10 WWE Stars Who Wrestled In The Wrong Era

7. Aja Kong – Current Era

In 1995 Aja Kong made something of a big splash, eliminating four women, including champion Alundra Blayze, and being the sole survivor at Survivor Series that year.

She was a terrifying hoss, even going a far as putting the heeby jeebies into management because quote “that’s not how women are supposed to wrestle.” Just watch her crack Alundra in the FAYCE.

In the epitome of wrestling at the wrong time, the initial plan was for Kong to challenge Blayze for the Women’s Championship at the 1996 Royal Rumble, but in the wake of Alundra defecting to WCW and trashing the belt, WWE responded in kind by putting the entirety of its women’s division in the bin.

Sorry, Kong. She would have fit in perfectly in the post-revolution era of Women’s wrestling, a facepainted, stiff-working, unsettling monster, with a completely different silhouette to 90% of the women in WWE, she could have cleaned up.

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6. The Great Khali – Golden Era

Poor Great Khali, a special attraction completely robbed of his specialness by being thoroughly overexposed on weekly TV.

Also the fact that he couldn’t really walk didn’t help, but you don’t need to be able to walk to make bank in the Golden Era as late-career Andre The Giant would attest. The whole Great Khali as World Champion hoo-hah, remember he was World Champion, remember, he was, in 2007, remember, oh no. 

That would have been so much more palatable in the time of the Andres and the King Kong Bundys, a foreign monster with a gobby foreign manager, going on an undefeated streak.

The vice grip would have been so much more believable as a finisher back in the day, would have been one of the most feared moves on the planet, shrouded in the camp mystery of Golden Era WWE.

Someone for Hulk Hogan to polish off in the main event at WrestleMania, hulk out of the vice grip, give him another iconic slam, big payday for everyone.

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5. Viking Raiders – New Generation Era

Oh man, how did WWE screw up the War Viking Raiders Machine? A bunch of huge dudes, who can move like lightning, with killer chemistry and the kind of beards that launch ships.

The problem was that their gimmick was almost too strong, Viking heard WWE, dashing out and heading to the nearest Uncle Smiffys costume shop of tawdry knick-knacks and returning with all the Norse bulls**t that their little arms could carry.

Thing is, that kind of camp, colorful ostentation that shows up as cringeworthy under today’s harsher spotlight, was all the rage in the pastel-smeared nineties.

With an OTT silhouette, a uniquely larger-than-life gimmick, in the early to mid-nineties, the Viking Raiders could have inherited the Legion of Doom’s crown of hypertough, hyperviolent face painted scary boys, and hell, at least it would have saved us from Men on a Mission, WWE Tag Team Champions.

Also, we could have Viking Raiders vs. The Steiner Brothers and I want that more than I want a vaccine. (boy this is going to date this list eh?)

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4. Dean Ambrose – Attitude Era

Or in other words, Jon Moxley. For real though, if only Dean Ambrose was allowed to go full Pillman in WWE, what we could have seen.

The man has a scary amount of drawing charisma on the mic and I am fascinated by the idea of Dean Ambrose but without a script in his hand, and the freedom to be as nineties crass as he wanted.

Genuinely he could have sat right in the middle of the Venn Diagram of Cactus Jack, Raven and Pillman, a dank-haired, crazy-eyed barbed-wire-wrapped monster, with the kind of hypnotic freewheeling promos that suggest monsters live under the skin.

Also, and this may be an unpopular opinion, but he probably wouldn’t have ridden a hot dog cart down to the ring, beat up a dummy with random tools, or accidentally electrocute himself with a telly like a massive f**king plankton. Just a thought.

• Attitude Era
• Adam Blampied
• cm punk
• wwe

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