20 Most Underrated WWE Stars Of The Past 20 Years

20. D'Lo Brown

Unfairly remembered as the guy in the chest protector who looked like Cuba Gooding Jr.’s hefty kid brother, Accie ‘D’Lo Brown’ Connor was a solid midcarder throughout the Attitude Era. He held the Intercontinental title once and the European Championship four times: at one point, while feuding with Jeff Jarrett in summer 1999, he held both titles simultaneously.

The size of a heavyweight with the moveset of a cruiserweight, Brown was a smart and savvy performer, smooth on the stick. When he strutted to the ring with that cocksure, hyper-exaggerated head bob, the ridiculously funky ‘Danger At The Door’ blaring out over the speakers, he stood out from the pack.

That pretty much sums up D’Lo: he was hip hop in an era of sludgy nu-metal. It felt like he was just getting somewhere in the company when the accident happened that changed his life… and that of Darren ‘Droz’ Drozdov, who was rendered a quadriplegic by a botched running powerbomb.

That night was October 5th 1999 at the Tuesday night Smackdown taping - the same night that Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera left the WWF. Rumours flew around that he was about to follow Russo and ditch the company for WCW. It took time for Brown to get his groove back: the way D’Lo tells it, by the time he did, that gossip was set in stone.

It wasn’t true, but that didn’t matter. There was a lot more to D’Lo Brown than the WWF/E ever showed us, but midcarders on their way out don’t get pushed anywhere but down, and D’Lo Brown ended up treading water for the next three years until his release.