10 Wrestling Gimmicks Which Were Massive Ribs

Office in-jokes are the lifeblood of the working world, a shared set of banteriffic bon mots which both build camaraderie and deter drudgery. So long as everybody's au fait with the act, there's no harm done baybeee.

But you have to be careful not to take things too far. A misguided impersonation here, a mysteriously nomadic tabletop ornament there, and desk-wide division can fester, before the whole place finds itself under lock-down.

Wrestling, has never had any particular qualms with "taking things too far" - and especially when it comes to jokes at others' expense. It even has a term for it: ribbing.

Ribs between colleagues, though frequently vulgar, tend not to be personal. It's a whole other matter when it comes to sending a barbed "hullo!" to the opposition; wrestling has long had a territorial mentality, and the gloves come off when defending home turf.

To the public, inside jokes at the expense of rivals are utterly meaningless. That hasn't stopped them proliferating over the years. Those petty cash jars must be enormous.

Vince Russo always fancied himself as the reason for WWE's late-'90s success, but he never could quite manage to emulate his Stamford namesake. Even his attempts at cross-promotional ribbing were wide of the mark.

Take the Harris Twins. The pair went through oodles of iterations, each one as dreadful as the last. When they were through playing Appalachian mountain men whose most notable feature was their beards, and latterly themselves as implicit neo-Nazis Skull and 8-Ball of the Disciples of Apocalypse, the gruesome twosome inevitably alighted in Atlanta.

The pair were re-billed as Russo's on-screen muscle, collectively known as 'Creative Control' - a jab at the company's own manipulative talent. Their names - Patrick and Gerald - were a tad cleverer, but unlike the WWE stooges they aped, the pair were tediously competent at their custodial duties. Who exactly was the joke on?