30 Day Wrestling Challenge - Day 21 Most Underrated

May 9, 20205 min read

There are thousands of wrestlers that have got inside the squared circle, but not all take the plaudits as a superstar of wrestling. Here, the WSBF crew offer the grapplers they feel deserve way more recognition.

BRUM - TIM DONST

"Most underrated" as a category in most artistic and sporting fields is always a difficult one. In wrestling, due to the varied methods of assessment, its opacity is increased.

The usual types of wrestlers that get mentioned in these conversations are your Cesaros, Chad Gables, or even Dolph Zigglers: good hands who don't get enough to do.

However, I feel this is more "underbooked" than "underrated". These wrestlers are usually rated by journalists and fans so don't quite fit the category for me.

The next category of wrestlers that get mentioned in these things are ones like Manami Toyota, Sara Del Rey, or Mike Quackenbush. Wrestlers who are fantastic but usually only heralded by a subset of the community.

I have again dismissed these as they are more "underexposed" rather than "underrated". Journalists and fans also raved about them, just maybe not as much in the mainstream.

The next two categories I'm going to conflate slightly. Firstly, there are wrestlers such as Stan Hansen, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Barry Windham who were main eventers but maybe don't get talked about as much as they should now.

The second are guys like William Regal, Brian Pillman, Dynamite Kid, and Mr Perfect. These didn't have the same success as the prior category, but are still all brilliant talents.

The latter could also fall into the "underbooked" category, but both these categories fall into groups of wrestlers who are so often cited as "underrated" that I don't think we can still give them that accolade.

So then we need to find a wrestler who was never celebrated to the level their talent deserved, and has generally fallen under the radar of critical acclaim. The wrestler that ticks these boxes for me is Tim Donst.

Before discussing Tim, I need to lay some cards on the table. My love of Donst comes from his Chikara run to 2013 and his brief runs in DGUSA and Evolve. I know since this, he has been active in CZW and AIW, but as they are promotions I don't really follow, I've only seen the odd promo/match from him in the last 6 years.

Tim Donst had it all. He had a solid amateur background so his technical base was sound. He was trained by Quackenbush, Chris Hero, and Skayde too and you could see it in his style.

But most importantly he had tonnes and tonnes of charisma. Firstly, this showed in the ring. His facial expressions and body language, even early on his career, tied you to him.

As his career progressed, he got even better at this. It's not too controversial to say that the most acclaimed in-ring style in wrestling history is that of 90s All Japan. Though I'm not equating Donst to the Pillars of Heaven, there is a part of his style that had echoes of this period.

Despite him being thousands of miles away, and dressed like an amateur wrestler (at least for his early run), he seemed to embody that "Fighting Spirit" part of the "King's Road" style. By that, I meant he really made you feel like he looked beat - he could emote that so well.

And when he turned heel, he could do the opposite. He made it look like his opponent was done, whether he was or wasn't.

When Tim turned heel, his character and promos reached the level of his in-ring work. Whether in BDK or later in The Nest of Donst, he felt like the total package (not Lex Luger, just well rounded).

Unfortunately, after this, I inadvertently stopped following his career. This is why this piece reads like an obituary when I'm talking about an active wrestler.

I've decided to change this and will use isolation to catch up with his stuff. Then maybe I can start writing about him in the present tense rather than the past.

I hope I see the wrestler I loved. Maybe if I'm really lucky he'll be even better. And if I'm really really really lucky, maybe other people will start realising how good he is too.

Then, like the other wrestlers I mentioned at the start, he will get the plaudits he deserves, rather than receiving this strange, contradictory, and opaque moniker that is "most underrated".

ROSS CASEY - TK COOPER

The emergence of TK Cooper during the original rise of BritWres was a beautiful tale. Having heard about the buzz of PROGRESS wrestling, he checks it out on demand and is so enthralled he takes the decision to fly to the UK from New Zealand alongside his girlfriend Dahlia Black.

They are booked in a tag team match in the second ever PTNL show and immediately impress the UK fans and bookers with their Rated R style persona and wrestling ability.

To say that TK Cooper was one of my favourites to hate would be an understatement. His wrestling was great, but the way he would look at the camera as he kissed his girlfriend, constantly made you feel like you weren't shit and then he found a penchant for punching Dahlia's female opponents for fun.

He was an absolute star at being the cocky shit heel. He exhuded the confidence needed to pull off his persona and I would have made him a firm pick to sign for NXT UK. As one of the best promos in BritWres, I would have fancied him to go far too.

However, injury and personal problems have plagued him until recently. He fell behind the pack and lost the aura that made him so watchable - largely thanks to losing Dahlia, who retired.

Without her to flaunt, his character felt like it was missing part of the puzzle. But these past 12 months he has started to find himself again. I know it's there. I saw it for myself.

That is the reason that I make TK Cooper my most underrated wrestler. Because he was easily capable of breaking out with the rest of our stars during the boom of Brit Wres, and for a plethora of reasons he didn't.

But he will - and I look forward to the rest of the world finding out what we did back in 2015. TK Cooper is a star in waiting.

30 DAY CHALLENGE

DAY 1 - FAVOURITE MALE WRESTLER

DAY 2 - FAVOURITE FEMALE WRESTLER

DAY 3 - FAVOURITE MOMENT YOU'VE SEEN LIVE

DAY 4 - FAVOURITE TAG TEAM

DAY 5 - YOUR FIRST WRESTLING MEMORY

DAY 6 - FAVOURITE FACTION

DAY 7 - FAVOURITE PROMOTION

DAY 8 - FAVOURITE MANAGER

DAY 9 - FAVOURITE COMMENTARY TEAM

DAY 10 - FAVOURITE ENTRANCE THEME