10 Defences Of Horrible Wrestling Moments
6. Lexis King
They say in wrestling that, to become the best version of yourself, you must dial up your real personality and fold it into your character.
This isn't always the key - Terry Funk was one of the nicest men in the history of the industry, and was better at playing sinister than most - but it's true more often than not.
Perhaps this maxim was, all along, a euphemism. Wrestlers tend not to be very good actors, so perhaps this was some wise old head's way of saying "Stay in your lane Brando".
This acts as a neat segue to the inexplicably effective Lexis King.
First introduced to NXT as a generic-sounding heel intent on making his own name, after somebody in creative presumably spent more than 10 seconds with him, King became a completely insufferable douchebag.
But he's more than that. He isn't just really quite effective at making you loathe him. A lot of people think the character is awful, a terrible actor doing the cheapest "you're meant to hate him" heat, and yes, there's an element of that, but he delights in losing, as long as it gets him on TV. He readily embraces getting his ass kicked, if it gets him attention, playing it all with a strange, inexplicable charisma.
In a rare grabbing of the zeitgeist, WWE has identified that, now more than ever, people will debase themselves to trade in the currency of attention. The world lives in an awful, dark time, in which TikTok rappers will commit acts of incest for clout, and King taps into that vein of just abysmal priorities.
Von Wagner will kick his ass one day and everybody will rejoice. Remember this list entry.