Damien Sandow On Pitching Funny 80s Wrestler Gimmick, How He Got Impersonator Gimmick
On episode 256 of Talk Is Jericho, Aaron Stevens, formerly known as WWE's Damien Sandow, discussed how he got his impersonator gimmick and pitching a funny 1980s pro wrestler gimmick for him and Curtis Axel when their Macho Mandow and Axelmania gimmicks were nixed.
According to Stevens, the impersonator gimmick started when he was asked to play Magneto when film star Hugh Jackman was a guest on WWE Monday Night RAW to promote an X-Men movie. After the segment went unexpectedly well, Stevens was asked to dress up as other various characters.
"I had lost the [Money In The Bank] briefcase to [John] Cena and I was kind of floundering. Like creatively, they were like, 'what are we going to do with Sandow? Do we do this? Do we do that?', so Hugh Jackman is coming to RAW to promote X-Men, okay? So [Dolph] Ziggler and I were actually in a thing where we're doing street fights and they were, like, a different themed street fight every time. They were actually pretty fun, but they wanted to use me and Dolph thing to incorporate Hugh. Okay. Awesome. So the idea comes and one of the writers comes to me and says, 'okay, you're going to dress up as [X-Men villain] Magneto.' And I'm thinking, 'oh, cool', like, Magneto with the black [clothing] and kind of debonaire thing. No, this is Magneto with the helmet and full gimmick, so I'm going, 'okay.' So the wheels start turning. I'm going, 'God, how do I do this? How do I do this?'" Stevens continued, "and I'm looking at this and they have this helmet and everything. I kind of got the rundown of everything that was going on. I just kind of like, something inside me went, 'this ain't going to work' as far as this isn't going to maximize the segment, so the people in props, I have a great relationship with everybody in the props truck and I just was like, 'I need you to find me, if they make it, like, Magneto hoodie' and I looked it up online."
Stevens said the Macho Mandow gimmick began as a means of going in another direction following his run as The Miz's stand in, Mizdow.
"I'm never ever going to complain about this or that, nope. Guess what. Fans are into it. I'm doing my job. I'll see you tomorrow and see what you have for me tomorrow, kind of deal. Well, the big thing was 'how do we get out of Mizdow? How do we get out of Mizdow?' and for the longest time, I said, 'look, I know why the crowd was reacting to Mizdow the way it was. They were beginning to see the effort I put into every performance.' I had been on TV a few years. They saw that. They knew that."
Stevens began teaming with Curtis Axel at house shows as a spoof of The Mega Powers; however, that idea was scrapped when WWE parted ways with Hulk Hogan. Apparently, Axel and Stevens came up with the idea to become a tag team parodying 1980s pro wrestlers.
"It was the 80s, a parody of the decade of the 80s in [professional] wrestling. And, yeah, we were going to go full on Zubaz [and] fanny pack. There was talk of growing mullets and doing the whole deal. Yeah, the whole deal. Again, we were talking about variations of outfits. Needless to say there was a lot of lime green and zebra print. We were thinking about [being called] The Brothers, but that never came to fruition. But, again, I think fans would have gotten it and it would have been fun."
In addition to these topics, Stevens addressed his Money In The Bank ladder match win in 2013, working with Vince Mcmahon, and much more on this edition of Talk Is Jericho. To listen to the podcast, click here (https://www.podcastone.com/Talk-Is-Jericho). If you use any of the quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.