Top 10 Best Hollywood Movies Featuring WWE Superstars
WWE superstars must have charisma, be good talkers and be able to play a character, so it's no surprise that many of them make for great actors in movies and on television, they can also be great stuntmen. Their time inside the ring definitely is great preparation for the big screen and the most popular superstars are often a hot commodity for Hollywood. Let's see in which movies your favorite WWE superstars have appeared in, some of them you might not know about.(Please note that this list excludes any professional wrestlers who have not performed for the WWE and any movies made by WWE Studios, only appearances in Hollywood).
Let's start with the movie featuring the most iconic and most recognizable WWE superstar of all time, Hulk Hogan. In the movie, Hogan plays the character of Thunderlips, the wrestling champion of the world, who faces the iconic boxer Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) in a fight during a charity event. This short appearance in the movie is what helped Hogan make the jump from wrestling star to movie star in his career.
André René Roussimoff, better known by his ring name André the Giant, plays the giant Fezzik in The Princess Bride. He doesn't have a problem with subverting the law but doesn't like to fight dirty. He is a giant who, along with his friend Inigo Montoya, teams up with Westley to rescue Princess Buttercup. Originally, the giant was employed by Vizzini, the criminal employed by Prince Humperdinck to kidnap Buttercup and kill her, until he turned on his boss.
His role in this film is his most prominent and his most well-known performance in his career as an actor.
Not only is there a WWE superstar in this movie, but they have one of the main roles. If you guessed Drax, then you are right because it's none other than Dave Bautista who portrays the bald and tattooed alien. The actor first took on the character in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy, reprising his role in 2017's Vol. 2 and Vol. 3. He also played Drax in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. His role in the Marvel franchise has now made him a household name in Hollywood and propelled his career to new heights.
The first movie of the Spider-Man trilogy with Tobey Maguire as the web-shooting superhero features a wrestling legend in one of the best scenes of the film. This is when Spider-Man is put in a wrestling match inside a steel cage against none other than "Macho Man" Randy Savage in the role of a professional wrestler named Bonesaw McGraw. This appearance in Spider-Man is Randy Savage's most important role as an actor, and it's certainly an awesome one.
Great movie.
Also, how angry would you be if I suggested that WWE fighters are probably more like actors already than regular sports people?
Warrior is a 2011 film about an estranged family, two brothers, and their father. The main character is Tommy Conlon, played by Tom Hardy, an ex-Marine and Iraq War veteran. Tommy wants to win the money to help out the family of his best friend, a soldier who died in battle. After years apart, Tommy turns to his now sober father for coaching, and he quickly establishes himself as the fighter to beat.
His older brother Brendan is already an MMA fighter and makes his way into the same tournament as Tommy. Tommy hates Brendan because he feels like he abandoned him and their mother when he left them to start his own family.
One of the fighters Brendan faces in the movie is a Russian fighter named Koba, played by WWE Hall of Famer and Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle. In an interview, Angle said it was a lot of fun for him and that it was hard work as he had to lose 30 pounds for the role.
Daddy's Home stars Will Ferrell as Brad, the stepfather trying to be the best possible father figure for his wife's children, and Mark Wahlberg as Dusty, the real father who is a tough guy. It's a really fun movie with a lot of funny scenes where the two fathers compete against each other.
By the end of the movie, the two are best friends, and Dusty finds himself a family of his own. He now knows what it's like to be a stepfather. That's where John Cena comes in, as he plays the role of Roger, the real dad, who is essentially on another level of tough guy. John Cena has a bigger role in Daddy's Home 2, but his short appearance at the end of the first movie is so memorable that it had to be included first.
Most of you might look at this entry and think, "Oh I know, it's The Rock. He played Luke Hobbs, duh!" but he was not the only wrestler to have a role in this movie. WWE Superstar and the current WWE Undisputed Universal Champion (as of the making of this list) Roman Reigns made his debut in the Fast & Furious franchise in this movie when he portrayed Mateo Hobbs, Luke Hobbs' brother, during the part of the film where they go to Samoa.
This movie is based on Marvel's character of the same name, The Punisher. It follows FBI agent Frank Castle as he becomes a one-man judge, jury, and executioner known as The Punisher after his wife and son are murdered by criminals. One of the antagonists in the movie and comics alike is The Russian, portrayed by professional wrestler Kevin Nash.
Here's a fun fact: in one of the scenes, The Punisher stabs The Russian in the left shoulder with a knife. As you can probably imagine, this knife is supposed to be a fake, but somehow a real knife was confused with the fake one, and Kevin Nash was stabbed for real. He still went on with the scene without breaking character like nothing happened. What a tough son of a gun.
The Peanut Butter Falcon follows Zak, a young man with Down syndrome running away from a residential nursing home to pursue his dream of becoming a pro wrestler. On the way, he meets Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), a troubled thief and fisherman who helps Zak run away. They head to North Carolina for Zak to train as a professional wrestler under the tutelage of his hero, the Salt Water Redneck.
Since this movie centers around pro wrestling, it's not surprising that real pro wrestlers appear in the movie. Two wrestling legends appear in the movie, namely Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who is Zak's opponent, and Mick Foley, who referees the match.
The Wrestler is a movie about an aging pro wrestler named "Randy the Ram" long past his prime who still performs in the wrestling circuit. However, he is forced to hang up his boots due to the toll on his body. The movie is not based on a true story. Randy the Ram is a fictional character who only bears similarities to a few real-life wrestlers that the actor Mickey Rourke chose to emulate for his role.
Towards the end of the movie, the character makes a comeback to the ring and performs in a match in which many other wrestlers are involved, most notably Ron Killings and Claudio Castagnoli, better known respectively as R-Truth and Cesaro in WWE.