Shit...but you just kinda love them

[RedTwoster]

Credit to @LaGoosh for giving inspiration for this topic after saying this in the Raw thread: 

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Every booker in history always has that one mid-card scrub they love that they insist on pushing even when it's clearly not working. It's weirdly endearing.

Now, obviously none of us (...as far as I know) are wrestling bookers, but I think we all have a shit wrestler (or shit wrestlers) that we've really enjoyed in spite of them either obviously being terrible, or just not connecting with anyone else. Who were yours?

From my side...

Titus O'Neil

Titus isn't terrible but he's not brilliant either. But I've always had a soft spot for the guy. I think I'd have felt genuinely happy feel genuinely happy if he were to ever win a singles title. My fondness for him began when he made an appearance on commentary on Raw in the 2010s, and was absolutely brilliant. Then there was that time he was given a disproportionately harsh punishment for 'unprofessional conduct', after messing around with Vince McMahon during (I think) Daniel Bryan's retirement ceremony. My fondness for him only grew after that. Add in his charity work, and there's every reason to love the guy. (And now I wait for someone to point out something terrible he's done or said...)

Heidenreich

I started watching wrestling in late 2002, through Smackdown on Sky One. By mid-2004, things had gone to shit - and Heidenreich was part of the reason for that. I'm not sure the guy ever had a good match, and even Paul Heyman couldn't mask his limitations. But for whatever reason, I enjoyed his out-of-ring stuff - either as an unpredictable psychopath, or his babyface turn where he started reading poetry to the audience and making friends. I'm pretty sure I'd feel differently if I went back and watched those shows again; but at the time, I enjoyed him in spite of the fact he was one of the worst in-ring performers I'd ever seen. 

Sgt Craig Pittman

I already mentioned that I started watching wrestling in 2002, and I only encountered Pittman when the Network launched and I started watching my way through Nitro. I'm not sure the guy even had a storyline on Nitro, but he was something of a WCW comfort food; he wrestled on a lot of the early Nitros, and didn't progress in any way, shape or form. But it was nice to see him, and he became something of a cult hero to me. I really started to will him on, and I can't really explain why. 

[Lorne Malvo]

Oh christ, loads!

The first two that spring to mind are Mark Jindrak (specifically his Reflection of Perfection gimmick) and the Planet Stasiak incarnation of Shawn Stasiak. I loved them so much that I'd often put them together as an odd-couple tagteam on the old PS2/PS3 games under the moniker of Planet Perfection.

There were a load of lower to mid-card wrestlers TNA would use who I really liked who, looking back, probably weren't that good. Gunner (...whatever happened to that guy?), Crimson, The Blueprint Matt Morgan, Christian Yorke, that lad who used to carry an American football around with him. I drew the line at Jesse Neal though.

[RedTwoster]

12 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

The first two that spring to mind are Mark Jindrak (specifically his Reflection of Perfection gimmick)

Oh god, I could have included him - Luther Reigns too! I have an unhealthy fondness for that era of Smackdown. It was objectively awful, but if my first post was a comprehensive list it would also have included Mordecai, Orlando Jordan, Miss Jackie and Charlie Haas (a good wrestler, but he never really clicked in any significant way as a personality). 

[NeverYield]

Jindrak & Reigns, I used to like them aswell.

Jindrak is still in superb shape and condition.

[Jesse]

Always had a massive soft spot for Shannon Moore in my youth. I don't know what it was about him, I couldn't tell you a single memorable thing about his time in WWE especially, but at the time I thought he was so cool and wanted to see him go on a main event run.

[davertfnewman]

Stevie Ray and Steve McMichael, who were fortunate enough to have a great look and able to talk better than most to make up for the fact that they couldn't put one foot in front of the other without tripping.

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, RedTwoster said:

Titus O'Neil

Sometimes I don't need much more from a wrestler than a smidgen of charisma and a decent clothesline. Titus had a good clothesline and I always liked that weird bark thing he did so he's alright with me.

Edited July 30, 2024 by LaGoosh

[Dr. Alan Grant]

Ahmed Johnson. Plagued by injuries, dangerous to work with and generally viewed to be a bit shit. But he had a fantastic look, even if he did wear a thousand knee pads. I loved the Pearl River plunge and his entrance music was great. He clearly doesn’t qualify for the “not connecting” aspect of Rooster’s post, as he was super popular, but he’s one of my favourites from that era. 

Adam Bomb. Another great look. The gloves, the goggles, the contacts. Moved well for a big man. Never really had memorable matches, but I could watch him squash some jobber all day long. The pairing with Johnny Polo was an odd one though. 

Papa Shango. I usually don’t like spooky bollocks in wrestling. The exceptions are The Undertaker and this guy. They’ve brought Godfather back for the odd appearance, but never Papa Shango. It’s criminal. Yes, he can’t time a WrestleMania run-in. But he’s a wrestling voodoo practitioner. What more do you want?

[The Gaffer]

I was delighted when I heard JP on a Lapsed Fan recently talk about how logical an Attitude Era evolution this was for the Godwins. Damn right! I'm an absolute sucker for any combination of hoss brawn, clad-in-black, chonky guitar riffs and generally just looking like Buffy's going to be kicking you out of the club in the last five minutes of the episode. 

I wish this gimmick had lasted longer. Granted you couldn't have done much with them in a high profile sense, but they could have kicked around on Heat for a year or two. 

Heel Godwins ruled too. 

I know the remaining fans at the time loved him - so this could be a bit of an edge case - but Vampiro in WCW has gotten enough derision from both fans and wrestlers to warrant his inclusion, I think. 

His aura is my whole argument, really. Attitude problem? He was in the WCW 2000 locker room. Not as good as he thought he was on U.S. soil? He was in the WCW 2000 locker room. 

The ship's going down. You have nothing to lose. He should have been pushed and merchandised to the moon and back. 

 

[JLM]

Yep, Vampiro was genuinely cool at a time when WCW was most certainly not cool any more. 

[simonworden]

Shane Douglas, not prime Douglas in early 90's WCW/ECW but late ECW and 99-00s Douglas. I loved his edgy character and at the time never saw it as shit. Heck I even enjoyed him in early TNA and hoped he would to a title run. The later 2009 return against Daniels was too far though. 

[Chili]

Repo Man. Barry Darsow to his credit put absolutely everything into that gimmick and doing his Riddler schtick and being vaguely sinister. He has a Coliseum Exclusive called the Repo Cam that's genuinely great daft fun. He nicks a kids bike and it's outstanding. His sneaking about the ring, the theme music. Wrestle Me covered the early Raw where he jumps Randy Savage and reposessed his cowboy hat. They describe him as like a Shakespearian spirit of chaos and they're correct. He's absolutely delightful in that mini-angle. He was never going to amount to anything but I always got a kick out of how much fun Darsow appeared to be having.

 

 

Edited July 30, 2024 by Chili

[Callum1993]

4 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

 

There were a load of lower to mid-card wrestlers TNA would use who I really liked who, looking back, probably weren't that good. Gunner (...whatever happened to that guy?), Crimson, The Blueprint Matt Morgan, Christian Yorke, that lad who used to carry an American football around with him. I drew the line at Jesse Neal though.

Had to look it up because I knew he’d had a WWE run as Jackson Ryker. Had a 2 year run in NXT from 2018. in a faction with Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler as the ‘Forgotten Sons’ essentially a biker/patriot gimmick. They then got called up to Smackdown in 2020 with the same gimmick but got taken off TV not long after for a tweet supporting Donald Trump during the Black Lives Matter movement. Eventually they released Blake and Cutler but kept Ryker and pair him with Elias. Eventually they split and feuded with Ryker as a face. He then got released in late 2021. Truly shite and by all accounts an awful human being. 

[JLM]

Even worse, it was “Jaxson”. That’s not a pedantic spelling correction, I just wanted to highlight how fucking stupid that name is. The Sons of Anarchy character is Jax, short for Jackson. It’s not both at the same time. 

I remember him outing himself as a turd. One particularly lovely tweet was:

“"Pretty touchy subject but all this black lives matter garbage baffles me. I challenge anyone of any color or race to go watch 12 Years a Slave the movie and realise how good you all actually have it."

 

The Forgotten Sons, man what an abysmal act that was. The only other thing I remember about Riker in the group is that he was meant to be the biggest, baddest and most dangerous one but was too short for that to be convincing. 
 

 

Edited July 30, 2024 by JLM

[Joe Blog]

Bull Buchanan - never really got over in any of his many gimmicks. Probably liked him the most when he teamed with Boss Man. Lovely scissor kick, absolute charisma vacuum. 
 

Albert/A-Train/Tensai - good in Japan indeed. Liked him the most when he was with Boss Man (pattern emerging here) T&A were also a perfectly serviceable tag team.