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The Gimmick Table: The Origin of The Repo Man

Posted: May 8th 2024 By: Brian Damage - RingTheDamnBell.Wordpress.com

By 1991, Vince McMahon felt that the team of Demolition had run its course and decided to break up the once popular tag team. McMahon still wanted to use Barry ‘Smash’ Darsow as a singles competitor with a different gimmick. At first, Vince suggested that Darsow take over the role of Doink the Clown…but Darsow balked at the idea. He wanted to try something completely new and different. So McMahon asked Darsow what did he have in mind and Darsow said he used to repossess cars before becoming a professional wrestler…maybe that could be a new gimmick? Without hesitation, McMahon agreed and seemed to love the new gimmick and immediately started calling Barry Darsow…the Repo Man.

Despite Darsow wearing face paint as Smash, Vince McMahon was worried that fans would quickly pick up who the Repo Man really was and suggested that Darsow wear a full mask to hide his identity. Darsow agreed, but did not want to don a full mask as he was uncomfortable wearing one while wrestling and suggested a smaller mask like the Lone Ranger wore. The character of the Repo Man had a couple of dark match tryouts at WWF TV tapings to gauge the fans reactions to him. McMahon then requested he take some time off for fans to start forgetting about Demolition. During his time away, Darsow lost over 50 pounds and decided that the Repo Man wrestle a completely different style than he did as Smash.

The fans reaction to the gimmick was mostly positive and with that, Darsow started to incorporate more comedy into his routine to get the fans behind him. Darsow wanted the Repo Man to become a babyface because that was where the real big money was at with merchandising. Darsow even suggested that the way he can turn babyface was to steal the Million Dollar title away from Ted Dibiase. Vince wasn’t onboard with the idea and told Darsow that The Repo Man will never, ever be a babyface in the WWF. That is when Darsow put in his notice and quit the company.