The Mountie
In this edition of Remember When, we won't be concerned with one single wrestler or angle from the past. This time, we pay homage to those poor unfortunate wrestlers who have found themselves stranded in creative limbo with BAD GIMMICKS.
When we look at these men we often wonder, "What were they thinking?!?" or "Why would somebody do this?!?". It's simple really. Trial and error. No booker really knows what characters will catch on with the fans. As in the last edition, who knew that The Ringmaster would reach such heights of fame as Stone Cold? Now we look at those who were given a chance and their gimmic was so bad that their careers were ruined, or we quickly found out that these guys had no talent to begin with. This was often the case during the late 80's and early 90's.
With that in mind, we first look at:
The Mountie
As if a wrestling prison guard wasn't bad enough. Jacque Rougeau was a former tag team champion with his brother Raymond in the great team, The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers. They were a baby face team for a few years, but soon became "All American Boys" when they joined forces with Jimmy "Mouth Of The South" Hart. The Rougeaus had some great feuds with the Hart Foundation and Strike Force. Raymond suffered a very serious injury which required him to retire from wrestling, leaving Jacque to wrestle as a singles wrestler.
While still under the guidance of Jimmy Hart, Rougeau resurfaced as The Mountie, formerly of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was a pure heel, and I guess was a replacement for the newly face Bossman. The Mountie was to bring "Law, Order & Justice" to the WWF much like the Bossman. However, instead of a billyclub, he carried a shockstick/cattleprod which I suppose all Mounties are issued. He had REALLY bad theme music, and his matches were not all that interesting. He'd just come out each week and shock some jobber after his matches. The really sad this was that he wound up with the Intercontinental Title, which he won from Bret FREAKING Hart of all people. He would lose it to Roddy Piper, who would lose it back to Bret at Wrestlemania 8. If I remember correctly, the last appearance of the Mountie was after a match with The Bossman, where the loser had to spend a night in the city jail. The Mountie lost, and was thrown in with the stereotypical homosexual prisoner and we never saw the Mountie again in the WWF.
Jacque did recover somewhat as he teamed with Pierre Oulette in the Quebecers in the WWF and in WCW, and won the tag titles for a brief time (I think). He even pinned Hollywood Hogan at a house show in Montreal while in WCW.
Waylon Mercy
I can't really remember much about Waylon, other than he was some sort of Cape Fear ripoff. You know, Robert DeNiro's psycho character.
Well, what I do remember well about Waylon were his introductory video vignettes. He'd sit on some picnic table and talk about how he's calm and cool (while caressing an insect) and then he can snap at any moment (and squashes the bug), and he always leaves his victims begging for mercy.
Waylon came and went over the course of a few months, without winning any titles or significant feuds. I haven't seen the guy since.
The Giant Gonzalez
This guy was probably the tallest guy in prowrestling. If he wasn't taller than Paul Wight, I'd be surprised. Gonzalez was managed by Harvey Wippleman, and his nemesis was The Undertaker. At the Royal Rumble, Gonzalez eliminated the Taker and feuded with him straight until Wrestlemania 9 (The Roman themed one I think) where he was beaten by a flying clothesline from the top and was never seen in the WWF again. Whoopee.
As you can see, his costume was ridiculous. I guess he didn't have much in the way of muscle tone, so they slapped this rigout on him. It had fur sticking out all over a bodysuit with muscles painted on. Horrible. Plus, they guy sucked as a wrestler. He hd no mobility and didn't seem to be all that strong. The only thing he had going for him was that he was tall. Big deal.
I think he showed up in WCW for a while as a threat to Hulkamania, and disappeared. Though I did see him on an episode of Baywatch as a circus performer. As for his real name... I couldn't say I know.
Bastion Booger
Bastion Booger lived for being disgusting. He was a bald, 300 pound ball of fat. He'd come to the ring, eating some rotten sandwich out of a bucket full of other foods from the gross food group and just basically sit on his opponent's head for the win. This waste of flesh actually had a winning streak! Well, Bastion came and went while doing nothing of interest besides being an ugly thing to look at. Bleh.
The Repo Man
Barry Darsow. The man of a thousand gimmics. This guy has had no luck since he was Smash from the classic team, Demolition.
Darsow became The Repo Man after the 3-man Demolition had folded. I guess the character came into being after the "success" of IRS, Irwin R. Shyster. Vince must have thought he had something with turning fans against civil servants. Cops, taxmen, repomen, garbagemen, etc have all been in the squared circle. Anyways, the Repoman did jack squat. He may have "reposessed" things from other wrestlers to initiate feuds, but come on... how lame is that?
Barry left the WWF to join WCW as "The Blacktop Bully". There he feuded with Dustin Rhodes. Both had a memorable match on a moving tractor trailer, both both men decided to blade which caused both to be fired from the company. Dustin went on to become the successful Goldust, and Darsow tried to get back into WCW. He did, and wrestled under his own name for a number of years. He got little response and was assigned to WCW Saturday Night and Worldwide to compete.
Most recently, Darsow was given the gimmic of Pain Stewart, the wrestling golfer. You can't help but pity the guy. As far as I know, Darsow wrestled as Pain Stewart for only a handful of matches before being pulled from camera altogether. Poor guy.