The history of wrestling makes it hard for talents to have an original gimmick since everything has been done before. Most characters are inspired by something in the past or present from pop culture or within the wrestling business. Quite a few more WWE names than expected had gimmicks inspired from the past.
A combination of wrestlers pitching their own ideas and management coming up with character development leads to what we see making television. Each story in question features various reasons for the idea but with similar end games of playing a character based on the past. The following WWE gimmicks were inspired by the acts of legends in the industry.
10 Lex Luger (Hulk Hogan)
Lex Luger’s main event push as the patriotic babyface for WWE started right after Hulk Hogan left the company. Vince McMahon had to figure out his next move and decided to make Luger play a gimmick almost identical to Hogan.
WWE had Hogan associated with patriotism and representing the United States, even though most of his opponents were from the same country. Luger had some momentum as the offshoot Hogan until WWE booking caused him to lose any credibility when failing to win the WWE Championship.
9 Tiger Ali Singh (Ted DiBiase)
WWE fans are a bit more aware of JBL and Alberto Del Rio having gimmicks inspired by Ted DiBiase, but another one gets overlooked. Heel personality Tiger Ali Singh copied the same ideas that DiBiase had as the Million Dollar Man using his money for absurd things.
Singh paid fans to do humiliating acts in exchange for payoffs that showed everyone had a price. DiBiase got over to become a top heel doing this, but the ceiling of Singh was nowhere near as high. WWE did this bit for a few months with Tiger never progressing as a lower mid-card act.
8 The Un-Americans (The Hart Foundation)
Every modern group to have an anti-American heel gimmick will be compared to the Hart Foundation as the standard. Bret Hart turning heel saw him uniting Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Jim Neidhart and Brian Pillman to express their disdain of the United States.
The Un-Americans were the next most successful version of this act in WWE. Lance Storm, Christian and Test had the same Canadian backing, but William Regal made it more of an international act. WWE just doubled down on idea from the Hart Foundation by adding more controversial moments in a post 9/11 society for the Un-Americans.
7 Ryback (Goldberg)
WWE tried to replicate the Goldberg push of WCW for Ryback by debuting him out of the blue with an undefeated streak. Ryback scored short decisive victories over lower card and local talents to keep the streak going without ever looking weak.
However, there was not a strong end goal in site for Ryback when looking back at the way Goldberg’s streak peaked. Ryback lost his first match challenging CM Punk for the WWE Championship and was never the same once WWE ended that appeal.
6 Damien Sandow (The Genius)
Damien Sandow had a few different characters in his WWE run, but many felt that he was his based playing the intellectual heel. Lanny Poffo’s portrayal of The Genius in WWE was one of the main inspirations behind Sandow’s character.
The pre-match promos to get heat with a personal style of talking became a great part of his act. WWE loved Sandow’s work during this time enough to win the Money in the Bank briefcase, but they never went all the way as he lost his title match to John Cena.
5 King Booker (Harley Race)
Booker T has named Harley Race as a huge inspiration on his podcast when talking about the legend. There were a few king gimmicks before Booker, but Harley’s king portrayal was the most on point about his execution of the character.
King Booker also came later into his career after great success elsewhere as a similar story to Race becoming this character after winning the King of the Ring tournament in WWE. The run helped give Booker a main event stint winning the World Championship as a heel.
4 Chris Masters (Lex Luger)
WWE kept a lot of the same theatrics to Chris Masters from the inspired gimmick before him played by Lex Luger. Masters played the Masterpiece gimmick that was nearly a carbon copy of Luger’s heel character of the Narcissist when he debuted in WWE.
Both wrestlers had the same entrance gimmick of them being unveiled since they considered their physiques works of art. Masters had a decent push at the start, but WWE lost interest and slowed down on his progression after a few months.
3 Val Venis (Rick Rude)
The basis of Val Venis’ character was to play a much edgier version of Rick Rude that further pushed the envelope. Both Rude and Venis did the hip thrust movements as a taunt and often tried to make a pass at the wives of their rivals.
Val played a porn star to add a much wilder dynamic than Rude just being a ladies’ man. WWE also made Venis primarily a babyface act since fans of the late 1990s loved the edgy gimmicks. Val still peaked as a mid-carder and never reached Rude’s occasional main event status.
2 Hulk Hogan (Billy Graham)
The legendary “Superstar” Billy Graham inspired quite a few future characters with his colorful personality and jacked physique. Longtime fans often claim that Hogan copied most of his face act from Graham and just had a bigger platform.
Hogan even admitted earlier this year that he wanted to be just like Graham and took the flexing poses from him. WWE benefited immensely from Graham’s input as a character since Hogan and others got over inspired by one of the first wrestlers that utilized the sports entertainment side.
1 Carlito (Razor Ramon)
The original portrayal of Razor Ramon had Scott Hall pretending to be Latino since he got the idea from the Scarface movie. WWE tried to use that as enough of a tie in to have Carlito debut with basically the same heel gimmick playing into his Puerto Rican past.
Carlito filmed vignettes at a beach doing the exact same thing as Razor picking on others and kicking sand in the faces of those who wouldn’t defend themselves against a physically imposing heel. WWE experimented with more changes to Carlito, but the early impressions showed the Razor influence.
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