10 Times Wrestlers Got Away With Ripping Off WWE
The pettiest of thefts.
The Young Bucks did get away with ripping off WWE, for a while, until they invaded Monday Night RAW a month or so back and were issued with a cease and desist over their adopted "Two Sweet" hand gesture. The inventive mercenaries instead monetised the very term "Cease and Desist," which is now plastered across the second-biggest selling t-shirt in Hot Topic.
It was more than spiritual antecedents Scott Hall and Kevin Nash managed.
Vince McMahon pitched a fit at Hall using his Tony Montana voice on WCW Nitro. While the irony was entirely lost on him, he won the day. Scott Hall simply became Scott Hall, a cooler and more authentic act than Razor Ramon. It was a bloody cheek, to use a British idiom. WWE is no stranger to plagiarism themselves, having borrowed gimmicks from the Road Warriors, the Beautiful People, Goldberg, Eric Bischoff - but, with legal bloodhound Jerry McDevitt on the WWE leash, they are better equipped than most to be hypocritical.
The Young Bucks made plagiarism cool. In that sense, they truly are wrestling revolutionaries: wrestling's ripoff record is risible - with one sublime, rule-proving exception...
10. Shane Douglas
2005's Hardcore Homecoming was the burgled brainchild of Shane Douglas who, possibly still peeved at the p*ss-poor Dean Douglas gimmick of 1995, dreamed up the show as the authentic alternative to WWE's official One Night Stand ECW relaunch. It was a great idea, even though it wasn't his, strictly speaking.
WWE was bound to mess it all up; meanwhile, Hardcore Homecoming bore many hallmarks of the original ECW promotion, in that it emanated from the Bingo Hall, rehashed the breakthrough Night The Line Was Crossed three way dance classic, and featured at least two matches that went far too long. McMahon was unable to set McDevitt on Hardcore Homecoming because the endeavour was all nudge-nudge, wink-wink. It was ECW in spirit, not in name.
Unfortunately for Douglas, while he got away with ripping off WWE from a legal standpoint, he didn't it do it particularly well; for once, WWE presented non-WWE wrestling with unprecedented, shocking success. One Night Stand was a sterling spiritual successor to ECW's fun and violent body of work, boasting authentic personnel, setting, and, crucially, atmosphere. It was ECW in spirit and name.
Perhaps Shawn Michaels got in McMahon's ear.