Shark Boy 24/7!?!?!?

[legolas4792]

who cares i personally like the gimmick and everything big evil says is the point it is a blatant parody which they can do legally so thats basically it

[flamesoffury]

i just think its a waste of a gimmick and time. It's silly to parody austin to that extent where you're just changing 1 word.

[Big Evil]

Your right Lego, it is a parody of sorts. I'm not saying it is illegal, but I do think it is in bad taste. If Sharkboy had any respect for Steve Austin, he wouldn't try to make his career off of Austin's character. Besides, it is a waste of time for Sharkboy to steal another gimmick when he should be focusing on making his own better. Why turn to rip off Austin when he should be blaming himself for whatever problems he had with his character?

[Flair Country]

I'm not a huge fan of it really. He doesn't even really sound like Stone Cold that much when he's talking live. They seem to be able to tweak his voice a bit in editing but overall it's nowhere near as good as Jay Lethal's Macho Man gimmick, and that's what everyone is going to be comparing it to.

[SharkGraphics]

Your right Lego, it is a parody of sorts. I'm not saying it is illegal, but I do think it is in bad taste. If Sharkboy had any respect for Steve Austin, he wouldn't try to make his career off of Austin's character. Besides, it is a waste of time for Sharkboy to steal another gimmick when he should be focusing on making his own better. Why turn to rip off Austin when he should be blaming himself for whatever problems he had with his character?

You're acting as if WWE has never stolen a gimmick themselves before. Do you EVER remember back in the late 90s when they decided to play off the Goldberg gimmick from WCW with cruiserweight Duane Gill, AKA Gillberg. Hmmmmmmmm

So what if a gimmick is "stolen" or closely related to other wrestlers, its all meant for the same aspect--entertainment of the fans. Since TNA knows they have a fan favorite in Shark Boy (similar to Eric Young), why not repackage him and give him a push? Seems like a good idea to me and I'm sure TNA knows what they are doing.

[Pepsi Plunge]

So your going and calling me a WWE mark when you CLEARLY are marking out for TNA!? If you think it's right for TNA to completely rip off a WWE icon, then you aren't really a fan at all. Maybe it's just me, having wrestled myself, but you don't go and rip off other wrestlers gimmicks. If anything, it's a respect thing, and in that case I'd say TNA has no respect for what WWE has done for the wrestling industry. Sharkboy can try and entertain the fans some other way, not using someone else's gimmick because he isn't capable of coming up with his own.... wait, he did! He's Sharkboy, after all! Stick with your own stuff, cuz all he is doing now is disrespecting the WWE and Steve Austin.

NO! I'm not TNA mark cause I watch and give my opinions on WWE too, yeah WWE made wrestling industry but were you saying "WCW has no respect for what WWE has done for the wrestling industry" during the Monday Night Wars?

btw *Shark Boy

Anyways...don't WWE disrespect TNA sometimes plus TNA probably wants to go to war with them someday...I mean...who wouldn't and didn't Austin parody guys like Hogan in the old ECW days...after all...Hogan was a legend too?

[The Yiz]

If you look at The Professors Position column, it explains all. Btw, its a great gimmick, and I hope he gets a push out of it, because he's been jobbing the whole of his TNA carreer.

Last week I gave TNA a pretty good lashing for the fact that they took the Abyss/James Mitchell storyline to an area I really didn't feel they needed to. But this week I have to admit that something a lot of the internet hates... I simply love. The repackaging of Sharkboy to me, is a perfect execution of something and TNA deserves some credit for it. First, no one saw it coming. For months I heard people question why TNA was doing the Sharkboy injury angle. When it's explained, people complained that TNA was ripping WWE off.

Is this gimmick a parody of WWE's Steve Austin? I'm not so sure. Certainly it's inspired by Austin. But this isn't like Gillberg or some of the WCW gimmicks where they ripped off WWE guys. TNA is taking this in a different direction. They aren't saying, Steve Austin sucks, look our jobber is as good as him. This isn't about Austin at all. They're saying, hey look, Sharkboy is funny and he's a badass!

By no means do I think this is the greatest angle ever. In fact, I think it's inferior to Black Machismo (WHICH IS A GREAT CHARACTER) but I do think it's a good way to give Sharkboy a little push and make him a bit more entertaining. Sharkboy is one of the faces of TNA who's been there since pretty much the beginning and has always sold a lot of merchandise and had a following. TNA is amping him up a bit and making him more of a comedy character, but one now that has a tougher side that makes him more believable as a winner. Sharkboy is a jobber, but Stone Cold Sharkboy is a legitimate midcard contender.

You don't have to agree with me. I don't care. I enjoy Sharkboy and I'm not afraid to admit it. And that's the FISHING line... Cause Sharkboy said so!

[Big Evil]

While I agree that many wrestlers have copied a gimmick in the past, even blatant ones like Gillberg, I just don't think it's right in this day and age to try and push a guy by giving him the gimmick that wrestling fans all know of as 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. I think that creative could go much farther by inventing a new aspect of the Sharkboy gimmick rather than try and reinvent him as 'Stone Cold' Sharkboy. Maybe it's just me, but I want to see some originality in the product, not the same old crap every time. Sharkboy is a original gimmick, but if you want to make him a badass, have him get fed up and start kicking ass! You don't have to copy Austin to get the effect you want.

[Melanie]

am i missing something like someone said before with jay lethal's macho man thing isnt that a rip off as well? i never saw anyone complain about that.

Mel

[Big Evil]

No, that is a tribute to the Macho Man, Randy Savage. Supposedly Lethal and Savage got in touch, and Savage thought it was a nice gesture. That's besides the point, it's one thing to have the approval of the man, and to take the character and make it your own. All Sharkboy is doing is taking Austin's personality and his antics and pasting that over his character. That's not very flattering, and it certainly doesn't show much effort on TNA's part to have a creative approach to pushing a guy on their roster.