By Dusty Giebink, DEJ Experience Member

Drew “Festus” Hankinson is not a good worker. But you probably already knew that, unless you haven’t seen a second of Smackdown in the last year or more. (Which I will grant is entirely possible.) But WWE doesn’t care about workrate, do they? If WWE cared about workrate, ever, they wouldn’t have had Hulk Hogan as the World Heavyweight Champion for the 832 years he held the belt. Ultimate Warrior would have never been employed. Andre the Giant wouldn’t have been a tag team champion when he could barely walk to the ring.

Those references too dated for you? Okay, explain Batista as one of the top guys on Smackdown to me then. His best move is looking good in a suit. Randy Orton might be young and athletic, but what does he really do in the ring, either? He’s like Larry Zbyszko with tattoos and crappy taste in music. As Eric Nelson pointed out in one of our recent audios, Randy Orton couldn’t believably beat almost anybody, if we’re trying to suspend our disbelief. He certainly wouldn’t be able to defeat John Cena.

So if WWE isn’t all about workrate, then what are they about? Well, the visuals, of course. Being big and tall is considered of the utmost importance. The Undertaker might be a solid worker, but he’s also 6-10, 300 pounds with a larger than life gimmick. If the Undertaker gimmick hadn’t caught on, they definitely would have kept trying to repackage Mark Calloway until they found something that stuck. They knew they had something special, and they were going to utilize him to their fullest capabilities.

Which brings me to Kane. Kane is, of course, the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and not just because one of Hankinson’s previous gimmicks was that of the short-lived Fake Kane. (Freakin’ Kane, for you loyal listeners of our audio.) Kane was a guy where, because he’s seven foot tall and over 300 pounds, you knew they were going to keep him around until they got it right, or died trying. So we had to sit through Isaac Yankem, evil dentist, and Fake Diesel, evil imposter, before we got Kane, Undertaker’s evil brother under Paul Bearer’s spell, or whatever they were trying to do there. (Following the Kane storyline and trying to make absolute coherent sense out of every twist and turn is a little bit like trying to figure out the chronology of all the Zelda games. How in the world is “Link to the Past” supposed to come at the darned end?!)

In any event, it took them a couple tries to get it right with Kane, but they eventually stumbled on a gimmick that gave Glen Jacobs longevity and credibility within the company. Kane, for as stale as you might think that character is, could reasonably be expected to main event a television show or B-level pay-per-view match (like the Elimination Chamber match at the No Way Out show a few weeks back). He’s been a World Champion and a legitimate top contender for that belt numerous times over the years. I would suggest Hankinson’s career closely mirrors that of Glen Jacobs.

First of all, you have the obvious connection I alluded to a couple paragraphs up from here. Jacobs played the Fake Diesel character a few months after Kevin Nash left the World Wrestling Federation in 1996, abandoning the Diesel character for the greener pastures of WCW and the impending NWO angle. Hankinson, meanwhile, played the Fake Kane character in a stupid throwaway angle that ended with Kane beating him up and him (Fake Kane) never being seen again on WWE television. In both cases, the wrestler was given a gimmick that was doomed to fail from the beginning. Playing a ripoff version of a popular preexisting character is never a recipe for success. It’s only going to highlight for the fans the fact that they like the original version better. Like, “Why am I being force-fed this second rate version of one of my favorite wrestlers? I’d rather just watch Kane than this jabroni!” And it wasn’t just Dwayne Johnson who didn’t like the Fake Kane angle, believe me.

It could also reasonably be argued that the Festus character mirrors Isaac Yankem. In both cases, it’s a big guy partnered up with a little buddy (Ray Gordy is to Jerry Lawler in no other conceivable way). In both cases, it’s a cartoony gimmick that seems a little out of place for a company trying to get people to take it seriously. In both cases, it’s not really the best use of a guy who could potentially main event shows for your company. And don’t get me wrong, I like the Festus gimmick. It’s not great, by any means, and I hate the tongue-sticking-out part. It’s completely unnecessary. Festus can be a slackjawed stupazoid without having to drool incompetence down his bib. WWE is very literal minded and helpful in feeding you what exactly they’re trying to get over, you have to hand that much to them.

I do think there is untapped potential in the bell ringing gimmick. Festus can be going on a rampage at some middle point in the match, and his opponents can sneak to the outside and ring the bell there, thus rendering him helpless to the impending pounding he could receive. And then Jesse could ring the bell again and help him make the big monster comeback, etc. etc. The possibilities aren’t endless of course (someday in one of these columns, I am going to disprove infinity), but they are more than what WWE has offered so far. The Festus character is a fun, harmless midcard act that injects some genuine comedy into any edition of Smackdown he appears on.

But it’s not going to make Hankinson a superstar. And if you don’t think WWE isn’t going to try to make Hankinson a superstar, at his size, with his look, at his age (he’s only 24!), then you just haven’t been paying attention to anything WWE has done, ever. This is not the last gimmick he will ever play in WWE. Nor should it be, really. Eric and I have talked off and on on Messenger for months now about how great it would be to have a masked character in wrestling again. Charlie Haas’ Z-grade Macho Man meets Al Snow garbage doesn’t count. Rey Mysterio doesn’t count because a.) been there, done that, and b.) he’s wrestled both with and without the mask, without ever having a gimmick change. There’s no mystery there. It’s not at all the same scenario there.

Hankinson offers this opportunity. Once the Festus gimmick has run its course, they can take him off of TV for awhile, and bring him back in a mask with some kick ass new gimmick. And I’m serious here. I know I’m known as the less than serious wisecracking DEJ member who champions the cause of the Astonishing Khali and Big Daddy V and all that, but I seriously think this idea would work, and that they’re probably going to be doing it, somewhere down the line. If you have any ideas for what Hankinson’s masked gimmick should be, and how he should be introduced, please feel free to email me or make a post on the message board. I’d love to hear from you. Until next time.

Dusty Giebink is the “D” portion of the DEJ Audio Experience crew. You can listen to that group of organized crime perpetrators every Wednesday night on the member’s portion of PWTorch.com. Stay tuned this weekend for Kevin DiFrango’s blog on Saturday and Jeremy Maes’ blog on Sunday. You should have already read Eric Nelson’s Thursday blog by now, and if you haven’t, do that right now. You can contact any of the DEJ faction on the PWTorch VIP Forum, or by email at theaudioexperience@gmail.com.