Chapter 3: Creating a Memorable Character

As I said before, a professional wrestler is a salesman. It’s nothing new; it has always been that way. Not only does the wrestler sell the story of his match, he is sells himself as a character. And while not everybody has to–or should–have an outrageous gimmick, it’s important to be unique. Until a wrestler is truly established at any level, it benefits his character if it can be described in a word or short phrase: cowboy, Indian, wizard, or superhero. Somebody watching WWE for the first time will remember “the teacher” but will not likely remember Matt Striker’s name.

No matter how well a wrestler might execute a dive to the outside of the ring or how well his transition from headlock to hammerlock might look, a wrestler will never be signed if WWE doesn’t see the potential for dollar signs when the wrestler is seen.

Take your garden-variety good worker. Most aspects of his game are solid, but unless he is Evan Bourne his moves are not likely going to get him signed by WWE. There are at least 50 unsigned American workers in the business who are probably better than most of the guys in WWE but who have zero marketability. But the majority of them are the same: they look like Dean Malenko, imitate Malenko and Benoit inside the ring, and there is nothing that sets one apart from the next.

An important part of any gimmick is that the wrestling gear complements the character. And I do mean wrestling gear. Tights, trunks, and/or a singlet, wrestling boots, and knee pads. Not jean shorts and a Nirvana T-shirt. Of course, there are Raven cases where a gimmick calls for clothing different from the standard wrestler’s attire, but in general wrestlers should wear wrestling gear. There are numerous places to get gear (I recommend Highspots.com because they have sold gear to many guys I know and I have yet to hear a complaint). Don’t be a cheapskate; your gear is an investment in your dream.

I also encourage the wrestler to develop his in-ring style to fit the character he’s portraying. How serious would people take the Undertaker if his signature move was the Ho Train? It just doesn’t fit him. Too many guys stop being their character the moment the bell rings, but that just reminds the people that it’s just some dude in the ring making pretend. It drives me nuts to see somebody with a sinister gimmick who is scary and evil coming to the ring, then 20 seconds into the match he’s complaining to the referee about a hair pull.

When it comes to creating characters, keep it simple but be different. Once your character is established, its complexities can gradually be revealed. A later chapter, “Connecting With the Audience,” will further discuss this. Don’t make your initial character so complex that a person needs to read a 30-page bio to understand your character.

Like television characters, the developed wrestling character shouldn’t be too complicated. You should be able to sum up a character with a few bullet points. Let’s look at the lead characters from Friends (don’t pretend like you didn’t watch it, Tough Guy).

Monica: Control freak obsessed with cleanliness. She was fat in high school until she started using the Rapid Tone diet review, never backs down from a competition, and takes pride in her cooking.

Rachel: High-maintenance and often self-centered. Spoiled daddy’s girl who walked away from her chance at the easy life in pursuit of finding true happiness.

Phoebe: Quirky, ditzy, modern-day hippie. An environmentalist and a bad singer. She’s tried everything once.

Chandler: Smart-ass jokester with a screwed-up family life. Often the butt of the jokes.
Ross: Neurotic paleontologist whose wife left him for another woman. All of his relationships end in disaster.

Joey: Promiscuous failing actor. He’s dumb as a box of rocks but has innocent charm.

These characters were developed like this when the show debuted and, though they evolved, their original traits remained throughout the series. They stayed true to their original characters (even Phoebe, whose character was all over the place but always stayed true to her character’s core). The writers simply created situations to which these faulted characters reacted.

The same could be said for wrestling characters like “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, the ass-kicking, beer-drinking redneck who didn’t trust anybody. Babyface or heel, nearly all dealings with the “Texas Rattlesnake” ended the same way.

It’s said that the best gimmicks are those which are an extension of oneself. I can see where that might be true to a certain degree, but I think that a wrestler often has a habit of taking only his good traits and using those for the character. We are all flawed and our flaws are what makes each of us an individual. Our redeeming qualities–or lack thereof–and choices we make are what determines whether people love or hate us. Even superheroes are created with flaws.

I hate when heels tell me they cheat because they’re just not nice guys. That’s lazy. I think that the fans need to be able to relate to both babyfaces and heels. It’s the wrestler the fans agrees with that is the babyface. It’s the decisions the character makes which determines on which side of the fence he plays. One example of a character I thought was a well-developed heel was Stan Hansen. During his promos, he would talk about how he busted heads because he needed money to feed his fat wife and litter of children back home. People can relate to that (and today he’d probably be a babyface), but the ruthless way he brutalized his opponents in that era made him a villain.

Don’t over-think this. A wrestler who, as a child, watched helplessly as his dad took the easy way out from beneath a mountain of debt, then the kid lived on the streets until he met an elderly retired wrestler who taught him about wrestling and about life, then caught mono right before his first shot at a title, and was nursed back to health by an Indian medicine man, then…that’s too much. Try three good and three bad character traits as a starting point.

The key to a good gimmick is marketability. When you come up with a character, try to picture merchandise opportunities, and ask yourself these questions. To which demographic will I appeal? Can I see my new gimmick on a lunchbox? When I’m selling pictures, does my character in the photo look like a fan’s next-door neighbor, or is there something about me that catches the eye? Has the gimmick been done before on a national scale? If so, is it outdated or can I modernize it? If it hasn’t been done before, why not? Why will people care about it? Can I pull off the gimmick?

According to Tony Atlas, when a wrestler walked down the street 30 years ago, people said, “Either he’s a wrestler or the circus is in town.” That’s not the case these days. In fact, it’s often hard to tell the difference between the wrestlers and the fans, let alone pick out a wrestler in a crowd.

Don’t use a rip-off gimmick. Back in late-1990s and early-2000s, there were countless guys doing the Doink the Clown gimmick. While a few fans knew that the man under the mask was not really Matt Borne, Steve Lombardi, Dusty Wolfe, or Ray Appollo (who all really were Doink in WWE), most fans thought the man beneath the makeup was the “real” Doink. This was garbage indie bull-crap, cheating customers, and that’s bad business.

During my rookie year, I did a show at a military base where The Honky Tonk Man versus The Undertaker was the advertised main event. The promoter booked a few familiar names–The Honky Tonk Man, Samu, Brian Lee, and Tom Brandi–and billed Lee as The Undertaker. None of the wrestlers were happy about Lee using the gimmick, including Lee himself, but the promoter argued that since Lee worked as the Fake Undertaker on a WWE pay-per-view, he was not falsely advertising (though he used a photo of Mark Calaway, the real Undertaker, on the poster). The fans smelled garbage the moment The Undertaker was announced and Lee came to the ring. The crowd of 2,500 booed the brief match and, to my knowledge, no other wrestling event has been sold to the Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri military base since that event in February 2000.

Chapter Four: Creativity

My favorite thing about wrestling is that the door is wide open for people who can use their knowledge and skills creatively and uniquely. Some people are born creative and others have to work hard for it, but not every great wrestler is highly creative and not every creative wrestler is great. The key is to creativity is to never fall in love with your own ideas: there’s usually somebody with veto power who can completely shoot down your idea or alter it beyond recognition. Even if you’re the person with the final say in things, that doesn’t mean that you should always push your ideas down fans’ throats. If the fans crap on an idea, then the promoter needs to be attentive enough to identify that and change things.

Be cautious of who hears your ideas before you have a chance to pitch them to those who matter. The person who says he isn’t too crazy about the idea you just created for a new gimmick just might be the guy who shows up on TV using that exact gimmick.
Not all of your ideas will be good ones. Even the best creative minds find themselves throwing plenty of crap against the wall to see what sticks. Never be afraid to sound foolish: at least you’re showing ambition.

Don’t be selfish with your creative thinking. Know what’s happening around you and offer ideas for other wrestlers and for storylines that don’t concern you. Sometimes it just takes removing yourself from the picture to get the wheels turning, and then you can focus on creating things for yourself.

Think outside the box. A good storyteller is abnormally observant of the world and people around him. Often, he will get a story idea from something he sees or experiences in his everyday life. As a wrestler, you should consider yourself a storyteller and should be constantly observing.

Inside the ring, I liked to handicap myself to force creativity. I would tell myself, “No reversing the Irish whip, clotheslines, stomps, or eye rakes this match.” Then I would follow those guidelines and creatively avoid those maneuvers. Try it sometime.

NEXT WEEK: Chapter 5: Professionalism

To order a print copy of The Professional Wrestler in the World of Sports-Entertainment, visit amazon.com (also available for Kindle).

1. Welcome to Wrestling

As a former instructor at the Harley Race Wrestling Academy, I could write an entire book about some of the goofy things I’ve seen and heard from aspiring wrestlers. From being asked, “How long do you have to train before you get to WWE?” to seeing a 110-pound kid sit up like the Undertaker after each bump, I’ve realized that this industry attracts its share of goofs.

Don’t be that guy.

For those who dream of becoming a wrestler, the first step is to ask yourself, Why? Is it because you were a dork in high school and you want to be the darling of your class reunion? If so, then this probably isn’t the business for you. Not too many dorks successfully overcome that stigma by wearing spandex. Is it because you watch it on TV, subscribe to a newsletter, and can name every Ring of Honor World Champion in the title’s history? A lot of people are like that: they’re called “fans.” I love St. Louis Cardinals baseball, but I know that I best benefit the team I love by watching their games on TV, buying a ticket to attend a game on occasion, and wearing their apparel as often as is acceptable for a grown man. A lot of wrestling hopefuls also belong in the cheap seats.

Next, look into a mirror and ask, Is there anybody making a living in the business that looks like me? If your answer is Don West (the TNA color commentator), then maybe you should consider another end of the business to enter. Most of the people who try out for wrestling don’t look anything like a wrestler, or even like an athlete for that matter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the “Athletic Background” section of the tryout application left blank.

Now evaluate the kind of shape you’re in and be honest. Wrestling is a physical sport that requires excellent conditioning. You don’t have to look like a bodybuilder to have a chance at stardom, but you do need to look like an athlete in very good shape. If you’re not in shape when you enter a wrestling school then you’ll lose a lot of valuable training time to conditioning while holding up the rest of the class.

There are exceptions to the rules. Fellow Harley Race Academy graduate Trevor Murdoch was one of them. Like me, he worked harder avoiding a gym than he would’ve worked lifting, but he worked his ass off inside the ring. Mick Foley looks like a truck driver, but he became a much bigger star in the business than anybody would have expected. Those are very, very rare occurrences. Don’t bank on being the next exception.

Don’t get me wrong. If you’re a 165-pound man with a beer belly and a checking account, there are still con men out there who will train you. If you have money, somebody will make time for you. But I don’t know anybody willing to do that who knows enough to give you the tools to have a chance in this business. Every day, a new fool latches on to the dream of wrestling stardom who looks for the cheapest wrestling school he can find. If I need to explain why this is a terrible way to pursue your dream, please stop reading now. There’s nothing I can write that can save a lost cause. Go get trained at Jacob Jabroni’s Discount Wrestling University, get your wrestling license, and book a “How Do You Like Me Now” show in your hometown so you can move on with your life.

Before jumping into this business with both feet, evaluate your financial situation. I love the business, you might say, but I can’t get enough money saved to begin training. If you love this business and want to be a part of it, then get a job, or a second job, or change your spending habits. Nobody gets a free ride. If you can’t show your dedication to this business by preparing yourself financially, then you don’t have a chance. Is it all about money? Well, it’s a business and people have to eat. Your instructor won’t call his electric company and say, “I can’t pay my bill because there’s a new kid I’m training who doesn’t have any money. He’s a good kid, though.”

If you’ve been honest with yourself and still think you have a chance at becoming a star in the business, start looking for a wrestling school. A good rule of thumb is if you have never heard of the guy running the school or of any of his students, don’t go there. If there is no tryout and the only requirement is money, stay away from that one, too.

Just a few days before I began training at the Harley Race Wrestling Academy, an independent wrestler approached me and tried selling me on his school. “How much is Harley charging you?” he asked me.

“Three thousand,” I told him.

The guy whistled and said, “Why pay three grand to be trained by Harley Race when you can be trained by me and my partner for half that?”

Even as young as naive as I was, I knew that it didn’t add up: I’d never heard of him or his partner. I chose to pass on his half-priced, half-assed training offer and recommend you do the same.

There are a handful of guys who have credibility and connections in this business. Maybe the two most important things to consider when making your wrestling-school choice are credibility and connections.

You’ve made a wise decision and selected a credible wrestling school. Now it’s time for the tryout. This will usually consist of cardiovascular exercise and in-ring evaluation (likely just bumps and running the ropes, so resist the urge to offer to show the instructor the badass finishing move you’ve been practicing on your pillow) and, at the Harley Race Wrestling Academy, costs $50. That’s a small investment in your dream.

First things first, don’t act like a tool. Be courteous and don’t act like a fan who won a backstage pass to a WWE show. Don’t ask wrestlers if they use blood capsules (they don’t), brag about your backyard heroics, talk about how many fights you’ve won, or act like you know any more about the business than the average fan. As a trainer, few things were as annoying as listening to the tryout talk about who he thought had the best workrate. Don’t do anything unless you’re instructed and don’t speak unless spoken to. It sounds harsh, but you don’t want to piss off the trainers before you even begin training, especially when they are the ones who decide just how far to push you during your tryout.

As a general rule, I knew almost every person trying out would reach that point where he didn’t think he could push himself any more. What I looked for was how much heart he showed when he reached that point.

Here is a tale of two tryouts. One kid was about 6’2” and 115 pounds and had no athletic ability at all. It didn’t take long for him to reach his breaking point, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t struggle to his feet—the poor guy looked like a baby giraffe trying to stand for the first time—each time he fell. I couldn’t pass him on the tryout because I didn’t think it would be fair to take his money when I knew he would never make it through training, but I admired his courage and would have passed him if I thought he had a chance in hell. Another tryout that day was a bodybuilder and former collegiate football player. Ten minutes into his tryout, he stumbled over to his duffel bag and said, “Sorry, guys, I just can’t do it.” On the street, he would have looked down at the baby giraffe kid, but inside the wrestling school that day, the skinny kid owned him.

Unlike most athletes, I was a cigarette smoker from my early teens to just a few months ago. I quickly figured that out the key to surviving cardiovascular exercise (and later on, long matches) was to control my breathing. Here’s how I learned: when I did jumping jacks, I inhaled slowly through four jumping jacks and exhaled slowly through four of them, then repeated. I did the same with crunches, squats, and just about every other exercise. Within a week, I trained my body to control its own breathing without requiring any conscious thought and went from flat on the floor after ten minutes of cardio to making it the entire way through conditioning with little problem. It happened almost instantly.

If you have to vomit, do it in the appropriate place and then wash your mouth out and get back in line for cardio. It lets the trainers know that you’re serious about training. A trainer’s job in the tryout process is to weed out those who don’t have the heart, the ability, or the respect for the business.

Remember that by trying out, you are not only auditioning for a spot in a professional wrestling school, but you are trying to convince the trainer that you’re worth the risk of his credibility. He knows that if you’re likely to quit after three weeks and then market yourself as one of his students, the next guy who comes along with the trainer’s name attached to him will suffer.

Once you’ve made it through your cardiovascular part of the tryout, it’s time to step into the ring. Let me stress one point: if you are instructed to take a German suplex, power bomb, backdrop, etc., from somebody during your tryout, thank everybody for their time and leave. I’m dead serious. Wrestling is a dangerous profession, and any trainer who has no regard for your safety is not somebody you want to trust with your physical well-being. One bad bump can cripple, even kill.

The only bumps you should take during a tryout are back bumps and, depending on how you do with back bumps, maybe some front bumps (front flips to your back).

You may receive a brief introduction to hitting the ropes and locking up with an opponent, perhaps even learn a few holds. That should be about all you do during your tryout.

Now you’ve completed the tryout and it’s time to have a sit-down with the trainer to discuss what’s next. He’s going to want to know what your schedule looks like (when you can train), whether you’ll commute or relocate, and if you can pay in full or if payment arrangements will need to be made. I know I already said this, but please believe that this is a business and nobody is going to train you out of the goodness of his heart—I won’t. Training you requires an enormous time commitment, and I won’t spend a minute away from my family if I’m not getting paid for it. There is also building rent, equipment maintenance, insurance, etc., to consider. I’ve seen a lot of people dive into training with an empty wallet, and they don’t last long.

You’ve passed the tryout, made a down payment, and enrolled into a professional wrestling school. Great job! Now pat yourself on the back and tighten the laces on your gym shoes, because you’re in for one hell of a ride!

NEXT WEEK: Chapter 2: Training

If you missed last weeks Matt Murphy’s first installment Introduction go here

Dedicated to Derek Stone, James Grizzle, and Dave Marquez, for taking a chance on me.

By Matt Murphy

After four years of diligent work, Tony Willis finally created the perfect barbecue sauce. It was delicious, the perfect blend of ingredients and preparation, and it left an aftertaste you’d hate to waste with a stick of gum after dinner. Tony never felt so confident in his life. His sauce was better than anything on the shelves, so there was no way he was leaving Kansas City without a life-changing victory.

Tony quit his job, emptied his savings account, and bought a classy suit and a briefcase. After his plane landed at Kansas City International, he drove his rented luxury sedan to Kemper Arena, where he entered his creation into the Great American Barbecue contest. He was certain that the grand prize, $100,000 cash and licensing deal with a major condiment company, was waiting for him.

Tony imagined his sauce flying off the shelves in every grocery store in the world and thought about how the $100,000 prize would change his life.

There was no doubt among GAB attendees that Tony’s sauce was the tastiest. Even his competitors were certain that Tony’s sauce would best theirs when the judges announced their decision. When one of the judges stepped up to the podium, Tony straightened his tie.

“The winner of the $100,000 Great American Barbecue contest … Elmer Billings,” the judge announced. Tony went numb. He risked everything he had and didn’t know why his sauce wasn’t chosen. Elmer’s sauce tasted like pancake syrup and mustard. Tony did his best to maintain his composure while Elmer posed with the winning sauce and an oversized $100,000 check for Condiments Illustrated.

Angus Larue, the sauce master for the leading condiment maker in the United States, tapped Tony on the shoulder. “Come with me for a minute,” Angus said.

In a corner of the room, Angus sympathetically handed Tony a beer. “Listen, son,” Angus began, “your sauce was outstanding. If this was a contest to decide whose sauce was the tastiest, you surely would have won, but your sauce didn’t have a name or a slogan. For Chrissake, it was in a Mason jar. How do I sell that?”

“On its flavor!” Tony snapped. “I thought this contest was about quality barbecue sauce, not gimmicks.”

“This contest was about creating a barbecue sauce we can sell,” Angus said. “It’s about marketing. Elmer brought us a barbecue sauce we can market and sell. His label has an American flag and fireworks on it. His slogan, ‘Make Every Day the Fourth of July’, man, that makes people think of barbecues and good times! I can sell that. You’ve gotta draw the customer’s attention, make him buy it in the first place, or he’ll never know how great your sauce is.”

Tony seethed in his rental car on the way to the airport. Damned idiot, he thought of Angus. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

After a couple of years, Tony gave up his dream of finding riches in the barbecue sauce industry. He sold his great recipe to an upstart burger joint and never made another jar of sauce again. Bitter, he boycotted condiments altogether.

For many professional wrestlers, this story may sound familiar. I’ve heard countless wrestlers tell me how much better they are than most of the guys in WWE today, and a few of them have actually been right. I’ve seen great workers who could do incredible things and had the right physique, but who never got a WWE contract for a variety of reasons. Some had attitude problems, others got married and decided to leave the business, some just never got the exposure to be seen by anybody who could get them signed. In most of those cases, however, the wrestler was seen but did not catch the attention of somebody within WWE who said, “Wow! We could make some money off this guy.”

At a seminar in 2004, I heard WWE’s Tom Pritchard speak to a group of guys about a wrestler named John Walters, an excellent worker best known for his time with Ring of Honor. “He’s very good,” Pritchard said. “I wish we could offer him a contract right now, but there isn’t a spot for him. John’s a great talent, but other than that there’s nothing about him that makes him different from anybody else.”

Too many guys don’t understand that there was only one Dean Malenko for a reason. Malenko was great, but there was only room in this business for one of him. Technically, maybe nobody was his equal, but a major company needs many different flavors to appeal to the masses. How successful would Baskin Robbins be if they only offered one flavor of ice cream?

Does it suck? Probably. Will it change? Not a chance.

Welcome to the age of sports-entertainment.

UP NEXT…CHAPTER 1: WELCOME TO WRESTLING