Dirty Dango Explains That His WWE Ballroom Dancer Gimmick Started As A Striptease

Whenever you develop a character, it seldom remains completely the same throughout the creative process. This often happens in professional wrestling through trial and error as wrestlers see what crowds respond to in the ring. But sometimes gimmicks will go through massive changes even before they make it through the curtain. 

One example is the origin of Fandango. After appearing in NXT from 2010 to 2012, Johnny Curtis debuted on "WWE Smackdown" as the flamboyant ballroom dancer on March 1, 2013. However, that wasn't always going to be the character's dance style of choice.

During a recent interview with "WrestlingNewsCo," Dirty Dango revealed his WWE character's evolution. Originally, Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins planned to become male strippers, but when Reks was released from her contract, Hawkins approached Dango to fill in. But as the development of the characters continued, the idea transitioned from a tag team to a singles competitor. Hawkins gave his blessing for his friend to continue with the idea and that's when Dango's stripper training began.

"They sent me to a strip joint in Tampa," he recalled. "I think it was a Colombian girl [teaching me] how to strip. I actually started going by learning how to be sexy for about a month or two. Then one day at Full Sail, Triple H pulls me aside and goes, 'No more strip dance school ... take ballroom dancing classes now.' They sent me to Arthur Murray's dance school once a week for three or four months. I knew enough just to fake it essentially, but I was convinced I was good."

As his Deep South Wrestling trainer Dave Taylor liked to tell him, Fandango basically only knew one dance move. But that one move took him all the way to WrestleMania for his in-ring debut against Chris Jericho.