5 Pop Culture Wrestling Ripoffs That Were Actually Great (& 5 That Were Pathetic)

From Sting teaming up with Robocop to The Miz getting eaten by Zombies, wrestling has always had one foot dipped in the Pop Culture rip-off pool. Sometimes, we get Golden Era goofiness now nostalgic gold when Zeus steps off the No Holds Barred movie looking to defeat Hulk Hogan in real life. Other times we get some not-so-thinly veiled references to Bruce Lee with Ricky The Dragon Steamboat.

Sometimes wrestling hits home runs with their parodies and tributes and sometimes it doesn’t. The beauty of the business is in us - the fans. While we know when something might be complete hot garbage, we also have fun poking holes at it - giant Shockmaster holes.

10 Great - WrestleMania Goes Hollywood

In 2005 and again this last year, WrestleMania emanated from Hollywood. On both occasions, the WWE produced several great vignettes featuring the Superstars playing iconic roles. How about The Undertaker as Dirty Harry, or Triple H as Braveheart? This past year’s crop included The Bloodline recreated Goodfellas and Rhea Ripley doing her best Eleven impression.

Perhaps the two best vignettes were the one that opened WrestleMania 21 - Stone Cold Steve Maximus and this year’s Seth Rollins going full Joker, dancing down a mock version of The Highbridge stairs.

9 Pathetic - Blood Runs Cold

Sometimes the difference between being great and pathetic is only separated by a few years. Timing is everything in life and certainly in wrestling. So when Eric Bischoff decided to craft characters and storylines inspired by the popular Mortal Kombat video games, out came the likes of Glacier, Mortis, Wrath, Jame VanDenBerg, and Ernest Mitchell.

Unfortunately, the entire 'Blood Runs Cold' saga was about two years too late. By the time Glacier debuted, the nWo started too, basically eradicating any interest in anything else.

8 Great - Crow Sting

By late 1995 - early 1996, The Stinger stopped dying his hair and starts growing it out. He knew he needed to change up his look a bit. But it was Scott Hall who suggested a change that would change The Stinger’s look for the next 25 years and beyond. The Bad Guy had suggested to The Franchise that he should watch The Crow and possible adapt it to his own character.

He followed the advice to become the Avenging Angel of WCW and the Vigilante of WWE. Despite the reverence held for “Surfer Sting,” Crow Sting is what has truly stood the test of time.

7 Pathetic - Arachnaman

From the WCW House Of Ideas, the promotion decided to outright steal from The Marvel House Of Ideas when they created Arachnaman! Instead of the super obvious red and blue Spider-Man colors, they put Brad Armstrong under a Spider-Man-like hood, and he was clad in WCW’s colors of purple and gold.

Needless to say, Marvel was none too pleased with the character and sued for likeness and rights fees.

6 Great - Aces And Eights

Between Eric Bischoff’s SARSA formula, Bully Ray’s acting chops, and the popularity of TV shows like Sons Of Anarchy and Bischoff-Hervey Entertainment’s own Reality Show, The Devil’s Ride and Aces And Eights almost automatically becomes the best storyline TNA ever did.

Considering how the faction helped to get a few guys a little higher up the card abs fully cement Bully Ray as a top singles star, the faction succeeded exactly how stables in wrestling are supposed to.

5 Pathetic - Paul Burchill

You’d think WWE would have learned their lesson after Jean-Pierre Leffit flopped. But with Johnny Depp prancing around as Captain Jack Sparrow, Paul Burchill was certainly going to glom onto the success of The Pirates of the Caribbean movies. At least Burchill actually looked slightly like Captain Jack.

But that’s where any sort of similarities begins and end. The bottom line is, pirate gimmicks in wrestling just don’t work and Burchill quickly reverted to his old Ripper gimmick to try and stay afloat in WWE.

4 Great - Razor Ramon

Damien Priest is just one of the many fans who were slightly disappointed to learn that his hero Razor Ramon wasn’t actually Cuban or any kind of Spanish heritage at all. Scott Hall was able to take inspiration from Al Pacino’s other most famous gangster role - Scarface.

The original vignettes of Razor roaming around Miami along with the thick accent were taken straight from the 80s movie. Thankfully, McMahon hadn’t seen the film at the time he hired The Bad Guy, there’s a good chance he wouldn’t have appreciated a faux-drug dealer on his roster.

3 Pathetic - Chucky

Trying to cling on to anything to pop a rating during the dying days of WCW, the company had an infamous cross-over with The Child’s Play movies. The demonic doll Chucky came to WCW to pick a fight with The Dog-Face Gremlin, Rick Steiner.

Despite the segment being completely ludicrous, WWE decided to reignite the Chucky-Steiner feud by having the puppet terrorize Bron Breakker as well.

2 Great - John Cena

When John Cena first debuted, despite having a great match with Kurt Angle, he still looked like Generic Pallet Swap Wrestler B. He knew his career was floundering slightly and has admitted in several interviews that he thought he was on the chopping block.

Until one day on the tour bus, word got out that the kid could freestyle about anything. Head writer at the time Stephanie McMahon decided to dress him up like Vanilla Ice for SmackDown Halloween. He became The Doctor Of Thugonomics shortly after that.

1 Pathetic - Rosie Vs. The Donald

Every so often, WWE completely leans into parodying pop culture events. Prior to him making a run at the White House, Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell were mixed up in a war of words. For some strange reason, WWE thought it would be a good idea to capitalize on it and have a match between the two, being played by impersonators.

It wound up being one of the very worst segments not just in Raw or WWE history, but in television history overall.