The best wrestlers who aren’t particularly good

[RedTwoster]

I rarely created two threads at the same time, but I feel like I need to counter the negativity of starting a ‘worst wrestlers who aren’t bad’ thread!

Who do you think the best wrestlers are who aren’t particularly good? I don’t mean guilty pleasures - I mean people who rise above their mediocrity or limited in-ring talent to become something entertaining?

I’ll start with this duo…

The Outrunners are one of my favourite tag teams to arrive on the scene for some time, yet as wrestlers, they’re not particularly good. But they’re so committed to their characters and objectively funny to the point it’s hard not to love them. I’m not sure that they should be winning the tag titles any time soon, but I don’t want them to disappear from my TV screen either. 

[Callum1993]

Jey Uso. 

[Dr. Alan Grant]

Ultimate Warrior. I love his babbling, nonsensical promos. I love his intensity. He had cracking matches with Savage, Hogan and Rick Rude. He’s clumsy and limited in what he actually does in ring, but I’d watch him over a lot of current wrestlers any day of the week. 

[gmoney]

Ahmed Johnson probably the king of this I would have thought? 

[IronSheik]

Yeah Ultimate Warrior is so many people of my generation's favourite wrestler and it's obvious to see he was limited in the ring. But he looked like a super hero, the face paint, tassels, gear and colour pallets were fantastic, and that rambling non-sensical promo style connected with kids massively. He was capable of being led to decent matches as mentioned above. 

From listening to practically every shoot interview ever released the common names which come up in this category from workers are Jesse the Body Ventura and Michael Hayes. Both allegedly could barely work a lick but had massive charisma and looked good. 

John Cena would arguably qualify in the modern era.

[RedTwoster]

2 hours ago, IronSheik said:

John Cena would arguably qualify in the modern era

I think it’s a tough argument to make given how many fantastic matches he’s had throughout his career. I never really understood the suggestion that he isn’t a good wrestler, with that in mind. 

[air_raid]

2 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

I think it’s a tough argument to make given how many fantastic matches he’s had throughout his career. I never really understood the suggestion that he isn’t a good wrestler, with that in mind. 

People think his execution is crap and his Superman comebacks are unrealistic and selling virtually non-existent. SummerSlam 2010 did a lot of damage to his reputation when at a 2-on-1 disadvantage in an eliminator he takes a DDT on the floor, and 90 seconds later has won the match. Plus Fin Martin dragging him constantly about the "NPSTF" (No Pressure STF) helped the "you can't wrestle" brigade believe he's a bit shit.

Cena, Hogan and Lex Luger are the poster children for this thread but here's a potentially divisive one - if the "technically sound wrestler but actually terrible" thread is the Charlotte thread, for me, this is the Sasha Banks thread. Loose as fuck, crap strikes, always looks like she'd snap in a strong gale, the Banks Statement looks awful. And yet, I always got engaged in her matches and gave a shit, whether it was wanting the smug "Boss" to get knocked off as a heel, or desperately wanting her to finally get one over the actually-awful Charlotte,

However... I fully expect nobody to be with me on that one.

[BomberPat]

Cena's execution is weird - how he runs the ropes is very odd - but so much of what he got criticised for was the booking more than the wrestling; he was a WWE top guy in the Hogan role, and they wanted that to be simple moves, sequences he could do in every match, and basic babyface stuff. Holding things like that DDT no sell against him rather than the booking of the match is unfair, but people were already dead against him by them.

Not that it ultimately mattered as he became the biggest star in forever, but I think the Triple H Wrestlemania feud did untold damage to him in terms of "you can't wrestle". You had a top heel outright saying that the babyface was a bad wrestler, while he was a brilliant technical wrestler - coming off the back of a couple of years of Angle, Benoit and Guerrero on top, where we were repeatedly told that being a great technical wrestler is something to be admired. That they then had the dragged out slog of a Triple H 'Mania match didn't help.

As for the STF, I've always assumed that he puts it on loose on purpose. By putting the facelock on lower than you usually would, it means his opponent's face is visible to the camera (and Vince McMahon's belief was always that people connect to wrestlers through their facial expressions), and the toehold being loose meant his opponent could wriggle to the ropes to break the hold. It's about making it a better TV wrestling move, at the expense of credibility. Again, I find it hard to pin that down as "bad" wrestling when, if I'm right about it, it's actually a very well thought out approach to a particular style of wrestling, even if that style isn't for me.

[Carbomb]

I'm very much not a Cena fan, but I would never put him in this category. He clearly can work, and wrestle technically (if that's an absolute necessity, which it isn't), and has had many excellent matches - his WM23 match with HBK was a lot of fun, and that match with CM Punk at MITB in Chicago was a superb bit of work.

Never really bought the argument for how he did the STF, seeing as the facelock in Benoit's crossface didn't hurt the selling or portrayal of it. But for the most part, he's very good - the only real issue I've ever had with his actual work has been the Superman comebacks. Nothing wrong with comebacks, but at least do something like a Hulk-up or Tatanka's/Warrior's war-dance. He just blithely ran through people like the whole match previous hadn't affected him at all; it didn't look like he was digging deep. There was something about it that made it seem like a bit of a joke or like he was just playing around before.

[SuperBacon]

John Cena is one of the, if not THE, greatest wrestlers of all time. 

Everyone is entitled to an opinion of course, but it's absolutely mental to me that anyone wouldn't think he's good.

If you dislike his character then that's another story altogether.

 

[LaGoosh]

Cena in ring from 2006 to about 2010 was pretty much the perfect encapsulation of the WWE babyface style and had a ton of really great matches. He's the only person who ever got a good match out of The Great Khali. I never enjoyed the character but a main event John Cena title match was guaranteed to be good.

Cena from the US title run onwards was absolutely horrific. This weird mash of indyriffic and Hulk Hogan and just had nothing but awful matches. 

[tiger_rick]

58 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

John Cena is one of the, if not THE, greatest wrestlers of all time. 

I'm a huge Cena fan and always have been but I don't even know if he's in the top 20 ever. He's brilliant and he'd be close but I think if you gave me about 15 seconds to think about it, I'd immediately come up with Savage, Funk, Lawler, Austin, Hart, Michaels, Hogan, Flair and Sting that I don't think he's better than for varying reasons. That's without even considering anyone who isn't American or Canadian.

It is hard to quantify and I'd not knock anyone for thinking Cena is the best wrestler ever but I think anyone who thinks it's crazy not to agree it's some sort of slam dunk is really pushing it. 

[air_raid]

Given the HHH discussion in the other thread, I could have posted it in there but... what a fantastic irony it is, that words to the effect of "you happen to not be a very good wrestler" were said in the build up to Mania 22, by Triple H who is supposedly a "good wrestler" but is actually shit, to John Cena, who is supposedly not a "good wrestler" but who is actually brilliant.

[Lorne Malvo]

Triple H used to be my favourite wrestler and I think John Cena is shite, so I'm feeling all arse about tit right now.

[Carbomb]

air_raid's mention of him has me thinking that Undertaker might fit this category. One of the most memorable guys in wrestling, with one hell of a legacy - but how many of his best matches were actually down to him being any good? Especially when the first half or so of his career was fairly unmemorable.