10 Scariest Wrestlers Of All Time

7. Jake Roberts

Silence is scarier than noises, a dagger is scarier than a firework and you know what’s a hundred times scarier than a crazy tall roided up meathead screaming into the void about how he’s going to pummel you?

A man calmly looking into your eyes and describing in flat unemotional terms about how he’s going to ruin your life.

Intention is everything with our number seven, Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, who inspired fear in his fellow man in two ways.

First of all, carrying a f**king huge python to the ring, which he’d occasionally attach to you mouth-first, and yup fair enough that’ll do it, that’s enough for Andre The Giant to nope right out of the industry all together, but the other is his style of promos, and honestly they’re the kind of gothic poetric that Bray Wyatt could only dream of.

Articulate, calculating and possessed with a truly unnerving stillness, that kind that freezes you in place, unable to look away like a deer held in the headlights of an oncoming car, which is before you even take into account his theme music which is the best soundtrack an 80s slasher movie never had.

Why don’t you come and see how the devil’s work is done. Jake The Snake was one of the scariest men walking in his day… Trust me.


6. Kevin Sullivan

Now listen, I’m not talking about the Dungeon of Doom, I’m not talking about this. That was very silly and come off like if Scooby Doo had its budget slashed so Hanna Barbara had to start making it in their garage.

I’m talking about his time in the territories, namely Championship Wrestling from Florida and his Prince of Darkness gimmick. See, in the 80s Satanic Panic was at its peak.

Terrified parents were lashing out in all directions at anything that seemed like a corrupting influence over their baffling teenage children, including Dungeons and Dragons (Matt Mercer eats babies and that’s a confirmable fact), evil rock bands and of course, cults, cults everywhere.

In response, Kevin Sullivan decided to scoop up all the heat in the world, by starting a sex cult faction, the Army of Darkness years before Evil Dead 3.

He painted his face, savaged people with his gang of degenerates, the whole thing was designed specifically to tap into the new American horror for terrifying gangs, in the wake of the Manson family murders.

Sullivan kidnapped and brainwashed multiple women, he essentially created the insane character of Luna Vachon, they brought snakes to the ring, daubed themselves in occult symbols, and it bloody worked, making him a top heel in multiple promotions.


5. Ox Baker

Good villains are built around myth. It’s harder for misinformation to spread in the internet age except what the f**k am I talking about of course it isn’t, but it probably would be hard for a wrestler to inspire terror in quite the same way managed by Ox Baker.

See, Ox Baker had a simple, but terrifying reputation, that his finishing move killed people. Wrestling really was easier back then.

Baker, who wrestled from 1964 to [checks notes] 2014?? He retired at 80 years old? Bloody hell, and his finisher was the heart punch, which is when he punches you in the chest, wrestling was easier back then.

It sounds tame, but the move became infamous when he was connected to two deaths in the 1970s.

In 1971, Alberto Torres died from a ruptured appendix following a match featuring Baker, and the following year another wrestler called Ray Gunkel died of a heart attack in the locker room following a match with, that’s right, Ox Baker.

Neither deaths were in real life caused by the heart punch, but they were both worked into Baker’s gimmick, giving him and his finisher a fearsome myth surrounding them, so much so that Baker once started a full-blown riot by heart punching one of his opponents over and over. Now that’s terror.


4. New Jack

Ox Baker capitalized on real-life deadly injuries to generate fear in the wrestling business, New Jack decided to cut out the middle man. And repeatedly cut many middle men.

Instability is scary, never quite being sure when someone is about to snap and make it their god’s given mission to put you through a wall.

Some wrestlers are scary because of sound effects, smoke, mirrors and by projecting maggots on a ring canvas, New Jack is scary because he legitimately tried to kill someone during a match, in his own words he tried to kill Vic Grimes by throwing him from a scaffold.

And it’s not even wrestlers who are terrified of New Jack, fans should be too, after all, he’s demonstrably not a man concerned by collateral damage. What if Vic Grimes landed in the ground?

When he went nuts and decided to make an example out of Gypsey Joe, what about all the other fans in attendance in danger of being hit by flying objects, New Jack was throwing chairs around with children less than 20 feet away, he’s a f**king terrifying madman, and I really must be clear than none of this is praise. 

2 years ago by Adam Blampied

@AdamTheBlampied

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