7 Wrestlers Who Were Blatant Knock-Offs

The Powers of Pain (Warlord and Barbarian) debuted in 1987, and with their face paint, burly physiques, and overall "dystopian desert wasteland" look, it was immediately clear they'd lifted their entire gimmick wholesale from fellow NWA tag team The Road Warriors. But as tempting as it would be to criticize the duo for unoriginality, we should probably keep in mind that The Road Warriors themselves actually stole their gimmick from the film Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, right down their team name.

In other words, The Powers of Pain were knock-offs of knock-offs.

Warlord and Barbarian actually worked a program with the Road Warriors, but failed to gain the same level of success as the team they were emulating. The Powers eventually left the NWA for the WWF, where they lost a feud with fellow Road Warrior copies Demolition and cemented their status as the third-best post-apocalyptic face-painted tag team of the 1980s.

As an interesting post-script, WWE's The Ascension have been compared to The Powers of Pain since they began floundering on the main roster, effectively making them knock-offs of knock-offs of knock-offs and placing them further from the original source material than Brad Pitt's World War Z film.