I was sitting in the Rampage Room, listening to the wrestling on the television. I had my notebook in my lap and my pen was hovering above it. I had just got done writing down one of the ideas that Lew and I were tossing around for the serial when I saw one note that I had jotted down that morning while drinking coffee.
COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS GIMMICKS
“What about like, insanely unrealistic gimmicks?” I said. “I think we need one. You know, like the Undertaker. Everyone accepts the Undertaker at face value when you are a wrestling fan, but if you think about it, and look at it from an outsider’s perspective, having some undead zombie guy as a wrestler is really dumb.”
“Yeah, we could do that,” Lewis said. He was to the left of me, in the kitchen. He was filling up his soda when he nonchalantly said the next statement, which made me pause. “It would be just like Mr. Cock A Doodle Doo. I used to love that guy.”
“Mr. what?”
“Mr. Cock A Doodle Doo. He used to come through here like once a year. Made a living doing this 300-pound chicken gimmick. When he used to come through I loved it. It was great. Mr. Cock A Doodle Doo.”
Lew finished pouring his soda, closed the fridge door, and then came walking back to his seat. When he got down, he noticed that I was staring at him and that I had dropped my pen, along with my jaw.
“What did you just say? He had a giant… Chicken gimmick?”
“Oh yeah. You never heard of that guy? I mean, he was working when I was doing shows. And he would come through like once a year and do the gimmick, and it would get over. People loved it. Shit, I loved it. It was just one of those things that worked in wrestling.”
“So he would peck the ground, and like scrape his feet and do all that.”
“Oh yeah, dude. The whole thing.”
I didn’t expect to hear that. I have been watching professional wrestling for going on thirty years now, and you think you have seen them all, and then your buddy just shatters that expectation completely.
And sure enough, if you go ahead and Google Mr. Cock A Doodle Doo, you do find information on the guy. He claimed to not be wearing a mask, and he claimed to be an actual chicken. You can find more info here: http://azwreshistory.blogspot.com/2011/03/mr-cock-doodle-doo.html
“He wrestled like, all over the country doing the gimmick. And people would think it was cool for a bit. You couldn’t run it weekly, but every now and then, nothing wrong with Mr. Cock A Doodle Doo coming in.”
Pro wrestling is such an odd spectacle. I have gotten used to laying out the ridiculous nature of the business to friends who are outside of it and there are times when people stare at you like you have an extra arm growing out of your head. Wrestling has had competitors that are giants, plumbers, the aforementioned zombie, policeman, trashman, and just about anything else you could think of, but Mr. Cock A Doodle Doo was up there with the likes of The Gobbledy Gooker, some fever dream of Vince McMahon’s after eight cups of coffee and an intense gym session at four in the morning.
“That’s the thing that people don’t get, especially the younger guys,” Lewis went on. “You don’t need to always focus on being the coolest guy on the roster. You can make a living or get a check by just having a gimmick and using it to get booked. This guy was in the PWI 500 one year if I remember right. I mean, the guy made money just being a giant chicken.”
Lew took a swig of his soda and began watching the screen, observing the action. I picked up my pen and jotted down Mr. Cock A Doodle Doo and let my mind wander. People think that wrestling chickens are weird, but when we watch science fiction, people don’t usually doubt it or think it’s silly. They typically figure, hey, science fiction means the future so this stuff COULD possibly happen. I think people do the same with their disbelief when it comes to wrestling. Even something as simple as an Irish whip, or when a wrestler shoots his opponent toward the ropes to have him bounce back, needs for the audience to suspend their belief even a tiny bit. Why would someone keep on running after they were thrown? Why do wrestlers stand there and wait for a guy to hit them?
But those questions are pointless. It’s like saying why does the bad guy start trouble in the story in the first place? Well, because you wouldn’t have a story if there wasn’t conflict. A story without conflict isn’t a story. It’s just an event.
Just like professional wrestling wouldn’t be professional wrestling without giant chickens, dead men, and crazy cowboys. We all look past the small stuff if the story is compelling enough.
