Animal Motifs / Professional Wrestling

The fire-breathing Dragon

• Countless wrestlers have "Dragon" in their names or nicknames. It's universally a sign of respect.
  • Dragón Rojo in 1970s CMLL. His son would later take up the mask after trying other gimmicks.
  • Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat, one of the few non Japanese people to get the honor in Japan (All Japan Pro Wrestling). In fact, he took it a step further in 1991, by coming to the ring dressed in a dragon costume and breathing fire (as illustrated by the current page image).
  • Conversely AJPW's Kazuharu Sonoda was known as "Magic Dragon" in the Americas
  • Último Dragón.
  • Super Dragon
  • Rie Tamada and GAMI, the tag team known as ReDragon in Aja Kong's ARSION.(and later, Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish, reDRagon in Ring of Honor)
  • Big Japan's Death Match Dragon, Ryuji Ito
  • "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson, one of the few non-Japanese to ever win that honor in Japan.
  • Dragon Kid and his nemesis Darkness Dragon
  • Dark Dragon, who fought the "King Of Monsters" Blue Dragon and later, Ultimo Dragon (came before Blue Dragon but sort of inherited his nemesis, sort of not as one of his Dark Dragons turned out to be long time foe Hajime Ohara)
  • There's Dragon Dragon.
  • Chilean Dragon Gustav EXE in Xplosion Nacional de Lucha Libre
  • The Chinese Dragon Yosuke (loves) Santa Maria(he's from Japan, but whatever)
  • Dragon Shynron in Chikara and Beyond. His Fusion Dance partner ACH has been compared to Bruce Leroy and thus called The Last Dragon sometimes.
  • Lady Dragon in IWRG
  • The Lucha Dragons, a tag team composed of Sin Cara and Kalisto.
• Cats are popular, unsurprisingly
  • Big Cat Ernie Ladd, one of the more well known crossovers from American football to pro wrestling.
  • Curtis "The Cat" Hughes, an infamously slow but very dexterous grappler.
  • Masked Luchador Blue Panther and his many successors
  • Masked Luchador Bengala for white tigers.
  • El Pantera for black panthers and El Pantera Jr. for white panthers
  • In Japan and Japanese-influenced promotions, up-and-coming wrestlers are called "young lions." Ex Masahiro Chono, Satoshi Kojima, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Chris Hero, Ryusuke Taguchi
  • Puerto Rican legend of the AWA and All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling "La Tigresa" Irma Acevedo, as well as her more terrifying successor simply known as La Tigresa in WWC and IWA Puerto Rico (not to be confused with Mexican Tigresa del Norte).
  • Tiger Mask and his many successors such as Tiger Dream and Extreme Tiger as well as evil knockoffs, such as Black Tiger and Masked Tiger.
  • Jushin Thunder Liger, two cat motifs for the price of one.
  • Early on his career Chris Jericho had a number of lion-based names and nicknames, which fit well with his long blond hair. He hasn't gone by any of those names in years, even since before he cut his mane short...but his version of the springboard moonsault is still called the "Lionsault".
  • Tigre Universitario and Mini Tigre Universitario in IWRG
  • The late Eddie Guerrero donned the aforementioned Black Tiger Legacy Character in his career.
  • WCW Power Plant graduate Ernest "The Cat" Miller.
  • The Queen Of Cats, masked luchadora La Felina.
  • The lion Ryukyu, Super Shisa
  • Stacy Carter wrestled as "Ms. Kitty" and later "The Kat".
  • Cat Power obviously, as well as Croatian Panther in SHIMMER
  • Killer Kat, another terrifying Puerto Rican continuing what La Tigresa started
  • Chikara wrestler Lince Dorado for house cats.
  • Kofi Kingston started being referred to as a "Wildcat" in WWE.
  • Sable has a leopard screeching on her entrance theme.
  • Natalya Neidhart starts donning cat headbands towards the late 2010s. She's even christened with an unofficial monicker dubbed "the Catty Diva".
  • The Great Khali's titantron displays a Tiger with burning eyes.
  • Vickie Guerrero is dubbed "the Cougar" and mostly wears leopard-printed clothes.
  • Enzo and Cass as well as their valet Carmella commonly wear leopard-printed clothes. Their "Certified G" logo is entirely in leopard print.
  • Jinder Mahal's entrance theme song is titled "Sher", which is Punjab for "Lion".
  • Trevor Mann went by Prince Puma in Lucha Underground.
  • The Sexy Purple Thunder Sisters, Mio and Io Shirai, wears cat-like luchador masks when they wrestled in Mexico. Io carried the mask in her entrances during her first few years in WWE.
• Canines tend to be for tag teams and trios, due to being social animals
  • Bulldog Mallory back in the 1930s
  • Chief Little Wolf, innovator of The Dreaded Indian Death Lock.
  • Butcher and Mad Dog Vachon in the 1950s
  • Legendary CMLL luchador Perro Auagayo. Perro Auagayo Jr. would go on to found the Card-Carrying Villain stable Los Perros Del Mal, which would causes mischief in CMLL, splinter fed AAA and then start its very own promotion with its own "evil" title belts.
  • The Moon Dogs, Max, Rex, Rover, Spot, Splat, Spike, King and Cujo (and Black Moondog, and Moondog Fifi, and their trainee Moonpuppy and...)
  • Junkyard Dog, who would later train Redd Dogg, who would later form the Dogg Pound with Shelton Benjamin.
  • The British Bulldogs, the Tag Team formed by Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith who earned the moniker for him alone in singles. They had actual bulldogs (Matilda first, and then Winston) which they bought to the ring with them.
  • The Dingo Warrior was this at first until he got his better known ring-name, whose imagery was associated now with a mythical bird.
  • The Marine Wolves, Akira Hokuto and Suzuka Minami in AJW
  • Shark Tsuchiya's Mad Dog Military in FMW
  • The Pitbulls of the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance and ECW
  • The nWo Wolfpac splinter faction in WCW.
  • The Havana Pitbulls Ricky Reyes and Rocky Romero, starting in Ultimate Pro Wrestling, who were in turn part of the Rottweiler stable.
  • "Road Dogg" Jesse James' logo are pitbulls.
  • Foxes for 21st Century Fox, obviously.
  • Bolo The Red Bull Dog of New Wrestling Generation, WWC and IWA Puerto Rico
  • Jesse Neal is known as "The Dog Of War", which is an old nickname for the USA Army soldiers, which he was.
  • Belgian and Netherlands promotions such as Free-Style Championship Wrestling have Amsterdam Bulldogs Vito Toscani and Wesley Croton.
  • The Ring of Honor tag team of Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards call themselves "The American Wolves," referencing their ferocity and team mentality. AR Fox (which might be enough to count on its own) formed the African American Wolves with ACH in Pro Wrestling Guerilla.
  • Raven Hiroka, Princesa Blanca and Princesa Sugeith: Las Zorras of CMLL.
  • Mexican tag team Los Perros del Infierno, Perro Salvaje and Demonio Azteca out of Cuernavaca, Morelos.
  • The Shield are collectively known as "The Hounds of Justice" and dogs feature prominently on their gear.
    • Roman Reigns was referred to as "The Big Dog" in The Shield, which has carried over to his singles career.
  • "The Lone Wolf" Baron Corbin
  • Mecha Wolf 450, when Mr. 450 decided to turn his playstation tag into a gimmick
  • The Samoan Werewolf Jacob Fatu
• Snakes are a natural, at least when one remembers wrestling is supposed to be a grappling sport. Areas that train Catch As Catch Can tend to be known as snake pits.
  • African Wrestler(specifically, Democratic Republic Of Congo) Bob Elandon, also known as N'boa the snakeman in the 1950s.
  • "Whatcha gonna do, brother, when Hulk Hogan wraps his 24 inch pythons around you?"
    • ...ironically he's often more associated with tigers, since Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" was his first known theme, and he'd later be called "The rare, white bengal tiger" by King Curtis Iaukea.
  • Jake "The Snake" Roberts was named such for his serpentine movements, generally villainous nature and tendency to bring live snakes to the ring to frighten his opponent.
  • EMLL has had a couple luchadoras with a Medusa gimmick, which naturally came with a snake motif as well.
  • Snake Williams, who was NWA Canadian Heavyweight Title in Vancouver during 1983.
  • New Japan's Hiroyoshi Tenzan with his Anaconda Cross and Anaconda Vice, the latter of which would be made famous in the USA by CM "I'm Still A Snake!" Punk.(Tenzan is more associated with Bison and Buffalo in Japan though)
  • "Stone Cold" Steve Austin's nickname "The Rattlesnake" emphasized his untrustworthy temperament and habit of striking out at anyone, friend or foe, with little reason.
  • Sangre Azteca's gimmick is based on Coatlicue, which naturally brings a lot of snake imagery.
  • Green clad Belgium born wrestler Lucky Sabiti, The Krypton Pyton (though he mainly wrestles in Canadian northern Championship wrestling).
  • Randy Orton's later nickname "The Viper" refers both to the speed with which he can strike with his Finishing Move and his callous disregard for others.
  • Santino Marella's Finishing Move is called the Cobra. Before he performs it, he will wear an animated cobra sock puppet.
  • Jack Swagger, Antonio Cesaro and Zeb Colter by way of the Gadsden flag as the Real Americans. "Don't tread on me."
  • The Scottish Brute Viper, another one not to trust(although betraying Oedo~tai for Queen's Quest was considered a good thing)
  • One of Melissa Cervantes' ring names is "Kobra Moon".
• Bears
  • 1930s wrestler Chief Chewacki was nicknamed "Bearclaw"
  • 1960s-70s territorial tag team specialist Chief Little Bear
  • Ivan Koloff was known as "The Russian Bear"
  • Kamala had a bear motif before he started wrestling in face paint, and has actually wrestled bears!
  • Zenjo tag team specialist Grizzly Iwamoto
  • FMW mainstay Hideki Hosaka was known as "Darkside Panda"
  • Stiff "Griz" Jackson of Harley Race's World League Wrestling
  • The Mexican wrestler Pandita, whose gimmick has been borrowed by many, including Flying Kid Ichihara in FMW.
  • Zero 1 wrestler The Predator Sylvester Terkay is also known as "The Man Bear".
  • Alex Shelley has been nicknamed "Baby Bear"
  • Big Show's merchandise took up a bear motif midway through his career
• Fish
  • The Legendary Masked Luchador Fishman and his son, Black Fish.
  • John Tenta as the Shark of the Dungeon of Doom.
  • Shark Boy from WCW's Heartland Wrestling Association Farm league, originally known as El Piranha. He'd go on to inspire many successors, starting with Shark Girl.
  • Catfish for Namazu Man
  • Tiger Shark in Real Japan Pro Wrestling
  • Kimberly (Maddox) in World Xtreme Wrestling with her shark tattoos.
  • Sheamus would come to be known as "The Great White" in WWE.
  • Jawsolyn, or is that JAWsolyn?
  • Bobby Fish of reDRagon and The Undisputed Era. It's even his real name to boot! Heck, one of his finishers is a heel hook called the "Fish Hook".
• Birds
  • Indio Yaqui was sometimes known as "Chief Lone Eagle" and his wife Bonita wore many feathers, though she might have had them for another reason.
  • Eagles for EMLL's El Nazi, obviously
  • Michael "P.S." Hayes, Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy, and Buddy "Jack" Roberts, The Fabulous Freebirds.
    • Jessie The Latin Freebird
  • The Black Birds Brickhouse Brown and Iceman Parsons in WCCW, USWA and others in the 1980s. Los Black Birds (#s 1 and 2) of Luchu Libre Internacional (UWA), Jersey All Pro and IWRG later.
  • If you never wondered what the middle initial of Koko B. Ware standed for, well... is for "The Birdman".
  • The late 80's WWF Women's Champion, Rockin' Robin.
  • Tag team partner of Lioness Asuka (who can also go under cats) and later, Amazing Kong, Eagle Sawai.
  • The Patriot sported a big golden eagle on his mask.
  • When the Masked Luchador Rey Mysterio Jr. began his wrestling career he used the name "Colibri," which is Spanish for "hummingbird." It's fitting for someone so agile and small. Also, Huitzilopochtli (aka The Left-Handed Hummingbird Wizard) was the patron god of Tenochtitlan. Hijo De Rey Misterio has a bird themed mask too.
  • The American Eagles Tony Anthony and Danny Davis
  • Raven, quote it, nevermore
  • Thunderbird of Los Dioses del Trueno in AAA
  • Back in The '90s, The Undertaker has crows and condors associated with him.
  • The Fabulous Fire Bird Phoenix
  • El Blazer, sort of phoenix, mostly stoner.
  • The masked Scott seen in Three Count Wrestling(3CW), The Bird Of Prey Falcon
  • Cherry Bomb favors bird themed ring gear
  • Jack Evans and his Vulture Squad
  • Allysin Kay with her peacock feathers. Slightly more appropriately, Peacock Party Boy Dalton Castle.
  • Infamously, Terry Taylor wrestled as the Red Rooster.
  • Another infamous one is the Turkey called The Gobbledy Gooker
  • Paige is dubbed as "The Enchanting/Mysterious Raven-Haired Lady". Her entrance theme is even preceded with a bird screech.
  • Marty Scurll comes to the ring in a jagged beaked bird mask, to remind everyone he likes to "CHICKEN WING!"
  • After it's purchase and makeover by Anthem in 2017, Impact Wrestling has adopted Owls as one. They've even held a contest to name the "Anthem Owl".
  • LuFisto's third gimmick, "the wounded owl", complete with an entrance mask
• Cows and bulls
  • Emil "Bull" Firpo back in the 1930s, along with Bull Montana
  • El Enmascarado Rojo in EMLL, later known as The Bull Miguel Torres
  • South African Wrestler Johann "Bull" Hefer
  • Dusty Rhodes was known as "Bull Of The Woods"
  • Vader used to be associated with bulls before he got his more famous gimmick associated with elephants.
  • The Boss Of The World Bull Nakano
  • Big Bad Bull Pain in USWA and W*ING
  • Ed "The Bull" Gantner on Championship Wrestling From Florida
  • One of The Rock's many, many nicknames is "The Blue Brahma Bull."
  • Johnny "The Bull" Stamboli of WCW, which was sadly the first and only good gimmick the man would ever be given.
  • Former SHIN FMW and IWA Japan wrestler Keisuke Yamada turned Black Buffalo in Osaka Pro.
  • Bull Buchanan in Right to Censor
  • ARSION's cow Bullfight Sora, later joined by GAMI and Toshi Uematsu in Pro Wrestling WAVE
  • Moohammed, the terrorist cow
  • Bull Armor TAKUYA in Dramatic Dream Team, Dragon Gate, Osaka Pro and others.
  • Moscow The Communist Bovine of Chikara
  • Tito Santana, who has a matador gimmick.
  • The Los Matadores Tag Team have a mini dressed as a bull as their mascot, El Torrito.
• Spiders
  • During the 1980s, Dr. Zhivago wrestled for two years in the Canadian based All-Star Wrestling as Spider Web, or sometimes Spider Webb, winning the NWA Canadian Tag Team Titles with Bruiser Costa in 1984.
  • Penny Mitchell, who briefly wrestled under a mask as The Spider Lady before her manager, The Fabulous Moolah, stole it.
  • Infamous WCW wrestler Arachnaman
  • Black Man of Los Tres Fantasticos had previously wrestled as Spider Man and La Gacela. The Spider Man gimmick in particular was taken up by many after he phased it out due to Fantasticos' runaway success, the Gacela gimmick had a much more dramatic end when the mask was taken by Super Dolphin in a wager match, and as such wasn't as widely adopted.
  • Mariko Yoshida, after phasing out her high flying in Arsion but keeping the exotic submission holds of lucha libre, as well as adopting catch as catch can tactics, took up a spider web motif to drive it home.
  • Football player turned pro wrestler Nate Webb, for a different kind of "catch".
  • Tommy Saturday, otherwise known as The SpiderBaby
  • A spider is one of Portuguese Princess Ariel's symbols
  • Lisa Marie Varon's Finishing Move in the WWE is called the Widow's Peak. Since she came to TNA, she is named Tara and has taken after Jake Roberts and started bringing a tarantula to the ring.
  • The Red, Blue and Yellow Devil Spiders of Fighting Opera HUSTLE.
  • A.J. Lee has developed a black widow spider motif. Some of her shirts are even cut in such a way as to bring to mind a spider's web.
• Scorpions
  • El 1970s pareja enmascarada Los Escorpiones
  • Another 70s team operating much further North than the former, Les Scorpiones Claude Johnson and Jerry Christy
  • Riki Choshu, innovator of the Sasori-gatame(scorpion hold)
  • Sting and his most infamous nemesis, The Black Scorpion Ric Flair
  • 2 Cold Scorpio(unless you know him as Flash Funk)
  • Dedicated EMLL mid carder Alacrán de Durango
  • Mercedes Martinez usually has scorpions on her tights
  • The Los Angeles based Scorpio Sky, especially when he still had his mask
  • Rey Escorpión of Rush's Los Ingobernables, and his brother Black Scorpió
• Lepidoptera
  • "Exotic" Adrian Street. Not called as one himself but great part of his imagery was based around butterflies.
  • Princesa Sugeith was given a butterfly mask as encouragement from her trainer. She may have been small but he correctly predicted she would reach great heights in the industry.
  • In WCW, Skull Von Krush became Big Vito, a tough brute with a thing for butterflies. And in WWE he dropped that to become "the toughest man to wear a dress". Badass Decay set in both times. He was able to soar back to his old heights in WCW by tagging with Johnny The Bull and got some pushes on the independent circuit after leaving WWE.
  • AAA exotico luchador Butterfly, a less successful Spear Counterpart to Sugeith.
  • Mothman, who unexpectedly wrestled in the UK rather than the USA
  • "Session Moth" Kazza G, another UK/Ireland case and another "promising rookie" though didn't quite reach the heights of Sugeith. Also, in her region "Session Moth" is slang for "drunken Irish".
  • Marti "The Moth" Martinez, who in a subversion of the usual symbolism is a jobber on Lucha Underground
  • Another Lucha Underground case is Mariposa, the evil evil butterfly, who is also another case obviously inspired by Sugeith.
  • The WWE Divas' Championship had a butterfly design.
  • Nikki Storm became Nikki A.S.H. in WWE, yet another Sugeith expy four years removed from Sugeith's own WWE appearances, taking inspiration from Sugeith's insect superhero gear set specifically.
• Crustaceans
  • Vancouver junior heavyweight and tag team specialist Bruiser Costa had a lobster on his singlet and would sometimes come to the ring wearing lobster pincer gloves.
  • Black Diamond Wrestling has Rock Lobster, who was a tag team champion with The Bouncer
  • Dramatic Dream Team has Kani K*ING, kani as in crab sushi, and Iseebi Kamen, the later of which also worked Osaka Pro.
  • The Chikara stable Creatures Of The Deep include Hermit Crab and Cajun Crawdad
• Equids
  • The Four Horsemen of wrestling.
  • Chris Benoit once wrestled as The Pegasus Kid.
  • Team PMA is made up of Malia Hosaka, Syren and their personal referee, Evil Zebra
  • Roy Knight is also known as Zebra Kid.
  • Before she was unmasked by Angélica, Hailey Hatred Wrestled in LLF, FILL, LL VIP, LLU and AAA as Dark Unicorn
  • Laynie Luck occasionally comes to the ring in a giant unicorn mask
  • Kaitlyn has mentioned her fondness for unicorns.
  • The New Day has a unicorn motif.
  • One of Adam Page's monikers is "The Iron Horse", which coincides with his New Old West gimmick.
• Lagomorphs
  • Bunny Rogers, one of the sillier Buddy Rogers knockoffs Jack Pfefer promoted, this time in the Colorado territory.
  • Tag Team specialist Paul Christy was managed by and eventually married Bunny Love, who wrestled herself on occasion
  • Dominican wrestler Rafael Reyes was given a lot of silly gimmicks in Mexico, Súper Rabbit during his 1990s AAA run being relevant to this trope. He was also the more racially charged "Bunny Black"
  • Caribbean (IWA Puerto Rico, Dominican Wrestling Entertainment, etc) wrestler La Morina has a recurring bunny theme in her ring gear.
  • Chikara's Colt Cabana parody, Colt CaBunny
  • During the early 2010s, "Bunny" was one of the featured junior heavyweights of Chile's Xplosion Nacional de Lucha Libre
  • JWP's Junior Champion Miyuki Shiota, more commonly known as Rabbit Miyu
  • "Wrestling Machine" Jennifer Thomas became a "Snow Bunny" in The Empire Wrestling Federation
  • Adam Rose was inexplicably managed by a man in a bunny suit in WWE
  • The Rabbit Tribe of Lucha Underground.
  • Ice Ribbon's Triangle Champion Bunny Oikawa
  • TJP's Tokyo Princess Tag Team Champions The Magical Sugar Rabbits Yuka Sakazaki and MIZUKI
  • One of the twelve lost Aztec tribes that regrouped in the Lucha Underground temple is the rabbit tribe. Given this is an Aztec tribe in the Lucha Underground temple, they of course practice Human Sacrifice.
  • Laura Dennis dubs herself The Bunny and has a Superpowered Evil Side named Dark Bunny.
• Vader's most famous gimmick is associated with elephants.
• Chris Benoit was known as the Rabid Wolverine.
• A famous Tag Team composed by Jim Brunzell and B. Brian Blair, called The Killer Bees.
• Back in The '90s, The Undertaker had bats associated with him in addition to the crow and condor mentioned above.
• Rhino/Rhyno is powerfully built and fights by charging at his opponents.
• Black Rose is associated with scorpions and has a fondness for coqui.
• Ivelisse Vélez is associated with leopards and scorpions.
• Ants for The Colony, as well as their adversaries, The Swarm and Colony Extreme Force.
• Sinn Bodhi has stuffed dog shin guards and teddy bear hip guards.
• He may not like it, but the goat has become Daniel Bryan's motif. Before that, he and Paul London were the Hybrid Dolphins, marine mammals with bee stings! Before that, New Japan decided to turn his "American Dragon" Red Baron into a gimmick and he also once known for a severely delayed butterfly suplex, which was passed onto trainee Sara Del Rey, Queen Of Wrestling, as "The Royal Butterfly" (and Del Rey also has a scorpion tattoo).
• Sheep for The Wyatt Family, especially Erick Rowan, who wears a sheep mask.
• Solo Darling had feline allusions, then became a shark girl, then a squirrel, then a bee with Travis Huckabee and Willow Nightingale.
• Moose was known as such in football before he became a professional wrestler, so it only makes sense that it would stick.
• Orange Cassidy is often compared to a sloth since his main gimmick is that he is really lazy.
• The late Bray Wyatt constantly mentioned buzzards during his stint as The Wyatt Family leader and calls his fans his fireflies. His transition into The Fiend had him being a host of the Subverted Kids' Show "Firefly Funhouse" with the insect as the logo, and the "show" also features a pig character named Haskus (based from his initial Husky Harris gimmick). Wyatt's final gimmick then showed heavy Alice Allusions in which Wyatt himself was dubbed The White Rabbit.