mvp rips off stephon marbury

MVP, real name Antonio Banks, has said in several interviews that his gimmick is based off arrogant athletes he ran into when he worked as a bouncer at a Miami night club. "A lot of MVP is me with the volume turned way up, but self-absorbed," Banks said.

" 'Do you know who I am?' I heard that so many times. I thought to myself, 'Man, I hate him, I don't hate him because he's rich. I don't hate him because he has money. I hate him because he's a jerk.' "

MVP mentioned that he has interacted with Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Barry Sanders and Michael Irvin and they were all cool and approachable, but it was the other kind of athletes that inspired him to create the character he portrays.

"These guys, they were total jerks, you just want to punch them in the mouth right now," Banks told IGN.com. "If I hate that guy and everyone else hates him, I thought that the world would probably hate that guy. MVP is that guy."

He got a lot of influence for his gimmick from one NBA player in particular who caused a lot of problems. MVP apparently had some sort of incident with that particular athlete one night, and that athlete was none other than the New York Knicks' star point guard Stephon Marbury.

There were rumors that his gimmick was directly based off Allen Iverson, but it doesn't look like there's any truth to that story.