Almost from its inception, even in the days when it presented legitimate athletic contests, pro wrestling has always relied a great deal on the performers to get themselves over with speeches and promos.

And almost as long as that, there have been wrestlers who weren’t terribly skilled at addressing an audience. These athletes can walk the walk, but they have trouble talking the talk. Sometimes the problem can be solved by using a mouthpiece or manager, but there are a surprising number of bad talkers who still muddled through all on their own.

Here are seven former and current champions who just aren’t that great at talking on the microphone.

#1 Ahmed Johnson

Titles held: The Intercontinental Championship (WWE), World Tag Team Championship (WCW, as part of New Harlem Heat.)

Biggest career moment: Winning the IC title, being # 5 on PWI’s top 500 wrestlers of 1996.

His issues on the mike: Bad enunciation and rapid, apoplexy speech.

Ahmed Johnson was born Anthony Norris and attended the University of Tennessee on an athletic scholarship. He played football for several seasons before he ended up signing with the world famous Dallas Cowboys.

As longtime WWE fans know, Vince McMahon loves to hire former NFL players (which explains Mojo Rawley, among others) almost as much as he likes to hire huge men. Ahmed Johnson was both. Johnson was a fixture of the New Generation era and hung on a bit into the Attitude Era as well.

Ahmed was a decent wrestler if a bit injury prone, but his interview skills were atrocious. Even the announcers seemed to have problems understanding what he was saying.

#2 Sable

Titles Held: WWE Women’s championship.

Biggest career moment: Her brief Championship run.

Issues on the microphone: Had trouble resonating with fans who weren’t excitable teenage boys, poor delivery.

Sable, the current Mrs. Brock Lesnar and the former Mrs. Marc Mero, was in fact not a trained wrestler at all when WWE signed her to a contract.

Her then-husband, Mero, had been known as Johnny B Badd in WCW, and then the Wild Man in WWE. During Mero’s contract negotiations, he brought along his wife. Vince McMahon took one look at her and hired her on the spot. For a time she functioned as a ‘special attraction,’ usually entailing her dressing and acting provocatively.

She would act as Mero’s manager for a time and wound up embroiled in her own feud with Luna Vachon. Sable was barely trained for a few short matches with the veteran Luna, but she never set the world on fire as anything other than eye candy. These days she does not accompany her husband to the ring, and rarely makes appearances with him. Sable was a non-wrestler with little charisma who mainly got by on her looks.

#3 Billy Kidman

Titles held: WCW World Cruiserweight championship, WWE Light Heavyweight championship, WCW Cruiserweight tag team champion, WCW World tag team champion.

Biggest career moment: Probably his feud with Hulk Hogan in WCW.

Issues on the microphone: Speaks intelligibly, but failed to resonate with fans and only had heat as part of a group (The Flock, Filthy Animals.)

Peter Alan Guner Jr., better known to wrestling fans around the world as Billy Kidman, was quite simply one of the most gifted in-ring performers of all time. His smooth execution, acrobatic ability, and counter wrestling were a sight to behold. He did quite well in the cruiserweight division.

However, he then engaged in a feud with Hulk Hogan, which was mostly done to placate Kidman after Hogan made some unflattering remarks about him. Hogan said “Kidman couldn’t sell out a flea market.”

Unfortunately, Kidman couldn’t get over as an evil heel, and when WCW was bought out by WWE he was returned to face status. Though he held some championships in WWE, he never really caught on with the fans and wound up working backstage rather than as a performer.

#4 Brock Lesnar

Titles Held: WWE Championship, WWE Universal Championship, IWGP Championship. Also held the UFC World heavyweight championship.

Biggest career moment: Becoming the youngest WWE champion in history; Enjoying the longest title reign in modern pro wrestling history.

Issues on the microphone: Lesnar’s soft-spoken voice does not match his juggernaut physique; Often seems like he doesn’t take his script seriously.

Brock Lesnar was a former collegiate wrestling standout and all-American. Lesnar has made a career out of defying people’s expectations. For one, when he was not offered a wrestling scholarship to a big conference college, he joined a junior college and worked his way up to elite status.

For another, Dana White was very trepidatious about signing Brock to a UFC contract, but we all know how that turned out, with Lesnar being one of the most dominant champions their heavyweight division has ever known, and a big draw besides.

One man who didn’t underestimate Brock was Vince McMahon. Lesnar was given a monster push right out of the gate, winning the Royal Rumble and challenging–and defeating–the Rock for the title.

Lesnar’s main issues are his husky yet soft voice, which is difficult to understand at times, and his tendency to laugh and go off script. It is for these reasons that Paul Heyman is his mouthpiece.

#5 Ron Garvin, “The man with the hands of stone.”

Titles Held: AAW world title, ICW southeastern championship, NWA world heavyweight championship, and well over forty regional titles during his long career.

Biggest career moment: Defeating Ric Flair for the NWA world title.

Issues on the microphone: Garvin wasn’t a bad talker, but he came across as stiff and wooden and failed to resonate with the fans so much that his title reigns as NWA champion is considered a massive failure.

Rugged Ronnie Garvin, AKA the man with the hands of stone, enjoyed a long and illustrious career. He began wrestling in 1962, eventually teaming with Terry Garvin–a legendary wrestling trainer–and adopting his name to pretend to be a brother. When Terry retired, his younger brother (actually his stepson) Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin became his frequent partner.

Ron Garvin was known for being a solid, but somewhat limited, worker. However, his long experience in the sport and good standing backstage made the NWA put the world title on him. Partly, this was done to deny Dusty Rhodes another title reign, because he was in the doghouse with the promotion, but also Ron Garvin generated a lot of heat primarily because fans hated Ric Flair so much.

Garvin was never a great mike worker, and his ‘boring’ persona and style failed to resonate with fans on a world champion level.

#6 Sid Vicious

Titles Held: WCW United States title, WCW world heavyweight title, WWE World heavyweight title, and over a dozen regional championships.

Biggest Career Moment: Probably his reign as WWE champion.

Issues on the microphone: Sid often flubs his lines, and once famously told Kevin Nash “Everyone knows I have HALF the brains that you do!” An amused but discombobulated Kevin Nash could only shake his head and laugh.

Sid Vicious is one of the most controversial, complicated, and memorable wrestlers of all time. On one hand, he seems very generous with his time and resources. He works with mentally handicapped people and even allowed a fan to accompany him to ringside on WCW Nitro. He also allowed Booker T and brother Stevie Ray to stay at his house, rent-free, for six months while they tried to break into WCW.

But Sid is also the man known for meltdowns backstage, and getting into a violent fight with Arn Anderson that left him with a punctured lung. Sid always had a great look, even if he wasn’t a fantastic wrestler. He is known for making mistakes on the microphone–breaking character mid-sentence to apologize to the fans–and often seems to ramble.

Then there was the time he wanted a do-over on live television.

#7 Big Poppa Pump Scott Steiner

Titles Held: WWF Tag team championship, WCW Tag team championship, WCW World Heavyweight champion.

Biggest career moment: His WCW world title run.

Issues on the microphone: Tends to ramble, comes across like he’s reading a script.

Scott Steiner cut his teeth in the wrestling business as a tag team partner to brother Dogfaced Gremlin Ric Steiner. Like his big brother, Scott was an amateur wrestling standout at the University of Michigan. Unlike his brother, Scott couldn’t speak very well on the mike and usually let the Gremlin do the talking.

The Steiners were a very dominant tag team, and one of the few to win the tag gold in both WWE and WCW as well as the IWGP titles. However, Hulk Hogan decided that Scott was the bigger star and asked for him to be included in the NWO. Some insiders believe this was done so that Hogan wouldn’t have to defend his title against Steiner.

Almost from the start, there were problems with Steiner on the microphone. He often cursed and made incendiary statements about other wrestlers (off script.) He was also hard to understand, except for his scripted lines like “Holla if you hear me” and “Nothing is finer than Scott Steiner.”

Things really got bad when he was allowed to write his own promos in TNA…and showed off some questionable math skills.

There you have it; Ten champion wrestlers who weren’t so good at giving interviews. Questions or comments? Please leave them below the article and thanks for reading!

0 votes