The greatest wrestlers pride themselves on being as safe in the ring as they are tough. Bobby Heenan was once smartened up by his opponent telling him something to the effect of “we don’t hurt each other, we only make it look like we hurt each other, and if you tell anyone I’ll kill you.” Working safe and snug is something that guys like Bret Hart lives their whole careers doing. Sometimes, guys are a little stiffer than other. Chris Jericho has an agreement with one wrestler where they’d beat the heck out of each other, except for the face.
But there is a difference between being tough as nails in the ring and being reckless. Stuff workers like the Road Warriors still did their best to make sure that they didn’t hurt their opponents. The wrestlers on this list, not necessarily as much. Here are 10 Most Reckless Performers In WWE History.
10 Ryback
Thanks to CM Punk outing him, Ryback instantly became the most (in)famous unsafe worker in the business. According to Punk, working with Ryback took years off of his life. He kicked the guy as hard as he could in the ribs, breaking them. On one other occasion he was supposed to dump Punk through a table, but missed the table totally, which collapsed his pelvis. Other wrestlers have dismissed this idea, however there has always been a fraternal protection amongst the boys. Iconoclast Punk wouldn’t care about that.
9 Seth Rollins
The narrative of Seth Rollins the reckless worker thankfully seems to be gone, but for a period of time, it was becoming painfully (no pun intended) obvious that Rollins was doing something very wrong in the ring.
He smashed John Cena’s nose in with the ripcord knee. But worse than that, he took out Finn Balor for over six months and ended Sting’s career with the same move, an unprotected running powerbomb.
8 The Ultimate Warrior
A lot fans were Little Warriors once upon a time. But even after his tragic passing, there are still a lot of guys out there who have no issue talking about what a piss-poor, careless worker the Hall Of Famer was. When he tried this recklessness with Andre, the giant swatted him down. When he tried it with Rick Rude, the Ravishing One leapt on his back and told him to slow down. Honkey Tonk refused to take the press slam because of how careless Warrior was as hoisting people up. All of this from a guy supposedly trained to work, imagine if he didn’t know what he was doing?
7 Bill Goldberg
WCW thought they found the answer to stop the bleeding when strapped the rocket ship to a greener than green muscle-bound maniac and pushed him through the roof. The result was a fairly untrained meathead who ran through a bunch of jobbers on his way to 856 and zero. But the time anyone with some clout was able to speak up and mention that Goldberg was hurting guys, Bret Hart’s head was already kicked into 12th row.
6 New Jack
The guys gimmick was working matches while this entrance theme, “Natural Born Killaz” rang throughout the arena - how safe do you think New Jack would really be? Jack was the type of performer that really just didn’t care - remember The Mass Transit Incident? New Jack was the guy that skewered the kid.
On another occasion, he sought to really hurt Vic Grimes in retribution for some botched move years prior. You’re not supposed to hurt each other, and true accidents happen, that doesn’t mean you can try to murder your opponent in retribution.
5 Vader
While the Mastodon and sure to be Hall Of Famer Vader was always known for being a little rough with his opponents, he was never considered unsafe. Until he came up against Shawn Michaels in 1996. At that time, not only was HBK the WWE’s golden boy, he was the industry’s - the # 1 spot on the PWI Top 500. A program with Vader would have been tremendous, but their match at SummerSlam 1996 that ruined the possibilities. If you think watching Shawn get heated during the match, whatever tantrum he threw backstage about Vader being stiff got the program cancelled.
4 Mabel
When you’re a huge man like Mabel, you probably should learn how to be light on your feet, otherwise you could really hurt someone. The former King hurt two guys in the span of several months. Considering who they were, it’s shocking he still had a job, much less a career. First the big guy crushed Big Daddy Cool’s back. Not too long after, the Undertaker started wearing his Phantom Of the Opera Mask because his orbital bone was similarly crushed by the future Viscera.
3 Sexy Star
Accidents can happen in the ring and plenty of the wrestlers on this list have been known to be reckless, but when you put your body, health, and trust into another person’s hands, you hope that they won’t violate that trust. That’s what Luchadora Sexy Star did during the Triplemania event in 2017.
After defeating Rosemary, she decided it would be a good idea to injure her as well. The move caused several superstars to speak out against the incident. Cody won’t let her in any locker room he’s a part of (so no AEW) and Road Dogg was calling for her to be blacklisted (goodbye WWE).
2 Jeff Hardy
In recent memory, Jeff Hardy has admitted that the older he gets the less he pays attention to how he lands the Swanton bomb. His style bombastic enough without him not worrying how he lands a move. Aside from that, there is now infamous TNA Victory Road appearance where, despite being completely and visibly strung out, he still bolted for the ring and thankfully, the booking was changed for Sting to immediately beat him. But if no one got word to the Stinger, he might have had his career ended long before Seth Rollins ended it.
1 Brock Lesnar
Brock isn’t necessarily reckless. But the guy is so freaky strong that he doesn’t realize when he’s mauled someone - like any other Beast. He’s famously caved in Bruce Prichard’s face and muscled up Bob Holly and broke his collarbone in the process. His giant release suplexes can’t be fun to take either.