theidealstranger

This came to my mind while I was reading about Blackjack Mulligan and more importantly Nature Boy Ric Flair. Both of them essentially took up the gimmicks of already existing wrestlers completely in all aspects where Mulligan took it from Lanza and Ric Flair from Buddy Rogers and found immense success.

Has there been similar other cases in history of pro wrestling other than these two where copies has been more if not equally successful?

I can think of Jay Lethal copying Randy Savage to a certain amount of success but both were are different leagues.

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“My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!” ~ De Sade

mrchrisieclass

Laycool were essentially the Beautifal people but achieved greater fame

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TomasThunder619

Vince McMahon kinda copied Eric Bischoff's heel gimmick with his evil Mr. McMahon gimmick, that was much more successful.

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Mascara de la Muerte in PWA

YunisTaker

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theidealstranger

That is highly debatable and a good one there too. I felt Stone Cold was a gimmick taken more from Bad News Brown with added Sandman elements to it. But it was more successful by and large compared to the two guys.

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“My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!” ~ De Sade

Mike Zybyszko

The biggest one of all ----> Hogan copied Superstar Billy Graham's gimmick and had the most successful career in wrestling history.

Austin himself admitted that he stole the whole gimmick from Woody Harrelson's character in the movie Natural Born Killers.

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Not removing until:

[ ] Hulk Hogan vs Hawk Hogan

King Bebe

Damien Sandow - Lanny Poffo.

Greenlawler

Much easier to think of gimmicks that did not turn out as well as the originals but I am thinking here...

The Rock N Roll Express were created to be younger copies of the Fabulous Ones.

The Sheepherders were more successful than the already established Kiwi Sheepherders although both teams were just awesome in their day.

During the promotion war in Georgia in the mid 70's. Mr Wrestling 2 was created to fill the void left by Mr Wrestling 1 when the NWA sent one off to help their NWA interest. Mr Wrestling 2 easily eclipsed the original's popularity.

Okay I am prepared to get flamed for this one, but The Miz pretty much copied Mr Kennedy's gimmick and has had more success with it.

pagi

Ric Flair took Buddy Rogers's gimmick.

Greenlawler

There were dozens of guys over the history of the sport who did the crazy over the top tough guy gimmick before Sandman. If Austin copied Sandman (which I don't think he did at all) then Sandman copied Killer Tim Brooks, Joe LeDuc, Bugsy McGraw (when he was not doing his comedy gimmick) Dick The Brusier, The Crusher, etc...Heck Tojo Yammamotto was beating the crap out of guys with a kendo stick long before Sandman.

The character Austin created was only similar in attitude. I don't think anyone has a corner on the market at creating being a "could care less" bad guy. That is more of an attitude than a gimmick.