeaway" as part of his athletic gimmick. A similar gimmick is used by Bobby Roode in TNA.
 * Cryme Tyme: known as Shad Gaspard and JTG, they are two stereotypical African-American thug wrestlers. They performed in a series of video vignettes before their Raw debut in which they committed crimes in order to train in various athletic skills, such as robbing a convenience store and carjacking a white man lost in the ghetto.
 * Vito: "the toughest man to wear a dress", who puts his dress over his opponents' heads. Formerly the no-nonsense partner of fellow Italian Nunzio.
 * Eddie Guerrero: a fan favorite who often won matches, despite his technical wrestling skill, by lying, cheating and stealing. He played up the urban Mexican-American stereotype by driving lowriders to the ring, exclaiming "Viva la Raza!" and calling people "essa" and "homes."
 * Jimmy Wang Yang: an Asian "redneck" who wrestles in a high-flying style, formerly Akio.
 * Jillian Hall: A beautiful blonde woman with extremely humongous breasts, who is a successful fixer for wrestlers. Examples are MNM and JBL.
 * Ron Simmons: In a previous WWF/WWE stint he was a leader of a stable called the "Nation of Domination", a take off of the Nation of Islam leader Lewis Farakan. Now he is portrayed as a retired wrestler and JBL's former partner, who has a comic gimmick by saying one line, "Damn!"
 * Chris Benoit: A ruthless wrestling machine, who injures wrestlers in a methodical way. This eventually evolved from a young stud-type bully to a more respected tough guy.
 * Sylvain Grenier: An ambassador to Quebec
 * William Regal and Dave Taylor: two fighting Englishmen
 * Paul London and Brian Kendrick:A tag-team which consists of two young, care-free "dare-devils" that perform many high risk moves in matches.They recently had a valet in Ashley Massaro.
 * Finlay: A tough and proud Irishman who is clad in green and black and carries a shillelagh to the ring and has a Leprechaun known as the Hornswoggle hidden under the ring.
 * Umaga: A wild Samoan savage with tribal markings on his face and is only controllable by his handler Armando Alejandro Estrada.
 * Deuce 'N Domino: A couple of greasers in the style of 1950s cool kids, such as Fonzie from Happy Days or the main characters from the Grease movies.
 * Latin American Exchange: A team of Latin-American immigrants who loudly decry the way that latinos are treated and stereotyped in the USA. The characters also take great pride in their latin heritage, and little respect for much else.
 * The Miz (Mike Mizanin): An arrogant kid who dresses in punk or emo style and sees himself as one of the best superstars on SmackDown, despite his overwhelming lack of experience.
 * Rey Mysterio: An underdog face, and close friend to Eddie Guerrero, he always wants to prove that his small size is not a handicap to his abilities. He mostly performs high flying moves & rarely uses dirty tactics to win matches.
 * Koko B. Ware: A birdkeeper gimmick who came to the ring with a parrot named Frankie on his shoulder.
 * Slick: A stereotypical african-american jive talker who was cocky and arrogant at all times. Later, he adopted an ordained minister gimmick to show he changed his ways in life.
 * The Model Rick Martel: An arrogant model who absolutely loved to show off.
 * Demolition: A death-threatening tag team that used to pound their way through each and every opponent they faced.