Seasons in the Abyss

Close your eyes and forget your name

Step outside yourself and let your thoughts drain

As you go insane, go insane

- Seasons in the Abyss By Slayer

Some wrestlers spend their entire careers searching for that one character that will carry them to stardom and success. Some find it quickly, others take years, and some never find it at all. In years gone by, wrestlers would spend hour after hour traveling in cars between shows and to pass the time, they would work on their characters. It was during these long journeys that wrestlers would iron out all the little nuances that made their gimmicks unique. If a wrestler came up with a new catchphrase or mannerism or a new layer to his character, it would be tested out at house shows and refined or changed depending on the reaction it got.

Slowly over time, maybe years, what you got was a performer who got to know his own character as if it was a real person. Sadly, wrestlers nowadays do not have the luxury of spending years working on and refining their characters. Today, wrestlers are pre-packaged with gimmicks by writers regardless of whether or not that gimmick fits the particular wrestler who has been saddled with it. In the cases where a gimmick or character flops, the wrestler portraying it is usually thrown on the scrap heap without so much as a second chance to work on that character.

This kind of character development (or lack thereof) frustrates talent and fans alike but every once in a while, a performer of such talent comes along that no matter what character they play, we believe in them and attach ourselves to their performance. It takes a special performer to make us feel that way about one character. But what happens when that performer is so good that they can unleash two characters on us that both catch our attention?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you, Christopher Parks.

At one point around 2005, I firmly started to believe that Abyss was the best big man in the business. He was packaged as a monster who was willing to put himself and his opponents through enormous physical punishment in gimmick matches involving everything from barbed wire to flaming tables. Even more impressive, however, was his actual wrestling ability.

Here was a huge guy who bumped like an X Division performer and had some excellent matches with people like Kid Kash and AJ Styles in the early years of TNA. These were matches that didn't rely on gimmicks and hardcore elements in order to be good. Abyss never, in my opinion, has ever gotten the credit he deserves for being a very good wrestler.

Partnered with James Mitchell as his manager, Abyss went on to become an institution in TNA and truly was one of the company originals that fans embraced as being a huge part of the TNA legacy. Not bad for someone who was once cast as a "cheap Kane ripoff" when he first debuted. But like all performers in any form of entertainment, at some point characters can become stale and outdated. As good as the Abyss character was, it eventually came time for a change. And talk about a change....

Check out the differences between Abyss (right) and Joseph Park (left). Even though we all know that this is the same person, there are virtually no similarities between both characters other than the deliberate ones and this is a testament to the acting chops of Chris Parks.

Wrestlers don't get nearly enough credit for being really good actors but Chris Parks is just that, a really good actor. He has got us to the point now where almost all of us have accepted Joseph Park as a separate character in his own right as opposed to just an off shoot of Abyss. This brings TNA creative to an interesting crossroads…. Where do they go from here?

Two weeks ago on Impact, Abyss returned to help fend off the Aces & Eights but it still remains to be seen what the ultimate plan is for brining "The Monster" back to TV full-time. That is of course assuming that Abyss will be returning full-time. The Joseph Park character has been such a hit that there’s still plenty of life left and places to go with it.

Alternatively, TNA could use both on a regular basis going forward but that will prove difficult just from a logistical standpoint, and it would be a massive pain in the butt for Chris Parks to constantly change in and out of costumes and have hair extensions constantly added or removed. Whatever they do work out though, I'm such a fan of Chris Parks that I don't mind whether I'm watching him as Abyss or Joseph Park.

What intrigues me the most is whether or not creative will go down the route of going all the way with the idea that Abyss and Joseph Park are indeed brothers. Again, to me this just seems difficult to keep up from a logistical point of view because at some point you'd think the brothers would have to interact, which could be tricky to pull off.

A more likely scenario seems to be that TNA will follow through with the idea that Abyss and Joseph Park are the same person. We have seen flashes of it during Joseph Park matches when he gets overly angry or sees his own blood. The Abyss mannerisms appear and they seem to signify that hidden underneath the quirky exterior lies "The Monster". How exactly TNA would explain that Joseph and Abyss are the same person is something that would have to be handled carefully and timed correctly but if done right, I feel it could be an excellent reveal.

I would personally go the Hannibal Lecter route, meaning that Abyss is so insane that he is actually a genius. Creating the Joseph Park alter-ego is something that once would not have been expected of the somewhat simple-minded Abyss but therein lies the beauty of it – we can no longer predict what Abyss will do. The scariest monsters are always the intelligent ones and in creating Joseph Park, Abyss was able to pull the wool over the eyes of everyone in TNA, friend or foe. Abyss is no longer the monster we all thought we knew.

They say there is a fine line between genius and insanity. Abyss/Joseph Park may be about to prove that statement true.