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The Gimmick Table: The Origin of Abyss

Posted: Jul 17th 2024 By: Brian Damage - RingTheDamnBell.Wordpress.com

A gimmick is something that is intended to hook the attention of fans to a wrestler. They may be outrageous or steeped more in reality, whatever the case may be…some have succeeded and many others have failed. The Gimmick Table takes a look at the origins of some of your favorite and not so favorite gimmicks of professional wrestlers.

Today we browse the gimmick of Abyss

Christopher Park was languishing on the independent scene for a few years. His gimmick called ‘Prince Justice’ wasn’t really getting him noticed by the bigger organizations. After appearing as Justice on TNA’s inaugural show, he wasn’t called back to appear on future events. It was Dutch Mantel who liked what he saw from the 6’8, 300 plus pound wrestler and knew he could us him in Puerto Rico where Mantel was booking for the IWA. Mantel felt that with his size…he could be booked as a monster heel, which were over big in Puerto Rico at the time.

Mantel didn’t like the Prince Justice name and believed it was too difficult to translate into Spanish. Mantel based his new gimmick on such characters as Kane and Mankind from WWE. He created a character who was a tortured mental patient, who wore a mask to hide his face from the world. Mantel gave the gimmick the name of Abyss. A person who was suffering in the deep darkness of his own mind. Christopher Park admitted that he initially hated the name and the idea for the gimmick, but decided to try Mantel’s idea and it got over huge with the Puerto Rican fanbase. That got him noticed a year later by TNA who invited him back to the company. Jeff Jarrett went on to say that Abyss is one of the pillars of TNA Wrestling and is a member of their hall of fame.