With the unqualified success of Scott Hall’s Razor Ramon character, it should come as no surprise that the WWF would attempt other characters based on ethnic stereotypes. After all, wrestling has had its share of ethnic atrocities since the days of George Hackenschmidt.
In the early 1990’s, however, there was an uprising of these such characters. Since the WWF was drawing so poorly domestically, it decided to emphasize the “World” in its name and begin touring globally. In the effort to do so, it was decided that there needed to be strong ethnic characters to spike house shows in any given country.
Of course, everyone remembers the man who wore a bright yellow jock strap on his head: Aldo Montoya – Portuguese Man O’ War!
And who could forget the Hellraiser from Helsinki, the evil Finnish environmentalist known as Ludvig Borga?
But do you remember Tom “Bam Bam” Brandy as Italy’s favorite son, Salvatore Sincere?
You don’t? Lucky you.
Sal would sashay to the ring to some music that sounded like it was played by a ten cent organ grinder.
Like all good Italian stereotypes, he came to the ring wearing a white hat and jacket with pink accents.
MAMA MIA!
NOW THAT’S ITALIAN!
You know, come to think of it, I have NEVER seen anyone dress like that, Italian or otherwise. The girl who brings breadsticks to your table at Fazoli’s was more Italian.
Before his matches, Sally would grab the stick an tell them how much he loved them, his voice dripping with mock sincerity.
Get it – he wasn’t SINCERE at all. Oh, the IRONY!
I will say this, though – his horrible Italian accent was no worse than Scott Hall’s Cuban one during Razor’s first vignettes.
In fact, Sal blatantly stole many of the early heel Ramon’s mannerisms, such as mussing up his opponent’s hair and basically treating him like a big pile of garbage.
If Sal had anything going for him, it was his finisher, a full nelson slam dubbed the “Sincerely Yours.”
It was later adopted by American do-gooder the Patriot during his WWF run.
Interestingly enough, Brandi purchased the rights to the Patriot gimmick from its founder, Del Wilkes, who retired from the business due to various injuries. Brandi still competes from time to time on the independent circuit, only this time, as a proud American.
Vince McMahon (as cliched Italian style music warbles in the background): “Salvatore Sincere, trying to win over this capacity crowd, not so sure he did that. Nonetheless, he was quite impressive. Salvatore Sincere!”
Salvatore Sincere (mock Italian accent in full force): “I-a like-a to tell all the beautiful people, in this-a building, that I love you, oh so much. I really mean that, from the bottom of-a my heart. Sincerely.”