The Matador Gimmick

You know how sometimes you'll have an idea and you'll think you should share it with the world before someone else does it? Yeah. That.

A few years ago I had an idea for a really gimmicky wrestling character. I've continually put off mentioning it anywhere because I wanted to save it and ensure it had maximum impact when it was finally used. In hindsight this was a stupid decision. It's not like I'm ever going to book an actual wrestling company. The closest I'll come is fantasy booking blog posts and they're not the sort of place to use this idea. Waiting hasn't saved the idea, it's simply allowed actual wrestling companies enough time to beat me to it. I should've known that would happen. I've watched the sport long enough to know that sooner or later everything gets turned into a gimmick.

The promotion that's beaten me to this incredible idea is WWE (hey, they'd already been there before with Tito Santana). On Monday's RAW they aired an introductory vignette for a new tag team called Los Matadores. It's basically a repackaging of the previously directionless Epico and Primo into bullfighters. It appears to be a comedy gimmick, which is good because outside of CHIKARA or a crazier Japanese promotion I couldn’t see it working as anything else.

 

This seems good, but I had something better

 

For the record I think this is a good move. Epico and Primo are talented guys but they failed to stand out. A bullfighting gimmick isn't the sort of thing that will take them to the top but it helps them distinguishable from their peers. More lower card guys in WWE would benefit from this treatment.

The idea I had was for a singles wrestler, dressed as a matador. He wouldn't just have been a matador though. Oh no. He would also have carried an encyclopaedia to the ring to show he was an intellectual. And to give him a handy foreign object.

Before each match he would have asked a member of the audience to ask him a question, at random, using the encyclopaedia. He'd either have answered it correctly or turned the question back on the audience member and used it as a way of insulting the town he were in. I’d have had him wrestling like a matador, sidestepping opponents with a heelish flourish. That's not something I'm expecting from Los Matadores.

This may sound a little strange and peculiar and ultimately pointless and I suppose it is. Without any sort of context explaining the concept of a wrestling gimmick is a little pointless. But you've not heard the name yet. It's the character's name that I was most proud of and the name that I think could have made it work.

The name was... wait for it... The Mind-Over-Matador.

Thank you for your time.