In WWE we take for granted how genuinely talented a lot of the roster are, and with all the greats brought up over the years, the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Bret Hart, The Rock, to modern examples such as Seth Rollins, Samoa Joe, John Cena & AJ Styles. We seem to forget that both back in the day and currently, there are many superstars who don't get the praise they deserve, and I wanna highlight some of those names.
Just as a disclaimer, this isn't a straight up top 10 but more 10 wrestlers who I think are underrated. Also I'm not saying they should be considered at the level of the all time greats, but I am saying they deserve more praise than they get, or are sometimes criticised a bit too harshly. Yes I do rag on WWE creative in this list, but I must stress, I don't envy the toil the writers must go through, nor do I think I can do it better without the power of hindsight.
Now, let's get to the names.
1. Jinder Mahal
The most recent example of someone who is criminally underrated is the former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal, 2017 he was a legit breakout star, but he wasn't what the hardcore fan base wanted, so he got chewed out week in and week out. While I don't consider him one of the best pure wrestlers in the company right now, he was one of few heels to get consistently booed and hated by the fans, which is what you want in your heel work, and his style, while not explosive or vast, did what he needed to do as a bad guy. Many hard strikes and boots with a simple big slam finisher, and with his size and build, that's enough to convince you it would hurt, Jinder isn't exactly a small dude, so him even throwing a kick or punch would be enough to lay some people out.
Yes his character wasn't very original, but who's character is in 2018? Also everyone griping on him being from India when in reality he's from Canada, okay, Undertaker was portrayed a literal dead man for 26 years and you happily ate that up, come on. His promos also caught a lot of ire from fans because of the repetitive nature of them, and while that's true, Jinder probably didn't write those promos, and once again, who's honestly that great on promos in 2018 outside of maybe 5 or less people in the WWE. The fact that the same fans who will blame creative when their favourite cuts a shit promo won't have the same sympathy for a guy like Jinder is just a joke, hell, Steve Austin actually praised his promo style, his intensity at the beginning to draw people in and even gave him some advice, showing he believes in the guy enough to try and give him some tips.
Finally, his actual run as WWE Champion, he's currently SmackDown's longest champion at 170 days before losing it to AJ Styles, and is the 50th recognised champion which would be enough for most to be seen as quite the big deal being given a milestone like that, but the reign has to match that, and many think Jinder is the worst world champion EVER. Which is quite the load of bullshit, of his 7 title matches (8 if you count his rematch clause with AJ at HIAC) only 2 of those matches were average or below that, and it honestly wasn't all his fault, those matches being against Shinsuke Nakamura. Now I'm not saying Shinsuke was just being shit on purpose, but it was more, he didn't want to, or didn't know how to work the more traditional WWE style, which would've played to Jinder's strengths, instead it felt like Nakamura had the attitude of doing his style hoping it raised Jinder's game to that of his, not realising Jinder can't do what he can, not from lack of ability, but more a different build. As Jinder couldn't keep up with him, the styles didn't mesh well and it resulted in two poor matches, which was out of character for both men because Jinder's other title matches were at minimum good, if not great. When it came to his matches with AJ, which were praised quite highly, even then Jinder never got the credit he deserved, it was seen as if AJ had wrestled a ghost twice and while AJ certainly helped bring that out of Jinder, he still had to do moves to AJ and wrestle him, but of course, much like his matches with Roman Reigns, AJ got all the credit when in reality, it takes two to tango.
All in all, Jinder will go down as probably the most underrated WWE Champion ever, where he was blamed for the bad but never praised for the good, hopefully 2018 sees him have another crack at the main event, to shut all his doubter up once and for all.
2 - JBL
Not only was he a underrated wrestler, he was also a underrated commentator, and to continue from Jinder he was also underrated as world champion back in 2004. Today he's mainly seen in a bad light with his history of bullying and hazing the young blood, which you'd think would mean most if not all wrestlers who did that would also be loathed, correct? Nope, from what I've heard and read JBL is seemingly the only bad guy of locker room hazing with everyone else getting a free pass. His most recent allegation actually being denied from both him and the person he was accused of bullying Mauro Ranallo, which opened my eyes to how JBL has at times be wrongly hated, but also been underrated as a whole as this whole story lead many fans to completely shit on his work in the ring and at the announcers desk.
The most praise he receives these days is his time as part of The APA along with Ron Simmons, a hard hitting team who had plenty of good matches back in the Attitude Era, which would usually land you high praise from the rose tinted glasses of most Attitude Era fans, but with JBL's future wrestling ventures, it seems a lot of it is forgotten or simply not given the credit it deserves. As said before he was world champion back in 2004, holding the belt for a lengthy 280 days as a Texan billionaire heel, I've seen videos where people have said people didn't care for JBL as champion and that he wasn't effective as a heel, which if you go back and watch his matches, if far from the truth. People hated him and wanted to lose and he would always weasel out of any situation through DQs and assisted wins. It's been said that Undertaker actually offered to lose to JBL clean at SummerSlam but JBL turned it down saying a clean win might've taken away from his character, which is some dedication passing up a clean win on someone like Taker. Looking back, none of his matches as champion were bad either, facing the likes of Undertaker, Booker T, Eddie Guerrero & John Cena and in a variety of matches, Steel Cage, Fatal 4 Way, Texas Bull Rope, it's hard to say no one cared for him, or that he was a bad champion, he was arguably one of the better WWE champions of the mid 2000s if not of that decade.
Since then he's become a triple crown winner, had some more high profile matches with the likes of CM Punk, Cena (Again) & Shawn Michaels in a short but forgotten feud over Michael's services to JBL, so even after his big title reign, he found a way to stay relevant in the company even after his peak. When it comes to commentary, he was voted W.O.N worst announcer of 2014 & 2015 which is gold when listening to Meltzer and Alvarez moan about WWE, trust me, I think they're in no position to comment on how people sound live. While I'm not going to push for him being named the greatest announcer ever, he is far from bad, and with all the things he, along with the rest of the broadcast team have to deal with in their headsets not even factoring in the match they're trying to call, it's unfair, much like bad promos, to put all the blame on JBL for forced sound bites and sometimes clunky commentary.
Overall JBL will go down as someone praised for his time in APA I'm sure, but elsewhere in his career, people have sadly forgotten or undervalued how great of a champion and wrestler he was for WWE and was definitely one of the better heel commentators of the modern era.
3 - Kalisto
One of the wrestlers on this list some might disagree as underrated, but with the stop start fanfare for him as well as little to no talk about some legit great matches he's had, and that to me has made Kalisto a very underrated talent. Part of his underrated status has come from WWE's stop start booking with him, giving him titles to see how the crowd react to him before cutting his reign short, seen during his US title feud with Alberto Del Rio a few years ago and then with the Cruiserweight championship this past year. While he's been herald at the next Rey Mysterio, he hasn't had the exposure to do so and his promos leave a lot to be desired such as his "Lucha things" promo during the brand split and his recent feud on 205 Live. His partnership with Sin Cara has also had fans carry over the botch jokes over from Sin over to Kalisto as he's had a few slip ups despite them being few and far between as well as The Lucha Dragons not being the most interesting tag team during their run.
One thing never brought up about Kalisto is his matches, from a great performance during a triple threat tag team ladder match at TLC 2015, to his series with Del Rio and his chairs match with Baron Corbin, Kalisto has had some great matches in his time with the company. It seems the lack of any long term story lines or frequent TV matches has fans forgetting how good he truly is, hopefully his involvement in the Cruiserweight division with some high profile matches will help elevate him in 2018. Especially with the rumoured return of Neville, and with Hideo Itami already on the 205 Live roster, that's two world class opponents for Kalisto right there.
While not dog piled by fans like some other wrestlers on here, it's fair to say Kalisto has been over looked quite a bit by the fans and even WWE themselves, with all the hype of being the next Rey Mysterio, the fans should cheer and praise him as such if they want WWE to see him at that level.
4 - Marc Mero
One of the victims of boobs over talent, Marc Mero is arguably the most underrated wrestler of the Attitude Era and of the 90s in general. Considering he was the first ever wrestler to be given a guaranteed contract in WWE, you'd think they'd have big plans for him and apparently they did, wanting to him to have a match and potential feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin, alas, the powerbomb heard around the world happened, and creative took a nose dive. For those who don't know, Marc Mero was powerbombed by his then wife and on screen valet Sable whilst she was being pushed to the top as a babyface, which derailed any credibility in the fans eyes, and in the eyes of Stone Cold, who called off his planned match with Mero, because if Sable could whip him, how much trouble was Stone Cold going to have?
When he first debuted he was a solid performer with a great shooting star press, dubbed "The Wild Thing" which he debuted at SummerSlam 1996 and became Intercontinental champion, having feuds with the likes of Goldust and Hunter Hearst Hemsley. He even made it to the semi finals of the King Of The Ring tournament, 1997 is when things took a turn, firstly an injury which put him on the shelf for 6 months, then his gimmick being changed to a boxer turned wrestler who slowly grew jealous of Sable and her popularity. With Sable being one of the most popular acts in the entire company, Mero was pushed to the side in favour of her which slowly drew fans attention away from him and how good he really was. Despite the set backs he was still having solid matches, including a fun mixed tag team match at WrestleMania 14, but the writing was seemingly on the wall at Sable & Edge beat him and new manager Jacqeline at that year's SummerSlam, loses piled up. The saddest loss of all being his final match, against Duane Gill better known as Gilberg, for the Lightheavyweight Championship, with Mero saying if he lost he'd retire, which indeed happened.
With small roles in WCW and TNA after his WWE run, it makes you wonder what could have been with Marc Mero, the man was more than capable in the ring and ran with whatever gimmick he was given, and with his matches never being brought up even by hardcore Attitude Era fans, it shows how underrated the man was. Sadly with the R rated themes they had at the time, Sable was always going to be picked over Mero, and with how poor Sable was as a wrestling talent, to see her beat him on multiple occasions showed how undervalued he was by WWE, which in turn had the fans not appreciating him either. Thankfully his story has a happy ending, with him becoming an inspirational speaker, with some of his speeches going viral, so while wrestling might not have been his calling, the fact that he's spreading joy in a different way today, just hows genuinely great Marc Mero is, and was.
5 - Nia Jax
Fans really haven't made it easy for Nia Jax, it seems no matter what she does in the ring, she can't catch a break, from the stale joke of "The Rock's Cousin" to just flat out rude comments about he size, Nia is certainly underrated and under appreciated by the fans. Considering she made her debut less than 3 years ago, it's hard to say Nia Jax is a bad wrestler, she can more than hold her own in the squared circle and has had some brilliant matches for the company, mainly with Bayley and Asuka. The problem is, a lot of fans are very entitled and just expect things straight away, and with the hype of NXT when she debuted, I'm guessing they just expected her to be Awesome Kong in the ring right away, which wasn't the case but even then she was fucking great. Along with Bo Vs. Neville & Emma Vs. Paige, she has had some of the most underrated NXT TakeOver matches ever, and she sadly never captured the NXT women's title despite being booked as a monster. Creative is partly to blame as her loses would be squeaky clean and she never got her heat back from the loss, she was simply seen as a roadblock for Bayley and Asuka to overcome.
Her time on the main roster has been hit or miss, she never had the hype of the Four Horsewomen or Asuka because NXT fans who watched her, saw her lose clean twice on TakeOver shows so she wasn't the unstoppable monster WWE tried to make her be. Coupled with a match against Alicia Fox where she should've crushed her and a stupid loss to Sasha Banks, and the fans decided to give her the Roman treatment of saying she's only there because she's The Rock's cousin. In reality she's very good for someone with LESS THAN 3 YEARS EXPERIENCE! Which funny enough is much like The Rock, who also picked up wrestling quite quickly, so if anything fans should get behind her in that sense knowing how good she's become in that short space of time. Her partnership with Alexa Bliss has thankfully put her back in good stead with the fans, with the duo being funny and having a Mean Girls vibe to them, but a romantic angle with Enzo Amore might see Nia be pushed back down in the eyes of the fans, we'll just have to wait and see.
Nia still has her best years ahead of her, and she has no shortage of talent by her side in the women's division, in time, hopefully the fans will warm to her and be on side with her, but for now, she's easily the most underrated women's wrestler, and one of the most underrated wrestlers in general in WWE.
6 - Jack Swagger
Had it not been for a DUI which seemingly dropped Swagger from a hot world title angle, perhaps he wouldn't on this list, sadly, Jack Swagger has rarely, if ever been brought up in a positive light by WWE fans, and like Nia, sometimes leading to rude comments. On the surface, a solid technical wrestler with parallels to Kurt Angle would put Jack in good stead with the fans right? Sadly not, a noticeable lisp has had him ridiculed on many occasion during promos which is just sad. This along with arguably being pushed a little too soon for his first World Heavyweight Championship run had fans sour on him, with Swagger not carrying himself as a champion despite his many amateur wrestling achievements. It's hard to put all the blame on Swagger as he wasn't given much to work with for his character, he was simply seen as a budget Kurt Angle with his adoption of the ankle lock not helping things.
WWE struck gold with Swagger after having Zeb Colter (Dutch Mantel) become his manager, forming "The Real Americans" Zeb would handle a lot of the promo work which helped Swagger, and the slightly controversial angle made waves in the media with their gimmick being based around anti immigration views. He was on the fast track to another world title feud with Alberto Del Rio, shockingly winning the elimination chamber match to face Del Rio at WrestleMania 29, sadly, the before mentioned DUI and possession of weed seemingly derailed those plans as Swagger would lose the match in just 10 and a half minutes. He lost on the RAW after Mania as well in a handicap match along with Zeb, with Ziggler cashing in afterwards, which signalled the end of Swagger's run at the top. Despite adding Cesaro to their ranks and having a solid run as a tag team, they never captured the tag team titles and Cesaro would go on to become a "Paul Heyman Guy" whilst Swagger fell further down the card until finally being released in March of 2017.
I really wanted Swagger to catch on, he had many chances to do so but the fans just didn't get behind him when he was solo, despite bland face Sami Zayn being over as hell before his heel turn. But Swagger then sabotaged his own push when the fans did start to react to him as a heel, sadly, it was a flash in the pan and didn't manage to stick in the minds of the WWE Universe. With a run in the indies right now along with signing with Bellator, it's great to see him still competing, whether amateur or sports entertainment, Jack Swagger is a damn good athlete.
7 - Ryback
Known mostly today as a man who complains to much on podcasts, Ryback was once the hottest thing in WWE along with the rise of Daniel Bryan and you can't say he didn't deserve to be in that position. Starting with squash matches, sometimes with multiple wrestlers, Ryback was built very similarly to Goldberg, racking up an impressive undefeated streak, sadly, the marks had already began being assholes to The Big Guy, with Goldberg chants and less than amusing memes. It seems like none of Ryback's short comings in WWE were his fault, being put in the title picture too soon, but his streak still being at a point where breaking it would be an awful idea, he lost to CM Punk in a screwy finish at Hell In A Cell 2012 with them having an equally unimpressive second encounter at the same PPV a year later. Much like Jinder's duo poor matches with Nakamura, this wasn't all on Ryback, but instead of a clash of styles, it was seemingly Punk's shit attitude which dragged the matches down. Punk's later comments on Ryback during his now infamous Colt Cabana podcast fuelled the fire against him even more, despite Punk's comments being either silly such as "He took 20 years off of my life." Then joining the UFC, you know, very safe work environment, or saying he was unsafe in the ring, despite no other wrestlers coming out with similar views, with Ryback himself even saying some of the incidents were due to CM Punk "sand bagging" him.
It seems Ryback's status as a rather underrated WWE talent stems the sheep mentality of Punk hating him, so all of his fans just blindly agreeing with him and shitting on Ryback, even though Ryback has clearly shown how good he is, not just in the ring, but on the mic. His matches with Kalisto for the US Championship were great examples of Big Man Vs. Small Man matches and his 6 man TLC match with Team Hell No against The Shield was incredible and one of the best TLC matches in the PPV's history. While people have written him off as a poor mans Goldberg, he actually had more to offer in every way, his was good on the mic, was much better in the ring and had more character to him, I feel WWE just kept getting cold feet with him, so his shifts in character and places on the card damaged him, but he couldn't really control that. With only the IC title to his name for championships in WWE. Ryback could have, and should have been so much more, him as world champion against someone like Daniel Bryan would have been awesome, the big roadblock between Bryan and his dream, WWE's ideology of a main eventer Vs. the IWC's, both had the wrestling chops to have a multi match program and steal the show every time.
Sadly, we never got to see Ryback at his peak, but it's great to see his run with WWE and the reception he's had with marks hasn't soured him on the business as he still wrestles on the independents, recently turning up for CZW. I hope one day the two can mend fences and we see Ryback return to WWE, him Vs. Braun, Brock, Joe, Roman and others would be a fucking sight to see.
8 - Baron Corbin
Stop start booking and fickle fans have killed Baron's recent run in WWE, from a dominant force in NXT to being rolled up in seconds to lose his cash in of the MITB briefcase, Baron's hardships have hurt his look in the eyes of most fans. Like Ryback, Corbin had a lengthy win streak, this time in NXT, having a feud with the also undefeated Bull Dempsey which Corbin would come out on top in, his character baring resemblance to Bad News Brown with him being a "Lone Wolf" not siding with heels or faces and only being out for himself. Another example of NXT fans just expecting greatness from the off, Corbin came into wrestling in 2012, and much like Nia Jax, improved quite quickly, but because he wasn't an indy talent and had a previous career, the marks of NXT shunned him, never giving him a chance no matter how good a match he'd put on. His matches with Apollo Crews and Austin Aries being the prime examples of fans either saying the match wasn't good because of Corbin, or Corbin getting zero credit if the match was good. I feel like an NXT Championship reign would've helped Corbin in NXT as we might've seen more of his heel persona and how he would try to keep the title as well as the variety of opponents he'd face as guys like Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Adrian Neville would've been alongside him and they would've produced some fantastic matches together.
His main roster debut started strong, winning the Andre The Giant Memorial Trophy and his subsequent feud with Dolph Ziggler. Then the first spell of fumbling booking with a weird feud against Jack Swagger where both men won matches under dubious circumstances as well as his feud with Kalisto, while it did produce a fantastic Chairs Match at TLC 2016, it did feel like neither man would come out of the feud looking better.His feud with Dean Ambrose continued his woeful booking, with the feud starting over Corbin being rolled up in seconds by Ambrose and being the first eliminated from last year's Elimination Chamber match. This continued through to WrestleMania for the IC title where Dean and Corbin had so so matches, with both men seemingly not being into the feud and giving performances below their standard. The latest blow to Corbin's run ironically started with a major push, winning the MITB contract at Money In The Bank, with Corbin looking to be the next world champion which much like in NXT, would've done wonders for him. Sadly, he became only the 3rd man to fail his cash in attempt, with a quick roll up loss to then champion Jinder Mahal thanks to John Cena, which resulted in Cena beating him at SummerSlam, seemingly in the dog house, Corbin would later go onto win the US title, even beating The Miz in a Champion Vs. Champion match at Clash Of Champions. Once again the rug was pulled from underneath him as he lost the title to Ziggler in a triple threat match with Bobby Roode after only 70 days as champion, to which Ziggler then dropped the title the following night, essentially having Corbin lose the championship for no reason.
With poor booking and fans never willing to let someone develop and get better, which Corbin did, it seems Corbin has been overlooked by many despite being a very good big man in the WWE and already having accolades to his name in both Professional Wrestling and American Football. He still has time on his side, but until WWE go all in with him, I feel the fans will always have Corbin painted as a generic WWE guy in their eyes which is a joke.
9 - Dolph Ziggler
I've mentioned him a couple of times on this list already, and now it's time to highlight why Dolph is the most underrated wrestler at the moment. Another victim of stop start booking for multiple years has nearly tarnished Ziggler's career in the eyes of many, with baffling heel turns, short title reigns and having his momentum stopped for seemingly no reason. Ziggler's career was going well with numerous title victories and gaining fanfare leading to him winning the MITB and successfully cashing in against then champion Alberto Del Rio, with their planned rematch at Extreme Rules being scrapped due to Ziggler suffering a legit concussion and perhaps planting a seed of doubt for creative. Whilst producing a brilliant double turn at Payback, Ziggler sadly lost the World Heavyweight Championship on his first defence, never recapturing the title ever again. This followed up with a feud against his former teammates AJ Lee and Big E. Langston, teaming with Kaitlyn who AJ Lee was feuding with at the time, this resulted in Kaitlyn and Ziggler beating the two at SummerSlam.
After his main event run, it felt like WWE didn't want to push Ziggler in fear of another injury derailing it, whilst he's had moments such as being the sole survivor of Team Cena at Survivor Series 2014 in which Sting debuted during that match, having IC and US title reigns and still producing great matches. But his constant stop start booking led fans from wanting to rally behind a Ziggler push, to feeling like he was a waste of time, and furthermore, calling out his work rate and character despite even his lowest points character wise, he was still pulling them off well. His feud with The Miz had fans back on side with him for the first time in a long while when Ziggler's career was on the line for Miz's Intercontinental Championship, despite the win and fans embracing him once more, WWE cut his reign at 37 days with The Miz becoming champion once again. Since that feud fans have seemingly given up on Ziggler, whilst complaining Ziggler is being used wrong they put no effort into getting behind him so WWE can see how over he is and they should do something with him, much like when he won MITB. Sadly, fans love to tunnel vision on hating Ziggler but hate WWE for making them hate Ziggler, and as a result, they've forgotten, or refused to acknowledge how much of an asset Ziggler is to the WWE.
With his current hiatus it will be interesting to see how fans react to him upon his return, but with little care about him leaving, if anything fans were happy he left, it's sad to see Dolph be knocked further down by the WWE Universe to the point where he's been called overrated. When in reality, he's the exact opposite.
10 - Kevin Nash
The 90's Roman Reigns or Reigns being dubbed "The Modern Day Kevin Nash" should give you a clue to how fans feel about Kevin Nash. While the comparison is meant to be negative, I see it like this, two underrated guys who never got the credit for the great matches they've had and are hated purely because they did what their bosses told them to do. With Kevin's legacy as part of The NWO, The Kliq and having a year long World Championship reign will have him remembered, many fans say Kevin Nash was never a good wrestler and never deserved to be world champion. With a solid start as IC champion and even being turned babyface teaming with Shawn Michaels as tag team champions, Kevin Nash was being groomed to be the next big thing for the then WWF. With the nickname "Big Daddy Cool" and having all the characteristics of a WWF mid 90's main eventer, it was never in doubt he would life the world title, the fans were behind him and it seemed the WWF was going to run, on Diesel Power.
Following a squash match against Bob Backlund at MSG, Kevin Nash began his year long title reign, which for pure WWE fans, is where the hatred for him seems to start and end. Outside of some segments with CM Punk and a couple of of short feuds with Triple H, the pinnacle of hate for Nash resonated here. Looking back at the reign alone, not a lot of good matches took place, with the best being his matches against Shawn at Mania 11 and Bret Hart at Survivor Series, the problem is people look at that reign in a bubble and think Nash couldn't wrestle despite having great matches before and after this reign. Nash himself has even said the downfall was creative making him wrestle big guys who he couldn't do his trademark moves to, which limited Nash to what he could do in the ring to create a captivating match. His mega push was also a sight of criticism, but if you were in his position, you wouldn't turn it down and you know you wouldn't, but of course, being on the outside, fans of today just happily spout the already tired "Shoved down our throats," narrative. His run in WCW has also put him under fire for being a lazy worker, with Nash not being at his peak anymore and for a man his size, won't be able to do everything he could when he was younger. Him being head booker and a member of The Kliq in the WWF had fans call him selfish for how he made himself and his buddies look good at the expense of others, they never clarify who these "others" were, they just say others because any specific examples have probably gone onto major success and weren't actually held down, much like the Roman situation of today.
These two factors alone have had Nash be written off as a shit wrestler, when in reality he was one of the best big men in company history, with great matches with Shawn, Bret, Razor, 1 2 3 Kid and The Undetaker, as well as being part of the biggest faction, figuratively and literally, in wrestling history, Nash has more than earned his spot in wrestling history. While not always being selfless, not many wrestlers are, if not, none of them are, but for some reason Kevin was the one to have the big target on his back for fan ire which has sadly carried over to guys like Cena and Reigns, who similarly get hate for simply doing what they're told and taking advantage of the opportunities given. To me, if this were a top 10, Nash would certainly be my pick for the most underrated WWE wrestler of all time.
But these are my opinions, do you agree? Disagree? Who do you think are the unsung heroes of wrestling? Let me know in the comments below or tweet me @BogglesTheOwl or discuss this on my Facebook Page and don't forget to share this post with fellow wrestling fans. Follow the blog if you haven't already, and I'll be looking forward to writing to you guys again, soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment