10 Coolest Wrestlers Of All Time
Lock Stars.
Wrestling isn't perceived as a cool pursuit by the wider world.
Those who enjoy it do so apparently trapped in their mother's basement, with curly hairs sprouting from their necks and acne marking their pitiful, lonely faces. That's the perception, anyway - and because we are treated as such, our heroes therefore must be camp neanderthals sporting DayGlo spandex gurning and grunting for our pathetic brand of entertainment. In reality, those who perform it are - or were - purveyors of wild excess, dabbling in the sort of alcohol and drug abuse that would poison even the most extravagant equivalents in the Rock N' Roll arena. These men also possessed the charisma, sex appeal, showmanship and sheer cool factor of a Steven Tyler or a James Brown.
The essence of cool is difficult to define; the very process of defining it repels you from it because it is something inherently seductive, indefinably magnetic. Some simply have it, and by its only definition, the vast majority do not.
Coolness in wrestling is rare, and harder to attain than cosplaying as somebody cool, ruling out the Ascension, and Triple H circa 2003...
10. Bret Hart
Bret Hart wasn't the biggest wrestler, nor the most in-your-face. He didn't need to scream and holler because, in his prime at least, he was the very definition of a cool customer.
That vibrant, unique pink and black colour scheme was perfect for the performer; Hart was at once exciting and studied, and profoundly comfortable within himself despite lacking the headliner characteristics sought for in the early 1990s. His continued use of pink, traditionally a "feminine" colour, visualised Hart's confident paradigm shift. Hart also adorned the classic cool motifs of reflector shades and leather jackets. The man's sartorial style was so elegant that it obscured what would later reveal itself as po-faced, try-hard perfectionism.
This style translated to substance. Hart's in-ring body of work was brilliantly smooth in operation - a gorgeous strand of technical wrestling that, for so much of WWE's current core adult audience, acted as the genesis point of their lifelong obsession with pro wrestling.
Hart, model professional, also veered into the realm of the bad boy by busting out the banned blade in order to literally colour outside of the lines.