10 Times Wrestlers Got Away With Ripping Off WWE
6. Avalanche
It was easy for the WWF to massage the perception that WCW was a second-rate imitation league because it literally imitated the WWF throughout the majority of its existence - even when Ted Turner's wrasslin' was winning the ratings war.
The nWo tactic was one of subversion; WCW hired the heroes of Golden Era WWF and decked them out in villainous black and white, situating their star power in a fresh context. Elsewhere, though, the strategy was pure emulation - and in the case of John 'Earthquake' Tenta, WCW simply removed a thesaurus from the shelf, looked up various natural disasters, and ultimately settled on "Avalanche".
Funnily enough, Tenta didn't move heaven and earth in WCW; as a monster of the week already chewed up by Hulk Hogan (albeit a sorely underrated one), he was as battered a copy as your dad's old VHS porn collection. Incredibly, the Avalanche character - a shameless, almost antagonistic rip-off - lasted a good six months or so, before the WWF finally wised up and issued WCW with a cease and desist.
Drought was a more accurate natural disaster, given that Tenta's run down south failed to yield much critical or commercial success.