10 Wrestling Ripoffs Better Than The Original

A quick glance at Waylon Mercy and Bray Wyatt side by side above reveals that they were both inspired by the Max Cady character from Cape Fear. The Hawaiian shirt is a dead giveaway, but there was more to it than that. As Mercy, journeyman pro Dan Spivey told fans, "Lives are gonna be in Waylon Mercy's hands". Sound familiar? Bray Wyatt's memorable ditty claimed, "He's got the whole world in his hands".

Both characters spoke in a hushed, almost-gentlemanly manner too. Bray had to take inspiration from Jake Roberts for that, but Mercy too. Fittingly, one of the characters from his future 'Fiend' expansion shared a name with Waylon. "Mercy The Buzzard". None of this could be coincidence - Wyatt was gently ripping off something that had been too far ahead of its time in the mid-90s.

Waylon was a black sheep kind of character on the roster back then, and that made it challenging for fans to get a grip on what he was going for. By 2012, WWE viewers were a little more in-step with what Bray was trying to do. He mixed elements of Roberts, Mercy, then Mick Foley's Mankind and Cactus Jack characters with his own God-tier creativity. 

There's no doubting Wyatt's success compared to Waylon's. Bray became WWE Champion (although arguably at the wrong time) and was cherished as a creative force right up until his untimely passing in August 2023. That death shocked the industry to its very core. Bray is gone but not forgotten. He improved on the framework set by Spivey a few decades before Husky Harris turned into Wyatt.

Run.