10 Wrestlers Too Crazy for WWE

source// wwe.com

One has to be a little bit crazy to take on the grueling schedule and immense physical pain that one suffers as part of their job in professional wrestling, but every once in a while, there are those wrestlers so absolutely crazed that their prospects for ever making it to WWE are diminished significantly. That, or they have to undergo significant changes in character to make it to the grandest stage in wrestling, oftentimes setting aside the elements of their act that earned them fame and recognition.

Some succeed in spite of leaving their craziness behind. Others faltered, their weaknesses as wrestlers exposed without the facade of hardcore to hide behind.

Still, others embraced their crazy selves, perfectly content with traveling the world and brutalizing opponents with chairs, forks, tables and other plunder.

Regardless of which side of the proverbial fence they fall on, there is one thing they all have in common: they were too crazy for WWE.

With Dean Ambrose prepared to headline WrestleMania 32, his shift from death match wrestler to WWE Superstar complete, relive some of the most violent, balls-to-the-wall wrestlers to ever lace a pair of boots. Most never achieved the notoriety in wrestling’s greatest promotion that The Lunatic Fringe has.

One has.

10. Sabu

Dubbed “Homicidal, Genocidal and Suicidal” for his willingness to sacrifice his body while punishing his opponents, Sabu earned a reputation for being one of the most chaotic wrestlers on the planet. He was also must-see, a performer whose extraordinary risks were absolutely captivating. Above all, Sabu was violent. His body was scarred from years of crashing through tables and competing in barbed wire matches. He specialized in hardcore matches, those bouts in which he could use weapons and high spots to camouflage that his body was a mangled mess of bruises, broken bones and torn muscles.

Unfortunately for him, the call from WWE asking him to be part of the ECW revival on SyFy would force him to change his style and in the process, expose his flaws.

At that point in his career, Sabu was a grizzled veteran who needed the spectacle of his high-flying assaults and hardcore style to mask the fact that he was well past his prime. His work had become sloppier than ever and without the plunder present in every match, a Superstar once labeled “extraordinary” had become extremely ordinary.

Sabu had to change his style to fit the WWE mold in 2006. Sure, he still used the occasional table but everything that had helped make Sabu a sensation among die-hard wrestling fans a decade earlier had been stripped away and the result was a failure of a run with the biggest wrestling company on the planet.

9. Bruiser Brody

One would never know it from looking at him, but Bruiser Brody (real name: Frank Goodish) was a man of great intellect. That was never portrayed on television, though. Instead, he was a wild and chaotic brawler, the godfather of what would eventually become hardcore wrestling. During the height of his popularity, he made occasional appearances in the World Wide Wrestling Federation under Vincent J. McMahon but as the New York territory shifted from the old school days and into a more family-friendly, widely accepted form of entertainment, tolerance for Brody’s act lessened significantly.

He would remain immensely popular, working countless territories including Fritz Von Erich’s World Class promotion, Bob Geigel’s Central States Wrestling and Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association. He even had a stint with the National Wrestling Alliance. But he never achieved the success in New York that he never experienced the success in New York that would have launched him into households across the globe, his wild and violent style too much for McMahon and company.

8. Abyss

Abyss is to modern day wrestling what Abdullah the Butcher was to his era. He is a menacing and despicable wrestler, one who will not hesitate in the slightest to pick up a barbed wire baseball bat or lay down a bed of thumbtacks to inflict pain upon opponents. Unlike The Butcher, he is not a niche wrestler. He can hang with the best wrestlers on the planet, as he has done countless times in TNA. Whether he was battling Kurt Angle or bumping around the squared circle for AJ Styles, Abyss proved himself far more than a brawler.

Unfortunately, his resume of blood-soaked wars has cost him an opportunity to shine under the bright lights of WWE. At age 42, and with a body wracked with injuries and daily pains from the grind of his physical style, he is not quite the worker he once was.

Today, he functions best in a tag team environment, where his body can take half of the pain and punishment it once did. Considering the fact that his body has been beaten down so long that he almost has to lean on the hardcore style, the time for an Abyss run in the greatest sports-entertainment empire ever has come and gone.

7. Sandman

The Sandman was one of the pillars of the original ECW, a cane-swinging, beer-drink, chain-smoking son-of-a-gun whose “Enter Sandman” theme song by Metallica and captivating entrance was 99-percent of his act. A truly awful traditional wrestler, hardcore wrestling was his crutch. It masked his obvious weaknesses and allowed him to become one of the most buzzed-about stars in the industry during the mid-to-late 1990s.

When WWE came calling in 2006 for the ECW relaunch, the Metallica was gone, the cigarettes disappeared and he was left to flounder in singles and tag team matches that exposed him.

The Sandman as fans knew and loved him would never exist in Vince McMahon’s company. It was too extreme, too crazy for the brand of entertainment the once-visionary promoter preferred. In a sense, Sandman was neutered for the masses, much to the dismay of fans who once were so passionate about his revolutionary character.

6. Kevin Sullivan

Depending on the time and territory, Kevin Sullivan’s character regularly bordered on the satanic, the occult or the masochistic. For pretty obvious reasons, it is no surprise he never had a sustained run in WWE. There are some who dislike his ring work, others who never really invested in his unique brand of villainy. Others loved the darker, almost supernatural edge he brought to his act. He was one of the first to really introduce that element to the sport, a predecessor of The Undertaker.

Unfortunately, there was never a time at the height of Sullivan’s in-ring career where Vince McMahon understood the value of that crazed, deranged character. It would not be until The Phenom made his debut at the 1990 Survivor Series that he would get the importance of a character that stretched the realm of possibility and believability.

Sullivan’s strange and unconventional method of storytelling, and his dark and disturbing persona, proved far too crazy for WWE.

His higher ranking position in WCW throughout the 1990s did not help matters.

5. The Original Sheik

In 2007, World Wrestling Entertainment inducted the late Original Sheik into its Hall of Fame. An influential wrestler who is recognized as one of the godfathers of hardcore wrestling, the celebrated performer (real name: Ed Farhat) more than earned the induction. This, despite the fact that he had only wrestled a handful of matches for Vincent J. McMahon in the late 1960s. Those matches, mostly contested against Bruno Sammartino, and including a Death match, introduced The Sheik to the northeast and exposed him to a new audience unfamiliar with his exploits.

Unfortunately, his crazy brawling style prevented him from enjoying a sustained run in the promotion.

He would continue to enjoy success in Detroit, his home city, and Los Angeles, where he battled the great Freddie Blassie in many a hardcore bloodbath. His legacy would forever live on in his nephew, Sabu, who would carry on the family tradition of violent brawls in arenas across the globe.

He may have been too crazy for WWE but unlike others on this list who either became watered down shells of themselves, were forced to alter their style styles completely or had incomplete careers as a result of not competing for Vince McMahon’s company, Sheik thrived. His influence on the industry will live forever and will be on display at WrestleMania 32 when Dean Ambrose battles Brock Lesnar in a match that he would undoubtedly be proud of.

4. James Mitchell

Whether he went under the name of The Sinister Minister in ECW, Father James Mitchell in TNA or Daryl Van Horne in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, the performer known for his high intellect and compelling promos is a favorite of the Internet. The way he carries himself, the conviction with which he spoke and the expanded vocabulary that he used helped elevate his performance beyond that of the typical yelling, belligerent manager. He was cerebral, his words chosen carefully and fit into every line of his promos. He was a step above most of the people he worked for intellectually, which means he could talk about things and people without his employers having any clue.

Which made him an incredibly dangerous performer.

As Van Horne in SMW, it was not uncommon for him to throw in a reference to a sexual act or even name drop an adult film star. As both The Sinister Minister and Father James Mitchell, he flirted with good taste while discussing religion. In fact, it was only during his time in WCW as James Vandenberg that he was subdued, mostly because he was never allowed to cut a promo longer than absolutely necessary to get charge Mortis’ feud with Glacier over.

Mitchell was far too big of a risk, far too “crazy” for WWE, who never felt the urge to bring him into the fold no matter how talented a talker he was or how valuable he could be when it comes to getting young talent over.

3. Mick Foley

Today, Mick Foley is a world renowned wrestler, a performer whose lovable personality is as celebrated as his three world championships and countless classic matches. He is also known as “that guy who flew off the cell,” fair to his reputation or not. What today’s fans tend not to remember are the incredibly violent matches that Foley competed in prior to arriving in Vince McMahon’s company. His wars with Terry Funk, which went as far as to include explosives, were the stuff of tape trading legend. Die hard wrestling fans would seek out the matches, then sit in mesmerized silence as they watched Foley (under the guise as Cactus Jack) sacrifice his body for the sake of building his legacy.

Foley would have to drastically adjust his style when he signed with WWE. The crazed and maniacal Cactus Jack disappeared and in his place was Mankind. While Foley would continue to inject hardcore into the company, it was slightly more subdued than before. And it certainly was not as frequent. He would be forced to approach each match with a more cerebral take, using crowd psychology and character traits to get over rather than barbed wire and fire.

Sure, the street fights and Hell in a Cell matches are memorable but they are the exception rather than the rule when reliving Foley’s WWE stint.

2. New Jack

New Jack was as violent a wrestler as there was during the 1990s and into the new Millennium.

As one-half of The Gangstas, he instigated protests in Tennessee and the surrounding areas, members of the NAACP unhappy with the way they were portrayed and the violence they brought to the shows. From there, they made the jump to ECW, where New Jack fit right in with the hardcore nature of the promotion. Notorious for slicing his opponents open with knives or elongated razors, he earned a reputation as one of the craziest wrestlers in the industry.

His involvement in the Mass Transit Incident, in which he was directly responsible for the bloodletting of an unlicensed, underage young man whose documentation was falsified. Regardless of whether the kid should have been in the ring or not, he did not deserve the bloody results and hospitalization that came from the punishment dealt to him that night.

That New Jack has gone on to admit to wanting to kill Vic Grimes for injuries suffered during one of his infamous balcony dives, then tried to make good on that desire while in XPW, proves just how unstable he is.

Is it really any surprise that, even during the height of the Attitude Era, Vince McMahon and company never bolstered their roster by signing New Jack?

1. Abdullah The Butcher

Abdullah the Butcher is the definition of a niche wrestler. By no means does that diminish everything that he accomplished during his years as a competitor, or the fact that he was a great special attraction. But Abdullah was never anything more than a crazed and bloody-thirsty wrestler who got over on his ability to brawl around ringside, act like a crazed madman and open wounds on his opponent’s foreheads. He used his trusty fork to draw blood.

He never exhibited anything even remotely close to a penchant for actual wrestling. He had one thing he did really well, and made a lot of money while doing it, but that one thing did not fit the tone of WWE’s product. It worked on the territorial level, where Abdullah could move from one place to another, keeping his crazy violent persona fresh. On a nightly basis, working for Vince McMahon, his craziness would have worn thin quick and his weaknesses would have been exposed.

Just as they were with Sandman and Sabu two decades later.