wrestling / Columns
Top 7 Actors Turned Wrestlers
Everybody wants to wrestle Sting these days, including actors. Rainn Wilson recently got some attention on social media when he made the promise that he will wrestle Sting someday, and win. I’m not sure how much of a possibility this actually is. The idea of Dwight Schrute wrestling seems a bit odd, but not unprecedented. Rainn Wilson would not be the first actor to successfully make the transition to wrestling.
We all know about wrestlers that became actors. Dwayne Johnson did pretty well for himself. John Cena & Dave Bautista are making waves these days. Back in the day you had guys like Terry Funk, Hulk Hogan & Roddy Piper going Hollywood. It’s a tough transition, but not nearly as tough as it is for somebody that started off as an actor trying to become a pro wrestler.
Here are the seven most magnificent actors that became wrestlers.
7. Seth Green
Green has never been considered one of the most physically imposing actors out there. I mean, I kind of bought him as a crazed werewolf on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but apparently the moon wasn’t full when he served as a guest host on WWE Raw back in 2009. Fortunately he had two pretty good tag team partners in his match against Legacy, as John Cena & Triple H were two of WWE’s top wrestlers of the time period.
Seth didn’t embarrass himself out there by any means. He threw a decent enough punch, sold pretty well and was good at picking his spots. He got over with that crowd too, they were chanting “Seth” at the end of the match and I think it was actually the crowd chanting. Given Cody Rhodes’ involvement in the match, one wonders if Seth Green will make an AEW Dynamite appearance at some point.
6. Maria Menounos
Maria grew up a fan of pro wrestling, eventually becoming friends with one of her early favorites: Mr. Bob Backlund. She made her WWE debut in 2009, serving as a guest host of Raw and getting drawn into action. Maria got the pin over Beth Phoenix in that six-woman tag team match, and would pin Phoenix again in a six-woman tag team match at 2011’s Tribute to the Troops & in a tag team match at WrestleMania XXVIII. She’s made several appearances with WWE since then, typically at major events as an interviewer or ring announcer.
Maria would get a bit of a backlash when she inducted Backlund into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013. Which was silly, but some wrestling fans get really silly over the WWE Hall of Fame for reasons unknown to me. Her wrestling skills were fine, as she didn’t stand out as being worse than the people she was in the ring with.
5. Tommy “Zeus” Lister Jr.
Hulk Hogan was going to be a movie star, brother. At least that was the plan, and No Holds Barred was going to be the first step in making it happen. It was a believable role for Hogan, babyface world champion going against a monster. Tiny Lister, an immense human being that had parlayed his size into several movie parts, played the role of Zeus, the monster heel that Hogan’s character faced in the climax of the movie.
Zeus then showed up in the World Wrestling Federation to feud with Hogan as a way of promoting the movie. The announcers would explain that Zeus had gotten too deep into his character and now thought he was an actual wrestler. Zeus would team with veterans like Randy Savage & Ted DiBiase against Hogan in tag team or multiman matches during the late months of 1989. He randomly popped up in Puerto Rico to wrestle Abdullah the Butcher on a WWC event, and appeared at WCW Uncensored ’96 as part of the Alliance to End Hulkamania. He never became passable in the ring, but he had other things going on.
4. David Arquette
To be honest, I hated David Arquette as WCW Champion. Can not emphasize enough how much. Having watched Arquette’s WCW run again in the last few years for podcasting purposes…I still hate it. It was taking a guy with no known athletic credentials and having him win WCW’s top championship in a ridiculous manner that pretty much killed any credibility the title or the promotion still had at that point. All in order to get people to see Ready To Rumble. It would have been one thing if it drew any kind of positive mainstream attention that got WCW some extra viewers, but it just served to drive away more of the existing audience. The movie also bombed at the box office, though I will say it’s fairly amusing in that “so bad it’s good” kind of way, and if you need a laugh it’s worth a watch.
With all that being said, I can’t hold it against Arquette. He thought it was a bad idea too. Arquette split the money WCW paid him for his appearances between the families of Owen Hart, Brian Pillman, Brian Hildebrand & Darren Drozdov. He remained a fan, even appearing in a match on WWE Raw in 2010. Then in 2018, he decided he wanted to try to be a serious pro wrestler for a documentary. He nearly got killed by Nick Gage in the process, but Arquette proved that he was more than just the worst world champion in wrestling history. Hey, anybody that takes a light tube to the throat gets my respect, and bumps up a couple spots on a list like this one.
3. Stephen Amell
Amell grew up a wrestling fan. Most wrestlers of Amell’s generation grew up as comic book fans. So it wasn’t too surprising that the star of Arrow would be able to connect with wrestlers and dip his toes into the business. After campaigning online to get on WWE Raw, he ended up in a feud with the wrestler then known as Stardust. This led to Stardust teaming with King Barrett against Amell & the wrestler then known as Neville. Amell & Stardust/Cody Rhodes hit it off pretty well, and Rhodes even got an Arrow appearance out of it.
Amell became part of the Bullet Club/Elite and appeared in a ROH match with Cody, Kenny Omega & the Young Bucks against SCU & Flip Gordon. It was a long one, but 38 minutes into that video up there you can see Amell go through a table. He would then wrestle Christopher Daniels in his first ever singles match at All In. Since then, Amell’s main acting focus has been the TV series Heels, where he plays the owner & top heel of an independent wrestling promotion.
2. Mr. T
T had become a pop culture phenomenon after his performance in Rocky III as Clubber Lang. The role got him a spot on The A-Team and also got him a conection with Hulk Hogan, whose own popularity took off like crazy after the movie. The Rock N’ Wrestling Connection was in full swing, and Hogan needed a tag team partner to take on Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff at WrestleMania. Who would have generated more buzz than Mr. T? Piper and the other wrestlers weren’t happy about it, but the interest T brought to the event made up for any hurt feelings backstage.
T was decent enough in his role in the match, and would return for WrestleMania 2 to face Piper in a boxing match. It didn’t draw as well as the original, and T stayed in the acting world for the next several years. Until Hogan signed with WCW, and they decided to bring T in to accentuate the 1980s nostalgia factor. T ended up wrestling Kevin Sullivan at Starrcade ’94 for…um, reasons? I was watching the product at the time and it didn’t make any sense. Nevertheless, T’s contribution to the show that put the World Wrestling Federation on another level can’t be overlooked.
Honorable Mention: Freddie Prinze Jr.
Freddie’s never been an in-ring competitor, but he did make it onto the WWE creative staff. Recently, Prinze has started doing a podcast where he talks about his experiences on the creative team. He’s recently mentioned wanting to start a wrestling company, we’ll have to wait & see if that leads to anything. From what I’ve heard, he seems like an intelligent guy, so it’d be something to keep an eye on. (Maybe he could give ROH some new life? Just a thought.)
Honorable Mention: Paola Blaze
I’ll be honest with you guys, I’d never heard of Paola until recently. I don’t watch 90-Day Fiance or any of the other 90-Day properties, that kind of thing just isn’t my deal. However, I scrolled past an advertisement for one of their shows that had an attractive woman doing wrestling moves in a wrestling ring, so I had to look into it. Not knowing anything about Paola besides some wrestling clips and how she looks on camera, I see some potential there.
Thing is, do we consider reality TV show stars to be actors? I don’t. If I did, I could also consider Snooki for placement based off her WrestleMania match, and The Miz would be at or near the top of the list. That would be stretching things a little too much. Still giving Paola a shoutout here, as I was very impressed by her footage.
1. Andy Kaufman
https://youtu.be/z-gUQIHCofo
Some considered Kaufman a comedian. The best phrase I can think of to describe him as is an “interesting character”. He got noticed at comedy clubs, which gave him his break on Saturday Night Live, then his role on Taxi. Part of his act involved wrestling women on stage, as he had declared himself the “Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion of the World”. He wanted to get into the wrestling business, and had been a WWWF fan his whole life due to his growing up in the Northeast. Vincent J. McMahon wasn’t interested in featuring Kaufman on his shows (McMahon’s son would have loved to, but he wasn’t in power yet), so, as the story goes, Andy asked Bill Apter if there was anywhere he could do to do his act. Apter said that the only promotion he could think of that would go for it was the one in Memphis, Tennessee, so he put Andy in touch with Jerry Lawler & Jerry Jarrett.
From that point, Andy made his way down to Memphis and became a fairly regular character for the CWA promotion. There was no shortage of material for Kaufman’s wrestling promos, as the video above shows. His mainsteam exposure drew some attention to his exploits in Memphis. Like everybody else that went through the promotion, he had to wrestle Lawler, and Lawler piledriving Kaufman & sending him to the hospital was quite the thing. Their appearance on <i<Late Night with David Letterman, where Lawler slapped Kaufman out of a chair & Kaufman responded with a profanity-laced tirade was also quite the thing. Lawler got a ton of bookings across the country off of it, as promoters were eager to feature him as either the hero that protected the honor of professional wrestling against somebody trying to make a joke of it, or the guy that embarrassed himself on national television by slapping a celebrity.
Kaufman remained a regular thorn in the side of Lawler almost up until his death in 1984. He probably over-stayed his welcome in the Memphis territory, as business didn’t stay up at the initial levels it was at when he came in. From all accounts, he was good to work with & willing to do whatever, which is all you can ask for from an actor trying to be a wrestler.
Thanks for reading! Did I forget anybody? Let me know on the Twitter, and hit me up with any other thoughts, comments or suggestions you might have.