That will be infinite(crisis)ly more awesome than what I'm about to blab about, but I thought I'd just give this some context.
Comic books and movies and comic book movies get rebooted all the time. The Batman reboot was amazing. Spiderman is getting rebooted, pretty sure Superman is too. What if this idea could be applied to wrestling gimmicks of the past?
Maybe a better comparison would be old comic book characters that get re-imagined in modern times.
So here goes nothing. My first shot in the dark at rebooting an old gimmick for today.
REBOOT
EARTHQUAKE
This may come off as insensitive. But I will defend myself (before I even get started) by saying that the WWF of old, and to an extent, the WWE of not-so-old has been known to capitalize on real-life events to generate violent, uncontrollable, riot-inducing, white-hot heat (see: Iraqi sympathizer Sgt. Slaughter, Muhammad Hassan, etc.).
SYNOPSIS
The reboot of Earthquake would center around a HUGE man (much like the original Earthquake, John Tenta) that would attempt to take credit for the recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Taiwan and Japan.
LOOK
He would have to be a monster of a man. Not even like Batista-huge, more like Arn Anderson or something. Just kind of a big, wide, strangely-frightening man. He would probably also not wear the original Earthquake's women's swimsuit.
FINISHER
An Alarm Clock style lariat. Guy hits the ropes, Earthquake shoots him up in the air and removes the dude's head with a lariat on the way back down.
DEBUT
At first, the new Earthquake would just go by his real name, and start by squashing the life out of jobbers with no real effort, or even typical WWE-big-evil-heel type anger/malice/angry-Sheamus-faces. He's more of a psycho-Mike Knox, soft spoken kinda guy.
PUSH
After flattening another jobber, Earthquake would interrupt the announce team kinda awkwardly, just taking a mic and talking over them until the camera finally cuts to him. He says something along the lines of an apology for his actions, as he knows he caused the earthquakes around the world. He apologizes again for the ones that have yet to come. He is clearly an insane person.
FEUD
Earthquake would start taking pride in his earthquakes. If more happen as time goes on, he lays claim to them as well. He never really explains how he thinks he could have caused them, but he seems to equate it to his winning streak.
Enter (yep) John Cena! Cena has had enough and he opposes all that is evil and stands up for all that is good. Earthquake has no interest in John Cena, until Cena is seen doing relief work in the suffering countries. Begin feud.
TIME TO JUMP THE SHARK (LOL PUN)
The big blow-off to the feud would be John Cena vs. Earthquake (who has won the WWE or World Heavyweight Title during run at some point) - if Earthquake loses, he loses his belt. But if Cena loses, Earthquake has made some kind of promise to CAUSE AN EARTHQUAKE IN AMERICA.
It ends, of course, with John Cena overcoming the odds, and defeating the rebooted Earthquake.
WHY THIS COULD WORK
A big man that isn't all about "I just love to hurt people!" and "angry Sheamus face" and "LOOK AT HIS EYES" - but who is still dominating, would be refreshing. He would get under people's skin by never explaining his logic, and would likely annoy this shit out of people.
WHY THIS WON'T WORK
It's incredibly distasteful. And most real-life events that turn into wrestling gimmicks to generate that crazy heat are spawned from US-based events. War, terrorism... all stuff that happened TO the USA. So a guy who takes credit for earthquakes happening elsewhere would probably have a harder time getting that patriotic heat.
Also, in today's era of broken kayfabe, this would almost certainly just get the company in hot water as opposed to getting Earthquake over.
So that was my first try. I hope I didn't offend anyone. I'll get better ideas in the future. Ones that won't make me feel like a douchebag after writing them.
Maybe I'll make my next one super lighthearted and reboot Mini Vader.
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