Line #13 Wrestling/Abyss


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/abyss_wrestling.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:[[labelnote:Click here to see Joseph Park]]https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/joseph_park.jpg[[/labelnote]]]]
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4	Christopher Joseph Parks (born October 4, 1973), better known by his ring name Abyss, is an American {{professional wrestl\|ing}}er currently signed with Wrestling/{{WWE}} as a producer.
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6	Parks is a one-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, being the first of only two men to hold the title while competing under a mask (Blue Demon Jr. is the other). Abyss is also the heaviest wrestler to hold the X Division Championship. He also captured the Television Championship twice, the NWA World Tag Team Championship once with Wrestling/AJStyles, and the TNA World Tag Team Championship twice -- once with Wrestling/JamesStorm as The Revolution, and once with Crazzy Steve as Decay. Having won all the required championships, Abyss was the fourth man to complete the Triple Crown Championship and the second to complete the Grand Slam Championship. Parks has also wrestled as Abyss' storyline brother/split personality, Joseph Park.
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8	Not long after being inducted into the Impact Hall of Fame in 2018, he left for a backstage role with WWE under his real name in 2019. Rumors are that he'll also serve as a trainer for [[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]].
9	----
10	!!"Monster's Tropes":
11	* TwoByFore: His spiked 2x4, "[[ICallItVera Janice]]."
12	* AbusiveParents: Father James Mitchell wasn't the most considerate father to him.
13	* AxCrazy: Well most of the time, he has had some periods of being docile (if still crazy).
14	* BewareTheNiceOnes: Joseph Park's a nice guy, but don't piss him off or make him bleed, lest he kick your ass.
15	* BerserkButton: Whenever Joseph Park sees his own blood, [[SplitPersonality he begins acting like Abyss]].
16	* BigDamnHeroes: His return during the DarkestHour of the Aces & Eights angle.
17	* BloodUpgrade: Joseph Park, after he TookALevelInBadass, is a decent wrestler, but when he sees his own blood, the fact he's a member of an entire family of {{Wrestling Monster}}s comes to the surface and he flies into an UnstoppableRage.
18	* TheBrute: Abyss was Immortal's powerhouse on top of being their herald.
19	* ClarkKenting: Joseph might even be a Clark Kent {{Expy}}.
20	* CoolMask: A half-mask similar to Wrestling/{{Kane}} and [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]]'s half-masks. Averted with Joseph Park.
21	* CompositeCharacter: He's noted as being a composite of Wrestling/{{Kane}} (of being TheGiant and his more "mystical" moments, among other things) and [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]] (seen in his more docile moments and tendency towards hardcore matches, among other things). One would also add another Mick Foley character, Cactus Jack, to the mix, as Abyss' barbed wire-wrapped 2x4 "Janice" seems an expy of Cactus Jack's barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat "Barbie." Joseph Park, being the relatively well-adjusted and less-psychotic persona between him and Abyss, is also similar to Dude Love, the least deranged of all the Faces of Foley.
22	* DerivativeDifferentiation: When he first started out he was a mix between Kane and Mankind but through time and lots of CharacterDevelopment Abyss grew and maintained a personality that, while still drawing influences from Mick Foley's work, stood out a little more.
23	* GarbageWrestler: Abyss's claim to fame is that he uses thumbtacks, broken glass, and barbed wire ''a lot''. As Joseph Park, he subverts this, as he manages to be a pretty decent wrestler, as his agility, already noted as Abyss, is even more notable as Park.
24	* GimmickMatches: The Monster's Ball used to be a no rules fight after the wrestlers had spent an entire day in solitary confinement. It devolved into pretty much a regular street fight with extra emphasis on thumbtacks eventually.
25	* HeroicSecondWind: The Hulk up sequence after he got a Hall of Fame ring from Hulk Hogan. He even [[NoSell shrugged off]] a brass knuckle shot from Ric Flair.
26	* HesBack: After missing for nearly a year and a half, Abyss returns during the DarkestHour of the Aces & Eights angle. By the end of the night he's laid out the ''entire'' stable.
27	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Lost an Ultimate X match when he went to chokeslam Brian Kendrick, who grabbed the title belt suspended above the ring when Abyss lifted him for the slam.
28	* HopeBringer: A WrestlingMonster might be the rarest place to find one, but returning during the DarkestHour of the Aces & Eights angle and laying out the ''entire'' stable was certainly this.
29	* InTheHood: Abyss tends to wear hoods for his entrance.
30	* LastOfHisKind: During the brief departure of Wrestling/JamesStorm in 2015, Abyss was the only wrestler in the company to have appeared on its very first broadcast. And along with Storm, Eric Young and Bobby Roode, he is the last of the TNA Originals. The World Title Series taped for the end of 2015 used this to group all four of them together. With Roode's and Young's exodus, as well as Storm's later departure, Abyss became the last one remaining. Now he's a producer for Impact Wrestling as well as part of its Hall of Fame.
31	* LightningBruiser: Is able to dish a lot of damage as well as take it, and and can move quickly.
32	* LukeIAmYourFather: Got this from James Mitchell, who said, "Your name isn't ''Parks,'' it's ''Mitchell,'' and I am your father!" Predictably, this became very much a background element of his character over time.
33	* MadeOfIron: Is able to shrug off thumbtacks, broken glass, and barbed wire.
34	* MagicFeather: {{Subverted\|Trope}}. Hulk Hogan's ring didn't make him tougher inherently but it was a constant reminder that Hulk Hogan liked him, making Abyss — whose almost inhuman tolerance for pain was already well-chronicled in TNA's history — want to wrestle like Hulk Hogan.
35	* ManOnFire: Team 3D didn't just light him on fire but to a degree that when the crew came by with a fire extinguisher they had to spray him down ''twice''.
36	* NiceGuy: Joseph's a pretty nice fellow. [[BewareTheNiceOnes Unless someone really upsets him or makes him bleed, that is.]]
37	* PartsUnknown: He's billed from there as Abyss.
38	* PowerStable:
39	** (in TNA): Planet [[Wrestling/JeffJarrett Jarrett]], Immortal, Revolution, Decay
40	*** (in RKK): RDX
41	** (in Wrestling/RingOfHonor): Special K, [[Wrestling/PrinceNana The Embassy]]
42	** (in Wrestling/{{AAA}}): La Legion Extranjera, La Sociedad
43	* RememberTheNewGuy: Despite there being plenty of family drama between Abyss, Judas Mesias, and James Mitchell, nobody mentioned a third Park brother. Explained in an online interview as being that Joseph was away at boarding school when everything first happened, then busy with his law firm when everything else went down. (Except it's now been revealed he's not a separate Park brother. See SplitPersonality below.)
44	* SiblingYinYang: Originally Joseph Park and Abyss are portrayed as this, with mild mannered, non-action guy Joseph looking for his psychotic bruiser brother Chris (Abyss).
45	* SplitPersonality: Finally revealed during his storyline with [[Wrestling/FrankieKazarian Bad]] [[Wrestling/ChristopherDaniels Influence]] and Wrestling/EricYoung in late 2013. When EY at last told Joseph Park that he's actually Abyss, the entire crowd present popped despite, or maybe even because, they knew it.
46	* SplitPersonalityMerge: Young's constant attempt to get Joseph to "show/realize who he really is" eventually landed on the truth regarding Abyss; turns out he's not just a simple well-meaning attorney, and the violent berserker he believed to be his strange yet protective brother is actually part of himself. Naturally he didn't take too well to the epiphany, and resented EY for treating the situation like some freak experiment without regard to what it would do to his psyche. So he stepped away to find someone who understood him, making various attempts to forge connections such as becoming Magnus's [[PsychoForHire violent mercenary buddy]], joining James Storm's deranged {{cult}} revolution, and ultimately linking up with Wrestling/{{Rosemary}} and Crazzy Steve in the MonsterClown-esque faction Decay. The latter marked his last great full-time run as Abyss before a street fight loss to LAX severed him and Steve from the Hive and also had the effect of splitting the Chris and Joseph personalities again.
47	* ThreeMonthRule
48	** He was revealed to be afraid of heights during an Ultimate X Match but later voluntarily challenged Bram to a ladder match.
49	** In that ladder match he lost Janice to Bram but on the third ''Impact'' of Destination America he had Janice back in possession without explanation.
50	* UndyingLoyalty: Was one of the last who could honestly say that they've been with TNA since the beginning. While all the other TNA long-runners (AJ Styles, Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, Christopher Daniels, Kazarian, Samoa Joe, Eric Young, Bobby Roode, James Storm, etc.) all left the company for good over the next five years after 2013, Abyss stayed with Impact Wrestling past his wrestling prime and became a part-time competitor, producer, and Hall of Famer. Only after his wrestling career had wound down did he accept a better-paying producer gig with WWE.
51	* WhiteSheep: Joseph, who is the only member of the family who ''isn't'' psychotic, [[BloodUpgrade unless he sees his own blood]].
52	* TheWorfBarrage: His spiked 2x4, "[[ICallItVera Janice]]," which he hasn't had much success with as all he has managed to do with it is get it stuck on the ring apron and turnbuckle pad. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when he ''finally'' successfully uses "her" to carve up Rob Van Dam backstage, sending him to the hospital and forcing him to vacate the title. That is one of only two times "she" has been successfully used by him against anyone (the other against Samoa Joe), but "she" [[HoistByHisOwnPetard has been used against him FOUR times]].
53	* WouldHitAGirl: Abyss did have periods of reluctance but Daffney seems to have put all of that to rest for good.
54	* WrestlingMonster: Well, duh. His RedBaron even ''is'' "The Monster." Subverted with Joseph, who only plays this trope straight when [[BloodUpgrade he sees his own blood.]]
55	* YouHaveFailedMe: Accidentally dropped Revolution leader James Storm with a DDT in Glasgow, then purposefully dropped Manik for taking the losing pinfall.

Context Wrestling / Abyss