10 Most METAL Wrestlers Of All Time
WWE stars Aleister Black, the Road Warriors, and more prove metal and wrestling go hand in hand.
Pro wrestling and metal go hand in hand, always have done, always will do. There is something comforting about the marriage of aggressive music and art masquerading as violence, with one providing the perfect soundtrack for the other. There's a reason most wrestlers have generic rock music as an entrance theme.
All pro wrestlers are inherently metal, but some are metal than others. Since its development in the late '60s, metal has gone through as many twists and turns as the whims of the squared circle, with countless subgenres causing fans to scream in agony or excitement. Sounds familiar, right? Wrestling is no different. For technical, hardcore, comedy, and high-flying, read thrash, stoner, glam and, yes, nu-metal. The similarities go beyond a willingness to bend their own boundaries in the name of entertainment, of course.
Who are the most metal wrestlers of all time? Your opinion will depend on how seriously you take your metal, or even how you like it. Before dipping into the names, I'd like to give an honourable mention to names like Chris Jericho, Sting, Ultimate Warrior, Atsushi Onita and Timothy Thatcher, which should give you a good idea as to how varied this list is.
10. The Undertaker
Of course, The Undertaker is pretty metal, but which Undertaker am I talking about? Zombie Mortician 'Taker? Early '00s biker 'Taker? Renaissance Deadman? Old man who doesn't know when to quit 'Taker? The answer, obviously, is all of the above. From the beginning of his career all the way through to the end (presuming we have reached the end), The Undertaker has been metal as anything.
In many ways, the life and career of the Deadman has mimicked that of a whole host of metal bands. In the beginning, he was a revelation, a phenom, a beast unlike anything the wrestling industry had seen up to that point. Clad all in black, 'Taker gave off a truly sinister vibe as he swept through his opponents, a revelation in gimmickry and what fans should be able to expect from a big dude. You can draw your own lines to bands coming through and pushing the envelope on the subject of brutality.
Fast forward to his biker phase and 'Taker was going through a personality crisis, eager to show that there was more to him than sitting up and rolling his eyes into the back of his head. For this, read the all-too-frequent genre-jumping of most metal bands with tenure.
It all came full circle in the end, and 'Taker returned to his dead guy ways, much like Machine Head gave up their nu-metal dalliance in favour of their thrash metal roots. That career renaissance has been tempered by a reluctance to say goodbye to the squared circle, not unlike the legions of metal bands that still ply their trade well into advanced age.