History FollowTheLeader / ProfessionalWrestling

* 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 or something. [[/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.

* 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.

* Ring Warriors was the first promotion to stream shows online, and though it did not find success in its target market(USA) for about fifteen years, it beat the local national promotions in Africa and Europe. Ice Ribbon's ''19'Oclock'' was perhaps the first internet streaming show to find success in its actual target market, as well as overseas.

* 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's toyed with a Women of Honour concept, nCw had their Femme Fatales etc.

* The Apocalypse Wrestling Federation began running shows focused on its women's division, "{{Girls Night Out|Episode}}" in 1999. This most obviously inspired regional rival Norther Championship Wrestling but before nCw's Femme Fatales spinoff there was also Wrestling/{{AAA}}'s Reina De Reinas(which has since become a title belt defended outside of the event. AAA technically did it first by two months too but didn't put women in the main event until after AWF put Wrestling/SherriMartel at the top of the card), All Pro Wrestling's Chick Fight(which split off on its own for a time) and IWA Mid-South's Volcano Girls(which was phased out for [[GarbageWrestler Queen Of The Death Matches]]).

* 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 {{faces}}.

* All Star Championship Wrestling, Com Pro Oklahoma and Steel Rage Pro Wrestling all brought out "X Divisions" after Wrestling/{{TNA}} got started in 2002.

* 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/BillGoldberg 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).
* Wrestling/{{TNA}} began creating PPV events centered around specific gimmick matches (eg. "Lockdown" a PPV that had all cage matches on the card) so WWE started releasing gimmick [=PPVs=] such as "Extreme Rules" (every match is a different gimmick match), "TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs" (featured a ladder match, table match, chair match and TLC match among others) and "Night of Champions" (every title is on the line). This arguably started years earlier with WCW and their annual Uncensored PPV. Like Extreme Rules, every match on the card had a gimmick. TNA cannot take credit for originality here, though it can still say WWE followed its lead for a change.

* 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 [[GimmickMatch falls count anywhere]] known as "The Final Deletion" where 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.

* ''Starrcade'' was a show made for the pro wrestling fans who spent the most money, namely those in the Carolinas and, to a lesser extent, Georgia. The 1986 million dollar gate was unprecedented for a pro wrestling event in North America, but JCP's upper management didn't fully appreciated what they had and ended up tweaking the show to be more like ''[=WrestleMania=]'', hoping to displace it as the USA's premier pay per view. This not only angered fans who would have otherwise kept spending money to attend the show and cost more to produce but also failed to make a mark in the pay per view market due to Vince [=McMahon=] successfully intimidating most networks into not running ''Starrcade''.
* The "anything goes" style of [[Wrestling/{{FMW}} Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling]], {{trope namer}} for GarbageWrestler, spawned many imitators. [[InvokedTrope Although this was exactly what FMW wanted to happen]], W*ING and IWA Japan were even acknowledged as rivals, openly. The latter was amusing because IWA was a breakaway from WWC, which was one of FMW's biggest influences, [[CyclicTrope proving this trope is very cyclic]]. Still, while W*ING tried for a measure of originality, IWA Japan's "King Of The Deathmatch" was viewed as an obvious imitation of both W*ING ''and'' FMW.

* 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 Wrestling/IvelisseVelez Underground Trio's route to their championship 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 things 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 {{faces}}.

* 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 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.

* The establishment of Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling is where wrestling promoters not only resigned themselves to fans throwing streamers for the baby faces but actually encouraged such.

* 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 ScottHall's Razor Ramon character, who was based on [[Film/{{Scarface 1983}} Tony Montana]]

* 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 with 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.

* 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/BillGoldberg was mostly a failed experiment.

* {{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 the late 1970s, when [[Wrestling/SuperstarBillyGraham "Superstar" Billy Graham]] defeated the then-perennially popular Wrestling/BrunoSammartino for the WWF Championship and held onto the title for the better part of a year. While Graham remained a {{heel}} during his first title run and wasn't necessarily cheered by the audience, he was a ''lot'' more charismatic and amusing than most of WWE's {{face}}s at the time, proving that wrestling heels could do a lot more than just anger the crowd and [[StrawLoser make the faces look good]]. Not only did Graham eventually [[HeelFaceTurn turn face]], but his costume and gimmick were more or less copied by Wrestling/JesseVentura, Wrestling/HulkHogan and other famous wrestlers, and his LovableRogue persona was a profound influence on Wrestling/EddieGuerrero - whom Graham personally admired - and others.

* The Universal Wrestling Association and Lucha Libre Internacional in Mexico starting [[PowerTrio a trios division]] lead to Wrestling/{{CMLL}} starting one of its own, while [[Wrestling/VonErichFamily WCCW]] also followed suit in the USA with its "World Six Man Tag Team Titles".
* ''Starrcade'' was a show made for the pro wrestling fans who spent the most money, namely those in the Carolinas and, to a lesser extent, Georgia. the 1986 million dollar gate was unprecedented for a pro wrestling event in North America, but JCP's upper management didn't fully appreciated what they had and ended up tweaking the show to be more like ''[=WrestleMania=]'', hoping to displace it as the USA's premier pay per view. This not only angered fans who would have otherwise kept spending money to attend the show and cost more to produce but also failed to make a mark in the pay per view market due to Vince [=McMahon=] successfully intimidating most networks into not running ''Starrcade''.

* Ring Warriors was the first promotion to stream shows online, and though it did not find success in its target market(USA) for about fifteen years, it beat the local national promotions in Africa and Europe. Ice Ribbon's 19'Oclock was perhaps the first internet streaming show to find success in its actual target market, as well as overseas.
* After Wrestling/GenichiroTenryu introduced a Junior Heavyweight TagTeam Division in WAR, New Japan, WCW and Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH were all quick to duplicate it.
* Naturally with the success of the Wrestling/NewWorldOrder every fed in the universe even your local mom and pop indy needed to have a stable trying to take over the company. One of the nWo's first imitations, Wrestling/DGenerationX, was also one that was the ''least'' like it. Let that sink in. Every fed including the mom and pop indy also needs to do an evil scheming authority figure whose sole reason for existing seems to be making life miserable for the babyface du jour. Naturally said babyface is almost always a badass nineties anti hero.

* The Apocalypse Wrestling Federation began running shows focused on its women's division, "{{Girls Night Out|Episode}}" in 1999. This most obviously inspired regional rival Norther Championship Wrestling but before nCw's Femme Fatales spinoff there was also Wrestling/{{AAA}}'s Reina De Reinas(which has since become a title belt defended outside of the event, AAA technically did it first by two months too but didn't put women in the main event until after AWF), All Pro Wrestling's Chick Fight(which split off on its own for a time) and IWA Mid-South's Volcano Girls(which was phased out for [[GarbageWrestler Queen Of The Death Matches]]).

* 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. New Japan's acquisition and heavy push of Wrestling/BrockLesnar also ignored that All Japan doing similar with Wrestling/BillGoldberg was mostly a failed experiment.

* 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.

* {{Wrestling/WSU}} and {{Wrestling/SHIMMER}} were the primary all-women's promotions in North America in the late 2000s. Upon WSU's success with internet PPV - allowing them to do regular live shows streamed over the internet - other promotions followed suit. Shine Wrestling was a spin-off of ''SHIMMER'' that ran monthly [=iPPVs=], and others such as BLOW, nCwFemme Fatales, WILD Wrestling Bellatrix and Pro Wrestling: EVE popped up in TheNewTens.

* The Apocalypse Wrestling Federation began running shows focused on its women's division, "{{Girls Night Out|Episode}" in 1999. This most obviously inspired regional rival Norther Championship Wrestling but before nCw's Femme Fatales spinoff there was also Wrestling/{{AAA}}'s Reina De Reinas(which has since become a title belt defended outside of the event, AAA technically did it first by two months too but didn't put women in the main event until after AWF), All Pro Wrestling's Chick Fight(which split off on its own for a time) and IWA Mid-South's Volcano Girls(which was phased out for [[GarbageWrestler Queen Of The Death Matches]]).

* The Apocalypse Wrestling Federation began running shows focused on its women's division, "{{Girl's Night Out|Episode}" in 1999. This most obviously inspired regional rival Norther Championship Wrestling but before nCw's Femme Fatales spinoff there was also Wrestling/{{AAA}}'s Reina De Reinas(which has since become a title belt defended outside of the event, AAA technically did it first by two months too but didn't put women in the main event until after AWF), All Pro Wrestling's Chick Fight(which split off on its own for a time) and IWA Mid-South's Volcano Girls(which was phased out for [[GarbageWrestler Queen Of The Death Matches]]).

* The Apocalypse Wrestling Federation began running shows focused on its women's division, "{{Girl's Night Out|Episode}" in 1999. This most obviously inspired regional rival Norther Championship Wrestling but before nCw's Femme Fatales spinoff there was also Wrestling/{{AAA}}'s Reina De Reinas(which has since become a title belt defended outside of the event), All Pro Wrestling's Chick Fight(which split off on its own for a time) and IWA Mid-South's Volcano Girls(which was phased out for [[GarbageWrestler Queen Of The Death Matches]]).

* The "anything goes" style of [[Wrestling/{{FMW}} Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling]], {{trope namer}} for GarbageWrestler, spawned many imitators. [[InvokedTrope Although this was exactly what FMW wanted to happen]], W*ING and IWA Japan were even acknowledged as rivals, openly. The latter was amusing because IWA was a breakaway from WWC, which was one of FMW's biggest influences, [[CyclicTrope proving this trope is very cyclic]].

* Like FMW before it, the success of Wrestling/{{ECW}} led to the founding of a number of other "hardcore" and "deathmatch" [[ProfessionalWrestling wrestling federations]], 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?

* {{Wrestling/WSU}} and {{Wrestling/SHIMMER}} were the primary all-women's promotions in North America in the late 2000s. Upon WSU's success with internet PPV - allowing them to do regular live shows streamed over the internet - other promotions followed suit. Shine Wrestling was a spin-off of ''SHIMMER'' that ran monthly [=iPPVs=], and others such as BLOW, NCW Femme Fatales, WILD Wrestling Bellatrix and Pro Wrestling: EVE popped up in TheNewTens.

* 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 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.

* The Universal Wrestling Association and Lucha Libre Internacional in Mexico starting [[PowerTrio a trios division]] lead to Wrestling/{{CMLL}} starting one of its own, while [[Wrestling/VonErichFamily WCCW]] also followed suit in the USA with its "World Six Man Tag Team Titles"".
* 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 successfull gimmicks prior to the Attitude Era were based on movies. Most noteable was ScottHall's Razor Ramon character, who was based on [[Film/{{Scarface 1983}} Tony Montana]]

* After WWE trademarked its female performers with the name 'Divas', other promotions started coming up with names for their women too. TNA notably had the Knockouts, Ring of Honour had their Women of Honour, NCW had their Femme Fatales etc.

* Since the late 2000s, WWE has become obsessed with creating female tag teams of {{Alpha Bitch}}es that evoked ''Film/MeanGirls''. Although the earliest instances of the trope were The Homewrecking Crew and Team Blondage on the indies, Wrestling/TheBeautifulPeople in TNA were the first mainstream example. 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. Madison Rayne and Gail Kim's random pairing in TNA circa 2011 was also rather obviously inspired by the formula too.

* {{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, La Rosa Negra etc.

* Since the late 2000s, WWE has become obsessed with creating female tag teams of {{Alpha Bitch}}es that evoked ''Film/MeanGirls''. Although the earliest instances of the trope were The Homewrecking Crew and Team Blondage on the indies, Wrestling/TheBeautifulPeople in TNA were the first mainstream example. 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. Madison Rayne and Gail Kim's random pairing in TNA circa 2011 was also rather obviously inspired by the formula too.

* ''Series/TotalDivas'''s success led to WWE producing more reality shows featuring its performers on the WWE Network - such as ''Legends House'', ''Breaking Ground'', ''WWE 24/7'' and the revival of ''Wrestling/WWEToughEnough''.

* After the success of Wrestling/TheNexus, WWE attempted to duplicate that success with the rookies of [[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]] season 2. To say it didn't work out that time would be an enormous {{Understatement}}.

* 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 with the success of 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}}, Tori and Wrestling/TrishStratus-simply lucking out that some of them were or would become respected wrestlers. Thus the Characters/WWEDivas were born.

* 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 successfull gimmicks prior to the Attitude Era were based on movies. Most noteable was ScottHall's Razor Ramon character, who was based on [[ScarFace Tony Montana]]

* Pro wrestling in Japan had been restricted to sideshow acts for other events and dedicated clubs until Wrestling/{{Rikidozan}} decided to emulate the territorial promotions he had found in the USA with the JWA in 1953. A year later the promotions that would come to be known as "Joshi" sprung up in response to a WWWA tour, though only Wrestling/AllJapanWomensProWrestling survived after the fad had died down. Fifty years later, the later would come full circle with Wrestling/{{SHIMMER}} and Anarchy Championship Wrestling seeking to revive the USA women's scene by taking cues from joshi.

* In the late 1970s, when [[Wrestling/SuperstarBillyGraham "Superstar" Billy Graham]] defeated the then-perennially popular Wrestling/BrunoSammartino for the WWF Championship and held onto the title for the better part of a year. While Graham remained a {{heel}} during his first title run and wasn't necessarily cheered by the audience, he was a ''lot'' more charismatic and amusing than most of WWE's {{face}}s at the time, proving that wrestling heels could do a lot more than just anger the crowd and [[StrawLoser make the faces look good]]. Not only did Graham eventually turn face, but his costume and gimmick were more or less copied by Wrestling/JesseVentura, Wrestling/HulkHogan and other famous wrestlers, and his LovableRogue persona was a profound influence on Wrestling/EddieGuerrero - whom Graham personally admired - and others.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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/AtonioInoki out of the company. New Japan's acquisition and heavy push of Wrestling/BrockLesnar also ignored that All Japan doing similar with Wrestling/BillGoldberg was mostly a failed experiment.

* 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).

* Wrestling/{{Chyna}} was presented as an anti-diva who competed with the men and won the Intercontinental title three times. Over the next few years there was a lot more emphasis on talent over looks in women's wrestling in wrestlers such as Wrestling/{{Lita}}, Wrestling/MollyHolly and [[Wrestling/CarleneMoore Jazz]] being pushed to the top of the division. Wrestling/TrishStratus as well who started out as eye candy but worked to improve her wrestling and did so to the point Vince was able to make her the face of the division for several years.\

* In the late 1970s, when [[Wrestling/SuperstarBillyGraham "Superstar" Billy Graham]] defeated the then-perennially popular Wrestling/BrunoSammartino for the WWF Championship and held onto the title for the better part of a year. While Graham remained a heel during his first title run and wasn't necessarily cheered by the audience, he was a ''lot'' more charismatic and amusing than most of WWE's faces at the time, proving that wrestling heels could do a lot more than just anger the crowd and [[StrawLoser make the faces look good]]. Not only did Graham eventually turn face, but his costume and gimmick were more or less copied by Wrestling/JesseVentura, Wrestling/HulkHogan and other famous wrestlers, and his LovableRogue persona was a profound influence on Wrestling/EddieGuerrero - whom Graham personally admired - and others.

* Wrestling/{{Chyna}} was presented as an anti-diva who competed with the men and won the Intercontinental title three times. Over the next few years there was a lot more emphasis on talent over looks in women's wrestling in wrestlers such as Wrestling/{{Lita}}, Wrestling/MollyHolly and [[Wrestling/CarleneMoore Jazz]] being pushed to the top of the division. Wrestling/TrishStratus as well who started out as eye candy but worked to improve her wrestling and did so to the point Vince was able to make her the face of the division for several years.

* Wretsling/{{TNA}} began creating PPV events centered around specific gimmick matches (eg. "Lockdown" a PPV that had all cage matches on the card) so WWE started releasing gimmick [=PPVs=] such as "Extreme Rules" (every match is a different gimmick match), "TLC: Tables, Ladders and Chairs" (featured a ladder match, table match, chair match and TLC match among others) and "Night of Champions" (every title is on the line). This arguably started years earlier with WCW and their annual Uncensored PPV. Like Extreme Rules, every match on the card had a gimmick. TNA cannot take credit for originality here, though it can still say WWE followed its lead for a change.