Expy/Professional Wrestling

"Superstar" Billy Graham is the direct influence of Hulk Hogan, Scott Steiner, and Jesse Ventura in image and mannerisms, which all three have alluded to in the past (Hogan in shoot interviews, Steiner by briefly using the name "Superstar", and Ventura by claiming Graham copied him!)
"Nature Boy" Ric Flair was an expy of "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers
- Flair would later get an expy of his own in "Nature Boy" Buddy Landel
Chris Benoit was an expy of Dynamite Kid.
- Bryan Danielson began his career as an expy of one, the other, or possibly both before some Divergent Character Evolution.
WWF's Kwang was an expy of the Kendo Nagasaki.
The Great Muta was an expy of The Great Kabuki
- TNA's Kiyoshi is an expy of Muta as well. Of course, some might say that TNA is an expy of WCW altogether.
  - Given who they have working there now (Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Eric Bischoff, Ric Flair, etc.) that seems about right.
For awhile WCW had a lot of expys of celebrities wrestling, which created a bunch of strange dream fights. For instance it is unlikely that Prince would ever have fought Liberace, but now you can see what it would have looked like with The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Iaukea and The Maestro
- Johnny B. Badd baby, whooo!
What do you get when you cross the promotion dominating goals of the nWo with the youth of the Natural Born Thrillers? The Nexus.
WWE and TNA have been having a little game of back and forth with the same types of characters. Granted, they're common tropes, but one tends to pop up a few weeks or months after the other, making it look more like a blatant combo of expy and Follow the Leader. Some Examples:
- Alpha Bitch: The Beautiful People and Lay Cool.
- Annoying Foreigner: Drew McIntyre and Desmond Wolfe
- Arrogant Pretty Boy: "Dashing" Cody Rhodes, Zack Ryder, and Magnus
And TNA is doing expy version of much older WWE characters. Orlando Jordan's playing with gay stereotypes bears a few similarities to Goldust. Mr. Anderson is the same type of loudmouth as The Miz (who is an expy of Anderson back when he was Kennedy.)
- Orlando Jordan is actually bisexual in real life
New WWE wrestler Alberto Del Rio's status as an expy of former wrestler John Bradshaw Layfield was lampshaded by Christian, who has nicknamed Del Rio "Juan Bradshaw Layfield".
- Technically, John and Juan are both expys of Ted DiBiase, in so far as being "Richer than thou" characters who flaunt it in the face of the audience(given that a recession is always around the corner, when it's not in full swing, this always gets heat).
Jack Swagger is basically a whinier, lamer Kurt Angle - both are formers amateur wrestlers that use the Ankle Lock as a finishing move, dress in the traditional singlet and are very very proud of their amateur acomplishments.
- Not to mention the usage of American patriotism in their gimmicks.
Randy Orton currently works as a Stone Cold Steve Austin expy with a little bit of The Rock thrown in.
- And he's not afraid to show it^{[dead link]}
- YMMV, obviously, but most people seem to see Orton as "Stone Cold without the charisma". While in mid-late 2011, CM Punk seems to be doing a much better job with the "anti-establishment, badass, acts-like-a-heel anti-face" character that Austin played.
Mason Ryan not only looks very similar to Batista, but his role in the New Nexus is similar to the role Batista played when he was part of Evolution (namely, being the largest, most physically imposing member of a four-man heel stable).
- Mason Ryan will get "Batista!" chants in some of the smarkier cities he wrestles in.
With the success of ECW came a huge influx of failed wrestling stars doing "extreme" gimmicks featuring them using new names, bad-ass attitudes, and extreme methods rejecting their old status. Al Snow (Avatar/Leif Cassidy/Shinobi), Jerry Lynn (Mr. JL), Justin Credible (Aldo Montoya), etc.
The Road Warriors were a huge smash hit in the 1980s, changing tag team wrestling forever. The various companies couldn't rip off their gimmick (that being "huge tough guys who smashed-up everyone and didn't care who they beat on") fast enough. The Powers of Pain were formed to feud with the Warriors, and the WWF threw a couple of solid midcard performers together creating Demolition. All of these teams ended up feuding with each other at various times.
- The Road Warriors themselves made an expy of their own named Power Warrior (Kensuke Sasaki)in Japan, who formed the Hell Raisers with Hawk when Animal was injured and later formed the Hell Warriors with Animal when Hawk passed away.
For a period during 2010 and 2011, WWE tried turning Michael Cole into a new version of Vince McMahon's "Mr. McMahon" character. Unfortunately, it failed spectacularly, mostly because McMahon actually was the boss of WW(F/E), while Michael Cole simply was an announcer. Thankfully, WWE ended the experiment at Over The Limit 2011, with Cole returning to his neutral Chew Toy announcer role on Raw the night after -- though he does still show a tendency to root for the heels.
The Renegade was an Expy of The Ultimate Warrior.
Beer Money Incorporated is an expy of the Acolyte Protection Agency, they even have the same manager.
Dave McLane will use similar character type repeatedly in his various promotion (GLOW, POWW, and WOW.