10 Wrestling Gimmicks Probably Made Out Of Spite
9. Fake Diesel & Razor Ramon
What do you do when two of your top stars head for the exit door and join a rival promotion? Why, you simply recycle their gimmicks and pretend nothing's happened!
This is an approach that you can possibly get away with when looking at masked superstars, but it was never, ever going to work if you thought that Diesel and Razor Ramon were merely gimmicks that could be transitioned from one wrestler to another.
Upon Kevin Nash and Scott Hall departing for the green, green grass of Ted Turner's WCW in 1996, there was a smidge of sour grapes to all of this from Vince McMahon and his WWF.
Once these Outsiders showed up on WCW TV, a WWF lawsuit soon followed. There, Titan alleged Nash and Hall were playing Diesel and Razon Ramon just under different names. It was petty and it was a legal matter that somehow lingered for four years before finally being dropped.
With WCW Nitro starting to dominate WWF Raw in the ratings, September '96 saw Jim Ross boldly proclaim how Diesel and Razor Ramon were returning to McMahon's promotion. After weeks of such claims, we did indeed get a Diesel and Razor Ramon on WWF programming, but it wasn't the Diesel and Razor Ramon.
Instead, WWF famously had Glenn Jacobs and Rick Bognar take on the Big Daddy Cool and Bad Guy roles. Well, until both were removed from TV after the 1997 Royal Rumble four months later.