10 Wrestling Gimmicks Based On LIES!
8. Yokozuna
Wrestling has always played well with transforming ethnic backgrounds because xenophobia always played well with wrestling audiences.
Intended to provide a warped reflection of society (even when it falls wide of the mark), the industry thrives when punters feel represented in some way by the larger-than-life characters they've paid to see. Yokozuna embodied that quality rather literally, but his entire existence spawned from Vince McMahon fostering anti-Japanese sentiment that lingered relatively low in his patriotic audience.
His size dictated his gimmick, and his gimmick dictated his size - the mammoth man was a sumo star, and sumos were successful in Japan, so Samoan Rodney Anoa'i suddenly had a new home.
Given Mr Fuji as manager (because of course he was), Yoko's character was destined for the top of the card, but it was only when he got there that the company doubled down on his imagined heritage by transforming Lex Luger into a flag-waving Hulk Hogan tribute act. WWE didn't need to ask sophisticated questions about race relations as long as they only chased all the easy answers.