Can a gimmick truly be handed down?

[Stopspot]

I was thinking about this last night and figured I'd make a thread on it. We've seen wrestlers adopt parts of older wrestlers characters or movesets over time (Miz with the figure four. Dolph with the Fameasser, etc etc). But is it truly possible in your mind to let a younger wrestler take over a gimmick from an older one?

I'm not saying say Goldust giving the entire Goldust character to a new guy, but lets say Goldust taking a newbie under his wing, teaching him the ropes and then on screen we see the new guy adopting more and more traits of his mentor until he is working a similar if not the same gimmick under a different name. WWE did this with some success with Droz and the Road Warriors back in the 90's (mainly because of Hawk's drug problems and WWE wanting to keep the team together, so they needed a third guy). I remember Droz being fairly over as a road warrior. Same with Crush in Demolition. Granted there has also been failures like Ted Dibiase Jr.

Do you think this would be possible in today's WWE? Or is the crowd too jaded to accept it?

Full on or near full on gimmick inheritance, discuss it?

 

[Irwin R. Schyster]

Well, there is a difference between being like other wrestlers because you are joining their team and just trying to rip off another wrestler. Tons of guys do it, some to more of an extreme than others. I guess it's just because I am a big fan of older wrestling that it irks me to see guys like Randy Orton trying to be like Jake the Snake Roberts, a true wrestling legend.

 

[GeeTeaIye]

Yes. They are actors. A gimmick is basically an actor's role + fighting

 

[Rogue]

It honestly depends on the gimmick itself,some gimmicks are just one of a kind and should never be reused(I.E The Undertaker's gimmick) and then there are some that could be reused over and over again(I.E a cocky heel gimmick).

 

[Pop Tatari]

Everything in wrestling is recycled,always has been and always will.

 

[Snowman1]

Depends. If you downright copy a gimmick it won't work as well, like the Goldberg chants have showed for us, but if you can tweak it enough to make it your own (like the Ascension taking a supervillain approach to Undertaker's old character) it'll work fine.
As for passing down specific parts of a gimmick, if there's some connection between a new wrestler and a legend that makes sense it'll work just fine. Miz and Flair being buddies just felt completely random and out of character, so Flair passing on the Figure Four isn't working. But if Ohno debuts with the generic "lifetime wrestler who's wanted to learn from the best" character and eventually gets a partnership with HBK and starts using the Superkick, that'll be great.

 

[Dat Kid1]

Can it happen? Yes. We've seen it with Doink the Clown.
Should it happen? Very rarely imo.

 

[Leo C]

It depends on the type of fan, it's harder for smarks to buy into reused gimmicks, for example. But also depends on how much is being passed (one move, a few traits, the entire stuff), so it's hard to tell.

 

[Lockard 23]

As already mentioned, just about everything in wrestling (gimmicks/characters, story lines, nicknames, finishing moves, etc.) eventually ends up recycled. Wrestlers have been revamping gimmicks for as long as wrestling has been around and will continue to do so because there's only so much you can do that is completely original.

I think the trick is to not have it be a 100% carbon copy of the original, that way the person can still make the gimmick feel like their own. JBL, for example, was an updated version of Ted Dibiase's Million Dollar Man character. But while Dibiase was just a pompous rich guy, JBL was made into a stereotypical rich Republican who had his own Cabinet to help him win matches and such. Dibiase also used his money to his advantage a lot more than JBL ever did. Damien Sandow is the modern day version of The Genius, a minor heel from 80's WWF. Both are intellectual snobs. There's been plenty of Anti-Americans over the years, but each with their different purposes. Russians who hate America, Iranians who hate America, an American turncoat who becomes an Iraqi sympathizer, a Finish guy who simply hates the way America treats certain things like their environment, a Swiss guy who hates certain traits about Americans themselves, etc. There's plenty of other examples, but you get the idea.

The idea of one wrestler literally passing on a gimmick to another wrestler on-screen is weird. Road Warriors/Legion Of Doom were a tag team, and Droz was simply living the gimmick while standing alongside the originals. Same goes with Crush with Demolition. I can't think of any other examples except for AJ Styles taking on the Ric Flair gimmick awhile back (from what I heard anyway) in TNA. But yeah, it all depends on the gimmick and the person portraying it.

 

[Danielson]

It isn't working for axel with his perfecter than perfect or w/e nonsense he spews out.

 

[Danielson]

Wrestling is just broadway with body slams

 

[Snowman1]

It isn't working for axel with his perfecter than perfect or w/e nonsense he spews out.

Yeah, sometimes the original gimmick becomes outdated. Like Axel trying to finish people with the Perfectplex just looks like a joke in today's era.