10 Famous Wrestling Gimmicks That Ripped Off Real People

It only makes perfect sense that pro wrestling would take influence from the real world. The grappling industry has been aping subjects outside of the entertainment bubble since forever. Going as far back as the 1950's, foreign characters were treated like sneaky, evil menaces, for example. Even into the 1980's, this was still the attitude, and there's an argument to be made for it still being the case today. That phrase Gorilla Monsoon used to utter, 'He Pearl Harboured him!', was evidence wrestling still thought that was the way to sell bad guys. Of course, Monsoon was referencing the events of 1941, when Japanese armed forces launched a surprise attack on the US Naval Base, and using it to sell a heel wrestler attacking a baby face from behind. It doesn't stop there, numerous wrestling characters have been greatly inspired by the real world. That's the subject at hand in this article, those wrestlers who are direct rip-offs (for lack of a better term) of people who actually existed. Some of the choices may surprise some fans, but there's no denying the similarities between these pairings. Exactly who was inspired by who, and why? That's the burning question, but the answers are all explored on this list.