#5 “Monster” Abyss
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The most obvious one on this list. “Monster Abyss” was a ripoff that even someone who had very little knowledge of professional wrestling would have been able to identify. The gimmick looked a combination of WWE’s Kane and Mankind and was most certainly one of the most obvious copies of a WWE gimmick that TNA has ever done.
Right from being a masked monster heel, to the frizzy hair he had on his debut, to the evil manager James Mitchell, and to even having an undead half-brother, Abyss’ gimmick was a complete and utter ripoff of the entire Kane and Undertaker storyline.
One of the few differences between the storyline of Abyss, Mitchell and Judas Mesias was that TNA revealed their “Kane” before their “Undertaker” (Judas Mesias). Abyss was the big deranged monster, James Mitchell was his evil manager/father and Judas Mesias was his half brother.
It has to be said, however, that despite being a ripoff, Abyss has been one of TNA’s most successful creations to date and is one of the most identifiable icons of the promotion’s glory days. He’s still very much involved with the promotion and is now more of a Mankind than a Kane, in the latest incarnation of his gimmick.
TNA has certainly taken their share of “inspiration” from the WWE. Even though they’ve had quite a lot of professional wrestlers whose gimmicks were straight up written by the WWE or WCW creatives (way too many to count), they’ve still found the need to go out and copy WWE every now and then.
Regardless, TNA/Impact Wrestling has been an important part of professional wrestling throughout their existence and have given their fans a lot of original gimmicks, storylines and content as well. Here’s hoping that the copying days are over for Impact and they can move forward with some much-needed originality!
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