8 Wrestling Gimmicks That Totally Ripped-Off Musicians

5. The KISS Demon (KISS)

Okay, so the clue is kind of in the title with this one.

Dale Torborg, son of Major League Baseball manager Jeff Torborg, had his baseball career ended after he was hit with a fastball to the face. Like so many athletes that were too impaired to compete in their sport he thought, "hey, I'll give this wrestling thing a try," following a talk with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage.

Torborg was a product of the WCW Power Plant and came to the main roster as baseball player character (what else?) the MVP. Sorry, Montel Vontavious Porter: you're weren't the first!

Before the MVP character could gather any momentum, however, Eric Bischoff asked Torborg to play a character called 'The Demon'. See, he had just struck a deal with rock band KISS to do a KISS-themed character, because, well, WCW innit?

As part of the deal, the KISS-themed wrestler would work at least one big main event match. Seriously. In order to accommodate this, he was booked in a 'special main event match' against The Wall at Superbrawl 2000 which, naturally went on fourth.

The whole thing was like a bad joke and basically came about because Eric Bischoff isn't the creative genius you've been led to believe he is. The KISS concert segment on Nitro - for which the band were paid a small fortune - was put on in order to introduce The Demon character and was one of the lowest-rated segments in the show's history. And then The Demon lost his debut match to Terry Funk.

He was DOA as much as he was KISS and his career fizzled after that.