The Other Darrin/Professional Wrestling


 * Mexican promotion AAA was the first federation of moderately well known luchadors Psychosis and La Parka. When the two had a falling out with AAA and left, AAA sued them for the gimmicks and gave the Psychosis and La Parka gimmicks to different wrestlers to play. The original La Parka (Adolfo Tapia) did something of a reverse Other Darrin by keeping the gimmick but changing the name to LA Par-K. The original Psicosis (Dionicio Castellanos) uses the Nicho El Millionario gimmick in Mexico outside AAA.
 * There was a short lived running gag involving Los Payasos, a stable of 3-5 clown luchadores whose only difference was the hair color on their masks; as Mexican tag team matches require the leader being pinned/submitted to win they would all change their masks in the middle of a fight so they all would have the same as their current leader forcing the opposing team to pin/submit all of them.
 * In WWE, the role of Doink the Clown was given to several other wrestlers following the departure of Matt Borne (who played him first) until it was given to Ray Apollo (who played him until the character was phased out). Ironically, as all this was going on, Borne continued to play Doink for several weeks in his new home, ECW, as part of a storyline that led to his new character, Borne Again. Doink has also been played by Dusty Wolfe and Steve Lombardi, and a whole host of wrestlers have donned the costume temporarily as part of angles.
 * This is also currently being done in TNA. The character of 'Suicide' was supposed to be played by Frankie 'Kaz' Kazarian. Kazarian injured himself, and, since the character wore a full-cover bodysuit and mask, the role was given to Christopher Daniels. Kazarian is since back, and TNA has worked the switch into the angle, with some of the other wrestlers accusing Daniels of being Suicide.
 * Now there's a third Suicide -- Kaz has returned to competing under his old name with no explanation, while Suicide is now being played by Kiyoshi.
 * When Kevin Nash and Scott Hall -- who were billed as Diesel and Razor Ramon, respectively -- left the World Wrestling Federation in 1996, Vince McMahon decided that (because the characters were trademarked, and thus, legal property of the WWF) he would recast Diesel and Razor Ramon. Hence, Glen Jacobs would perform as "Diesel" (one of Jacobs' many pre-Kane roles), while Rick Bognar became the new "Razor." Of course, it was obvious to fans these were Other Darrins performing these characters, and not just by lack of ability, but by overt explanation by the WWF announcers (including Jim Ross, who briefly turned heel as part of this gimmick). The "Fake Diesel"/"Fake Razor" storyline proved unpopular and was soon dropped; Bognar left the WWF not long afterward, but Jacobs was repackaged as Kane ... and the rest is history.
 * Ric Flair took the role as the Black Scorpion in 1990.
 * Ultimo Dragon, after receiving his release from WWE, unmasked because there was talk of WWE bringing him back sans gimmick under his real name, Yoshihiro Asai. That never panned out, and for some reason Asai couldn't just go back to being Ultimo Dragon, so he became the latest incarnation of Tiger Mask. In the short lived promotion DragonDoor, Asai participated in a real vs impostor angle that made the Undertaker/Underfaker angle look good. Second Dragon, Dragon the Great, Tiger the Great, and all sorts of imposters were running around the promotion, and to keep things more confusing Asai would switch from being Ultimo Dragon to Tiger Mask to Tiger Dragon all in the same card.
 * When TNA decided to do an ECW reunion show called Hardcore Justice they wanted to bring back as many people from the old ECW as they could while Writing Around Trademarks, most of the guys used their old character but there were 2 indie wrestlers given old gimmicks to use both were kind of strange choices for different reasons:
 * The Blue Meanie was played by Big Tilly who has worked off and on for TNA for the last half decade. While this normally would not be that bad (as the two bear a passing resemblance to each other, and Meanie was a big part of the bWo who are essential to any ECW reunion), but the problem was they showed the real Meanie (Brian Heffron) earlier that night in a pre recorded segment and Al Snow. Al even pointed out that it was a different guy despite Nova insisting it was the original.
 * The other replacement was Lupus, who was portrayed by an unknown named Sam Shaw. This was strange because not very many people (even die-hard ECW fans) remember that there even was a Lupus -- he only lasted about a month as a minor member of Raven’s Nest, and only wrestled 2 matches! Really, the Gigolo would have gotten a bigger reaction then him even if it was the real Lupus.
 * Shortly after his WWE debut, the wrestler behind the Sin Cara mask, a luchador formerly known as Mistico, failed a drug test and was suspended for 30 days. In order to keep the character from losing momentum, WWE developmental talent Hunico was brought in to wrestle under the Sin Cara mask until Mistico's suspension was up
 * This turned out to be Hunico wanting to take over the role of Sin Cara, as Hunico had used the name, with a different gimmick, Mistico, but lost the right to use the name to CMLL who had given it to the man who now portrays the Original Sin Cara, and are now in a feud over who will be the "real" Sin Cara.