Sometimes I see guys that have military gimmicks. Some of those guys did actually serve. Some of them did not. Flip Gordon has backed off of it but when he first turned up on ROH he had a low level “I served my country” gimmick. He was in the guard for six years.
Playing the patriotism card isn’t as popular as it once was but it’s still a wrestling mainstay. That’s fine, but I wonder how I should feel about someone doing an actual soldier gimmick. If you never actually served, it seems distasteful at best. Even if you did, it seems borderline weird. “I love this country so much I quit the military and became a wrestler?” Does that add up?
I’ve never seen a woman try that gimmick. I think they mentioned Lacey Evans was a Marine when she first came around NXT but that was never her thing. I suppose trying to pull that off could upset people who don’t want women in the military. Too risky.
I don’t think they do it anymore but in the old days they used to have flag matches. The evil foreigner would lose to whatever babyface was representing America. One of my goals in the wrestling world is to face a flag match where I represent the US against a popular wrestler from another country. What will the crowd do? Cheer me because America or still boo because they hate me? These are the kinds of goals that will prevent me from ever making it to the top. Not the top, the middle.
I’ve also thought it would be interesting to organize a tour where you go to other countries and all the bad guys are ra-ra go USA types. I don’t think anyone would agree to do it though. With the internet these days it would get back to everyone here and then the guys that did it would be in trouble. It’s odd that now everyone knows wrestling is fake and yet the fans get more angry about things done in character, not less. I was about to say that people don’t get mad at an actor for what they do in a movie but some people do.
Explain that.
Rocket Cat 