REBOOT THIS GIMMICK: ALEX WRIGHT

More specifically, the dancing asshole.

REBOOT

ALEX WRIGHT/DANCING ASSHOLE

Alex Wright is the last man to have pulled off this gimmick perfectly. Since then, every dancing asshole (Heartthrobs, Jeff Hardy) have totally missed the mark. Take a look at this and try and tell me this wouldn't get over today:

Isn't he such a doucher? It's amazing.

So I propose a modernized version of this complete tool. And there is seriously no better time than now to reboot the dancing asshole, because the dancing asshole is alive and well in America today:

That's right.

I am demanding a club-trolling, Guidette-creeping, fist-pumping, dancing Guido (using that term affectionately) asshole in wrestling today.

SYNOPSIS

The Alex Wright dancing asshole reboot would center around an Italian-American (Guido) who does nothing but go to clubs, work out, party, tan and embarrass himself in the public eye. The dude would be a complete trainwreck of a human being, but still manage to get with the sluttiest girls and this would enrage the fans. The essence of this character is embodying the entire appeal of Jersey Shore, where everyone on that show has no real redeeming qualities, yet you can't look away.

He would always get that fake-fight rage whenever someone makes fun of him, where he'd get mad and loud and huff and puff have to have his Guido friends hold him back, even though he clearly has no real interest in actually fighting. And he'd talk about how much he respects and loves his mother a lot, but would continuously objectify women.

LOOK

A terrifying amalgamation of these "people":

FINISHER

Anything that is preempted by a fist-pump taunt that lasts for way too long.

DEBUT

Our dancing asshole would debut in backstage segments, generally just appearing for comic relief, and not really as a wrestler. He'd just keep turning up, sometimes with a Guidette, sometimes just on his iPod fist-pumping. Eventually someone (say Kofi Kingston) would ask who he is, he'd say his name, and Kofi would make fun of his gelled hair.

PUSH

During one of Kofi's matches, the Guido would attack him and start fist-pumping to his own theme music over Kofi's prone body (similar to the way Alex Wright dances over the Cruiserweight Title in this video, with people booing him out of the building).

FEUD

He could feud with Kofi to help him establish more sides to his character (not strictly comedy jobber, but more of a wrestler who gets heat because he's so ridiculous). He could also have some kind of talk show where he invites people on to fist-pump, until he takes them out, then fist-pumps over their body.

WHY THIS WILL WORK

I truly believe that the dancing asshole gimmick can get heat when done right. When done wrong (Heartthrobs) it can just be embarrassing. But Guido culture (can I even use the word culture for that?!) has become so popular lately that it'd hard to mess this up.

WHY THIS WON'T WORK

He could either be totally wasted as a comedy jobber, or actually cheered for being too much like the cast of Jersey Shore, which is wildly popular. Or the gimmick could be taken on by the wrong dude, and would fail. You definitely need the right guy for this character.

So until we get this 2010 Alex Wright-style wrestler, I'll be waiting patiently for Jersey Shore Season 2. Or maybe I'll just watch Alex Wright dance on YouTube all day.

REBOOT THIS GIMMICK: EARTHQUAKE

This new recurring post was inspired by TH's soon-to-be post that will revolve around Alternate Universes in the wrestling world.

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.