10 Greatest Wrestling Brawlers Of All Time
It doesn't have to be pretty to be entertaining.
As a fan, it's important to embrace the many different styles of wrestling that each guy brings to the table. Not everyone needs to have Bret Hart's technical excellence or Rey Mysterio's high-flying abilities or Brock Lesnar's pure strength to put on an entertaining match.
For some reason though, a proportion of WWE fans tend to equate "prettiness" with "quality." If something looks a little rough around the edges, then too many people don't see the merit.
But historically, some of the WWE's best performers had no use for such fanciness. They didn't whip out hurricanrana's and figure-four leg locks, and very few had any use for showboating with an extended Gorilla Press. No, these guys preferred to get the job done primarily with their fists, feet, and forearms - and just maybe whatever object happens to be laying around at ringside.
Brawlers have been an essential part of WWE's lifeblood since the beginning, and the best of the best have figured out a way to get over with audiences while executing moves that even your drunk uncle could pull off.
These guys are the crème de la crème of the brawling style, and would absolutely beat the hell out of you for saying things like 'crème de la crème'.
10. JBL
Anyone who wants to see just how effective a brawler JBL really was needs only to look at the tag team tables match he and Faarooq had against Public Enemy on Sunday Night Heat in 1999. That was a shoot match through and through, and Bradshaw in particular delivered some absolutely brutal shots to those two knuckleheads who apparently refused to do business with the Acolytes.
JBL was not a guy to f**k around, and that's putting it lightly. Unfortunately, it seems like he could be a real pr*** outside of the ring, working stiff against guys he didn't much care for. That Public Enemy incident wasn't exactly a one-time thing.
Still, that shouldn't detract from all of the great matches he put on in the WWE, particularly during his time as one half of the APA.
He's underrated as a brawler, probably because it's just so easy to hate the guy. But regardless of how you feel about his gimmick or his behind-the-scenes douchebaggery, you can't deny that he packed one of the meanest clotheslines since Stan Hansen perfected it all the way back in the '80s.
In a lot of ways, JBL was kind of the second-coming of Hansen's tobacco-chewing, ultra-violent cowboy.