Brian Damage
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 ‘The Rapmaster’ PN News
In 1991, Paul Neu signed with World Championship Wrestling after a successful run in Europe. According to Neu, when he signed with WCW, he was under the impression that he was going to be used as a monster heel, very similar to that of Big Van Vader. Booker Dusty Rhodes had different plans for Neu. He was given a babyface rapper gimmick instead.
The gimmick, was originally pitched by Ranger Ross a few months earlier. According to Ross, he was tired of not being used by WCW and since he had legitimately recorded a rap album…had the idea to change his character into a wrestling rapper, but was turned down by Dusty. Fast forward to a couple of months later and Neu is given the gimmick of ‘The Rapmaster’ PN News.
Neu claimed that Dusty Rhodes came up with that name himself. Neu said that Dusty thought since his real name is Paul Neu, simply use his initials and add News as the last name. Together the initials would be PNN, which according to Neu, Dusty thought that WCW ownership Turner media would love the name as it was similar to Turner’s news station CNN. The gimmick of PN News only lasted for a few months before Neu was released from the company.
You can read other Gimmick Table entries here
Ring the Damn Bell 
Cool thing is he went forward with it after leaving WCW. He used it in ECW and mixed it with the explicit nature of the company and even joined Da Baldies.
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He deserves to be respected for his job as I would’ve done the same thing.
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Biggest challenge for PN News was his match with Dave Sheldon where the latter was badly injured. News was punished and pushed down the card as a result.
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he was there 10 months, so not just a few months. Though, I thought it was at least a year.
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