Many of us can pinpoint the moment when we became wrestling fans. Maybe it was when you saw Hulk Hogan slam Andre the Giant or when Roddy Piper smashed that coconut over Jimmy Snuka's head or even when CM Punk dropped his first pipe bomb.
But no matter when you feel in love with sports entertainment, its best stars always have one thing in common, a larger than life personality. A hero or villain that was so grand and captivating that you could not help but fall in love with the spectacle that is wrestling.
Not every entertainer that steps into the squared circle have the same "Wow factor" that draws generations of fans to arenas and television screens. Some are so bland and uninspiring that you take your mandatory bathroom break whenever you hear their entrance music hit.
And that is who we are here to talk about today.
There are several factors that go into determining a bland and forgettable "superstar." We will judge the wrestlers on this list based on three criteria; mic skills, wrestling ability and look.
Mic skills can take years to develop, but some are just naturals at the craft. There are the true superstars that can have an entire arena of nearly 20,000 people eating out of the palm of their hand. Love them or hate them, the best-of-the-best can make you feel and react just as they want to. Then there are those who either boast no confidence or are just plain boring, and those are the wrestlers on this list.
We all know that the world of wrestling is varied when it comes to the styles and applications of their craft between the ropes. Whether you are a brawler who controls the tempo of the match or the high-flyer who wows the crowd with acrobatics, you need to be unique. The worst are truly unable to inspire more than moans from the audience when they enter the ring.
The physical appearance has always been important when it comes to wrestlers. Obviously times are changing and the smaller or less physically imposing figures are getting their opportunities to shine. However, some guys just look like your neighbor. The package is not the end all for performers, as you will see some guys on this list have physiques like monsters, but there is something to be said about the build of a wrestler.
Without further ado, here are the 20 most boring wrestlers ever.
20 20. Alberto Del Rio
Del Rio was supposed to be one of the WWE's golden geese that would rekindle a love affair within the Latino community with the corporation. Instead we got a bland champion who played the overdone 'rich-guy that drives expensive cars' storyline.
Del Rio was fine in the ring but he was dull and rarely did he deviate from the same general match path. His finisher was lame by WWE standards and seemed to be a poor attempt to garner some similarities to the world of MMA.
You won't ever find a more yawn-worthy wrestler who held the WWE championship so many times.
19 19. Scotty Goldman
For true wrestling fans, calling Colt Cabana "Scotty Goldman" is like twisting a knife in their side. Goldman was the product of the WWE signing a wrestler with a ton of buzz on the independent scene and having no clue what to do with him.
The awfully named Goldman would barely ever see a WWE ring and when he did, it was never enough to show off his talent. The WWE knew they had a good talker with Goldman, so they tried him on commentary and gave him a web series, but his run with the company ended quickly.
Goldman went back to going by the name Colt Cabana and will always be remembered as one of the funniest and most charismatic wrestlers in the Indies. Despite that, the WWE managed to make him dull and boring.
18 18. Big Show
The only future Hall of Famer to appear on this list, Big Show has made a career out of being really, really big. Show AKA Paul Wright was a much more capable in-ring competitor in his earlier days within the WWE. At the time, he showed amazing physical prowess for a man his size.
However, years have taken their toll and Show has spent most of his WWE career as a plodding, mid-card wrestler who puts other talent over. He is so cheesy on a mic, whether he is faking tears or trying to sound angry, that fans have lost count at how many times the giant lummox has flipped between face and heel.
Big Show will always be remembered in the annals of the WWE history books, but he has made a career out of being the sideshow. A large, but bland wrestler who managed to make a career much longer than he should have.
17 17. Bo Dallas
Most people will not, and likely never will, Bo-lieve. Dallas is a talented in-ring performer and is still quite young, so he still has plenty of room to grow. Look at his brother who disappeared as Husky Harris and reappeared as Bray Wyatt.
However, for Bo Dallas to become even remotely memorable, he will need to really work on his mic skills. That is something the youngster can work on, but he also looks like a 19 year old kid that just graduated from your local community college for refrigerator repair.
Dallas is really the only wrestler on this list that has the time and potential to climb his way off, but first he will need a complete overhaul. A new persona, some flashier moves and maybe more than five minutes of screen time a month should do the trick.
16 16. Snitsky
It wasn't Snitsky's fault that he was put in some of the worst storylines in WWE's history, but it is sort of his fault for being a dreadfully below average wrestler.
Snitsky managed to look like a powerhouse, but always faded away into the background. During his first stint with the WWE, he had facial hair, which was somewhat cool. Then on his second run, his distinguishable feature was that he had very yellow teeth.
And you know you’re a boring wrestler when your finisher is a pumphandle slam. That has been a doom bringer of a move for many a generic big men.
15 15. Luther Reigns
Luther Reigns was never meant to be a big deal, as he was meant to be a bodyguard for Kurt Angle. However, Reigns managed to make Mark Jindrak look like he had a future, so that shows just how bland he was.
Reigns was the powerhouse of that group but never came off as overly big or strong. It almost always took all three members of Team Angle to take down bigger wrestlers when it really should have just been Reigns’ job.
Somehow, Reigns has translated all that non-charisma into a job as a real estate agent now.
14 14. Nathan Jones
If you haven't noticed a trend with many of these wrestlers, we'll let you in on the secret: most of them are really big and talentless. Nathan Jones looked like an absolute monster in the ring and he had some interesting buzz going, as he was an arm wrestling champion as well.
Upon entering the WWE, Jones had this weird Hannibal Lecter-type thing going on, but he was so lame that they scratched it immediately.
The WWE had such little confidence in Jones after his weak work in the ring and on the mic that he was pulled from a tag team match with The Undertaker at Wrestlemania XIX.
But hey, at least he was in the new Mad Max movie...that's something.
13 13. Gavin Spears
When WWE decided to revive ECW, there was a hope that it would give some screen time to young and interesting wrestlers. Instead, we got Gavin Spears.
Spears was barely able to stay in ECW and bounced between there and FCW. He had a generic look, generic entrance music and a generic move set.
There is so little to even say about Spears because he made appearances in ECW just three times and they were all losses.
I wish there was more to say about Spears, but he was so bland that there is nothing more to say.
12 12. Dean Malenko
Any wrestling purist will agree that Dean Malenko was one of the greatest to ever step foot in a ring. If we were talking about pure technical ability, than the 'Man of 1,000 Holds" is truly in elite company, but aside from that, he was as exciting as wood shavings.
During his tenure with the WWE, Malenko almost exclusively feuded with women for some inexplicable reason.
Malenko wrestled in the wrong era, as if wrestled in the 50s-60s, he would have been a high-mid card guy. Instead, he was nothing more than a generic callback to the days that would not rise again.
11 11. Ahmed Johnson
This is the biggest case of wasted potential on this list. Ahmed Johnson came to the WWE after playing linebacker in the NFL. He had the look, charisma and athleticism to be great despite being stiff in the ring. Due to that stiffness in the ring, he was always a danger to other wrestlers and many of them complained about his lack of technical skill.
Fans reacted positively to Johnson, but he rarely accomplished this on his own. The company always put him in places to succeed and rarely did we see those flashes of what he could have been. Instead, we got a powerhouse who will be forgotten in the history books.
10 10. Tyler Reks
If you can remember anything about Tyler Reks that does not involve hair then you are doing better than about 97 percent of wrestling fans.
Reks was another wrestler who had an impressive look, but failed in almost every other way. His in-ring work was stiff when he had the chance to show it and he never really touched a mic.
Before deciding to retire in 2012, he was re-branded as a stripper, which obviously didn't work either.
9 9. Sylvester Terkay
Sylvester Terkay was nothing more than a bland attempt to capture some attention from the mixed martial arts world, something that has happened frequently in the company’s history.
Terkay was this pseudo-MMA fighter who came to the ring each week with gloves and a track suit. He rarely spoke, leaving that to his wingman Elijah Burke. In the ring, he was straight-forward and aggressive but in the least memorable way possible.
It was only a few months before Terkay was gone from the company without ever so much as leaving a mark on anyone. No significant feud, no title opportunities, no interest from the fans.
8 8. David Otunga
Never has there been a bigger waste of talent in the WWE. And we don't mean his wrestling ability or anything; no, David Otunga really should have actually used his Harvard law degree and became a lawyer.
When watching Otunga, most people one think about how he was married to Jennifer Hudson. And you know the WWE, they will use whatever they can to exploit some mainstream media attention.
He did have some confidence on the mic and was serviceable as a backstage figurehead. Just, for the love of God, don’t put him in the ring.
7 7. Manu
Just because you are a member of the legendary Anoa’i family, does not mean you are destined to be a good wrestler. Manu was supposed to be a new member to Legacy, but made very few appearances in the end.
Manu lacks the look of his father (Afa Anoa'i) or even his cousin (Umaga). He rarely touched a mic because the company knew he was nothing more than an added part to an already completed stable. Not surprisingly, he was quickly kicked out of the group for basically sucking.
Supposedly, he was a handful backstage and thought he did not need to pay his dues. Hell, maybe if he showed any of that attitude we would have remembered him.
6 6. Lance Storm
Lance Storm is yet another technically proficient wrestler who was as entertaining as stubbing your toe. The WWE hid his deficiencies fairly well by almost exclusively using him as a tag team wrestler, something he also did when he was in ECW.
Storm is much more likely to be remembered for his training of wrestlers than wrestling itself. However, you need to credit a guy who made it so far with an utter lack of personality.
5 5. Eric Escobar
If the most memorable thing about you as a wrestler is that you wore sunglasses and a vest, you are not very interesting.
To this day, I have no idea why the WWE thought they had something with this guy. He was not built, he was as green as a baseball field and his accent was never really going to go over well with the fanbase.
It also did not help that he was shoved in the classic ‘I’m making love to an older woman in power’ angle. This is an angle that requires next to no charisma to pull off, yet Escobar still managed to suck.
4 4. Michael Tarver
Michael Tarver will forever be known as the guy that managed to stand next to Heath Slater and make him look cool.
Tarver was part of one of the most exciting storylines in recent years, The Nexus invasion, but managed to quickly fall to the background. Not long after making his roster debut, he was injured and written off television.
Occasionally you would see Tarver in a backstage segment but almost never in a WWE ring again.
Tarver is so uninteresting that he never really got a chance to fail, he was just a warm body to make The Nexus look huge.
3 3. Giant Gonzalez
Quick, tell me what Giant Gonzalez did in the WWE aside from lose to The Undertaker?
No matter how hard you try, you cannot provide an answer because his tenure with the company, which lasted less than a year, was atrocious.
The massive Argentinian never really spoke, he was humiliatingly bad to watch in the ring and never proved to be more than a sideshow. There is nothing good to say about him except for his size, which seemed to cause problems for other wrestlers to try and work with.
The only thing preventing him from being the least interesting wrestler ever, is honestly that God-awful ring attire which makes him the joke of the wrestling world forever.
2 2. Vladimir Kozlov
Vladimir Kozlov could have, maybe, been an okay persona for a wrestler during the height of the Cold War. He reminded you of Ivan Drago from Rocky, but just far less interesting.
The WWE decided to make his ‘gimmick’ the fact that he had no entrance music, which basically killed any pop, good or bad, that fans might have for the plodding Ukrainian.
In 2008, Kozlov, mostly because it was one of the thinnest rosters in wrestling history, was actually in the title picture. The sambo style of fighting he was a legitimate champion in had no crossover appeal in the WWE and he faded into obscurity.
1 1. The Great Khali
There is an argument to be made, and one I would likely back up, that The Great Khali is the worst wrestler to ever step foot inside a WWE ring.
Khali was never meant to be more than a large foil to a smaller superstar. All he could provide was being tall and awkward looking. He could barely speak the English languagem which made him useless on a mic and he never performed more than three moves in his WWE tenure.
Despite all these negatives, Khali ended up carrying the World Heavyweight title once. One can only assume it was because he was a fairly important marketing piece for the company in the Middle East.