Top Five Worst Masked Wrestlers

Brian Damage

Masked wrestlers have long been a part of the fabric of pro wrestling history. In places like Mexico, the masks are considered somewhat sacred. Here in the United States, masked wrestlers like Mr. Wrestling, The Masked Superstar, the Destroyer, the Grappler and the Spoiler have all had great success. Then there are those masked wrestlers who weren’t exactly fooling anyone. Their masked identities left little to the imagination. I am NOT referring to the brief masked gimmicks of guys like the Midnight Rider, Mr. America or The Yellow Dog…but wrestlers who were saddled with an actual masked gimmick for a longer run and were just poorly conceived.

Honorable mentions: Vader, Mr. JL, Doom, Black Blood, Max Moon, Kato, Tank (The Truth Commission) Aldo Montoya

The Super Invader

The Super Invader wrestled for WCW and managed by Harley Race. In reality, it was an aging Hercules Hernandez under the faceless red stocking. Admittedly, I had no idea at the time who this was, nor did I really care and that was a big part of the problem.

The Sultan

Ah yes, a the future Rikishi wearing a mask and attempting to make fans believe he was Arab and not Samoan. To try and distract you further from figuring out who it was under that horrible mask…the Sultan was given not one, but two managers. Hall of famers Bob Backlund and the Iron Sheik. I assume the Iron Sheik was used more to give the Sultan Middle Eastern credibility.

Kwang

From the far reaches of the Orient aka Puerto Rico…comes Kwang! This was a horrible attempt by Vince McMahon to pass off the future Savio Vega as an Asian martial arts monster…complete with the good ole Asian mist gimmick. Vega was already an established star in Puerto Rico as TNT…but leave it to McMahon to not care and create this disaster.

Repo Man

After Demolition wore out its welcome in the WWF, they still had Barry Darsow (Smash) under contract…so what did they do? They gave him a Lone Ranger style mask and pretend he was someone other than Smash. The mask made Darsow look he should be stealing hamburgers from Ronald McDonald more than an imposing heel character. The WWF did briefly experiment with using a fuller looking mask, but it fooled no one.

Chainsaw Charlie

For the life of me, I never understood this “masked” gimmick for a legend such as Terry Funk. Funk as himself, during this period of time could sell himself. There was absolutely no need to try and hide his identity in any way. To be honest, it wasn’t like the WWF creative team really tried hard with this character. They just put a stocking over his head, added some baby powder and handed him a chainsaw. There you have it…Chainsaw Charlie.