20 Most Underrated WWE Stars Of The Past 20 Years
9. 'Perfect Ten' Tye Dillinger
It’s got to be more than a little frustrating to be Ronnie Arneill, aka Shawn Spears, aka Gavin Spears, aka ‘Perfect Ten’ Tye Dillinger. Although a fifteen year veteran of the squared circle, he’s spent six of those years in WWE developmental… actually, in three different versions of developmental, having worked in OVW, FCW and now NXT.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: can you count Dillinger as a WWE star when he’s not been called up from the Performance Centre yet? Well, Arneill has actually already worked for WWE proper: as Gavin Spears, he debuted for WWE’s Disney version of ECW in August 2008, dividing his time between FCW and ECW.
If you want to get even more technical, his first appearance on the main roster was in 2005, working as enhancement talent in a tag match against Rosey and the Hurricane. Even here, if you pay attention you can see more than a few moments of nuance and excellence - but all it translated to was getting a superkick from Shawn Michaels backstage the following year as hapless WWE grunt ‘Stan’.
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, Arneill was the tag team partner of Cody Rhodes and Colt Cabana in OVW, and Dolph Ziggler in FCW. In between WWE developmental stints, he worked alongside Idol ‘Damien Sandow’ Stevens to capture the WWC tag team titles in Puerto Rico.
Kevin Owens raves about him; Rhodes has declared him his favourite tag team partner, over Ted DiBiase Jr, Sandow and his own big brother, and recently called him ‘the greatest human being alive’, claiming that his legendary father recommended Dillinger for a call up years ago.
Not the world’s flashiest wrestler, he’s nonetheless regularly cited as NXT’s best kept secret, because although you’ll mostly have seen him working five minute losses on NXT, he’s a genuinely gifted character guy, masterful at working a crowd. Check out his excellent recent work with Bobby Roode, opening NXT: TakeOver Toronto this month, or his charismatic heel turn on Cody Runnels back in the day in OVW. And how about that intense, hardhitting main event at NXT against Samoa Joe this past week?
Finally blessed with a gimmick that can get over, finally getting the chance to get the crowd reactions he’s deserved for a decade or more: if 2017 isn’t Tye Dillinger’s year then what are we even doing here?