The best wrestlers who aren’t particularly good

[Mr_Danger]

Everything Cena does is for the benefit of WWE big production. He’s the best ever at that.  He’s not great in the sense of a Chris Benoit or Eddie Guerrero were bell to bell but that was never the assignment. People are right to say he’s the best ever but for most of his career there was only one show in town and he never had to deviate from what he is genuinely great at. Who knows if he’d been tasked with being a bit more ruthless and bloody as a Stone Cold style brawler how he’d do. I’m guessing he’d still be the greatest but would have had less plebs saying he can’t wrestler.

[theringmaster]

To me it's 100% Finn Balor. He does so very little in his matches, has a very limited range yet has climbed to the very top.

In terms of actual success, surely Nia Jax wins this thread? A wrestler so bad there are countless comp videos of her botches, someone who doesn't look to ever take on board any of her mistakes and if anything gets worse, yet she is still winning championships and getting PPV matches.

[LaGoosh]

39 minutes ago, theringmaster said:

To me it's 100% Finn Balor. He does so very little in his matches, has a very limited range yet has climbed to the very top.

An absolute mystery to me. Never has someone with so little going for them been pushed so hard. Very average in ring, a tiny little guy and zero charisma.

[RedTwoster]

I’d also suggest Danhausen. He is, at best, bang average in-ring, and without the character he’d have been looking at best a future of being destroyed in squash matches by the latest WWE giant.

But he does have the character, and even though his matches are unspectacular, it doesn’t really matter - I’d rather watch Danhausen than Adam Cole, Roderick Strong or Daniel Garcia any day of the week. His comic timing and grasp of comedy wrestling makes him a far bigger asset to a company than many more technically sound wrestlers.

[TheBurningRed]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

An absolute mystery to me. Never has someone with so little going for them been pushed so hard. Very average in ring, a tiny little guy and zero charisma.

The facepaint was his charisma. That’s all he had going for him.

[air_raid]

2 hours ago, theringmaster said:

In terms of actual success, surely Nia Jax wins this thread?

Roosters not going for successful, he’s going for ;

23 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

something entertaining

…. and let’s be fair, Nia’s fuckawful.

[Ronnie]

10 hours ago, BomberPat said:

As for the STF, I've always assumed that he puts it on loose on purpose. 

I've seen an interview with him somewhere in which he explained that he does. Kids are going to copy what they see him doing so he deliberately avoids doing a realistic choke so that they don't do real harm to each other emulating him.

[Merzbow]

3 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

An absolute mystery to me. Never has someone with so little going for them been pushed so hard. Very average in ring, a tiny little guy and zero charisma.

The worst Bullet Club leader, too, and yeah that includes Dave Finlay.

[RoryFice]

23 hours ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

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. 

 

17 hours ago, IronSheik said:

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.

Could Warrior be the most carryable (is that a word?) wrestler ever? Stick him with someone good who could work with both his strengths and limitations and there were some great matches. 

[air_raid]

4 minutes ago, RoryFice said:

Could Warrior be the most carryable (is that a word?) wrestler ever? Stick him with someone good who could work with both his strengths and limitations and there were some great matches. 

If only the Bret match had materialised for Mania IX….

[westlondonmist]

5 hours ago, theringmaster said:

To me it's 100% Finn Balor. He does so very little in his matches, has a very limited range yet has climbed to the very top.

In terms of actual success, surely Nia Jax wins this thread? A wrestler so bad there are countless comp videos of her botches, someone who doesn't look to ever take on board any of her mistakes and if anything gets worse, yet she is still winning championships and getting PPV matches.

His stay at the top was quite minimal though. The paint and him being quite a good looking guy without it was enough to give him the initial push during a time where they were still reliant on Lesnar and Cena, but WWE were obviously aware of his limitations or became aware because he never reached the heights or even came close post injury. I personally don't mind him, a solid enough upper mid card guy. Had he learned how to use "the demon" as a different, more violent personality like Kishin Liger maybe he could have been more. 

[simonworden]

6 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

An absolute mystery to me. Never has someone with so little going for them been pushed so hard. Very average in ring, a tiny little guy and zero charisma.

Isn't he just a well hidden "good in Japan" guy? He came in with a massive rep and in my opinion since the injury of 2016 hasn't lived up to it. I'd need to look back at his NXT run to see if he was anything special but being in the mix with Owens, Joe etc is going to elevate you. 

I've always liked him but once that initial novelty wore off he hasn't really done anything for me. I always assumed he had started to tone it down from 2019 onwards due to age, wear & tear etc.

[The Gaffer]

I think Balor also benefitted massively from the "Wrestlers are approachable, normal and even quite good looking!" wave in that so-called Reality Era when NXT was starting to make inroads into elevated positions and TV time on the main roster. They all got nice, tidy hour long Network documentaries back then introducing them, showing the journey etc where seeing loads of archive indie footage with the WWE watermark on it  was still brave new world stuff. 

There was a a lot of goodwill in it all, and an excitement and optimism to just grab on to it all considering the holding pattern was Dolph Vs. Kofi. 

[air_raid]

9 hours ago, simonworden said:

Isn't he just a well hidden "good in Japan" guy?

Thing is, he WAS good in Japan and for me, in NXT. Devitt was one of my favourite wrestlers on the planet when he was in New Japan because in an environment where to me as a non-speaker of Japanese the characters and promos don't matter much, it's all about bell to bell, and I loved his matches and developed an affinity with wanting him to win. He was one of my guys. I quite liked, even, the personality he displayed as a baddie leading the original Bullet Club ("Don't waste the beer, ya dickhead" will live with me forever) even if it was too comedic to genuinely threaten the main event ; I bought the PPV where he challenged Okada anyway and was desperate to see him win, even though I knew he wouldn't.

For the majority of his run in NXT, I loved him still, because he was the same bloke. However they never went out of their way to give him a great deal of character or reason for anyone else to want him to win, the way I already did and the way Full Sail nerds were happy to accept him as a "top guy" just because to them, he already was. He was himself bell to bell with a cool entrance on top but without much thought as to how exactly he was a "Demon" and what that meant. It was buttery butter, the same way the whole "Glorious" thing didn't make a great deal of difference to Just Bobby Roode once the bell rang. When they called Balor up I was over the moon he went over so strong on his first Raw and probably would have lost my mind at him being the first U champ if it hadn't been curtailed by injury so quickly. It made perfect sense ; glue some black pipe cleaners on a bunch of Darth Maul masks they picked up from the car boot and watch the kiddies go crazy for "The Demon." License to print money. But he was out, and they fucked the ability to perceive him as a "top guy" on the main roster virtually forever by having him not immediately focus on winning the U belt back upon his return and mince about chasing the ICT and other "midcarder for life" ventures.

There's a fucking good wrestler in there, honest. That Lesnar match in isolation is a fantastic watch if you let yourself get into it and care about Balor winning, but overall WWE just never really gave us reasons to care. Maybe it's him, and maybe the intangibles that an AJ Styles has to go beyond "has good matches" in the superstar stakes, he simply doesn't have. But it always breaks my heart a bit when people think he's shit.

1 hour ago, The Gaffer said:

"Wrestlers are approachable, normal and even quite good looking!"

It probably doesn't help my bias that when I've met Fergal, he's been fucking lovely.

[Drfunke]

On 4/8/2025 at 7:18 AM, 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. 

He is sloppy, still is, punches are weak, alot of poor submissions etc