[Mr. Nerfect]

The Boogeyman also deserves mention. Everything about that character was...awkward. He came in before the WWE has entered the PG-era properly, so there was some resistence from me to accept him as a wrestling character.

When they did introduce him, they originally gave him this sort of cool, quirky backstory. "Oh, he's an actor who was set to play The Boogeyman in a new television show, but went too far into character and is now a full-time Boogeyman." Not the best thing in the world, but as far as guys who are nuts, or dipped into weird rituals and such, it worked enough. But that view of the character was pretty soon forgotten, and he was just this guy we accepted was this mystical being who just happened to be in wrestling.

And every time I watch TNA, I just cannot help but cringe about Abyss. It's just not...right. I'm not sure if he's meant to have actual powers, or it's just his confidence. I'm not sure why he didn't have confidence in the first place. I'm not sure that I like him as a retarded guy, and I don't know if I am meant to sympathise with him or live vicariously through him. It's really hard to do any of these things, because the character is so abstractly not human. It's like they've taken the Mankind character, and taken away all the wit involved in it. For some reason, I imagine Hogan and Bischoff sitting around still holding a sort of grudge against the Mankind character being the turning point in the Monday Night Wars, and them now trying to somehow replicate that success without actually understanding why it worked.

It's sad, because the other guy that is getting pushed right now, D'Angelo Dinero, is one of the most exciting, natural, charismatic and likable presences in professional wrestling. It's a huge contrast, and sadly, I can see Hogan choosing to go with Abyss for the future, and not Dinero, which I feel is a huge mistake.