10 Wrestlers Who Are The Most Overrated At Precisely One Thing
Does Uncle Howdy really keep you up at night?
The list you're about to read features several names who are subjectively excellent and or objectively very over with audiences.
The list is not entitled '10 Wrestlers Who Are Sh*t', or '10 Wrestlers Who Make Shane McMahon Look Halfway Competent'; it's a list that seeks to debunk certain narratives that have prevailed online because that's what everybody's here for, is it not?
That's how this online fandom deal works; you read a comment, take or insight and say either "Now that you've put it that way, I agree, thank you for illuminating that character motivation/story beat/tease/business success/business failure" or "F*ck off Sludged*ck you biased AEW smark".
Where applicable, as much explanation as possible has been provided in each entry to differentiate "very good, but overrated at one specific thing that they weirdly get credit for" and "This wrestler is sh*t" - although some sh*tty wrestlers do appear on it.
Every last wrestler has a following (well, except Tyrus), but sometimes personal bias coalesces to form a wider narrative that rings hollow to everybody else. Sometimes, a wrestler so skilled at one facet of the game can decline in that area, but people are too invested or even frightened to acknowledge it.
Sometimes, people get scared by a wrestler because they think they have to...
10. Johnny Gargano: Comedy
Johnny Gargano isn't painfully unfunny. He has not unimpressive comedic timing and a certain dorky charm with which he can get away with WWE material - and unless you're Sami Zayn, gutting through it via force of will is the only choice a performer has.
The problem is that the Gargano comedy character only worked in the context of what he had become in NXT mid-annihilation in the Wednesday Night War. 'One Final Beat' was an inadvertently hilarious joke and completely nuked the idea of Johnny Gargano: purveyor of epic matches. All involved in the process realised that the excesses had become cringe-worthy, and via The Way, Gargano's jumped-up knacker character worked in stark contrast. It was light relief from the most humourless, histrionic material imaginable.
The problem now is that this version of the character - still inexplicably nicknamed Johnny Wrestling - has rocked up on Raw, the effect of which is unflattering and alienating. He feels like the lamentably unfunny and grabby "cousin" character in a sitcom that the writers introduce deep into the run in a panic at tumbling ratings.
If you travelled 365 days back in time with a YouTube link to one of his segments and a print-out of his Cagematch listing, you'd never in 365 million years even venture a guess that Vince McMahon had been replaced.
(Unless you've realised that he and Triple H aren't so different.)