Justin Gabriel, now known as PJ Black on the independent circuit, walked out of WWE earlier this year after being upset with his booking and lack of substance on the roster. He had proposed a gimmick that would have seen him as a daredevil, mimicking his real-life persona, but was shot down on it.
In a new interview with Raj Giri of Wrestling Inc., he discusses his ideas for The Bunny, a character he portrayed on WWE television in late-2014.
“Me and Adam Rose sat down and wrote out stories to make this bunny and evil bunny, because he wanted to be a heel so bad,” Black said. “We wanted to do like the Donnie Darko thing. We had an awesome mask made by the people who do The Walking Deadmakeup, the same people who make Kane’s masks. We had things filmed, and all of these ideas to turn this bunny into an evil, sadistic character. Adam Rose was going to be like a Marilyn Manson character. Everything got shot down. Each time I’d come up with something or Adam would come up with something, it’d get shot down. An idea that I thought was great and everyone thought as It’s more frustration, it gets disheartening. It makes you lose passion for what you’re doing.”
The Bunny and Rose went at it often on WWE television, but he was seen to be happy-go-lucky. There had been plans at one point to reveal who was under it, but those never came to fruition. He noted there had been discussions to make it a dark character portrayed ultimately by Vince McMahon.
“I came up with an idea for the bunny to become really hardcore, he has dried blood all over him, sitting backstage grumpy smoking cigars,” Black said. “It’s like when people hit their all-time low. The bunny should be going through ladders, tables, and coming close to winning championships, but doesn’t because he’s too f–cked up. Then maybe the bunny gets knocked out backstage, and a ref shows up and it’s Vince. That’s the only shock factor it could be, if it’s someone on the roster. Then Vince wakes up and just goes ‘I don’t know what happened. I put the suit on and I just blacked out.’ Everyone loved the idea, it just never came to fruition.”
Ultimately, all the ideas were nixed, and Gabriel departed the company in the beginning of the year.
Editor’s Note
Way too dark for a PG audience, but I love the idea.