These actors won't be winning any Academy Awards, ever.
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00:00Trying to explain pro wrestling to a non-fan is a pretty tricky affair, it's not all
00:04Greco-Roman headlocks and flips, and whilst great matches and athletic displays are the
00:09centrepiece of the wrestling meal, you need a good story to get there in order to make
00:13those payoffs worthwhile.
00:15Acting is an important part of telling a story, and thus pro wrestling.
00:19Most wrestlers aren't going to be winning an Emmy any time soon, but if they can do
00:23just enough to get their audience invested then they're golden.
00:26The men and women on this list aren't golden, silver or bronze, in fact, they'd be much
00:30more at home with the nominations you see for the annual Razzies.
00:34I'm Sy for WhatCulture.com and these are the 10 worst actors in WWE.
00:3810.
00:39The Bella Twins Hey, starting off with a two for one deal.
00:43Nikki gets a special mention here because while she certainly has improved over time,
00:47she had the honour of the infamous I wish you died in the womb zinger that may just
00:51go down as the Bella Twins' single most remembered moment.
00:55That being said, Brie Bella was always the most awkward when it came to the acting part
00:58of the pro wrestling business.
01:00For one thing, the aforementioned promo cut against her by her sister produces one of
01:04many examples of wrestlers contorting their face in horrible ways to make it look as though
01:08they're crying.
01:09But even beyond that, Brie just always felt permanently uncomfortable.
01:13Even when yelling her own catchphrase, Brie Mode, she never felt like she was putting
01:17all of her effort into it, and who could forget the constant calls of, come on Nikki, from
01:21outside the ring during tag matches.
01:24If her husband Daniel Bryan didn't have to drop the WWE championship, one has to wonder
01:28what would have happened to his perception considering after winning the big one he was
01:32paired up with his wife on screen.
01:34This culminated in a segment where Kane appears in the couple's car and Brie screams for
01:38about 90 seconds straight like a foghorn.
01:41If their heel antics didn't make you hate them, Brie's acting certainly did the trick.
01:469.
01:47The Great Khali The Great Khali once put his foot on the chest
01:50of the Phenom Undertaker to pin him like it was nothing.
01:53He also struggled to sing Deck the Halls on a Christmas episode and just started belting
01:56out Fa La La La La La La without a hint of irony.
01:59Now you have to be lenient here, as America wasn't the Great Khali's home country,
02:03nor was English his first language, and he always, always looked uncomfortable.
02:08Acting isn't just about the emotion, it's about making every moment look genuine.
02:11Khali, no matter what he was doing, could never do anything without it being obvious
02:16that he was thinking it all over very carefully, whether it was routinely looking for his mark,
02:20or waiting for his moment to speak lines that looked like they were physically painful
02:24for the big guy to memorise.
02:26As is often the case with characters that start off as brooding giants, Great Khali
02:29made the leap to comedy pretty quickly, and it was definitely a better fit for him.
02:33Whilst his inability to speak coherently was played for laughs, Khali did it with a smile.
02:38We can only hope he was actually enjoying himself, because this borders on very wrong
02:41if he wasn't.
02:438.
02:44Steve Blackman The Lethal Weapon was a popular mid-card wrestler
02:47with a great look and was a legitimate tough guy, I mean heck, he's a real-life bounty
02:51hunter, but he never ascended any higher than the WWF Hardcore Championship.
02:56Blackman couldn't talk, and in any other era he would have been given a manager to
02:59help him with that, but in the late 90s the WWE had moved away from personal mouthpieces
03:04and everyone had to speak for themselves.
03:06It worked great for stars like the most electrifying man in the biz, The Rock, of course, but Steve
03:11Blackman's own brand of electricity stopped as soon as he opened his mouth.
03:14Promos can be found of him intently staring at and yelling in the face of Terry Taylor
03:18instead of looking down the camera to address his opponent, emphasising the wrong words
03:22and stumbling over others.
03:24For a time, Blackman's lack of personality was so noticeable that it became his gimmick,
03:28and he was paired with the fun-loving Al Snow to form Head Cheese.
03:31Whilst there's humour to be had here, it's still very clear that Blackman is struggling.
03:35Everything he says sounds like he's reading off of a cue card out of shot.
03:39I wouldn't say any of this to his face though, because, you know, he's terrifying.
03:437.
03:45For all of the parts of the Attitude Era that have aged poorly, its treatment of the women's
03:49division is one that we'd surely all rather forget.
03:51WWE audiences nor the company cared for female wrestling, and it wasn't uncommon for ladies
03:56with zero experience to get hired by the corporation and thrown out on live television just because
04:01they looked good.
04:02If you watch any Torrie Wilson backstage or promo segment, you'll see how even the most
04:06basic emotions seem to escape Torrie's performances.
04:09Infamously, Torrie Wilson was slapped across the face on an episode of WCW Monday Nitro
04:14by Randy Savage for laughing when she shouldn't be.
04:17Admittedly, Randy was going off script at the time, but Torrie's inability to keep
04:20a straight face set a precedent for her acting career in pro wrestling.
04:23It is as plain as day that she was never going to be one of the company's best actors,
04:28and that kind of skill clearly didn't run in the family.
04:30When Torrie clashed with Dawn Marie over her relationship with her father, Al Wilson was
04:35just as painfully awkward.
04:37In fact, all three of them were awful, which is what makes the feud even more memorable.
04:41A car crash storyline featuring some unbelievably questionable moments, all played out by cardboard
04:46cutouts instead of actors.
04:486.
04:49Rob Van Dam Some might say that the best wrestlers are
04:52those who can play both sides of the fence, adored babyface and abhorrent heel.
04:57It's not an easy thing to do though, not in equal measure especially, and it's the
05:00case for many that they find their niche and stay there.
05:03The Miz, Mr Kennedy and Bobby Lashley, just great examples of guys who struggle to play
05:07a convincing good guy.
05:09Rob Van Dam was special in that his lack of acting chops pretty much made him the polar
05:13opposite.
05:14After the conclusion of The Invasion Angle, RVD never played a heel during his tenure
05:18with the WWE.
05:19In all fairness, it's difficult to picture such a thing working.
05:23Now I'm not here to actually cuss out Van Dam for his promo ability.
05:26Unlike most on this list, the guy can actually speak when given a microphone.
05:30His range is very limited though, and all the emotion he brings can hardly be called
05:34acting.
05:35RVD's incredibly laid back character is no character at all.
05:39That's just the real guy you're seeing.
05:41Luckily, RVD has never really been asked to do anything that exposes his lack of acting
05:45experience.
05:46Instead, the character has remained completely consistent for 20 years, and it needn't
05:50be more complicated than pointing to his own shoulders.
05:535.
05:54Rusev's Lawyer
05:55WWE has a history of appearances of one-off characters inserted to move a storyline along.
06:01Some are great, shout out to you Dr Shelby.
06:04Some are functional.
06:05And then there are… others.
06:07We've all heard the stories of Vince McMahon rewriting TV up until the 11th hour, and it
06:11may have been a lack of pre-planning that caused this segment in question to go horribly
06:15wrong.
06:16The company put out a call on March 16th 2015 for someone available later that day to play
06:21the lawyer of Bulgarian brute Rusev.
06:24Local stand-up Doug Stone was chosen for the part, and since the feud was not only over
06:28the United States title, but also against all-American hero John Cena, the bewildered
06:33comedian was tasked with healing it up with an over-the-top Russian accent.
06:37So over-the-top, in fact, that it fell flat immediately.
06:40Not only were audiences at home laughing at the character, Vince McMahon, it appears,
06:45took to instructing his commentary team to do the same.
06:47JBL rips the guy a new one, turning the planned serious segment into something that paints
06:51the lawyer as a liar and a phony, and Booker T exclaims, did you hear that accent?
06:56That guy's from Texas.
06:57Doug Stone, we wish you all the best in your comedy career, just don't try doing any
07:01more impressions.
07:024.
07:03Kelly Kelly
07:04Tori Wilson's previously mentioned hiring was no way an isolated incident, and it wasn't
07:08the kind of thing that stopped in the Attitude Era.
07:11In fact, in the grand scheme of things, it's only really recently that the WWE have treated
07:15the women's division with even a modicum of respect.
07:18Kelly Kelly signed with the company in 2006 when she was just 19 years old.
07:22She didn't have any wrestling experience, but she had studied broadcast journalism at
07:26college with hopes of becoming a television actor.
07:29It seems she wasn't really given much of a chance to get her feet under her when it
07:32came to ring work, but that's okay, because she couldn't act her way out of a paper
07:35bag either.
07:37Consistently robotic in every segment she was in, Kelly was largely used as the character
07:40of girlfriend or quite simply eye candy for a long period of time.
07:45One particularly awful example of her acting came when she was pleading for an emotional
07:48connection from Randy Orton, of all people, after an apparent one night stand.
07:53It's not just her flat delivery, but her desire to speed through every line without
07:57taking a breath that hurts.
07:59In a particularly hilarious moment in 2010, Kelly was sent to NXT to become a mentor for
08:03the rookie Naomi, who, naturally, wrestled and talked circles around her.
08:083.
08:09Kalisto Reading a script is fine and all, but when
08:12it comes to acting, you sometimes need to be able to improvise.
08:15After all, anything can happen in the World Wrestling Federation, and this is doubly true
08:18with its live programming.
08:20Kalisto was never much of a talker, either as part of the Lucha House Party or as a solo
08:24star, but he does have one particular microphone moment that stands out.
08:27I'm not quite sure what it was about getting drafted to SmackDown in 2016 that made Kalisto
08:31so excited, but a brief backstage cutaway to the Luchador saw him so amped that he could
08:35barely speak.
08:36Announcer Greg Hamilton asked him what fans could expect, and Kalisto's brain just stopped
08:40dead in its tracks.
08:42You can visibly see him realising he's not able to dig himself out of this hole after
08:46he mispronounces Baron Corbin's name and promises the fans he's here to make a good
08:50lucha… a good lucha thing.
08:54He concludes the segment by whooping and running out of frame, presumably to go and
08:58hide in the locker room for the rest of the evening.
09:00Two years later, in a WWE YouTube video, the company celebrated the botch, which only made
09:04it more likely to be the thing that most people remember about Kalisto's long but uneventful
09:09WWE run.
09:112.
09:12Rikishi
09:13One of the Attitude Era's most simple but beautiful gimmicks was Too Cool, combining
09:16the tag team efforts of Scotty Too Hotty and Grandmaster Sexe with Rikishi, who for years
09:22had struggled to find his place in the company after a string of unsuccessful gimmick changes.
09:26It couldn't last forever though, and sure enough, Rikishi left the group to partake
09:30in an experimental heel turn.
09:32Rikishi admitting he himself ran down Stone Cold Steve Austin is remembered for the line
09:36I did it for Da Rock, and that's probably for very good reason.
09:41Not that the story wasn't silly, but Rikishi's delivery of his version of the event was meandering
09:45and unconvincing.
09:47The future bad man kept fidgeting around on the spot, struggling to look anyone in the
09:51ring in the eyes.
09:52Rikishi's only heel run in the WWE lasted for about 4 months before he had to take time
09:57off with injury and unsurprisingly came back as a babyface.
10:00It wasn't just that his previous revelation had gone down like a lead balloon, but he
10:04just wasn't believable nor interesting as a bad guy.
10:07Audiences liked Rikishi a lot better when he said very little and danced a whole lot
10:11more.
10:121.
10:13Linda McMahon
10:14Never a legitimate competitor, Linda McMahon was nonetheless an on and off character on
10:19WWE TV who always managed to get the right reactions during her big moments.
10:24To be fair, it's probably the diabolical storylines that led to those huge pops.
10:27Vince parading around, kissing Trish Stratus in front of his temporarily wheelchair user
10:31wife until she finally rises to her feet and hoofs him in the proverbial grapefruits.
10:36You can kind of understand why fans gave her the loud babyface reaction, it wasn't anything
10:40to do with her acting chops.
10:42And to be fair, she wasn't an actor, just a part of Vince's world, drawn onto TV by
10:47the man's strange obsession with playing scripted family drama out in front of an international
10:51audience.
10:52Linda's flat microphone work was shocking and any time she had to reveal major upcoming
10:56matches she put absolutely no pomp or circumstance into them, announcing that The Rock, Undertaker
11:01and Kane would team up to get their hands on Triple H, Shane and Vince at King of the
11:05Ring 2000 should have been shouted from the rooftops, not mumbled out by the boss' wife.
11:11Did she get a massive cheer for telling Vince she wanted a divorce?
11:13Yes, of course.
11:15Did she sound less like a human and more like a cyborg asking for an oil change?
11:19Also yes.
11:20And that's the list, let us know what you thought down in those comments below and let
11:24us know any other terrible actors in the WWE system, past or present.
11:28Don't forget to like this video, subscribe, share it with your friends and hit the notification
11:33bell.
11:34I've been Si from WhatCulture and have a good week.