10 Indy "Veterans" Making WWE TV Very Watchable Right Now
7. Cesaro
Somewhere, Vince McMahon is probably kicking himself for having signed Sheamus, Wade Barrett and Drew Galloway, while somehow allowing Cesaro to wrestle for 11 years as an independent before being signed by WWE. Weirdly, it's Cesaro's "indyness," meaning his desire to work very hard and wrestle in a manner normally reserved for smaller wrestlers while being a wrestler who's taller and thicker than say, Bret Hart, that holds him back. Every time WWE puts Cesaro in a money-making situation, he delivers. There's something in being almost too-perfect in the ring and being awkwardly imperfect at things like cutting promos and "wrestling like a big man" that puts him this low on the list. However, as WWE begins to understand the lay of the land for wrestling in the modern era, expect this listing to change.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.