"Nobody's favourite wrestler" - or are they??

[Arch Stanton]

3 hours ago, wordsfromlee said:

I got into wrestling via the WWF Attitude game on the PS1. Like Rishi Sunak, I didn't have Sky and Channel 4 hadn’t started showing WWF yet so it must have been late ‘99.
Purely from that game Ahmed Johnson became my go to guy. I loved the look and thought the Pear River Plunge was cool as fuck.

Wonton and beef stew

EIGHT NO ONE

Money come safe

Your sorry carcass

Juice make sugar

You got plenty of insurance 

PUNK!

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

At least nobody's said Enzo Amore, I guess.

My exes favourite wrestler at the time.

She'd be brilliant for this thread as she loved him, Hideo Itami and Nikki Bella!

[Chest Rockwell]

Steven Richards was a bit of a favourite in my friendship group in the early 2000s. We would get inordinately excited for a pre-PPV Velocity Steven Richards match. Chris Masters smashing his face in was devastating at the time. 

[The Masked Poster]

Bastion Booger for me - fat boy who stunk and enjoyed eating mismatch - what’s not to like ?

[TheBurningRed]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

At least nobody's said Enzo Amore, I guess.

There was a time when he was very popular on here. During the peak of his run on NXT. I’d say he was a favourite to quite a lot of posters on here at the time. And I slagged him off and got downvoted to fuck as well as my own slagging for daring to talk bad about the UKFFs beloved Enzo. 

To add to this thread. Agree with Spike Dudley, Taijiri and Steve Blackman.

Mine was Low Ki. I loved watching the mad bastard. I know he’s a prick but I thought he was great and really wanted him to do well in WWE. And he did have a couple of fun main roster matches. 

[Carbomb]

Another one's come to mind. Back when I first got into indy wrestling, my promotion of choice was FWA.

"The Anarchist" Doug Williams was someone I paid to see. Great, high-intensity matches with superb technical ability, and the Chaos Theory German Suplex was one of the greatest finishers of all time (doesn't someone in WWE do it now?). Also, the Bombscare one of the best top rope kneedrops I've ever seen.

[Joe Blog]

Grandmaster Sexay - the coolest member of Too Cool in my opinion, loved him In 1999. 
 

Justin Gabriel - during The Nexus run, thought he was the next breakout star. 
 

Taka - not sure if this counts but I loved him during 98, great fun to watch and of course later that HHH match and ‘EVIL’ 

 

 

[BomberPat]

1 hour ago, davertfnewman said:

Beyond that, the greatest heel who never had a run against Hogan in the glory days was Spiros Arion.

I've done a few refereeing and wrestling psychology seminars where I make a point of showing people Spiros Arion vs Bulldog Joynson; as good as heel as there ever was.

I am absolutely in stitches at the Scuba Gear Headbanger Thrasher figure. Mental.

[Hannibal Scorch]

9 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Another one's come to mind. Back when I first got into indy wrestling, my promotion of choice was FWA.

"The Anarchist" Doug Williams was someone I paid to see. Great, high-intensity matches with superb technical ability, and the Chaos Theory German Suplex was one of the greatest finishers of all time (doesn't someone in WWE do it now?). Also, the Bombscare one of the best top rope kneedrops I've ever seen.

I felt the same about Paul Birchill. I thought he would be a big star in America. And, well.

[LaGoosh]

8 minutes ago, Joe Blog said:

Justin Gabriel - during The Nexus run, thought he was the next breakout star. 

I went to a Smackdown at the o2 and the slightly odd guy next to me wouldn't stop telling me about how great Gabriel was and if they pushed him the WWE would be as popular as it was in the Attitude era.

...was that you?

[Joe Blog]

4 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

I went to a Smackdown at the o2 and the slightly odd guy next to me wouldn't stop telling me about how great Gabriel was and if they pushed him the WWE would be as popular as it was in the Attitude era.

...was that you?

Was he/I wearing a Nexus top? 

[I Bent My Wookie]

90s WCW Psicosis. I think it was that he was a bit bigger than Rey and Juvi, the mask was pretty cool and I liked all the over the top nature of the Cruiserweight division. A guy down the road had a ton of WCW rather than WWF tapes and stuff and I ended up loving him.

Imagine my fear years later when he turned up in WWE looking like that one lady in the local pub you all think is on meth.

A large period of being 16 to 20 Chris Hero was also my favourite wrestler on the planet and there was something cool about him and the whole King's of Wrestling vibe with Claudio. I think I just liked how even when trying to be a good guy he just looked like an arrogant gobshite.

 

Edited January 22, 2025 by I Bent My Wookie

[Mr_Danger]

I remember telling anyone who’d listen that Alex Riley would be the next John Cena. I’m not even sure what I based it on. I didn’t even like him that much. I just had a hunch I guess.

[FLips]

I always thought Shane McMahon during his 2000-2003 run was the best. He was an excellent special attraction that, to a kid was the embodiment of "he's just a normal guy doing really cool stuff".
He'd show up once or twice a year and it would always end with him either diving off something massive or having some sort of wild hardcore match. He'd obviously gotten much worse when he came back years later, in things like the McMahons vs God and HBK angle or his GM of Smackdown run. That being said, it brought the kid out in me again when he dove off Hell in a Cell because that's the exact type of stuff we used to do in the old Smackdown games and never thought it would be a reality.

For the little I saw comparitively of WCW and ECW growing up, as it was all from tapes, Vampiro was my guy in WCW. I thought he was way cooler than Sting during their feud, and for some reason I thought his entrance was class because his pyro went off and he didn't give two shits about it. He had that gnarly Darby Allin-style skeleton facepaint, his finisher was called the Nail in the Coffin which is waaaay cooler than the Michinoku Driver, and for me as a kid at the time he was just a total package. I mean look at him here vs Finlay. Oozes charisma.

Over in ECW there was a few I really liked, either because they were different or because in Nova's case he came out to Intergalactic by Beastie Boys. Like ECW in general, it was such a breath of fresh air to me that it was so rough around the edges, people came out to real songs and even thought it was scripted you could believe everything was real because it was so indy and violent and grotty.

The others I mentioned as having a soft spot for were Danny Doring and Roadkill, and Big Sal E Graziano. The former because I enjoyed the dynamic of this bland regular dude in Danny Doring who has next to nothing going for him being teamed with a big fat amish bloke who could do somersaults. A weird team. Big Sal because look at him. A big chungus before big chungus was a thing.

[Statto]

There was a period when they were the kings of Main Event that I'd have pointed at Trent Baretta & Curt Hawkins as my two favourite wrestlers of the time. Always guaranteed a C-show banger if those two got together, or were in there with Masters/McIntyre/Gabriel etc. 

I was also a big Ezekiel Jackson man - he was a perennial holder of the Big Gold on the Smackdown games of the time, for me. 

Perhaps not as out there, but I'd still list both Alex Shelley & James Storm among my top 10 favourites of all time.