RE-POST: Copyright Infringement (Originally Written in 2000)

Normally, around this time of the month, I would write about an upcoming WWF pay-per-view, but as I've been away, I don't really know much about the Survivor Series matches.

So I thought I would write about something different. This afternoon in Cromer, I saw a poster for a WAW event in the nearby town of Fakenham. I saw a photo of the Incredible Bulk, a local man mountain of a wrestler I've met a couple of times, but this wasn't the thing that grabbed my attention. You see, there were several other photos on this poster. One showed a large man wearing a Vader style mask, complete with customary Vader salute. Near to him was a man dressed like one of the Road Warriors, complete with spiked shoulder pads and face paint. Then there was another man with longish dark hair, dark glasses, and the original DX t-shirt, giving the DX crotch chop. Then there was the man dressed like Doink The Clown.

Later, while sitting at home, I saw an ad in the Sunday People newspaper, for the Wrestlemania UK tour. This was the tour Yokozuna was on. There was a picture of him, because the promoters had dedicated the rest of the tour to his memory.

But there were several pictures that caught my attention. To one side was a man dressed in black, reminiscient of The Undertakers Lord of Darkness, or as I like to call them, evil bastard days. In front of him were two men garbed like Hawk and Animal, with the proper haircuts, face paints, and spiked shoulder pads. In front of them were two odd looking fellows who were obviously trying to be The Bushwackers. Behind him was someone who looked like a young version of Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, unless old Greg has had some plastic surgery.

Now, a question arose here - why would anyone want to go to a wrestling event just to watch someone try and pretend to be someone else? I'm not putting down these companies. I'm sure they put on some fine shows, but can't they at least come up with some original gimmicks of their own? And aren't any of these images copyrighted by the WWF?

What's next? A Welsh Bad Ass? Sing along with me now...."I'm a miner, a singer in black, hold your coal lamp in the air so I can see where you're at, isn't it?" Or perhaps a big, ginger, hairy Scotsman prancing around in a silver and black costume, calling himself Bronzedust!

So come on fellas, if British wrestling is going to get back in good shape again, and perhaps even get some sort of television contract, you can't go around copying everything that Vince McMahon an the WWF creative team has done in the past. Besides, that's Vince Russo's job.

Until next time.......