Damien Sandow (aka Aaron Stevens), recently appeared on Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast. Sandow discussed his impersonator gimmick and also pitching a 1980s pro wrestler gimmick for him and Curtis Axel after their Mandow and Axelmania gimmicks were jettisoned. Below are some more highlights from the interview (transcript via WrestlingInc.com).
Sandow on how his impersonator gimmick grew out of his playing Magneto on Raw when Hugh Jackman was a guest: “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.”
Sandow on getting over as 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.”
Sandow on the idea for his team with Curtis Axel to parody 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.”
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