As anyone who knows anything about pro-wrestling will likely tell you, knowing how to do wrestling moves is only half of what makes a great wrestler. The other half, of course, is your talking ability. It’s all well and good being able to wow crowds with the moves you can perform, but it’s your words that will put the crowd in the arena to begin with.
It’s hard to deny that almost every wrestler in WWE right now has a decent level of promo ability, you don’t get to work for the biggest wrestling promotion in the world without being good at what you do after all. However, there are a select few among the current crop of WWE wrestlers who are able to go above and beyond when it comes to the stories they weave outside of the ring. Be it hype and excitement or a deep level of intensity, there’s something about the way these wrestlers talk their way through situations that instil a much higher level of investment in their audience.
Quick note, I’m only counting wrestlers that currently active in WWE, so that means no managers and no part-timers.
9 – The Usos
The Usos are a very interesting case study in WWE because they’ve been in the WWE for almost ten years now and if you look through their career, it’s extremely obvious that they’ve grown a huge amount as performers. People first got behind them around 2014, but as pure babyfaces, their popularity didn’t last long and they quickly grew stale.
After floating around not doing much of note for about a year, they came back in full force with this brand new energy that got behind everything they did, most of all their promos. Their run as heels was a brilliant move for them because they got to take that over-hyped style of their promos and add an edge to them that made them seem intense instead of cheesy. Now their constant trading lines and random yelling instead added to the fact that these guys were always ready to throw down with anyone and could usually back up their words with actions.
Naturally, the crowd got behind them again after this and it wasn’t long before they were forced to return to their role as faces, but instead of going back to the cheesy, super happy style of promos, they kept their edge but added an extra dash of hype which meant that they were actually successful at getting the crowd behind them in whatever fight they were going for. The Usos would be classified as great talkers regardless of their history, but seeing them develop so much over the years really adds to the effect of what they’re able to do with their words now.
8 – Alexa Bliss
When Alexa Bliss first made her way to the main roster from NXT, I wasn’t sure if she was going to make much of splash. As much as I personally thought she was great, I could easily see her sliding down the path that someone like Mandy Rose has, where she’s always around, but very rarely the focus. Sitting here in 2019 it’s very obvious that those fears weren’t realistic in the least because she’s arguably second only to Charlotte Flair in terms of her longevity at the forefront of WWE’s women’s division and the biggest factor in that rise is inarguably her promo skills.
Bliss is able to inject this unrivalled level of bitchy attitude in absolutely everything she says that makes her so much fun to hate. Whether she’s being passive-aggressive or straight-up insulting she’s able to produce the exact right inflictions and attitudes in her voice that bring that level of pure hate out of you. To a certain extent, it doesn’t even matter what it is she’s actually saying because the way she said it is perfect for making you want to see someone kick the crap out of her.
Over the past 6 months or so, she’s been doing surprisingly well adjusting that attitude to a more face style of promo by virtue of her association with Nikki Cross. Although she’s not the best at getting the crowd behind her, what she is great at is using her attitude in defence of herself and Nikki to create some really good insults when she gets a chance to fire back at someone. I wouldn’t have expected her style of promo to adapt to a babyface as well as it has in all honesty, but that should speak to Alexa’s skill as a talker.
7 – Samoa Joe
Joe is one of those guys that’s seemingly able to flip a switch when he’s talking and instantly transition from calm and threatening to unbridled wrath and back again in such a seamless manner you barely notice what he’s done, all you know is that you’re terrified by whatever he just said.
His physique as always given him this intimidating presence and he can warp his face to be extremely threatening when he wants to, but it’s his words that make you feel like he’s slowly sliding a knife into your chest. There’s something about the way he’ll calmly explain exactly what it is he’s going to do to his opponents that makes him so terrifying to listen to because you honestly believe that he’s going to do whatever it is he says he will, one of my favourite promos of his was one he cut on Paul Heyman in the build to his match against Brock Lesnar, when he just cornered Heyman and spoke in that “nice, but actually threatening” way as he explained what he was about to do to Heyman.
Then there’s the other side of his promos where he’ll suddenly flip that switch and go ballistic. The eerie calmness serves to make the moments where he totally loses it and bellows his lines right in his opponent’s face all the more shocking and intense. Everything Samoa Joe says serves to make him feel like an absolute unstoppable monster, now if only we could get his booking to match…
6 – Elias
Elias undeniably has the most unique style on this list and it puts it to extremely effective use.
The singing thing seemed like it would get old fast when I first encountered it, but I didn’t count on Elias’ creativity when it came to making the gimmick last. He has the standard catchphrases that we all love, but every time he comes out to the ring to sing a song, there’s always going to be something new to it. He takes the classic heel trope of running down the town they’re doing the show in and turns it into an art form with the way he crafts the lyrics and picks some genuinely funny insults.
It never fails to get a reaction out of the crowd and it’s always a loud reaction too, I’ll never forget late 2018 when he and Kevin Owens got booed for literally 5 minutes solid after taking a dig at…well some American sports thing, as a Brit I didn’t really know what it meant, but the people in attendance that night certainly did. Even though this style is undoubtedly more suited towards a heel, he was still able to get some good mileage out of it as a face too, picking some particularly funny insults to sing at whatever heel he happened to be against that night.
The key thing about Elias is that no promo of his is ever boring, which is something that can’t be said for almost anyone else on this list. He has such a deep understanding of the attitude and demeanour he needs to convey at all times in order to make his songs and performances stick in the memory long after the show has ended.
5 – Kevin Owens
Kevin Owens’ promo style isn’t polished, it isn’t revolutionary and it lacks a lot of what we as fans would traditionally label as traits required for good promos. However, what Kevin Owens’ promos do have, are heaps of authenticity.
The slightly broken flow with which he speaks gives this feeling of someone who genuinely is coming up with his words on the spot (which he may very well be, for all I know) and the way he is able to control the intensity of his voice and turn it up and down almost by the word fills everything he says with emotion and meaning.
He’s always done great as an entitled, whiney heel with this style, but it wasn’t until he started cutting promos as a face that I realised what really made the way in which he talks so encapsulating. The way in which he rallied against Shane McMahon’s tyrannical reign or the way he’s currently leading the charge against Seth Rollins & AOP all give me this impression of a natural-born leader who fights for what he thinks is right and doesn’t give a damn who hates him for it. People aren’t just comparing him to Stone Cold because he started using the Stunner you know.
4 – The New Day
I’ve put The New Day in here as a group because although they are all brilliant talkers in their own right, it’s the way they talk as a group that makes them one of the best.
When The New Day first formed in WWE, no-one cared and no-one thought they were going to be anything more than another throwaway tag team that would be broken up by the end of the year. So what changed? What was it that made them one of the most popular WWE acts of the decade? While they’re wrestling ability undoubtedly had something to do with it, it was the way they talked that really turned heads.
It’s almost impossible to imagine The New Day as heels now but it was the absolutely hilarious way in which they would run down anyone and everyone around them that got them to a position where people just couldn’t boo them anymore. They are masters of playing off of the crowd. Be it to draw heat or garner support, The New Day have the kind of chemistry that can only come naturally in a team, allowing each of them to run with what the others are saying to the effect of both comedy and drama, making them arguably the best all-round tag team ever to form in WWE.
3 – The Miz
Given that The Miz’s first TV appearance for WWE featured him horrifically butchering a promo, it probably came as a surprise that he turned into one of the best talkers in the business today.
The Miz’s words are sharp and forceful in the way they’re delivered, he always knows exactly the right amount to labour a point and never trails off onto tangents about whatever the writer happened to be thinking about at the time. When he’s a heel (which is inarguably when he’s at his best) he has this amazing ability to layout an extremely well-structured and meaningful argument, but he says it in such a dickish way that you automatically find yourself disagreeing and booing out of hand.
We can’t talk about The Miz’s talking ability without bringing up his now, infamous promo on Talking Smack, where he ran down a then-retired Daniel Bryan and let so much genuine emotion bubble to the surface as he absolutely tore his detractors to shreds. That may have been the moment that The Miz started to turn heads with his promos, but the fact is, he’d been great years before that too. When he was partnered with John Morrison, he was able to bounce off of his partner and create some really funny, yet heelish stuff and as WWE Champion he garnered some real heat, which wasn’t as much “go away heat” as everyone says it was.
Although he was quite good in his recent feud with Bray Wyatt, for the most part, Miz has never been all that great as a face. Everything about his character screams “I deserve to be punched” and he knows exactly how to play up to it with extremely harsh words.
2 – Daniel Bryan
The guy more-or-less talked himself into the main event of Wrestlemania, I think that justifies this place on the list.
No-one in WWE for over a decade has been more popular with the fans than Daniel Bryan and although it would be dismissive of me to say it was entirely due to his abilities on the mic, it is certainly one of the most important factors. The way in which Daniel Bryan carefully creates these long and enthralling promos is absolutely inspirational to watch. No matter what it is he’s trying to say, he can find a way to get the crowd behind him on it and I honestly don’t think there’s anyone in WWE right now that can get a crowd so worked up with words alone.
Then 2018 rolled around and he turned heel, proving that not only could he get any crowd to cheer anything he said, he could also get all of them to boo just as hard. The vitriol with which he ran down every fan in existence was an absolute joy to watch, he was able to let his anger consume his entire building as he stared down the camera and called up all fickle. He was able to get crowds around the US to cheer about being wasteful and boo being ecologically friendly just because it was the opposite of what Bryan was preaching. That was what made it truly amazing is that he took an idea that the majority of fans agree with – recycling and protecting the planet – and presented it in such a way that we couldn’t help but boo and disagree with everything he said.
I’ve long said that Daniel Bryan is the best all-round wrestler in the world today and taking a critical look at his talking ability only furthers that claim. On any given day he can go out in front of any given crowd and get exactly the reaction he wants while being so immensely entertaining to watch, a skill that is arguably unmatched in the entire industry right now.
1 – Bray Wyatt
When it comes to sheer creativity, Wyatt is unmatched in this era and maybe all eras.
When Bray Wyatt first turned up in WWE it was like a breath of fresh air. WWE had tried plenty of “Undertaker-esque” gimmicks over the years, but they all fell flat on their face until Bray Wyatt came along. For one thing, the character didn’t just feel like an Undertaker rip-off, but something new, however, most importantly was Bray Wyatts ability to talk for ages about absolutely nothing while keeping his audience enthralled in his words.
Even when Wyatt’s shine had faded thanks to horrible booking, I still enjoyed listening to him craft his tales because the mannerisms and quirks in the speech patterns made it impossible to ignore. By all rights, the Bray Wyatt character should’ve been dead and buried after it’s treatment throughout 2017 and yet Wyatt turned it all around. He took those speech patterns and mannerisms and turned them into something genuinely unique, – which is such a rarity in modern WWE – in the form of the Firefly Fun House.
He can pull off the “jolly kids presenter” vibe so amazingly well with his over the top expressions, while still managing to throw in the hints of something being slightly…wrong. This makes it all the more terrifying when the facade fades away, as his face drops to a look of anger and his voice gets low and gravelly, even though I know it’s coming, it still gives me chills.
Even when all seemed lost for Bray Wyatt, he turned it around and used his sheer creative talent, alongside acting abilities that wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood, to create a whole world that brought him back up to the very top of the mountain in WWE.
And that’s the list! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, please let me know who you think are the best talkers in WWE right now, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back the same time next week where I’ll be ranking every student from Fire Emblem: Three Houses!
The Strong Style Smark 