10 WCW Stars Who Did WWE Gimmicks First

Any praise WCW gets from WWE's revisionist machine is quickly tempered by a few choice words about how the company ultimately failed, or how it barely made a dent on the pro wrestling landscape beyond Nitro's 83-week dominance over Raw. That, dear readers, is categorically false.

It's Vince McMahon's way of deflecting the truth.

Sure, WCW could be a messy reminder of corporate toxicity and jobs for the boys, but it did more for the industry than WWE would like to admit. That's evident when one scours the promotion's peak to find characters that McMahon and staff heavily borrowed from or outright stole for use on their own programming.

It's an eye-opening experience to stroll down memory lane and realise just how many great WWE personas were lifted from WCW's playbook. Some of these originals took place years before their copycats too, whilst others were lifted (and admittedly enhanced) to help line McMahon's pockets.

The winners get to rewrite history, but WWE might be a bit embarrassed if forced to admit that some of Vinnie Mac's best ideas weren't actually his at all...