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The Gimmick Table: The Origin of Avatar

Posted: Sep 18th 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 Avatar

Al Snow was brought in from a hot run in Smoky Mountain Wrestling to the World Wrestling Federation in 1995. At the time, Snow was using more of an aerial move set in SMW and that caught the attention of WWF scouts. Snow was brought into the company with a very specific gimmick in mind. Because of his top rope, fast paced work style, Vince McMahon thought he would be perfect for a masked gimmick idea he came up with.

In their initial meeting, McMahon pitched his idea to Snow. The idea was to try and capitalize off the popularity of both the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Mortal Kombat during that period of time. Snow’s character would be a cross between a superhero and a martial artist. The key to the gimmick would be the mask. An idea that Snow was very skeptical of, because at the time…masked wrestlers in the WWF were more mid card attractions and not so much elevated to the main event. Snow was fearful that this masked gimmick would hold him down. McMahon went on to explain that the mask would be put on in the ring and then taken off after the match was over. The secret to the character’s “power” would be the mask. The mask was rumored to be designed like the mask worn by Japanese wrestling sensation Hayabusa.

Al Snow said the idea seemed very confusing, but McMahon promised a series of vignettes before his debut that would explain the power of the mask to fans watching. The name given to this gimmick was ‘Avatar.’ The name Avatar came from Hinduism where avat?ra, is a deity (God) that comes to Earth in the form of a human or animal. The problem with the Avatar gimmick was the WWF skipped the vignettes and just simply debuted Avatar on television. The fans were confused whether Avatar was a face or a heel (He was meant to be a face) and the mask being put on and then taken off was simply too confusing for fans and it flopped. A few months later, the Avatar gimmick was dropped in 1996.