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John Cena didn't steal the rapping gimmick. Vince or Steph saw him rapping in the back as a goof and made it his character on TV. Wholesale lying about stuff like this is a terrible look.
Just a note: Hillbilly Jim wasn't the first wrestling hillbilly. He got the gimmick from Haystacks Calhoun, who I believe was the original wrestling hillbilly. Or was at least the first wrestling hillbilly who became fairly successful in the industry. So the Godwin's got the gimmick from Hillbilly Jim, who in turn got it from Haystacks Calhoun.
Try Happy Humphrey or Haystack Calhoun . Humphrey weighed in at 800 lbs. and managed to shrink to 250 lbs. Calhoun was a another 500 llb wrestler who was a Tag Team champion with Tony Garea .
There was another wrestler with a hillbilly gimmick around the same as Hillbily Jim called Uncle Elmer who weighed in at over 400 lbs. He had a wedding on Saturday Night Main Event which was interrupted by Roddy Piper and Jesse Ventura of course everything ended in typical WWF comedy by Piper getting ejected from the building and Ventura landing up in the wedding cake . Elmer also competed in a losing effort with Adorable Adrian Adonis at WrestleMania 2 .
@@robertclark2253 Uncle Elmer was introduced after Hillbilly Jim. He was essentially a stand in for Hillbilly Jim while Jim was recovering from a legit injury. They also had Cousin Junior added to the mix with Hillbilly Jim as their manager, at least until he healed enough to return to action in the ring. Once Hillbilly Jim was able to return to action full time, Uncle Elmer and Cousin Junior were jobbed out.
I would've said Booker T around 1999 and 2000 Booker had sunglasses was the champion around that time was a heel and had the same clothes around that time as the Rock
I remember seeing Brodus Clay himself stating that his "Funkasuarus" gimmick was Vince's idea as a form of punishment, and he drew influence mostly from "Run DMC".
I don't know about punishment but I do remember that he stated on multiple occasions that it wasn't his idea, and would have preferred to remain a monster heel (his previous gimmick).
Precisely. If you were around then it was impossible not to notice. The idea that the idea to turn one of your wrestlers into a rapper in that time period should be considered "a gimmick that was straight-up stolen" is beyond ludicrous. It doesn't even qualify as borrowing anything. If something could easily happen without even hearing of the other guy it certainly can't be plagiarism. (Meanwhile it's pretty amusing to think there was a rapper wrestler that made Dr. Cena's rapper look like a hardcore gangsta!) I believe Will Ferrell and Marky Mark did a movie ten years ago where Ferrell was stepdadding Mark's kids, and starts to feel threatened by him when he reenters their lives. The movie ends with them becoming buddies and Mark is now himself stepdadding another woman's kids when _their_ biological reenters their life, and it shows Mark getting the same jealousy of John Cena!
I remember when Eric turned heel in 1996. It actually made perfect sense in the nWo storyline. Vince turning heel was more organic because no one bought his "sincere" interview about Bret Hart. Fans wanted to hate him.
Vince was doing his heel gimmick before bischoff. He was doing it in Memphis well before he brought it to the main roster. Look up his promos, it’s the same style
@@abikegavin9641 And actually got from Jim Crockett Senior as he was the 1st Evil Real Boss in Pro Wrestling as he was raiding te AWQA n The WWWWF back then as Crockett didn't give a crap about any other company other than the NWA as the rest could die for all he cared unless your soul was sold to him to stay in the territory!
Cena was freestyling in a bus, Steph heard it, asked him to do it on TV. Not stolen, they just so happen to both rap. That’s like saying The Acclaimed stole the gimmick too.
It Is stealing john cena could have found his own gimmick that's like saying all giants are fake big show like it doesn't make sense use you brain, please
@@aleiterful We'll have to bring up Men on a Mission and every other lame rapping gimmick, all the way back to the days of the rhyming of Superstar Graham and the American Dream if we want to just accuse Cena of stealing "rap" from a barely-known jobber working for another company. But Akeem was a clear swipe of Dusty's gimmick, NOT a rap gimmick.
While John Cena did it A LOT better (no argument there) coincidentally I was watching the WCW match of P.N. News versus Lou Fabiano (from 1991) and PN News is getting a VERY POSITIVE reaction from the crowd. They legit LOVE PN News. I can understand why since it's a fun gimmick. Wrestling wise, PN's best match was him against Steve Austin for the WCW TV title (PN News gets a very loud pop from the crowd when he goes after Steve Austin's evil girlfriend, Blossom, during the match). The main reasons PN News got screwed over and kicked out of WCW (despite having a positive fan reaction at the time) was because eventually Bill Watts took over WCW (and Bill Watts had a very "old school wrestling" mentality and wrestlers like PN News, Lushin Thunder Liger, Brian Pillman and many others got screwed over because of that, which also made WCW much worse than it was before he got there). Also, PN News became a victim of backstage politics when he was accused of stealing money from the locker room (after PN was released, some weeks later, it was discovered that one of the WCW referees was the one who had been stealing the money and they found this ot when the ref made another attempt. PN News was innocent). Anyway, I know in interviews that John Cena has stated that he was a fan of WCW during this era. No doubt he pulled some inspiration from PN News for the Dr. of Thuganomics. Did John Cena do it better? Yes, he did the rap gimmick much better. However, PN News managed to gain a fan following who loved him during his time in WCW, so he did alright (damn shame backstage politics got in the way).
Im not buying the John Cena/PM news one. Stephanie heard John freestyling on the bus and she asked if he could do it on TV. I HIGHLY doubt they said "You could be the next PM news". 😂😂🤣🤣🤣
John Cena was dope with his bats too tho. One of the only people to perform all of his own entrance music and his first one goes hard if I had to say so myself
The reason why Juventud Guerrera's contract wasn't picked up by WWE because by the time WCW went out of business Guerrera was long since fired for substances abuse
I beg to differ on the Mr McMahon character being stolen from Eric bischoff because you can find the McMahon character as far back as 1992 in Memphis wrestling when the WWF invaded Memphis wrestling
Kronik vs. APA? Please. Ron Simmons had already become the first African American WCW World Heavyweight Champ, after being a member of one of the best tag teams WCW ever had, and helped The Rock to start his career by that point. JBL would go on to be a WWE Grand Slam Champion. After Public Enemy, Kronik might not have wanted to take the bumps they knew would be coming. The Dudleys were more than happy to earn the locker room's respect that way, and they succeeded.
Eric Bischoff and the Mr. McMahon characters shared 1 trait in common. Other than that, they had nothing in common. That is not stealing someone's gimmick.
Kronic werent fired outright. Brain Adams went down to developmental for a few months before being released, Bryan Clark refused the same deal and quit
The idea of an "evil" owner , chairman or authority figure wasn't the idea of WWF/WWE or WCW or even USWA many independent wrestling organisations had those ideas first .
Honorable Mention: “Nature Boy” Paul Lee. Granted, this guy from the independent circuit is pretty hated, even despite the fact that Ric Flair endorsed him, but IMO, he’s treated unfairly and is doing a good job. And watching him is probably better than Ric Flair trying to wrestle after his (first) retirement match at WM24, not to mention his “Last Match” event.
If this is a case of stealing or borrowing characters one must realize that this will happen throughout the entire history of wrestling and it will happen in the future
The wrestling scene is a product of its time. Back then everyone is acting more flashier but with less wrestling skills while wrestlers nowadays are more "kid friendly" and cant be problematic even if they are heels so in turn they have to get over with their wrestling instead.
Good Morning Andy, Sonny Rogers here. Enjoying your show. In 1994 when i was working at Shaboom Nite Club formally Stay Out All Night Disco in Stone Park, IL. the Legendary watering hole for AWA, WWF, WCW, ECW, etc. On a slow Wednesday night Jimmy Strasser who owned a limo company came into Shaboom and told me that he had a huge guy that just moved to the Chicago area that was looking to get into the business. Jimmy brought him in and it was Paul Wight. Paul and Jimmy came by my Wrestling Training School the following weekend but unfortunately we had low ceilings so i suggested for both of them to contact Larry Sharpe's Monster Factory in New Jersey and Paul started training there a short time later. At some point not long after Jimmy and his brother Bob Strasser introduced Paul to Hulkster and that opened up some doors for Paul Wight. Yep i remember the Andre Jr. gimmick. WTF !!! 😛😛
i dont think that Big Show belongs on this List considering that he played literally Andres Son at the beginning. so ofc course their Gimmicks would be similar.
So you're gonna mention PN News with Cena but not mention the fact that Flair lifted the gimmick and its name from Buddy Rogers or the fact that Hogan lifted his gimmick from Billy Graham
@@mryes413 as bad as his take was on some these stolen gimmicks, i just had to hear his take on it. course if u do video bout stolen gimmicks or influences jus make sure ur info is correct for future reference.
I and many others could argue that The Beautiful People was not only the original Mean Girls stable/tag team gimmick, but also by far the best, and in spite of their bigger stage, LeCool could only ever be a pale imitation of the original. IMO both were great, but I have to give the nod to The Beautiful People, as they had to set the standard as they had no stable before them to test what would and would not work, and managed to hit grand slams at every turn, even the inevitable breakup of the stable. Sad we never could see a brand crossover matchup of LeCool vs The Beautiful People, much as it's sad we could never see a triple threat matchup between 2 other women who imitated one who came before, and I'm talking Awesome Kong, vs "The Glamazon" Beth Phoenix vs Chyna. Sadly, Phoenix and Kong were never in the same promotion at the same time and Chyna was tragically no longer among us. IMO both women carried the torch of powerhouse superheavyweight woman who could go with the men on even terms well, and had she been around to see the raise of them both, I'm sure Chyna would have been happy to have a match with each of them and do the job to put them over, or the aforementioned triple threat dream match.
Uh, dude Kong and Beth WERE IN WWE AT THE SAME TIME!!! Kong came in it Extreme Rules 2011 and then in the Royal Rumble 2012. Beth didn't retire until mid 2012.
@@CB-ci5ys That was very short lived as Kong got pregnant and had to take maternity leave and the WWE never renewed her contract once she was available again, so she went back to TNA. Her stay was only a handful of months. not really enough time to work a proper program worthy of the 2 titans of women's wrestling. Plus, as you said, Beth was near retirement, so she was past her prime by then, what I'm referring to is when both were in their primes and healthy.
@@Seriously_Unserious Beth was past her prime??? So at 31 (2011) and 32 (2012) years of age she was past her prime? Is that what you are saying? Cause Kong was only 32 (11) and 33 (12) at the time. You at need to check your facts about age before you sound like a dumb dumb. Beth didn't retire due to injury she decided that she wanted to be a mommy more. Plus she and Edge got together in late 2011. Fact check things first wee man.
@@TheLastDarkOne Uh well then Truth must really be losing it because not only had he been wrestling before Cena, but Cena wasn't the Doctor of Thuganomics until '02 while Road Dogg and Truth had not only already been a team but now Truth was in TNA winning the NWA World Heavyweight championship. So maybe he was just a fan of Cena's work but don't word it like Truth got the idea from Cena.
@@abikegavin9641 Nope Truth's right cause that is 1 of the Side effects of taking the Aging Potion as some stuff is swapped around in history books. So Ron is right we all are wrong!
That's basically every gimmick. It's not like you know who did what gimmick first. No one can know that. For all anyone knows some kid did the gimmicks first.
The Rock got his peoples champion gimmick from DDP who got it from Virgil . The Rock even got his name from hall of famer The Rock Don Muraco . Oh yeah Muraco was also Magnificent but he is the original Rock in WWF/WWE The original Rock was Rocky Marcianno . The Peoples champion was also a name applied to Irish snooker player Alex "Hurricane" Higgins and subsequently his playing partner Englishman Jimmy "Whirlwind" White sometimes Mr White was known as Young Jimmy or Jimmy Jimmy due to his popularity . Another peoples champion Irish boxer Barry McGuigan another 3 Frank Bruno , Nigel Benn and Henry Cooper. _
After a couple of terrible matches against the brothers of destruction - Yeah, they never had more than one Also they weren't fired after the match, they were told to report to developmental, Clark refused and quit, Adams went to the HWA.
I really liked kronic. Brian clark was a beast... if they were handled right they could have been a great power team in a time when tag team wrestling wasnt that great. They could have been a lod or demolition type team
Kronic was a great team. I just only wished that Brian Addams and Brian Clark formed the team 10 or 15 years earlier in their careers. They could have had some good matches with the Road Warriors, Steiners, Hart Foundation, Even with Ax and Smash of Demolition...
@@mcgannahanskyjellyfetti6854 i agree but brian clark was way more of a beast then when he was adam bomb..but the had the look both were not that bad in the ring .they did what they were meant to do, pound people down like demolition and they did that well...and their name sounded good with both their names being brian....brian clark and brian adams "kronic"...problem was .bad when they were kronic is when both wwf and wcw towards the end didnt care much about tag team wrestling..a few years sooner or a few years later when they tried getting the tag scene going again, they would have done well
If people still don’t understand how over Cena’s rap gimmick was, just look at the insane pop he gets when he brings it back even just a little bit in his promo work.
Missed opportunity.......CJ Parker (Juice Robinson) stole Buzzkill's(Brad Armstrong) gimmick. That's actually way more similar than saying that Brad's hippy character was anything like Brian's Road Dogg gimmick. Brad and CJ's are the exact same gimmick. I mean, they both even had hippy patches on their jeans. I bet CJ picked it in NXT because no one would recognize it, and think that it was originated.
Shown but not mentioned was Lanny Poffo and Damien Sandow. Add to them Dean Douglas and Wild Red Barry doing the "I'm smarter than you" gimmick. Fun fact: WRB once got the secret word. It was inevitable there was no stopping him.
Add Bob Backlunds heel turn into this as well and to think about it Sandow took a lot from Backlund including the blue robe and white towel around his neck .
It's funny how many of the people that you state were the originals person/people doing it, when if one were to go back to the territory days you will see the acts being done then. Take a look for "Iceman" King Parsons. Take a look for "Vince McMahon USWA" Which dates back to 1993, where you will see the beginnings of the "Mr. McMahon" character. You can also find a bunch of other "Farmers" and others. The Young Bucks is a stolen gimmick of the Rock N Roll Express, The Midnight Rockers, the Fantastics and so any others. If you want to see something real interesting in terms of something basically ripped off in modern times, watch "Hot-headed Eddie Gilbert Shoots on USWA". Stolen Gimmicks is nothing new and has been done for many decades.
This is exactly why I laugh my ass off when people bitch and moan about LA Knight being a SCSA/Rock clone. Been watching wrestling since the 1970s, the smarks ain't the first to complain about stuff like that, and he won't be the last to pay homage/copy/etc. other wrestlers.
This. The Young Bucks' flashy cruiserweight tag team gimmick was taken from MnM (Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro/Morisson). The only thing The Young Bucks is missing is a female valet like Melina but Kenny Omega can fill that valet role 😅
McMahon was doing the evil heel boss in the early 90’s. Like 92 or 93 with the McMemphis Angle, where he’d send wwf guys to face Jerry Lawler in the USWA for the title.
@@jasontodd1896 yes and no. Yes as he was the Mr. Ma Mahon character. Evil heel boss. No in that it wasn’t done after Bischoff. Bischoff turned heel after the nwo in late96-97 where as the mcmemphis angle was done before it was known Vince owned wwf on air. He was still a commentator. But would go down to the USWA and send guys like tatanka and macho man to face Jerry lawler for his title.
Saying John Cena ripped off PN News because they both had (completely different) rapper gimmicks is like saying durian fruit is like a honeycrisp apple because they are both fruits. Go ahead and bite into durian flesh and see if that checks out.
Alright I'm just gonna say it. Vince is still the first one to do the gimmick as the Mr McMahon character appeared in Memphis for Jerry Lawlers USWA... In 1993
The peoples champion came from Virgil after he won the Million Dollar title from Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase . The trouble with that though is many sports besides wrestling have peoples champions take boxing for instance many a peoples champion or motor sports even more peoples champions just take your pick . For instance 1988 English FA Cup final just about everyone were betting on Liverpool smashing Wimbledon to smithereens turned out Wimbledon won 1 to 0 . Fairplay and well done to Wimbledon even though I'm a Liverpool fan I have no regrets
