10 Biggest One Hit Wonders In Wrestling History

I do want to make it clear before we do start talking about today's video that many of the wrestlers that are going to come up went on to have amazing careers

It's just that when you do go back through their runs, particularly in WWE, all of a sudden you go, wait a minute, they had this amazing moment, then they kind of fell back into a pan

So essentially we are going to tell some stories today. And my name is Simon Miller. Thank you for joining me

These are 10 one hit wonders from wrestling history. Number 10, Karl Anderson

Karl Anderson has managed to make money from every single wrestling promotion in the world

As far as I know, he is still active today. That's one hell of a career. The reason WhatCulture have decided to put Karl Anderson in this list, though

takes us back to the G1 Climax in 2012, when all of a sudden Karl Anderson was taking on Okada

who was still sort of finding his way. And good grief did they put on one hell of a final

I mean, it really was selling the idea of what NJPW was before it was going to blow up in a couple of years' time

And the counter-laden sequence structure of the thing is awesome to watch, It's like you go, I go, your nan goes, but everything just looks so damn good

I do want to point out that Karl Anderson had a great singles run a few years after this in New Japan

And really, he would have done far better in WWE, but the machine never got behind him

I mean, when he was in that team alongside AJ Styles and Luke Gallows, it just felt like we could have pulled the trigger more than we did

And also, him and Luke Gallows have been oddly fired from WWE on a few occasions

That doesn't help, but yeah. Go back to 2012 and watch this, and you will go, my gosh, what a great main event

Number nine, Alex Riley. This one doesn't really tie into the other things we are talking about

because at one point, Alex Riley really did feel like the next big thing. I mean, he was standing alongside The Miz when he turned on the guy

They had a decent feud, and everybody kind of thought, well, if WWE does get this right, they may have a brand new babyface

When Riley finally did deck The Miz in May 2011 as well, everybody went crazy

And then right after this, for one reason or another, WWE kind of just gave up on him

Now if you do go on Google right now, you will find so many rumors about this

some of which actually bring in John Cena. But given that no one's actually clarified, all we can do is go shrug emoji

nobody actually knows what happened here. It did feel like he was a very Vince McMahon pro wrestler though

and he ticked most of those boxes. And then before long, he was doing NXT color commentator work before he got let go

I mean, I'm not trying to take shots here, but look at somebody like Jack Swagger. He did go on to become the world champion

but most people in the crowd thought that Alex Riley had way more potential. And then one day he was there, and the next day he wasn't

And really, he never did anything else in wrestling after this. It is the most peculiar tale

Number eight, Lever Bates. Now, I really like Lever Bates, and I have talked to her in real life

and she is just a super nice person. And actually, every single thing she has done post-WW has been massively successful

So here we are just focusing on NXT. It's totally mad, though, but as NXT did rebuild itself

into this interesting developmental and sort of third brand, she came out as Blue Pants

I mean that literally. i'm pretty sure wwe even released merchandise that had a picture of blue pants on it how or why

this did come to be i don't know but good grief did baits lean into it hard i mean she could come

out wearing these blue pants and the nxt audience would just go crazy i think she just embraced the concept to such a degree and everybody could see she was having fun with it Damn it when you do break it down that what wrestling is all about

This was a very fun time. The issue was that WWE never really had a plan to evolve from this

and eventually you do have to do that. I don't want to call it a comedy gimmick, but of course

it was leaning into the novelty, so when all of a sudden it does become a regular fixture

you have to have something else ready to go. I think that Lever Bates absolutely could have leaned into that as well and after she did leave NXT she did start with AEW in 2019 and she had a

pretty good run there before returning to the indies it's just if you are more of a WWE fan and

you do see her you will always go that's blue pants kind of sums it up number seven action

andretti so this one is super duper weird because the rumor was at the time Chris Jericho decided

let's surprise the audience and he saw action andretti working a match and thought well that

guy's awesome why doesn't he beat me and he did it came out of nowhere nobody was expecting it

and all of a sudden in 2022, we thought, oh my gosh, maybe action can be the next big thing

This was absolutely possible as well because he was only 24 years old, and he had beaten a Hall of Famer, but then for some reason, well, we didn't really do anything with him

It's only fair to say he has continued to work in All Elite Wrestling, and his tag team alongside Leo Rush was super duper fun

but if the idea of beating someone like Jericho was to throw you up to the top of the card

it just never really felt like we followed up on it. These days, you're more likely to find him on Ring of Honor than anything else

and I do want to make it clear, you don't have to be tearing up the world to be a good professional wrestler

But right now in his career, if you said to someone, hey man, what do you think about Axel Andretta

They would absolutely talk about the Chris Jericho match, which somewhat terrifyingly was almost like three years ago

Where the flub does the time go? There's probably more to this and maybe one day we will figure it out

But again, he's still so damn young, he's got plenty of time to make more moments

Number six, Fandango. So we are referring to specifically the Fandango character here

because, yep, if you go back to that WrestleMania where he did beat Chris Jericho, which nobody saw coming, it kind of felt like he was going to absolutely explode

He did as well because everybody started fandangoing. But actually, do you know what pulled the rug out from beneath his feet

WWE lent into his theme song way too much and basically told you

listen, you buffoons, you better like this and you better go buy it on iTunes

Otherwise, we're going to get really, really mad. That just kind of took away the organic fun of it all

and as usual, the audience went, now we're going to do the exact opposite

It was really fun to watch though, because it was just so stupid in the best way. That's when sports entertainment is good

And ever since then, sure, Fandango struggled in WWE because he had become a one-note gimmick

But after he did leave the main roster, he had a really good run in NXT alongside Tyler Breeze

and his TNA run was super fun as well. I think the problem was WWE wanted to introduce him as a serious character

but he was also a ballroom dancer. and when the theme song stuff did blow up

well, we've already talked about it, it just became way too obvious what they were trying to achieve

Johnny Curtis is another guy, though, that has got something out every single promotion he has been in

But when you do go back to WWE, we'll always talk about Fandango, and it does make me chuckle

Imagine putting in all those hours of bumping and training and ruining your body and you get to WWE and Vince McMahon goes Hey pal we going to make you a ballroom dancer I mean you probably don really know what you meant to do Number five Maven Now I absolutely love Maven

because he always makes the best of the opportunities he is given. And if you do go back and watch the first ever Tough Enough

man, nobody else could have won that. That dude just ticked every single box

I think the main issue is that we were talking about the early 2000s and trying to get into WWE of all places through a reality show

Well, the rest of the roster was never going to accept that. and it kind of felt like Maven was always fighting an uphill battle

You should absolutely go and check out his YouTube work today, though, because it's so entertaining and honest

But, yes, if we are going to go back and talk about his highest point in WWE

you go to the 2002 Royal Rumble, where he drop-kicked The Undertaker out the damn match

Now, even though it was over 20 years ago, this is just so damn fun, because it's a brilliant, bold move

Nobody ever thought Maven, who was essentially a rookie, was going to eliminate The Undertaker

so when he did do this, and the dead man saw it like he'd been shot in the face, I tell you, man, it's one of those things you could talk about forever

The only real issue is that WWE never properly capitalized on this, which was totally mad because the story was right there

Every single fan in the audience could relate to Maven because he was them and then was he or some words like that

He'd enter the reality show, he'd won it. Now he was in the big time just like that

I still think there's some really cool moments in Maven's WWE career, like when he got a big old push in 2004

and actually became the Raw general manager for a night. So I suppose maybe one hit wonder is a little bit unfair

but this moment was just so huge it will still go down as an all-time surprise and that's exactly

what you want in the Royal Rumble. Number four, Lars Sullivan. So this is mostly from that NXT

TakeOver New Orleans ladder match which people love to such a degree even Dave Meltzer gave it

five stars. I understand it's just one man's opinion but it didn't happen a lot. Now sure

there was a bunch of wrestlers in there including Adam Cole, Ricochet, The Velveteen Dream and

Killian Dain but you needed every single person to smash a home run in this. If you've never seen

you can go watch it right now. It is so damn fun, and it has the fans going absolutely crazy

Don't want to be that guy, but I think some people were surprised that Lars Sullivan was capable of performance like this. Well, I actually think that's what got interest from Vince McMahon

and all of a sudden he was up on the main roster. Sadly though, it became quite clear that this was

never going to click, even more so because it turned out he was a piece of trash. I will leave

it to you to Google this, but just imagine somebody going on message boards and not only saying the

most terrible things before he became a WWE superstar, but also doing it after the fact

Allegedly, he is still doing this stuff today, so screw Lars Sullivan. We do not need people like

that in the wrestling business. Number three, James Ellsworth. Now, I do not think when WWE

decided to bring in a bunch of enhancement talent so that Braun Strowman could destroy them in 2016

that one of the people that was about to get pinned in seconds would get a job. Then James

Ellsworth turned up with a very unique look, took advantage of the five seconds he had on a microphone

and well he attained management to such a degree the man got a job and really this should have been

inspiring to many people out there all it takes is one single moment damn it you can get a contract

now he never really did anything much of note after the fact but he was with the ww for a few

years so i bet he made some money and really outside of this ellsworth is mostly known for being involved in the first ever women money in the bank ladder match when he retrieved the briefcase for Carmella We talked about it on other videos this was a stupid idea and then WWE tried to reset it

Otherwise, though, this is something that WWE should do more of, because if you can come in from nowhere and get over, then you probably deserve a little bit more of a trial run

I mean, without this, you don't get Chris Jericho cutting that hilarious promo on Ellsworth before the Survivor Series

So while he was never going to turn up any trees, I don't know, man, he made the most of what he had

But yeah, in terms of things that people are going to talk about, it was when he told us that every man has a fighting chance

Then he got killed. Still, good for that guy. Number two, Brodus Clay

So this one was totally nuts. Because on the November 7th, 2011 episode of Raw, we got our first vignette that, oh my gosh, Brodus Clay is coming to the show and he's going to destroy everyone

This then got continuously delayed by authority figure John Laurinaitis, who said it'll be next week, it'll be the week after that, with this trend continuing all the way till January 2012

It was on January 9th when finally he made his way to the ring, and I want to make this very clear

The videos that came before this were all like, Doom and Gloon arrives in WWE

and Brodus Clay is going to kick everybody's ass, when he came out as the Funkasaurus, a dancing dinosaur

and he even had the Funkadactyls, which very interestingly was Naomi and Cameron

Of course, Naomi would go on to be with the company for years. He also got announcers hailing from Planet Funk

as everybody scratched their heads, because this was a proper 180. It was like we were meant to think he was serious

and now he's a comedy character, and we got to the Royal Rumble, and actually he squashed Drew McIntyre

but Drew was not the guy he would go on to become today. Now, the only reason I put this in the one-hit wonder category

is because so many fans actually did like this, and they got a right kick out of it

going, well, that's totally different. I'm sure he's going to go on to great things

But it's not what happened. In fact, we got the opposite. It was so silly, Vince McMahon then decided we shouldn't push him

even though it was Vince McMahon's idea to begin with. I do believe that's absolutely nonsensical

The reason this is so damn silly is because WWE shot themselves in the foot with their own gimmick

And soon after this, Brodus Clay was kind of just there, hanging out playing Nintendo before he got released

It was ridiculous. Number one, Tom McGee. So Vince McMahon was desperate to find a brand new Hulk Hogan

when all of a sudden he found Tom McGee, a super ripped bodybuilder who could flip around the place

I mean, that sounded great to him. It's absolutely hilarious when we did try to do this as well

because we were still a year out from WrestleMania 3 and Hulk Hogan body slamming Andre the Giant

so he had many more years to come. I think McMahon had just seen McGee looking absolutely ripped

and the fact that he could do high-flying moves and decided, well, that's like Hulk Hogan times two

so let's make him Hulk Hogan. Bret Hart is majorly responsible for this because, of course, he was told to go out there

and have a great match with Tom McGee and because the Hitman is one of the best wrestlers of all time

he found a way. And then, yes, when McGee was playing other matches, it totally fell apart

because he wasn't given the time or experience to actually learn what he was meant to do

A couple of weeks on from this, Vince McMahon decided he was not right to fill Hulk Hogan's shoes

and because he was mad at himself, Tom did get let go and that was sort of the end of that

You should absolutely go watch the match with Brat Hart though because it is a masterclass on how you work with somebody that is green

But once again, maybe Tom McGee could have got to the top of the card but you have to train him and give him time

Surprise, surprise, we did the exact opposite