HULK HOGAN, John Cena, The Rock, Dave Bautista and more have jumped from the ring to the big screen – with varying degrees of success and appreciation. Get ready to rumble and we watch the Top 7 Wrestler Film Stars in action.
Jean-Claude Van Damme might be up to his old chop-socky tricks in action reboot Kickboxer: Vengeance, but the real star of the show is former WWE wrestling champ Dave Bautista, playing the film’s nails-hard villain Tong Po.
After roles in Spectre and Guardians of the Galaxy, Bautista is one of the fastest rising stars in action movies – but he’s not the only hulking superstar to make the jump from the squared-circle to silver screen.
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To celebrate, we take a look at some of the very best – and very worst – wrestlers in the movies.
Description: Fifteen time WWE champ and occasional actor. Like an inflated Mark Wahlberg.
Wins: Playing a terrifyingly tattooed drug dealer in Tina Fey comedy Sisters.
Losses: Action flop 12 Rounds, playing a cop who must complete 12 challenges to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend. If one of the challenges is “watch this movie”, she’s dead.
Greatest Movie Fight: Trying to talk dirty with tussling beneath the sheets with Amy Schumer is Trainwreck.
Signature Move: The “Five Knuckle Shuffle”. We’re pretty sure the Americans don’t know what it means.
Hulk Hogan
Stats: 6’8”, 303lbs
Description: Moustachioed wrestling legend and star of low-budget films. Santa With Muscles, anyone?
Box Office Wins: Rocky III, in which the Hulkster played “Thunderlips” in a wrestler versus boxer match against Stallone’s “Italian Stallion”.
Box Office Losses: If you thought Suburban Commando and Mr Nanny were bad, check out WWE’s abysmal Rocky rip-off, No Holds Barred. Actually, don’t.
Greatest Movie Fight: Despite his giant muscles, it’s a verbal confrontation – the Hulkster vs Gremlins in Gremlins 2. Unlike most of the acting, it’s cinematic gold.
Signature Move: The big leg drop. Thirty-odd years of landing on your rear like that that is asking for a sore backside.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Stats: 6’5”, 260lbs
Description: Hugely charismatic wrestler-turned-action star. Can wiggle his eyebrow like a good ‘un. Johnson is also the highest paid actor in Hollywood this year.
Wins: He’s the movie star in the world, so pretty much anything he touches is box office dynamite. The Fast & Furious movies are hard to beat though.
Losses: His first movie appearances as the mythical Scorpion King in the Mummy series.
Greatest Movie Fight: Taking on Jason Statham in Fast & Furious 7. A dream match if ever there was one.
Signature Move: The “Rock Bottom” slam. Even Statham gets one through a glass table for his troubles.
Dave Bautista
Stats: 6’6”, 290lbs
Description: Super-muscled behemoth, multi-time WWE, and breakout action star.
Wins: Playing lead henchman in $900million grossing Bond film Spectre is nothing to be sniffed at. Plus, a starring role in Marvel mega-hit Guardians of the Galaxy.
Losses: His movie debut Wrong Side of Town is exactly the sort of straight-to-DVD action film you’d expect a wrestler to star in i.e. rubbish.
Greatest Movie Fight: The climatic fight in Kickboxer: Vengeance. Brutal stuff.
Signature Move: The “Batista Bomb”. Prefers a good old fashioned pummeling in the movies though.
Jesse Ventura
Stats: 6’2”, 245lbs
Description: Colourful wrestling legend/actor/governor/conspiracy theorist.
Wins: Co-starring alongside Schwarzenegger as “goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus” in Predator. Roar indeed.
Losses: A supporting part in Demolition Man, in which Stallone is frozen and revived in the future to fight Wesley Snipes. Probably sounded like a good idea at the time.
Greatest Movie Fight: Battling his old pal Arnie in a final showdown of The Running Man.
Signature Move: The “Body Breaker” – a reference to own nickname, “The Body”. Don’t laugh, he was much sexier in the ‘80s.
“Rowdy” Roddy Piper
Stats: 6’2”, 230lbs
Description: Kilt-wearing loudmouth and one of wrestling’s greatest villains – also a surprisingly good actor.
Wins: John Carpenter’s They Live, in which Piper has a pair of magic sunglasses that reveal sinister aliens secretly control the world.
Losses: Hell Comes To Frogtown. He plays one of the world’s last fertile men and must impregnate a harem of women and fight giant frog monsters. Eh, what?
Greatest Movie Fight: His never-ending fist fight from They Live. It goes on and on and on…
Signature Move: The sleeper hold. Thankfully, few of his films will put you to sleep.
Kevin Nash
Stats: 6’10”, 328lbs
Description: Towering WWE champ who went by the ring name “Diesel”.
Wins: Playing over-the-hill stripper Tarzan in the Magic Mike movies.
Losses: A cameo as “Super Shredder” in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. At least he got to hide his embarrassment with a mask (which is more than can be said for his wrestling career).
Greatest Movie Fight: Duking it out with Thomas Jane’s marvel hero The Punisher.
Signature Move: In wrestling it was a move called the “Jackknife”. In Magic Mike it was… erm, you don’t want to know.
