10 WCW Rip-Offs That Helped WWE Win The Monday Night War
Contrary to WWE history, not everything WCW did during the '90s was a joke.
The Monday Night War was a great time to be a wrestling fan. The action was wild, the shows were unpredictable, and the level of quality programming every week was better than ever before.
WCW brought out the best in the WWF and competition was clearly a huge factor in the upswing of the product presented. However, not all of Vince McMahon's best moves were his own and the WWF routinely borrowed from their competition in order to stay in the hunt.
Like any war there are two sides to every story and WCW undoubtedly had their fair share of plagiarism offences as well, from Goldberg looking uncannily like Austin to the debut of an Amazonian female named Asya. Even the Hell in a Cell got repacked as Caged Heat and who could forget the ultimate warrior that was The Renegade?
While the level of stolen ideas does vary in quality on both sides, there's no denying the practice and the results were pretty pivotal. The WWF ripping off Ed Leslie's Booty Man for Billy Gunn's Mr Ass gimmick certainly didn't win them the Monday Night War, but the formation of DX and a heel Mr McMahon character definitely played a huge part.
10. The Heel Authority Figure
As winners of the Monday Night War, WWE has the privilege of rewriting history to fit their narrative. At times, this can leave the facts a little skewed in WWE's favour and one prime example of this is the role of heel authority figure.
Fans of WWE will forever associate Vince McMahon with the evil Mr. McMahon character he portrays on TV. Such is the brilliance of his on-screen abilities, many have come to credit the heel authority figure as a McMahon innovation; however, this assumption simply isn't true.
While the creation of the Mr. McMahon character following Survivor Series '97 was the spark that reignited WWE's fight in the war with WCW, Eric Bischoff was actually playing the role of heel authority figure almost an entire year beforehand. 'Easy E' joined the New World Order on 18 November 1996 and his smug grin instantly became a fixture of Monday Nitro thereafter.
Bischoff's turn to the dark side started a trend that has become the go-to formula for most wrestling companies ever since and one that is still prevalent over 20 years later, particularly whenever Triple H and Stephanie McMahon are on Raw.