10 Wrestlers You Didn't Know Were HUGELY Influential
2. Ricky Morton
Ricky Morton was so influential, his tendrils so rooted in the form, that they make TikToks about him without even knowing who he is.
You might have seen the meme doing the rounds, on whichever social media platform you prefer, of a hamster very slowly crawling towards its water, captioned "What every WWE tag team wrestler looks like". It's an affectionate bit that pokes gentle fun at the hyper-dramatic struggle of the hot tag, the sort of thing that a non-fan looks at and scoffs.
Literally every babyface wrestler does do this - it's as stitched in to the fabric of pro wrestling as the Irish whip, selling a limb, the heel taunting the crowd - and it was a device perfected by the Rock N' Roll Express man to such an extent that it is named after him.
Non-fans might look at it and see artifice, but wrestling fans across multiple hot territories saw it in the '80s and lived and died with him, caught under his spell, just begging to watch him find the wherewithal - to somehow lend him the wherewithal - to make the tag, save himself, and reverse the momentum of a match in danger of collapse.