History FollowTheLeader / ProWrestling

* First there was "The Nature Boy" Wrestling/BuddyRogers, wrestling legend and the codifier of many of the notable wrestler tropes. Then came "The Nature Boy" Wrestling/RicFlair, cultural icon and 16 time world champion. Up third was "The Nature Boy" Buddy Landell, who doesn't even have his own page. [[TrendKiller There's yet to be a fourth Nature Boy]].

* In a very odd example, Wrestling/JuggaloChampionshipWrestling (a promotion owned by [[Music/InsaneClownPosse two every weird guys]]) decided to book reality television "star" Angelina Pivarnick after she consistently generated the lowest rated segments of the ''TNA Impact'' episodes she appeared on.

* In a very odd example, Wrestling/JuggaloChampionshipWrestling decided to book reality television "star" Angelina Pivarnick after she consistently generated the lowest rated segments of the ''TNA Impact'' episodes she appeared on.

** WCW's response to Chyna was to hire a female bodybuilder Christi Wolff as a valet and call her Asya. Because Asya is bigger than Chyna, see.

* In 2008, Wrestling/JohnMorrison and Wrestling/TheMiz debuted an online talk show on WWE.com known as ''The Dirt Sheet''. This program was instrumental in getting the tag team over and showcasing their personalities, and also generated quite a few hits on the site. Within weeks, other online shows started appearing from the likes of Cryme Tyme, Matt Striker, and [[Wrestling/ColtCabana Scotty Goldman]]. The only one that lasted longer than a couple weeks was Cryme Tyme's ''Word Up'', which resulted in a feud between the two tag teams. In 2011, lightning struck again, as the success of Wrestling/ZackRyder's Youtube series, ''WebVideo/ZTrueLongIslandStory'', led to a number of other underutilized wrestlers starting their own Youtube accounts, including Ryder's former tag-team partner, Curt Hawkins (which WWE quickly killed).

* Ever since {{Wrestling/Maryse}} had her time in the spotlight, numerous other female wrestlers have used a HairFlip as part of a taunt on the ring apron. Wrestling/BrookeAdams, Wrestling/SummerRae[[note]]Which even got a Twitter LampshadeHanging by Maryse herself[[/note]], Silvie Silver, Wrestling/KateyHarvey.
* {{Wrestling/Melina}}'s signature taunt was to do the splits on the ring apron. Since then, many other female wrestlers have opted to do so. Annie Social, the Owens Twins, Wrestling/DaffneyUnger, [[Wrestling/BlackRose La Rosa Negra]] etc.

* In 2016 as the TNA brand name was coming to an end and the company itself was closing ever closer to closure, one of the few things generating consistent positive buzz was its use of Wrestling/MattHardy, who was undergoing a CareerResurrection of sorts. Even when they decided to go back to the CainAndAbel well once again and have Matt feud with his brother {{Wrestling/Jeff|Hardy}}, fans found the results very entertaining, especially after they climaxed in a [[GimmickMatches falls count anywhere]] match [[WhereItAllBegan in]] a {{backyard|wrestling}} known as "The Final Deletion", which saw Matt actually beat Jeff, [[TheBadGuyWins seemingly for good]]. Even WWE paid attention, enough to film their own final deletion type match between Wrestling/TheNewDay and Wrestling/TheWyattFamily. Unfortunately the WWE version fell flat, since not only was it an obvious imitation, but it was also only an imitation of one match in an otherwise completely different program.
* Ever since Wrestling/{{Konnan}} came into the World Wrestling League people have been accusing WWL of copying Wrestling/{{AAA}} and or Wrestling/LuchaUnderground, which is ironic considering Triple A was one of the first WWL members back when it acted less like a promotion and more like a governing body for several others. Such accusations became even more common later in 2017 when TagTeam partners White Shadow Mark Davidson and Brown Sugar Daddy Excellent Mantel had a dispute over Davidson's relationship with La Perla Negra Allison only for all three of them to wind up winning the Trios Title belts, the similarity to The Son Of Havok, Angelico and Wrestling/IvelisseVelez's route to the Underground Trios belts being pretty obvious(and equally ironic since Velez being in WWL is part of what got her in AAA, and Lucha Underground by proxy). Also not helping is that Los Favoritos, as the Mark-Mantel-Allison trio were called, feuded with Legio, who would only be superficially similar to Lucha Underground's Disciples Of Death...if they hadn't started feuding with an increasingly similar group of baby {{face}}s.

* WWE every now and then try to replicate the success of Wrestling/ReyMysterio. What made him stood out was being the small, aerial and acrobatic performer in a land that loves giantic bodybuilders. He was not only [[KidAppealCharacter popular with kids]], but also the Smarks. The most obvious was Wrestling/SinCara, which failed due to him being incompetent and uncooperative. Then, the Lucha Dragons tag team of a [[TheOtherDarrin more competent person playing Sin Cara]] and Kalisto. Another was Wrestling/AdrianNeville who seemed to have the most promise because he's not only a high-flyer, he isn't as small as the others and can do power moves. Unfortunately, they weren't given the same care and attention on the main roster that they got in NXT.

* Following the success of Wrestling/MickFoley's 1999 autobiography, ''Have a Nice Day! A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks'', every wrestler at the time began writing autobiographies of their own to varying degrees of success, including Wrestling/DwayneJohnson's ''The Rock Says...'', Wrestling/{{Chyna}}'s ''If They Only Knew'', Wrestling/KurtAngle's ''It's True! It's True!'', Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin's ''The Stone Cold Truth'', and Wrestling/{{Edge|Wrestler}}'s ''Adam Copeland On Edge'', among others.

* Wrestling/LouThesz is credited with innovating several wrestling moves that would become common place, the German suplex being the most common, the power bomb perhaps being the most popular, but the ''Thesz Press'' being the most obvious.

* Since Wrestling/ShawnMichaels became the massive legend that he is after [[BreakupBreakout breaking off from his partner]] Marty Jannetty, it seems the main purpose of a {{tag team}} sometimes is to find out which member will become a mega star and which one, well…won't. WWE alone has tried this so many times to varying results in the years since the Rockers that two or three people would be necessary for enough hands and fingers to count them all.[[note]]This isn't really Main/FollowTheLeader, the WWF had done this before, Shawn and Marty were just the first really memorable one. Vince ''hates'' tag team wrestling because he doesn't think it draws money (despite plenty of evidence to the contrary), so pretty much any tag team that doesn't consist of blood relatives is gonna have a pretty short shelf life, though there [[Wrestling/TheNewDay are exceptions]][[/note]]

* Although shoot-style eventually faded into the sidelines, Wrestling/UniversalWrestlingFederation (in particular Wrestling/NobuhikoTakada) still codified the iconic Japanese wrestling look of "handsome wrestler in tights and leggers who kicks a lot", which came to be everywhere in the 2000-2010s Japanese wrestling scene and remains popular.

* After WWE trademarked its female performers with the name 'Divas', other promotions started coming up with names for their women too. Ultimate Pro Wrestling had "Vixens", which WWE itself adopted for it's "ECW" brand where UPW "vixen" Ariel was a feature. TNA notably had the Knockouts, Ring of Honour toyed with a "Women of Honour" concept, nCw had their Femme Fatales etc.

* For two companies that have been direct rivals as long as Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling and Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling, the two actually don't seem to pay too close attention to each other. For example, All Japan tried to start bringing in "mixed martial artists" and booking such bouts after New Japan did, even though the fiasco shamed Wrestling/AntonioInoki out of the company. The end result was "Wrestle-1" breaking away from All Japan as it's own company. New Japan's acquisition and heavy push of Wrestling/BrockLesnar also ignored that All Japan doing similar with Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} was mostly a failed experiment. The result was even worse for New Japan as Brock didn't only put even less effort into his matches than Bill, Lesnar then tried to hold the IWGP Heavyweight Title belt hostage(IGF bailed them out).

* Since the late 2000s, WWE has become obsessed with creating female tag teams of {{Alpha Bitch}}es that evoked ''Film/MeanGirls''. Although the earliest tag team of the archetype was on the independent circuit as The Minnesota Homewrecking Crew, the ''Mean Girls'' element came directly from Team Blondage, one of which got a WWF tryout and another a developmental deal. Wrestling/TheBeautifulPeople in TNA beat any WWE examples to television and thus were the first mainstream examples, [[Wrestling/AngelinaLove founded]] on [[Wrestling/VelvetSky two]] of Team Blondage's rivals no less. WWE introduced their version in Wrestling/LayCool. Since then, WWE has often had other female performers change their gimmicks to be more in line with the Wrestling/LayCool archetypes - prissy Alpha Bitches who mocked everyone else's looks and had quite a bit of LesYay with each other. The Wrestling/BellaTwins (who did this ''twice''), the Divas of Doom, the Beautiful Fierce Females and eventually the Iconic Duo followed suit. Wrestling/MadisonRayne and Wrestling/GailKim's random pairing in TNA circa 2011 was also rather obviously inspired by the formula too.

* After the arrival of Wrestling/HulkHogan, from 1994-1996, Wrestling/{{WCW}} revamped themselves into "WWF Lite", until the arrival of Wrestling/KevinNash and Wrestling/ScottHall. [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder And the rest is history...]] Before that, WCW head booker Jim Herd decided to try and mimic the WWF's success with the "Rock 'n Wrestling Connection" by tying WCW to another aspect of pop culture -- namely, movies. Fortunately, he dropped that idea after the first shots, a wrestler based on ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' (played by Nash in his pre-Diesel days) and a Pay-Per-View appearance by ''[[Franchise/{{Robocop}} RoboCop]]'', failed miserably, but it wasn't Herd's first bad idea, and definitely not his last. Ironically, the WWF actually had much more success with this concept, as several of their most successful gimmicks prior to the Attitude Era were based on movies. Most noteable was Wrestling/ScottHall's Razor Ramon character, who was based on [[Film/{{Scarface 1983}} Tony Montana]]

* Since Wrestling/ShawnMichaels became the massive legend that he is after [[BreakupBreakout breaking off from his partner]] Marty Jannetty, it seems the main purpose of a {{tag team}} sometimes is to find out which member will become a mega star and which one, well…won't. WWE alone has tried this so many times to varying results in the years since the Rockers that two or three people would be necessary for enough hands and fingers to count them all.

* In yet another instance of WWE being inspired by another promotion, their "Interim Cruiserweight Title Tournament" [[note]] Since the reigning champion, Jordan Devlin, can't leave the UK to defend his belt due to the coronavirus pandemic, WWE decided to hold a tournament to crown an interim champ so the belt can be defended, rather than just strip Devlin of the belt. [[/note]] is, rather than the traditional single-elimination tournament, more like [[Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling NJPW's]] G1 Climax, featuring two "Groups" competing against a number of set opponents, and the winners of each group determined by the one with the most victories.

* Like FMW before it, the success of Wrestling/{{ECW}} led to the founding of a number of other "hardcore" and "deathmatch" [[ProfessionalWrestling wrestling federations]](IWA M-S, XPW, [=3PW=], Wrestling/{{CZW}}), and no less an organization than the [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} WWF]] followed their lead. Wrestling/{{WCW}} tried to foster a backlash to this, painting themselves as a "family-friendly" wrestling show, but they soon jumped on the bandwagon after that posture failed. After all, how "family-friendly" can a show about people beating the snot out of each other be?

* The Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance forming collaborative agreements between pro wrestling organizations all over the world lead to The International Wrestling Association in an effort to compete against what was basically a giant wrestling trust to any "outlaw" promotions not allowed to join[[note]]the Puerto Rican and Japanese companies [[NamesTheSame of the same name]] were unaffiliated with both[[/note]]. Later came the Independent Wrestling Association (starting with IWA Mid-South), The Allied Independent Wrestling Federations, Pro Wrestling International and The World Wrestling League, who while not as close to the NWA model, still owe their existence to the concept it started. The World Wrestling Network and Global Pro Wrestling Alliance are even further from the original mold but still pay respect to the NWA.

* Following the success of Wrestling/MickFoley's 1999 autobiography, ''Have a Nice Day! A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks'', every wrestler at the time began writing autobiographies of their own to varying degrees of success, including Wrestling/DwayneJohnson's ''The Rock Says...'', Wrestling/{{Chyna}}'s ''If They Only Knew'', Wrestling/KurtAngle's ''It's True! It's True!'', Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin's ''The Stone Cold Truth'', and Wrestling/{{Edge}}'s ''Adam Copeland On Edge'', among others.

* After the arrival of Wrestling/HulkHogan, from 1994-1996, Wrestling/{{WCW}} revamped themselves into "WWF Lite", until the arrival of Wrestling/KevinNash and Wrestling/ScottHall. [[Wrestling/NewWorldOrder And the rest is history...]] Before that, WCW head booker Jim Herd decided to try and mimic the WWF's success with the "Rock 'n Wrestling Connection" by tying WCW to another aspect of pop culture -- namely, movies. Fortunately, he dropped that idea after the first shots, a wrestler based on ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' and a Pay-Per-View appearance by ''[[Franchise/{{Robocop}} RoboCop]]'', failed miserably, but it wasn't Herd's first bad idea, and definitely not his last. Ironically, the WWF actually had much more success with this concept, as several of their most successful gimmicks prior to the Attitude Era were based on movies. Most noteable was Wrestling/ScottHall's Razor Ramon character, who was based on [[Film/{{Scarface 1983}} Tony Montana]]

* Las Edecánes/Reinas/Diosas de(l) EMLL/CMLL/[[IHaveManyNames Ring]], a group of dancing [[MsFanservice women wearing very little clothing]] who inform fans of the falls and entertain them during commercial breaks. Not only have other wrestling promotions like Wrestling/{{WCW}} copied this long running Wrestling/{{CMLL}} group, but similar "sign girls" have been found in the ranks of other sport promotions like UsefulNotes/{{UFC}}(although that's not too far off).

* While the term was already in use, [[Wrestling/GeorgeWagner Gorgeous George]] pretty much became the progenitor of TheGimmick in professional wrestling as we know it in 1950. Although, many of his more successful imitators, such as Wrestling/BuddyRogers, weren't actually examples [[GorgeousGeorge of the trope he named.]] Rogers himself was different enough to spawn his own "Nature Boy" archetype, Wrestling/RicFlair being the most famous. Ironically, despite all this, George did not actually invent TheGimmick, he merely copied the look of another wrestler named Lord Patrick Lawnsende and took it UpToEleven as an elegant, effeminate spectacle.

* It may be hard - even all but impossible - to believe now, but as late as 1995, the women of WWF were a ''lot'' more prim and proper than their male counterparts, especially when it came to the costumes they wore; when Wrestling/MissElizabeth, [[Wrestling/RandySavage Randy "Macho Man" Savage]]'s manager, whipped off her skirt at the inaugural [=SummerSlam=] in 1988, resulting in a (modest by current standards) panty shot, it was huge news. The WWF's attempt to revive their women's division started with putting the belt on respected wrestler Wrestling/{{Jacqueline}} but the success of [[Wrestling/TammyLynnSytch Sunny]] and Wrestling/{{Sable}}, two hot blonde bombshells that were pure T&A, lead to them bringing in more women to feature in magazine spreads such as Debra, Wrestling/{{Ivory}}, [[Wrestling/TerriPoch Tori]] and Wrestling/TrishStratus-simply lucking out that some of them were or would become respected wrestlers. Thus the Characters/WWEDivas were born.

* It may be hard - even all but impossible - to believe now, but as late as 1995, the women of WWF were a ''lot'' more prim and proper than their male counterparts, especially when it came to the costumes they wore; when Wrestling/MissElizabeth, [[Wrestling/RandySavage Randy "Macho Man" Savage]]'s manager, whipped off her skirt at the inaugural [=SummerSlam=] in 1988, resulting in a (modest by current standards) PantyShot, it was huge news. The WWF's attempt to revive their women's division started with putting the belt on respected wrestler Wrestling/{{Jacqueline}} but the success of [[Wrestling/TammyLynnSytch Sunny]] and Wrestling/{{Sable}}, two hot blonde bombshells that were pure T&A, lead to them bringing in more women to feature in magazine spreads such as Debra, Wrestling/{{Ivory}}, [[Wrestling/TerriPoch Tori]] and Wrestling/TrishStratus-simply lucking out that some of them were or would become respected wrestlers. Thus the Characters/WWEDivas were born.