Not pictured: Bastion Booger.

November 29, 2012 11:48 AM

In response to WWE.com posting a not-really-that-accurate list of the 50 Most Beautiful People In WWE History (warning: awful slideshow), Brandon Stroud of Withleather assembled an all-star cast of beauty/wrestling experts, including Grantland.com's David Shoemaker, Clark Duke of Hot Tub Time Machine and professional Batmanologist Chris Sims, and with science has composed a a more accurate response list.
posted by mightygodking (33 comments total)

Everything I know about pro wrestling comes from Giant Bomb's podcasts and Quick Looks.

Much like EVE Online, it's a fascinating and scary world which I only want to hear about second or third hand.
posted by kmz at 12:05 PM on November 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

Can't see this at work, but if such a list doesn't include Mickie James, then the whole thing's a crock. She really performed and took hits rather than just standing around like eye candy... and, really, is prettier than a lot of the women who are only there as eye candy.

I'm still bitter about how often WWE buries its women's division. It has had some great performers that have been terribly underused.

(Holds up his "I Paid to See Mickie James" sign)
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:06 PM on November 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

kmz, it has its ups and downs. I haven't watched in a couple of years, but sometimes -- particularly when it's openly self-aware about its ridiculousness -- pro wrestling is one of the most entertaining things on television.

Granted, I don't have a high opinion of television in general, but still...
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:07 PM on November 29, 2012

Like scaryblackdeath , I'm not going through the slideshow at work but marking this for later -- because, jokey article or not, when it comes to lists, I WILL HAVE OPINIONS! I'm not sure this is the list I have spent the most time in the last 25 years considering but I'm sure that it's in the top ten of lists.*

And if you only counted time spent from ages 12 - 21, I can't even imagine how high the percentage would be.

* Yes I see what I did there.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:10 PM on November 29, 2012

SPOILER ALERT Didn't bother with the official slideshow and went straight to the "more accurate" list. Got increasingly disgruntled. "This list is bullshit without Lita on it." On and on, #50 on up. "Pish posh!" I might have muttered. Stacey Kiebler at #3. "Of course," I scoffed, shaking my head.

Imagine my happiness upon reaching the end. :)
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:13 PM on November 29, 2012

A month or two ago I actually paused the TV and called my wife down to see how good David Otunga looked as he posed at the top of the ramp. What is wrong with me?
posted by uncleozzy at 12:16 PM on November 29, 2012

Most notable omission is Missy Hyatt. I'm wondering if points were taken away for the bad plastic surgery and hard living deterioration of her looks in recent years (although that wouldn't explain Sunny ranking so high) or if the folks voting on this are simply too young to remember her.

Tangentially related: Terrific interview with Lita where she discusses traveling to Mexico City by herself at a young age to get trained as a Luchador.
posted by The Gooch at 12:24 PM on November 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

A month or two ago I actually paused the TV and called my wife down to see how good David Otunga looked as he posed at the top of the ramp. What is wrong with me?


Well, you're not blind.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:25 PM on November 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

WHERE IS BRET HART??????
posted by something something at 12:34 PM on November 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

Damn I wish I could list "Hot Tub Time Machine" as a credential.
posted by dobie at 12:35 PM on November 29, 2012

I wish I could list "professional Batmanologist" as a credential.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:36 PM on November 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's a shame Otunga isn't better in the ring, really, because he has the mic skills and (obviously) the look.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:37 PM on November 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Ric Flair explains why my sixth-grade homeroom teacher had the hair he did.
posted by vespabelle at 12:44 PM on November 29, 2012

I must say, when I saw what the title of the list was, I fully expected it to be all about the women, and hence not particularly interesting to my gay male self. Was happily surprised that both lists include the guys too!

My comments from the second list: - Ric Flair should not be on it, at all. - John Cena should be way, way higher up (no way is Dolph Ziggler better looking than Cena). - Where's The Miz? Now that he's ditched the fauxhawk hairdo, he's more studly looking than ever.

And HOW could they leave out Stone Cold Steve Austin??
posted by dnash at 12:46 PM on November 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

I like that the woman rated number one on the more reasonable list is depicted wearing pants and actually wrestling.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:51 PM on November 29, 2012 [5 favorites]

How good looking they were + How good looking they acted like they were = Rick Rude at #1.
posted by Egg Shen at 12:53 PM on November 29, 2012

Most notable omission is Missy Hyatt.

Missy never really worked for the WWF/WWE, so she is not so much an omission as she was ineligible.
posted by mightygodking at 12:56 PM on November 29, 2012

Stroud's list was a much better list by virtue of the fact that it did not have an editorial mandate to include Triple H.

I just imagine some poor editor at WWE.com getting haranguing emails about including him on the list of the most attractive people in pro wrestling because if you do not you will not work here anymore. Being the boss's son-in-law has its perks, I suppose, particularly if you want quick, cheap ego boosts.

(And matches that take up a huge portion of the card and serve to do nothing to advance rivalries or storylines, but I digress. I just clap my hands with glee every time there's a wrestling thread on Metafilter.)
posted by HostBryan at 1:04 PM on November 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

How happy I was to see Daffney (from her WCW stint or her current TNA one). That woman... she could get it.
posted by deezil at 1:06 PM on November 29, 2012

Out of curiosity - I do not watch wrestling at all - are either of these lists representative of the racial mix among wrestlers? I counted maybe 6-7 people who weren't pretty clearly Caucasian in the official list, and maybe a couple more on the alternative list. (Disclaimer: I didn't bother to read the bios, so that's purely at a glance.) My cursory impression has always been that it's a really, really white sport, but that may just be my childhood memories of Hulk Hogan overshadowing everything.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:06 PM on November 29, 2012

I think traditionally most of the pretty boy faces have been white male wrestlers which I guess helps with audience identification and wish fulfillment. The WWE definitely hasn't been that great at developing a more diverse set of faces to appeal to new demographics. Yeah there are a good number of minorities working as wrestlers in the WWE but they rarely seem to get the long term extended marketing pushes that the big name wrestlers get.
posted by vuron at 1:39 PM on November 29, 2012

Came back to say: Stephanie McMahon. That woman could make me swoon even in a not-trying-to-be-sexy business suit. *sigh*
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:04 PM on November 29, 2012

I'd have thought Randy Orton and Stone Cold Steve Austin would have been in there.

But Shawn Michaels...mmm. Yeah.
posted by kimberussell at 4:12 PM on November 29, 2012

restless_nomad, one of the more difficult things about liking wrestling is how white and ignorant it can be. And proud of that. Most non-white characters, when they are heels, have been portrayed in the most negative, stereotypical way possible for their ethnicity. R. Truth (currently a face) is the thuggish black gang member. Jinder Mahal? Arrogant Muslim who looks down on good Amuricans. Any hispanic character either A) wears a mask (Mysterio, Sin Cara), B) is a gang member (Primo, Epico, Konan, Chavo), or C) is the uppity Mexican (Alberto del Riiiiiiiiiiooooooooooh). Hell, Damien Sandow gets heat for being intelligent and wearing non-traditionally-masculine trunks (egad, pink trunks, he must be gay, and yeah, they were, at one point, leaning towards that).

For all of the "Be A Star, Don't Be A Bully" work they're supposedly doing, most of the faces in the WWE are written as awful bullies who are intolerant of anything different, which, in the last year, includes Cena making fun of people wearing pink (since they must be gay) until suddenly it's breast cancer awareness, and he's wearing pink, and all the heels who'd been wearing pink suddenly had a costume change, C.M. Punk and Sheamus (two of the most 'over' wrestlers) being horribly, horribly racist towards Alberto del Rio, and hell, Sheamus telling offensive Jewish jokes.

Seriously, the stuff Brandon Stroud is writing is amazing. He's clearly a fan, but he also has seen how good wrestling can be, and he struggles with each best and worst not to just shit all over everything, because this is not a good time for wrestling.

And yeah, I still love it. I haven't watched in months, but the good stuff, (Team Rhodes Scholar, Kane and Daniel Bryan's anger filled love/hugging, the actual embracing of new talent) is great.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:23 PM on November 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

Missy never really worked for the WWF/WWE, so she is not so much an omission as she was ineligible.

Ah, forgot this was a WWF/E-centric list (and I suppose with this never actually airing on WWF TV, she would remain out of contention).
posted by The Gooch at 5:36 PM on November 29, 2012

restless_nomad, one of the more difficult things about liking wrestling is how white and ignorant it can be. And proud of that.

Yeah, that tallies with my vague impressions for sure. Ah, well. I never really got over finding out the actual wrestling was fake (when I was a kid) and now, hey, we have MMA! Which is what I thought wrestling actually was.
posted by restless_nomad at 5:43 PM on November 29, 2012

r_n, for me, MMA is, well, it's real. Eww. One reason I like wrestling is that, while bodies have been broken, careers ended in an instant, it's not 'real.' While the difference is so neglible as to be absurd, I prefer the non-real. It's a soap opera with acrobats.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:34 PM on November 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

How did Sting not make that second list? 90s Sting was the BOMB
posted by parmanparman at 7:08 PM on November 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Lita winning while not topping a single list, while Layla received FOUR #1 votes seems bullshit to me. I have no idea who these people are, but it seems to me Layla got screwed.
posted by Justinian at 7:47 PM on November 29, 2012

Ric Flair explains why my sixth-grade homeroom teacher had the hair he did.

When I think back to middle school in my small southern town it's truly amazing just omnipresent "Nature Boy" Ric Flair was.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:16 AM on November 30, 2012

My comments from the second list: - Ric Flair should not be on it, at all

Flair is another one where I wonder if some of the "anti" bias is coming from our most recent memories of Flair as the well past his prime, boob sagging, belly protruding embarrassment who should have stepped away from the ring years and years ago.

As someone who grew up on Flair in his prime in the 80s, all I can say is that he pretty well embodied everything I hoped to be but clearly wasn't as an awkward middle schooler - ultra cool, suave, handsome, confident, well dressed, charismatic. To me he should be ranked much, much higher.
posted by The Gooch at 8:08 AM on November 30, 2012

While there are a lot of jaw-droppingly hot Divas in the WWE, I wish Beth Phoenix ranked higher on the list. I can't say enough good about Beth Phoenix. She's like Xena: Warrior Princess as a blonde, and her presence is such that you never notice that muscles aside, she's only 5' 7".
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 11:30 AM on November 30, 2012

Ric Flair explains why my sixth-grade homeroom teacher had the hair he did.


On a related note, my sixth grade PE teacher looked like Rick Rude and though the Thomas Magnum thing has never been particularly my type, he was very, very confusing for 12 year old me.

Back here in the present day, there's something really comforting about everyone being so exactly right about the men left off the list -- like it's one more 'check' in the 'do you hang out at the right website?' box.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:40 AM on November 30, 2012