Duke “The Dumpster” Droese was one of the more interesting characters on WWF television in the 1990s and he explains how the character came together.
During an interview with WrestleZone, Droese shares the origin of the character, which came as he was trying to think of a "blue-collar" gimmick that Vince McMahon was looking for. Droese wasn't sure if the character itself was going to work, but he knew it was something that McMahon was looking for.
“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.”
When it came to thinking of a name, Droese said it was actually Shane McMahon who first thought of it as the two were brainstorming different names. Droese added that the ring gear was very similar to his Rocco Gibraltar character from before his WWF run with a slight change to it.
“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," Droese said.
You can check out the full interview at this link.
