Barry Darsow Quit WWF After Vince McMahon Refused To Turn Repo Man Babyface

Despite being best known for his work as Demolition's Smash, Barry Darsow worked under a number of gimmicks throughout his career such as the disruptive Blacktop Bully or the Russian sympathizer Krusher Kruschev with varying degrees of success. 

But considering all the great work he did under the WWE banner, one would think that the promotion would be more willing to keep their word when it came to accommodating a simple request towards what he thought was the end of his career.

While appearing on "The Wrestling Perspective" podcast, Darsow revealed that he and Vince McMahon developed the idea for Repo Man together after Demolition disbanded. The former tag team champion knew that the villain wouldn't be a main event star, but he saw a lot of potential for the character, including a benevolent side that would have made fans cheer for him. However, despite McMahon agreeing to it, the face turn never came and Darsow departed from the company.

"This gimmick isn't going to beat Andre the Giant or Hulk Hogan," he said. "But it's going to be a good middle of the card to get top guys over. I said it's the perfect job for that. [But] I told [Vince that] I do want to turn babyface because I want to do a lot of Make-a-Wish stuff and a whole bunch of different things like that. [Repo Man] never did change to a babyface and when I went to him. 

"He says, 'You're not going to be a babyface,' and that's when I quit. I was somebody that when you said, 'Hey this is what we're gonna do,' I did it. [I wanted to end my career] being a babyface and doing that stuff, then hopefully be an agent or something later. But it just never happened."

As strange as it sounds to have the wrestler that looks like a masked burglar become a good guy, Barry Darsow had a plan in his back pocket for his promised run as a babyface. He shared with hosts Lars Frederiksen and Dennis Farrell that Repo Man could have transitioned into a Robin Hood-esque hero by essentially stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

"[I was] a terrible heel that took bicycles from kids," he recalled. "They'd hate [me] worse than anybody. But all of a sudden, [what if] now you start giving them out to people and you were a good guy and you were screwing the bad guys? These little kids in the hospital might want to meet that Repo Man. [He might] bring them a bicycle. For what I wanted in my career after wrestling, that was really important ... I wanted to go out and play golf with the celebrities. I want to do all of that stuff, but it just never happened and it was because I wasn't a babyface."

It's hard to imagine Repo Man being his generation's John Cena, but fans have gravitated toward weirder characters. If Darsow did have a face run, it would have been interesting to see how long it would have lasted. 

His final appearance in WWE (excluding nostalgia battle royals in the early 2000s) was a losing effort to Typhoon in 1993. A few years later, WWE transitioned into the Attitude Era, where characters and storylines were edgier, sexier, and more violent. Would a benevolent Repo Man fit into that landscape? Darsow might have moved on to a backstage role by then, but we'll never know since McMahon changed the plan, as he often tends to do.