10 Wrestlers Turned Actors, Ranked

Johnson is undoubtedly the most successful actor on this list — and that has to count for something here — but he’s not the best. He’s made a lot of money for a lot of people, sure — including himself — but critical acclaim has thus far eluded Johnson. Maybe A24’s The Smashing Machine will change that. (Black Adam certainly did not.)

The Rock has a few things going for him. He has a killer work ethic, is an all-time great talker, and he knows his market. That’s probably why almost every Dwayne Johnson vehicle and performance looks and feels the same. How popular is Johnson? It wasn’t that long ago there was a pretty serious call for the one-time Rocky Maivia to run for president … of the United States of America.

He’s an impressive man — but not (yet?) a particularly impressive thespian.

Cena’s acting chops are a bit of a polarizing topic. At the very least, Cena has entered his second act — acting — fearlessly, and is always willing to take the piss out of himself. Though Dwayne Johnson has made a bigger splash in the broader entertainment business (beyond just sports entertainment), he also had a first-mover advantage here. Though it’s close, Cena has had the bigger WWE career — arguably the biggest on this list.

There’s an argument to place Cena ahead of Johnson here, but theater owners (and Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions) would take some serious exception with that — and they’d have a real case to do so. Consider this feud from their WWE days — they’re 1-1 against each other at WrestleManias — to be ongoing. The ultimate winner (and champion) of this long-term rivalry, now spanning multiple industries, remains TBD.

Piper might not be a Mt. Rushmore wrestler (not that he’s super far-off), but They Live is enough to assign him the final Mt. Rushmore-head spot on this very specific list.

Directed by John Carpenter, the cult classic They Live gave us the cult-classic line: “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubble gum.” (Society has since made the quote a bit more lyrical.) Piper, who spoke the line, is credited with also thinking it up.

The “Rowdy” one had a really good training ground with his “Piper’s Pit,” one of WWE/WWF’s first wrestler-led interview segments. Piper parlayed that into an acting career that also included a recurring role (as an insane pro wrestler) on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It may not have been a huge stretch, but c’mon, it’s Sunny.

Copeland, “Edge” in WWE, has actor good looks — and actor chops. He’s no small fry, but Copeland has more of an actor’s build than most others on this list. He’s tall, but he can blend, and that has really helped Copeland disappear into characters.

Copeland’s résumé includes some serious story arcs. On Vikings, his Kjetill Flatnose appeared in 25 episodes, and before that, Copeland did 42 episodes of Haven as Dwight Hendrickson. Last year, Copeland played Ares in a trio of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. He’s, like, an actual actor. Now, if only “The Rated R Superstar” could walk away from wrestling — for good this time.

And you thought Hulk Hogan would be our highest-ranking member of the nWO here? Even outside of the ring ropes, Nash has been a pretty in-demand bad guy, but he also took the stage as Tarzan in the Magic Mike movies — so there’s at least some versatility here.

There’s also a problem here. If you thought Dwayne Johnson was too big to disappear into a character, which he is, try being 6’10” like Nash. There’s not a whole lot of leading-men roles for guys who were once billed as being seven-footers. That said, Nash isn’t even the tallest guy on our list — he’s not even the second tallest. Bonus points if you can guess both …

Here he is: the OG. Terry Bollea got the acting bug by playing (“The Ultimate Male”) Thunderlips in Rocky III, and then he took a few real runs at Hollywood. Unfortunately, the chops and the material were both letdowns.

Hulk Hogan’s big acting breakout was supposed to Suburban Commando, though that movie may have sucked (even) more than his two-years-earlier No Holds Barred. We can all probably agree that Mr. Nanny sucked most of all. Hogan eventually found his spot in the business with the (mostly) straight-to-home-video Thunder in Paradise franchise. That’s not to say the movies and the television series were good, but they were more … Hulk Hogan, brother.

Still, credit where it is due: there probably is no Dwayne Johnson, John Cena and Dave Bautista without Terry Bollea. Though he never properly dropped the atomic leg on Hollywood, he did kick a door open.

Wellllllll, it’s the Big Show.

Paul Wight is our first actual seven-footer on this list, though he too will not be its tallest by the end. Not only is Wight problematically taller than Kevin Nash, the dude weighed like 500 pounds at one point. Like Dave Bautista, he has since shed excess weight, but he’ll probably never be under 380 — how many opportunities does Hollywood have for someone that size?

The answer: almost none, with two exceptions. Wight can play someone comically large, like (wrestler) Captain Insano in The Waterboy and Huge Santa in Jingle All the Way. Alternatively, Wight can play himself, which he did in Netflix’s one-and-done family sitcom The Big Show Show. Though his options are limited, Wight has made the most of the opportunities that do exist.

Jesse “The Body” Ventura doesn’t have much in terms of a body of work — a term as the governor of Minnesota tends to slow down an acting career. But hey, Predator was a real movie!

The rest of Ventura’s role call reads as you would expect: Demolition Man, Running Man, guest spots on series like Renegade and Zorro, a number of cameos and some voiceover work. It’s not a bad career, it’s just not a top five career — especially when you take into account the fact that Ventura probably had the *worst* (it was still quite good) wrestling career of the whole lot. Here, that’s gotta count for something.

André wasn’t a good actor and he wasn’t a good (English) speaker, but like André the Giant himself, André René Roussimoff’s role in The Princess Bride is very memorable.

Stories about Roussimoff are as giant as, well, Roussimoff, who stood a real 7’4” and weighed in north of 520 pounds. Had he lived long enough, André the Giant would have made Paul “The Big Show” Wight look like, well, maybe Kevin Nash. In other words, he was huge.

Roussimoff’s Hollywood career was, of course, also limited by his life span — Roussimoff died in 1993 at 46, which was pretty much when Hulk Hogan’s film career was flopping in real time. So yes, André making the cut here is fully a nostalgia play, but nostalgia is a powerful emotion.