Duke “The Dumpster” Droese on the origins of his WWF gimmick

– On the origins of his WWF gimmick

“Vince McMahon was still holding on to a lot of the same ideals in the 1980s and into the 1990s, trying to do the same things. Whether it worked or not, I knew that’s what he was looking for, and I knew he was always looking for someone to get over with the people, especially the working-class man,” Droese said. “A ‘blue-collar’ gimmick was perfect and that’s why I came up with it in Florida when I was working the independent scene. I wrestled as ‘The Garbage Man’ Rocco Gibraltar.”

“Interestingly, when I came in it was Shane McMahon who produced my vignettes because he was running through the different facets of the office. He was doing all of the different jobs in the company like he was maybe being groomed to take over the company someday, he was probably in his early twenties at that time. I sat down with him and they were throwing around a few names, Duke ‘The Dumpster’ was the first one he said. That’s the one they were going to use and ‘Droese’ is my real last name,” he said. “It was the same gimmick but he put a tan overshirt on it and covered up the name tag which still said ‘Rocco’ on it. That’s the only change they made physically to the character. I had it written into my contract that I own the intellectual property to that garbage man gimmick and the way it looked, that was all mine before I got there.”

source: Wrestlezone