10 Rip Off Wrestling Gimmicks (That Messed Up What They Copied)
1. The Renegade
There's a reason that all pro wrestling fancy dress parties feature at least one Ultimate Warrior. The aesthetics are very easy to mimic, from the colourful face paint to the tassels to the none-more-'80s hair. Simply add maniacal energy and a bottle or two of Buckfast, and you're onto a winner.
Easy to mimic but nigh on impossible to replicate, that's for sure, but WCW was sure as heck going to try. When Hulk Hogan was faced with another existential threat in the form of Vader (surely after so many threats to his existence, Hulk must have thought that maybe he was the problem?), he promised WCW fans the 'ultimate surprise', showing a suspiciously-Ultimate Warrior-looking silhouette in the process.
Hogan didn't let fans down with his claim, as his surprise turned out to be none other than a man masquerading as The Ultimate Warrior, with similar hair and mannerisms but approximately 1/32nd the charisma. It was a shambles from the get-go, another pathetic low blow in the battle between WCW and WWE. This was The Renegade, and history does not smile upon his memory.
The Ultimate Warrior wasn't exactly Manami Toyota at the best of times, but he was mega over and an undeniably magnetic persona. The Renegade was essentially a fancy dress version of the guy, missing everything that made Warrior a potential successor to Hulkamania just a few years prior.
It gets worse. Hulk Hogan referred to Renegade as the 'man that's gonna bring Hulkamania into the 21st century', but the character was dumped before 1996 was over. Renegade bumbled along doing a whole lot of nothing before being released in 1998. He sadly took his own life in 1999.
That all got a bit bleak towards the end, didn't it?