The WWE biting other promotions ideas

[CM Steel]

For years now the WWE has been the big dog promotion of wrestling (as Nancy Grace would say it post-the Benoit tragedy). But would have the WWE still be around today have they not stolen other ideas from other wrestling promotions? Like for example during the Monday night war, the New World Order (nWo) in WCW. As we all know by now D-Generation-X was the spawn of them over in the WWF/E. As well as the Sandman over in ECW was the model character that became STONE COLD Steve Austin in the WWF/E. As of matter of fact the whole "EXTREME" factor from ECW was what the foundation of what the WWF attitude era was built on.

On Mick Foley's "Greatest Hits & Misses" DVD during the hardcore match he had against Edge at Wrestlemania 22 in Chicago. On the special feature on the DVD Foley was on commentary with the former voice of ECW Joey Styles. And Mick Foley had brought this same subject up to Styles about wrestling fans saying that the WWF/E had stolen ideas from ECW but they were wrong. In Foley's words, "The WWF borrowed things from ECW". But if that was the case, then the WWF must have borrowed the extreme from ECW and never gave it back!

Til this very day the WWE still does the same thing but not as often as they use to during the monday night war era. And TNA wrestling isn't as a big a threat to the E as how both WCW & ECW was in a sense. But if I left anything out, what else has the WWE stolen over the years?

 

[Seosa]

A lot of companies have done it, it's just the E have been most affective at doing so. If anything they had to steal to force their way back into the picture after 'their' business had been stolen.

Bischoff stole the PPV & multiplied it by 12, while stealing Hogan, Savage, Luger, Hall & Nash, etc.
Heyman stole the idea of wrestling & drugged it up with the most extreme of acids. Both men changed the business & in order to not only compete again but to win, Vince stole stuff in return, mostly ideas that he himself then magnified. He wouldn't be in business today had he not been smart enough to turn the tables and then the screw on WCW & ECW.

 

[Mudlup50]

I could be wrong but I thought DX was designed vaguely by Triple H and Shawn Michaels basically as a throw away promo? Like Triple H basically asked for the freedom to go for it and Vince said go for it.

Even if, most companies take ideas from other companies. I mean if you take it as broad as it goes, one company started any item, and some other company tweaked the idea. Even if the WWE did take the ideas, they modified them and created a better product with it. No problem with that in my eyes.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I guess if you want to be technical about it, there's not really such a thing as "stealing" another company's ideas. I mean, you can't copyright thoughts and musings after all. On top of all that, it's not as if pro wrestling companies don't use ideas that other companies have used before them. Every pro wrestling company that's in existence, ever did exist or ever will exist is, has or will be "guilty" of doing the exact same thing.

1. Anybody know who the first faction was and where it was formed? Somewhere along the line, some wrestling promoter discovered that another promoter allied several stars, rising young stars, or a combination of both together in a formal setting and that these guys were helping draw some serious money. As a result, Promoter B decided to do the exact same thing to see.

2. At some point, it's anybody's guess as to when exactly, someone had the bright idea of having a non-wrestler, yet someone still involved with the business, act as a business manager of an active wrestler. This "manager", who was almost always a man in the old days, would sometimes have a gimmick character of his own that could range from something as silly as wearing a turban & cape to dressing like some sort of professional coach to dressing in suits like a sophisticated gentleman. This could be especially useful for heels as this "manager" could be used to help get his heel talent over by helping them cheat during their matches ranging from providing distractions, passing them "foreign objects", assaulting the babyface opponents while the referee wasn't looking, etc. Again, someone else somewhere heard about this and figured they'd give it a shot.

These are two extremely basic ideas in pro wrestling today, yet even the most basic of ideas had to have somebody come along that ultimately thought of them and became the first one to implement them. Someone saw that these ideas worked well and decided to try them as well, with maybe just a slight alteration here or there to make it just different enough to have its on unique aspect. Take the music industry for instance in that Elvis Presley wasn't the first man whatsoever to adopt the rhythms, mannerism, temp and suggestive dance moves & tempo of the music that would be called "Rock & Roll." He didn't intent the genre as there were white & black musicians before him that played a similar style, but nobody was able to pull them off the same way that he did. And the fact that television was becoming widely available by the mid 1950s didn't hurt either. Johnny Cash's rhythmic "boom-chicka-boom" sound is extremely simple to perform, yet nobody else had generated such a unique sound. Even though the tempo and driving beat are primitive compared to what would come about in the years & decades after, it was still innovative because, again even though it was simple, was highly successful.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Yes, Vince "borrowed" ideas and top talent from other promotions. Vince built much of his 80s success on NWA headliners like Roddy Piper, Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson, AWA stars like Hogan, Henning, Martel, and later HBK, he purged Randy Savage and Ted DiBiase from the Mid South area, the list goes on.

British Bulldogs/Hart Foundation feud was created as Vince's version of the hugely popular Midnight Express-Rock & Roll Express feud, even fitting the heel team with it's own obnoxious, cowardly, southern manager (Jim Cornette vs Jimmy Hart).

The Bobby Heenan Family as an official stable was WWE's version of The Four Horsemen

Demolition was a blatant, almost embarrassing rip off The Road Warriors

Vince also had a knack for finding guys that learned the basics of wrestling elsewhere but hadn't become big stars and turning them into big stars, such as HHH & Kevin Nash and Undertaker (all started in WCW).

Fact was back when there were competing promotions, more so in the 80s when there were multiple promotions, it was common for a company to do "it's take" on a storyline that had been successful elsewhere. Much of the original Ric Flair-Randy Savage/Liz storyline was a re do of Flair-Jimmy Garvin/Precious from 1987. Every wrestling company seemingly had an evil Russian contingent in the 1980s, with the Volkoffs in WWE, The Kolloffs & Killer Kruschev in NWA, the AWA had a group too I believe.

There's nothing new there, in fact Bischoff in WCW basically copied the Vince Formula for success, re do successful angles you had seen elsewhere (Flair-Hogan, Flair-Savage, The original NWO) and add talent that was created and successful elsewhere as free agents (bringing back Flair & Luger, bringing in Hogan, Savage, Nash, Hall). He basically increased his product by following the 1980s Vince blue print and it worked.

 

[whoopin' ass]

It is a common practice that all promotions do. If you want TNA related, how about ripping off The Beautiful People and creating their version with McCool, the lady with 1000 gimmicks no one cares about. For not knowing they exist, wwe has borrowed from TNA quite a few times.