Rinse and repeat. Sometimes literally.
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00:00 Wrestling is cyclical, that doesn't mean it rides around on a little bike but what it
00:03 does mean is that if you hit solid gold you can wait a few years and then you can do it
00:08 again and why the flub not there's only so many ideas.
00:11 Sometimes it can be a little bit too wink wink nudge nudge however and everyone just
00:15 goes "they're just doing that for a ratings grab".
00:18 So hello I am Cypherwockculture please hit that subscribe button and this is 10 times
00:23 WWE blatantly ripped off their own angles.
00:27 10.
00:28 This is Your Life Do you want to know a crazy fact?
00:31 After the This is Your Life segment between Mankind and The Rock they went backstage and
00:35 Vince McMahon yelled at them because they had gone well over time.
00:39 The ratings came in and everyone hugged and said "haha you can go as long as you want"
00:44 just goes to show.
00:45 It is brilliant though although if you do watch it in 2022 you may just go "yeah it
00:49 was a little bit overly long we could have edited this up a bit" and if we move forward
00:53 to 2017 WWE decided to do it again between Alexa Bliss and Bayley.
00:59 Now this one did not work at all mostly because the major shift was that Mick Foley and The
01:03 Great One had this lovely rapport and they were basically friends whereas Bliss and Bales
01:08 were feuding.
01:09 That was just like watching something completely different.
01:12 Therefore this was filled with bad jokes and proper awkwardness to the point after the
01:16 fact even WWE insulted themselves for it.
01:21 Sometimes you just know.
01:22 I'm not going to pretend this was the only attempt either because hidden away in the
01:25 archives back in 2011 Mick Foley tried to do this again with John Cena and yes for a
01:32 second time Mick came out afterwards and was like "I shouldn't have done it.
01:36 Oh how I regret it."
01:38 Number 9 - Doppelgangers Collide
01:39 Let's just get it out there now.
01:41 I liked Undertaker vs Undertaker at Summerslam 1994.
01:45 Now I watch it today and I'm like "this is not good stuff.
01:48 This is really really bad" but when I was basically a fetus I couldn't believe it.
01:52 How was there two Deadmans?
01:53 The real issue was that it was put in the main event and really it should have been
01:56 in the middle of the card and even The Undertaker went to Bruce Prichard afterwards and said
02:00 "why did you do this?
02:01 This was absolutely terrible.
02:02 Never make me do it again."
02:03 For some reason though we then got to 2006 and we did do it for a second time.
02:09 Now on this occasion it was with Kane just because he's the Deadman's brother and we
02:13 told Luke Gallows "yeah you've got to dress up like the big red machine including this
02:18 terrible fake wig and everyone's going to pretend that you're Kane."
02:21 WWE just dropped this from nowhere one day because I presume they realised it was not
02:26 clicking.
02:27 And actually when you think about Glenn Jacobs and his career in WWE all this stuff was obviously
02:32 going to happen because it went on for so damn long.
02:36 We were going to get through everything.
02:38 8.
02:39 The Undertaker Battles Unstoppable Monsters
02:41 Vince McMahon absolutely loved this one didn't he?
02:43 I suppose because The Undertaker was such a mythical character from day one we instead
02:47 decided to walk down the route of "oh my god his opponent is so big, how the hell is
02:52 he ever going to overcome this?"
02:54 And then he just overcame it.
02:56 The two that were most identical came years apart from one another but they did basically
03:01 follow the same format because in the mid-90s the giant Gonzalez arrived in the WWF, complete
03:07 with his weird hair suit, and he jumped The Undertaker and then in the 2000s did it again
03:12 with the Great Khali.
03:13 I mean both of these dudes just batted the fiend arm and while Gonzalez never went on
03:17 to do anything, Khali was able to use this as a platform to become the WWE Champion.
03:24 I will never get over it.
03:25 This was yet another situation where Taker was sick of it himself and even went to management
03:30 and was like "please would you put me with somebody I can actually work?"
03:33 Seriously, go watch like the early half of his WrestleMania streak, every single match
03:39 is basically this.
03:40 7.
03:41 The Anti-American Group
03:42 The height of this has got to be in 1997 when Bret Hart formed the Hart Foundation and just
03:47 blurred the line so well to the point he was super duper over in Canada but the rest of
03:52 the United States hated him.
03:54 It was so successful, five years later we tried again, but this time it was with the
03:58 Un-Americans, and the problem lies in the name.
04:02 It's just too on the nose.
04:03 The dudes in it were good because it was Christian Lance Storm and Test and eventually they were
04:07 joined by William Regal, and even though it started as the whole "we're Canadian and we
04:11 hate everybody else" when Regal did join it was more of "hey ho the Commonwealth".
04:16 The reason this never really worked though is because WWE never went whole hog with it
04:19 and also everybody in it wasn't that enthused about the gimmick as Bruce Prichard once told
04:24 us on his podcast.
04:25 So that is always going to hurt as it did in 2015 when we had the League of Nations,
04:31 do you remember the League of Nations?
04:32 Shameless, Wade Barrett, Alberto Del Rio and Bruce, and again there's loads of stories
04:38 out there, they all just fell out with each other behind the scenes, so ignore what I
04:43 said earlier, let's kill this idea and never have it back.
04:46 6.
04:47 D-Generation X Dress Up
04:48 There is no two ways about it, the DX Nation of Domination parody in 1998 is just bad, bad
04:54 television and this isn't the "right thing to say", it never should have gone down and
04:59 even X-Pac agrees with that and he was in the thing and he's also a super good dude.
05:03 You just don't wear blackface though, you don't do it and if you want to debate that,
05:07 fine, but I want to meet you in the pocket last night.
05:10 It really did become a thing though, so months later we did it again when D-Generation X
05:13 was mimicking the corporation and then years later after they were back into the fold,
05:18 Shawn Michaels and Triple H did this to Vince McMahon and Shane.
05:21 That one is quite fondly remembered as well because HBK/Shane O'Max mannerisms were absolutely
05:26 hilarious but they kept on doing this time and time again before you just sat there and
05:31 you were like "yeah, I know DX are going to do this, it's just what they do".
05:35 And you know the deal with that, eventually it does become the law of diminishing returns
05:39 because a creative idea isn't that creative when you've done it 72,000 times and I bet
05:44 you this, will a group do it again in the future?
05:47 Yes.
05:48 5.
05:49 Arresting the Babyface
05:50 I don't think anyone would ever do this as well as Steve Austin because he did make you
05:53 believe he was being taken away for prison but this is a gimmick that seems to work.
05:57 There's plenty of we can talk about but the one that really set everybody on fire was
06:01 when Becky Lynch did it in 2019 and she came across as so unhinged it was super duper to
06:08 watch and if she was trying to tangle Stone Cold, fair play to her because she absolutely
06:12 nailed it.
06:13 Fans loved it too and this was quite the risk given what we were trying to copy but seriously,
06:17 go back to this period and just watch every little thing the man does, the crowd goes
06:22 crazy for it.
06:23 Ultimately she just came across as cool as Austin did too meaning even though they were
06:27 being arrested we would be like "oh man, this is the best person I've ever seen".
06:32 You could only do that in wrestling but maybe that's where the magic lies.
06:35 4.
06:36 Austin vs. McMahon vs. The Authority
06:38 WWE is never going to stop trying to get another Austin vs. McMahon part 2.
06:43 If I can completely understand this, I get it.
06:46 It was one of the most successful programs ever so they want to try and replicate it.
06:50 The problem in 2022 is that we've done it so many times it's just boring now and has
06:55 anybody actually even got close to what Steve and Vincent did?
06:58 The answer is no.
06:59 I mean it is literally like night and day.
07:02 Even in 2005 we were trying this because Eric Bischoff was management and John Cena was
07:06 the everyman trying to rally against it and by the time Roman Reigns was a star here came
07:11 McMahon back again.
07:12 I mean it was so damn obvious.
07:14 The real problem was that Austin had this rebellious streak that you could believe in
07:18 whereas guys like Cena and Reigns just didn't.
07:20 John especially was a strange one because he came across like a goody two shoes and
07:25 it was more likely that he would have gone to management and sat down with them and kind
07:29 of vocalised his issues as opposed to putting them in a wrestling ring and kicking their
07:32 ass.
07:33 It's almost like when you have a brand new top guy they should forge their own path.
07:37 Or do I know?
07:39 3.
07:40 Somebody steals the urn
07:41 Do you remember The Undertaker's urn?
07:43 For a good while it seemed to only exist so that other people could steal it.
07:48 We also all forget that this was the source of The Undertaker's powers for a while because
07:52 Paul Bearer would hold it aloft when the Deadman was in trouble which caused the sit up and
07:58 then years later he was doing it without the urn so something smells fishy to me.
08:03 You haven't seen this gold pot in ages now but back in the day my word you wanted to
08:07 get possession of this because then you could control The Undertaker.
08:11 So Ted DiBiase did it, Paul Heyman did it, CM Punk did it, Bray Wyatt did it, hell even
08:15 Paul Bearer himself one did it because he screwed The Undertaker with the urn and he
08:20 joined up with mankind.
08:21 And like I say we went to crazy levels with this too and we acted like now you were in
08:25 control of The Undertaker which is why it's very strange that one day he came out wearing
08:31 MMA gloves.
08:32 What the flub was that about?
08:34 2.
08:35 Heels getting sprayed with liquid
08:36 I know that sounds terrible but bear with me.
08:38 The most famous of these was the 22nd March 1999 Raw when Steve Austin came out with the
08:43 beard truck and he took said liquid and he sprayed down Vince McMahon's Shane McMahon
08:47 of The Rock and this clip is so historic and it is so famous you still see it on TV today
08:53 and it's never going to die.
08:55 It was so popular WWE couldn't help themselves and did it two years later but this time it
09:00 was with Kurt Angle who drove a milk truck to the ring.
09:03 The reason this worked is that it was so redonkulous and it was such a stupid parody everybody
09:08 was laughing and when you laugh you feel good in your tum tum.
09:12 Somehow this hasn't been tried since but I bet we do do it soon.
09:15 I mean you could do it with Drew McIntyre and whiskey, Roman Reigns could do it with
09:19 a table but I'm not sure how that would work.
09:22 Maybe Cody Rhodes could do it with orange juice if he likes orange juice.
09:26 This is why somebody else should come up with it but mark it on your calendars.
09:30 It's probably just around the corner.
09:32 1.
09:33 Heels getting soaked with urine
09:34 Why is this even a sentence I have to say out loud?
09:37 But hey it's true because a lot of people in modern times saw Jeff Hardy throw his piss
09:42 over Sheamus after the Irishman had accused him of being a drunkard and really this does
09:47 happen because people backstage in WWE really enjoy toilet humour.
09:51 On this occasion I mean that literally.
09:54 This was nothing new though as back in 2006 Vince McMahon had been directly involved in
09:58 this because he was doing the same thing with Shawn Michaels.
10:01 He told him to take a whiz into a little tube and when HBK was suitably upset by it he took
10:07 it and threw it into Vince's face.
10:10 Now there was 14 years between these angles so I'm going to say it was fair game but as
10:14 a wrestling fan I don't need to see anyone take their urine and chuck it into another
10:19 human being.
10:20 Also my gosh talk about don't try this at home I would rather be pile driven through
10:25 78 different tables than someone take their stuff and pour it all over me.
10:30 I mean again why are we even talking about this?
10:34 Not many other times WWE blatantly ripped off their own angles.
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