The Scrappy / Professional Wrestling

This section should not be confused with X-Pac Heat. If fans Love to Hate the character, or wish to see someone beat them, they're a heel. If fans hate seeing the performer behind the character, then it's X-Pac Heat. If fans just hate the character or direction regardless of their alignment but not hate the person, then proceed here as The Scrappy.

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Examples

WWF (Before May 6th, 2002)

• Brian Adams as Crush of Demolition, as the three-man team era marked the beginning of the end of the team, as Ax would soon leave and Crush and Smash jobbed out.
• Doink the Clown's monster heel run in 1993 is seen as one of the best things about the New Generation era, and "Evil Doink" is remembered almost universally positively. As a face, though, he is just as hated as heel Doink is loved, primarily for being a slapstick kid-appeal character. This is likely because the who wrestled as Heel Doink was a great worker whereas Face Doink's worker had less attitude and ability.
• The ur-example of wrestling would be Sean (X-Pac/Syxx/1-2-3 Kid) Waltman. Best known for naming the trope X-Pac Heat. To explain this a bit - Waltman had been part of the mega-popular DGenerationX, and gotten very popular as part of it. His star faded though, but his gimmick didn't evolve. He took up plenty of TV time and rarely lost, despite not really getting a push or doing anything interesting. Pretty soon the fans just didn't want to watch him. There were actually a few incidents where Waltman pulled himself out of the Scrappy Heap briefly, such as teaming with Jeff Hardy and doing the Hardy Boyz trademark double team moves with him, or a very good television match against Eddie Guerrero. But his gimmick still wouldn't evolve.
• As Rocky Maivia, The Rock had many haters. After his Face–Heel Turn, he became the guy we all know and love.
• Most of the IWC really does not like Stephanie McMahon, especially her run in The Authority. While many people can appreciate that she inherited at least some of the promo skills that made her father such a great "character", almost nobody in the IWC likes her character. It is almost unheard of for Stephanie to not use those promo skills to verbally humiliate and emasculate every person she talks to, regardless of who they are; whether it's jobbers, champions, or John Cena, no matter if she or the person she's talking to is heel or face, it doesn't matter, as she almost always makes whoever she's talking down to look like a complete fool. However, probably the thing people hate most about Stephanie is that she's essentially untouchable in almost everything she does. While male wrestlers are understandably not allowed any physical retribution against her, they normally aren't allowed any other kind of retaliation either and the best they can do is refute her insults or insult them back. The women, on the other hand, are normally completely cowed by her dressing downs, regardless if they are heel or face.

WWE (May 6th, 2002 - 2009)

• Big Show is one of the longest-tenured and most versatile big men in WWE history. But most smarks hold nothing but contempt for him, and view him as a boring, one-dimensional character who is recycled into the same role every time he turns from face to heel and back again, and that he's being pushed over younger, more versatile talent like Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler, thanks in large part to being one of Vince McMahon's favorites due to McMahon having a fascination with giants.
• The Great Khali, who pulls double duty as The Giant and a Captain Ethnic. His horrible accent quickly dropped him to Ethnic Scrappy, and though he's the tallest guy on the roster, that's basically the only thing he has. Like many giants, he's got acromegaly, but unlike, say, André the Giant, who either managed to be incredibly agile anyway or countered his slowness with a sense of purpose and weight, the Great Khali can't wrestle. Period. He moves like he's about to keel over. He seems to have a hard time with putting one foot in front of the other. He's been called "the worst wrestler to win the heavyweight belt," and he's only gotten worse since that win. He's popular in India, but anywhere else, he's dueling Cena for the title of top Scrappy.
• Try and find one fan of Hornswoggle in the IWC. It would be easier to find a needle in a haystack. In particular, there are four specific angles of his that make smarks sick to their stomach; namely, being the final WWE Cruiserweight Title holder, the "Illegitimate Son" angle, his one-sided feud with Chavo Guerrero Jr., and being the Anonymous RAW General Manager. To give a good example how much people hate Hornswoggle, two of the aforementioned angles won WrestleCrap's Gooker Award for the worst angle of the year (the Illegitimate Son and Hornswoggle/Chavo angles).
• Triple H. From 2002-2005 he was the most hated man in wrestling because of how Raw always focused around him. Even when he wasn't the champ, he was still the focal point of and whenever he did lose it, it'd only be a matter of time before he got it back. Every show pretty much opened with him cutting a long promo (One time bringing out a a chair to sit on letting you know he'll be out there for a while) Booked to be invincible, and squashing guys effortlessly, you can count the number of times he was on the losing end of a show on one hand. One time he lost the title, only for it to be vacated due to controversy surrounding the finish and winds up winning it back! Fans in the audience and IWC grew to hate him and even today there are those who can't stand him. Later, his penchant for inserting himself into hot feuds (most recently CM Punk vs. John Cena and Bryan Danielson vs. John Cena), as well as leading a reviled stable in The Authority, which screwed over faces and never lost for two and a half long years, caused the hatred to rise again. Even though he is A Father to His Men to the wrestlers in WWE NXT, it will take some time until he is fully Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
• John Cena is the franchise's biggest example of a Base-Breaking Character and remained that way, walking back and fourth between this and Ensemble Dark Horse over and over again. As a heel, he worked a Pretty Fly for a White Guy gimmick and was extremely popular... then suddenly he turned face and the fans were expected to take the formerly phony hip-hop posturing seriously. Then the WWE bookers started pushing him specifically to appeal to younger fans. Nowadays, fans mainly like Cena - he regularly gets awards in wrestling magazines - but they continue to boo him mainly because the WWE bookers try so hard to get the fans to cheer for him, to the point of eventually resorting to having a few legends from past eras either putting him over or even outright jobbing for him, a move that alienated a good portion of WWE's old-time fandom.
  • This whole attitude towards Cena may be best exemplified by ECW country.
  • Well, at least Cena acknowledge this AND did state in a promo before One Night Stand that he knew he wouldn't be welcomed in any ECW arena and would probably spark a riot if he won. Then said he was going to win. Maybe that reaction was wanted. That said, even taking into account the lessened vitriol toward Cena personally over the years, there are plenty of wrestling fans who think that Cena legitimately rubbed them the wrong way. He's even been booed at shows hosted by promotions he's never worked for, and likely never will if there is any honesty in his promo about working for another promotion "tarnishing" the WWE title belt.
• LayCool used to be this: not very talented, often mean-spirited and hateful and Generic Doomsday Villainesses (due to one of them being married to The Undertaker). An unholy combination of Scrappiness. The only major saving grace for them is Layla Took a Level in Badass while Michelle is a gifted and charismatic comedian.
• The Bella Twins, particularly Nikki, have become this thanks in large part to Nikki's relationship with John Cena. Nikki later became rescued after having to take time off to recover from a career-threatening neck injury.
• The Miz was absolutely hated when he debuted on WWE TV in 2006. Then, he was Rescued from the Scrappy Heap via his team with John Morrison. Then he became divisive when WWE chose to push him even though Morrison seemed to have a higher ceiling. Then once again completely escaped Morrison's shadow and established himself as a breakout solo heel. Then he won the WWE title and again reached Base Breaker status. Though The Miz is nowadays highly respected among the roster, his run as WWE Champion is looked back upon in an extremely negative light; as one of the biggest embarrassments in WWE history with both his title reign and WrestleMania defense against John Cena cited amongst the worst of all time.
• Vickie Guerrero, at least as a character. An untalented, shrill and downright ugly woman that had multiple segments of a SINGLE Smackdown! dedicated to her and whatever she was doing at the time. As "GM" of the Smackdown! brand, Guerrero hogged the spotlight on a show that was mainly know for featuring a lot of up-and-coming stars and giving them shots at the big time. Her inability to act and properly play a crowd, besides some of the cheapest-brand Heat you could find, turned many off to the Smackdown! brand during her tenure as its GM.
  • It doesn't help that she constantly yells "EXCUSE ME!" in that shrill voice.

WWE (2010-2019)

• Once Alberto Del Rio won the WWE Championship from CM Punk and cut the latter's red-hot angle short, he went from being viewed as the next big heel to near universally hated by the IWC. Backstage troubles really soured the IWC on him, including an incident where Del Rio allegedly slapped a WWE worker and his also alleged domestic abuse of Paige. Going up against fan-favorite CM Punk didn't do Del Rio any favors.
• WWE NXT's Bo Dallas, especially on /wooo/, as despite being in WWE development his entire career, he has failed to live up to the push he's gotten (he even has a win over Wade Barrett). In fact, when he defeated Big E Langston for the NXT Championship, the audience turned their backs on him.
  • The writers eventually gave up on getting him popular as a fan favorite, and his gimmick became a Scrappy who thinks everyone loves him.
  • And now he's firmly in Ensemble Dark Horse territory. Not bad for someone who was firmly on top of the Scrappy heap just a year prior.
• Eva Marie from Total Divas has gotten a lot of hate from fans for a few reasons. One of the reasons for the hatred is because Eva Marie has absolutely no in-ring skills (if you watch her wrestle, first of all sorry, but you'll notice any move she does besides weak-looking punches and kicks are botched in some way about 90% of the time), yet she's a newbie who is able to automatically be on WWE RAW while more talented female wrestlers are still on WWE NXT or FCW. Another reason why Eva Marie gets hate is because of her ignorance of the wrestling business, which is mainly demonstrated in Total Divas when she refers to Jinder Mahal as "Ginger Mahal" and hometown of Randy Orton as Los Angeles. Fans question whether Eva Marie is in the wrestling business for the passion or for the title of a "Diva". There's even an internet meme dedicated to Eva Marie's ignorance about wrestling, titled "Clueless Eva Marie".
• John Laurinaitis is the most recent example. In Real Life he was already disliked for being an incompetent stooge of Vince McMahon who primarily only has a job because he's such a suck-up. But it wasn't until 2011 that Laurinaitis made his WWE television debut, and currently most people wish he had just stayed behind-the-scenes. Initially it seemed like he was going to play Vince's right-hand evil minion similar to Brisco and Patterson back in the AE in order to mirror his Real Life role. However Vince went on another hiatus from television yet Laurinaitis remained behind. It quickly became clear that he was a terrible onscreen performer due to his lack of mic ability, poor acting skills, and having zero charisma. Despite this he stayed on TV and was played up as the person behind the conspiracy against Vince's son-in-law, Triple H. This arc was scrapped, but Vince still came back and appointed Laurinaitis as the new GM of RAW. He INSTANTLY became a one-dimensional and bland heel general manager, and finally ended up feuding with CM Punk. It didn't last long as the feud was a flop, and they teased Laurinaitis being fired, only for him to not only keep his job, but become permanent GM of RAW. Things went downhill when he feuded with Smackdown GM Teddy Long for control of both shows, which obviously Laurinaitis won, making him GM of both shows. After this Laurinaitis became the center of attention for the show. It's finally reached the point where now he's headlining a PPV against John Cena and winning. He's a blatant Mr. McMahon wannabe, but is really just an Expy of Vickie Guerrero, as in an annoying and untalented performer is pushed to the moon and made the center of attention and focus of the program simply and only manages to get X-Pac Heat due to them being a terrible performer, though WWE pretends it's heel heat and uses it as an excuse to push them.
• Kane can be a "love him or hate him" type of wrestler, but there are very few people who like his "Corporate Kane" schtick. Being tied to The Authority, an unpopular Power Stable as any, doesn't help.
• WWE's English commentary table has seated its fair share of these through the years, and in general is very unpopular in much of the 2010's, to the point that some people actually say WWE programming is only watchable with the audio muted. This especially became true when Michael Cole and JBL became the two mainstays, as many people hate how their dynamic mostly comes off as pointless bickering that does nothing but distract from the action.
  • Michael Cole is the name that pops up most frequently when people are asked who WWE's worst commentator is. He frequently makes boneheaded comments like referring to Bret Hart breaking his leg as the worst night of his life (why, yes, this was years after his brother Owen's fatal accident) and referring to Vickie Guerrero's tribute to her late husband at Wrestlemania XXVI as a "hog splash." Despite all this, Cole has maintained a unbroken commentary position with the WWE since 1999, something none of the other current commentators can say. Thus whenever anyone puts a beating on him, be it Bryan Danielson or Jim Ross, expect cheers. Lots and lots of cheers. This is also not to forget Cole's stint in late 2010 and early 2011 where he turned heel and seemed to be so obsessed with The Miz that some fans interpreted it as Cole literally being in love with him. His heel gimmick in general was hated for going on far too long and being far too obnoxious, and even won the 2011 Gooker Award.
  • Byron Saxton drifts in and out of this role, often being criticized for coming off as a clueless wimp who adds nothing to the commentary table and tends to sit quietly while his broadcast partners argue around him.
  • Josh Mathews was hated for his run on WWE commentary for similar reasons to Byron Saxton above, but his run in TNA is arguably even worse. Instead of a wimp that gets cowed by his more obnoxious broadcast partners, Mathews in TNA has been described as "Michael Cole-lite", who instead comes off as an obnoxious hypocrite who insults WWE despite still using the same broadcast language and terminology that he was trained to use in WWE and Cole still uses.
  • The biggest scrappy, however, isn't a commentator but rather Vince McMahon, largely because he's telling his commentators what to say. The biggest evidence to support this is the Beast in the East special, which McMahon didn't produce and saw Cole & Saxton (Yes, the same two men mentioned above) praised for their work. This became a consistent pattern, where the commentary always faced a tremendous uptick in quality whenever Vince wasn't producing the show, something that only became permanent when Vince finally retired and the more easy-going Triple H took over creative.
• Roman Reigns became this following his winning of the 2015 Royal Rumble Match, since he won over the extremely popular Daniel Bryan and a number of other Ensemble Darkhorses like Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose, and Damien Sandow, and his victory made it obvious that WWE was trying to push him as the next top babyface of the company. Many people felt he hadn't been around long enough to deserve this, and he subsequently became a Creator's Pet. It took Reigns and his family receiving death threats from Trolls in real life that the fans are starting to reconsider Reigns not only as a character, but as a person, citing that he's just doing his job in WWE, even though he's forced to end The Undertaker's in-ring career (although The Undertaker is already willing to retire prior to the WrestleMania 33 main event) as Vince instructed. It also helps that he's getting The Worf Effect in the latter parts of 2017 and his feud with Cena fixes the flaws of his character. All of the negative reactions that Reigns received ended in October of 2018, when he went on hiatus to battle his leukemia, and it wasn't until his heel turn at SummerSlam 2020 when he was finally Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
• A strong case could be made for Mojo Rawley in NXT, whose gimmick consists mostly of running and jumping around while yelling things. The fact that his moveset consisted mostly of clotheslines and basic moves didn't help, along with his having what some felt was the lamest finishing move around, which was just landing ass-first on a downed opponent's chest. Many fans consider him the worst example of WWE's tendency of pushing former football players over actual wrestlers, stemming from his being pushed very strongly in 2013. Mojo's gimmick has even been described as being the Ultimate Warrior minus any of the things that made Warrior entertaining.
• CFO$ were this for a bit in the mid 2010s, having taken over for long-runner Jim Johnston as WWE's in-house theme song composer. Unfortunately, most of their songs from when they first took over are seen as generic, repetitive, and overly electric. However, as of 2016, these criticisms have faded away due to their output improving in quality.
• Dana Brooke made her NXT TV debut in early 2015. She wasn't very well-liked due to being seen as simply far too green to deserve a regular spot on the NXT roster. The fact she was almost instantly added to the opening title sequence following her debut (while some big names such as Enzo Amore still were not present and others like Finn Balor took weeks or months to be added to it) put her dangerously close to being a Creator's Pet. Thankfully, between her finding a spot as The Dragon to Emma, her vast improvement both in and out of the ring shown on Breaking Ground, and an incredibly well-received match with Asuka at Takeover: Respect, she seems to have won over some of the viewers. However, she quickly fell back into scrappy status following her call-up to the main roster in 2016. Emma went down with a back injury so Dana was paired with then women's champion Charlotte Flair instead. Without Emma to cover up her weaknesses, her inexperience showed itself and many accuse her of being a Creator's Pet and completely undeserving of being on TV. Being paired together with Charlotte only made this worse given Charlotte's perception as a Creator's Pet herself with an overly long stint as the top ladies' champion laced with dirty finishes galore which was so hated it was the start of Ric Flair's slide into Scrappydom before Dana was even involved. After settling into a nice role as a valet for Titus Worldwide, she's mostly become a Base-Breaking Character.
• Can a title be a scrappy? If so, then the WWE World heavyweight Championship, merged in late-2014 became this in 2014 post-SummerSlam became this. Why? Because Brock Lesnar won the championship and started the era of no-showing while champion, causing even more inconsistencies with the 30-day clause. Normally, if a wrestler is unable to wrestle within 30-days, they would be forced to vacate the title. Lesnar didn't even appear on TV for 4 months, causing backlash with favoritism within fans and wrestlers. Later in the years, it was Vince McMahon who made that decision for business reasons, redirecting X-Pac Heat to him instead.
• Like above, can a title belt be a scrappy? If so, the WWE Universal Championship has been one ever since it was first unveiled after the reintroduction of the brand split in 2016. First it was due to its gaudy, all red everything design and silly name; however, it soon became even more hated when there wasn't a single decent championship reign to be had with it. The first champion, Finn Bálor, was forced to vacate it literally the day after he won it thanks to injury. Kevin Owens won the vacated title, but his reign was overshadowed by his friendship storyline with Chris Jericho (particularly "The List"), not helped by Owens being a chicken shit heel instead of the badass sociopathic killer heel that made him a star, and it unceremoniously ended in a Curb-Stomp Battle against Goldberg, who himself only won it so the company could have an excuse to do a rematch between him and Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 33. Lesnar's reign was by far the longest, exceeding even CM Punk's historic 434-day reign as WWE Champion, but was tarnished by the fact that Lesnar barely showed up for even a quarter of that, and that the only reason he even had it that long was because the fans still refused to accept Roman Reigns as the top face. When Reigns finally won it, the fans were relieved, as that meant they had a champion who showed up every week, and it helped that Reigns was more likely to lose it than Lesnar in a reasonable time frame. Reigns did in fact lose the title about two months later...after being forced to vacate it and go on hiatus to battle his leukemia. The company then put the title back on Lesnar, who would hold on to the title until dropping it to Seth Rollins at WrestleMania 35. However, this didn't last long as Lesnar cashed in his Money in the Bank contract at Extreme Rules 2019 to once again become champion. Thankfully, the following month at SummerSlam, Rollins defeated Lesnar to become champion for the second time...only for a bad combination of questionable booking to finally reach its zenith, along with comments he made in real life, and hit him with X-Pac Heat, forcing him to drop the title and turn heel. It was around this point that people were seriously considering the possibility that the belt might be cursed.
• Baron Corbin became hated during his run as Raw General Manager in the fall of 2018. Though fans would have to argue that the creative team had placed his character in an incredibly difficult position by the end of the year (having been put in a recycled heel-authority storyline), many people had noted how his in-ring/promo work during this time had become much lazier and average in comparison to his run on SmackDown and NXT. It went to the point that all bad things happening at Raw began to be blamed squarely on him in-universe and on-screen. Even after being removed from power, many agree his role in a heel stable with Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley isn't working either, due to its utterly generic and dull booking.
• Shane McMahon gradually devolved into one of the most despised people in the entire company ever since he began using the "Best in the World" moniker (in which he won a tournament that he didn't even enter in the first place). The main criticism was the fact that he took up significant time on both RAW and SmackDown (despite only being the SmackDown Commissioner, which was now barely even acknowledged). Another complaint was his feud with The Miz, in which Shane never lost a match to Miz and is somehow being build as an Invincible Villain despite being way older and less in shape (he wins most of his matches by sheer luck). It doesn't help he emasculates much of the roster, constantly bragging how he is the Best in the World with the gag having long overstayed its welcome. This reign of terror came to an end on the October 4, 2019 episode of SmackDown, when Shane lost a Career vs. Career Ladder match against Kevin Owens and he disappeared for months before resurfacing as the host of "RAW Underground."
• Ronda Rousey. Originally was a Guest, she became a full-time star for the one year she was active in the WWE. Having no prior experience with professional wrestling outside of actual MMA, Ronda was given literally the royal treatment due to her mass popularity in the MMA. She was able to get massive training from professionals, go into Wrestlemania submitting Stephanie McMahon, not even bothering to earn her stripes in NXT, look like a monster, win the RAW Women's Championship (albeit not immediately), a near undefeated streak, and make history as one of the first women to main event Wrestlemania. While she initially started off relatively popular (in part due to her high-quality performances), wrestling fans gradually grew irritated by her borderline Invincible Hero booking as it made the rest of the Women's Division look bad (with the exception of Becky Lynch, who unexpected surged in popularity post-Summerslam 2018). See below for present.

WWE (2020-Present)

• Rob Gronkowski. See Guests below.
• Bad Bunny. See Guests below.
• Braun Strowman. While he did finally win a world title from Goldberg at Wrestlemania 36, his booking quickly went downhill for his character, being Out of Focus and suffering from Badass Decay. This was most evident in dropping the title to Bray Wyatt in August and be defeated twice by a now-heel Roman Reigns. After being drafted to the Raw brand, he would compete in several WWE Championship matches only to get shockingly released from the company in June 2021.
• The WWE 24/7 Championship belt became this in the pandemic era. The segments with it and R-Truth were initially seen as legitimately funny and entertaining, but by the time the pandemic hit, most of the IWC agree that the joke has become repetitive and are tired of how much time is being devoted to the thing, with many wishing that the WWE would just retire the belt already. They'd get their wish in late 2022 when the WWE website officially listed the 24/7 title as being retired.
• Ronda Rousey. Her winning the Royal Rumble 2022 after a long absence was a massive spit in the face to the current surviving female roster. It is likely that the fans will see a Becky Vs. Ronda rematch, but 1-on-1 this time but instead, Ronda chooses Charlotte Flair, another person in the company with significance X-Pac Heat. While after 2019 Rhonda Rousey sometimes cheered by fans when she being as a face, however, at SummerSlam 2022, after a match where Liv Morgan winning by pinfall despite submitting to Rousey's armbar while her shoulders were down, Rousey turned heel since 2019 by attacking Morgan and the referee, receiving a massive hatred by fans that took X-Pac Heat and The Scrappy up to eleven.
• Brock Lesnar in 2022. Previously, he would have been classified as X-Pac Heat. However, this is a rather special case, considering that people like his farmer-like gimmick, his recent talk show interview with Pat McAfee, but hate the typical booking:
  • Royal Rumble 2022. It does have its similarities with Ronda Rousey, being a part-timer winning the Rumble. However, Brock's sneaky number 30 entrant and being the one to win the Rumble created multiple rage from wrestling fans and exposing WWE's weakness to create proper storylines and proper character development with the current roster that they keep releasing. Normally, a person who is world champion at the Royal Rumble PPV time should not enter the Rumble due to backlash. However, history repeats of disappointment with Lesnar losing the title, but only this time Lesnar entered number 30 and actually won it. This is actually not the fault of Lesnar, but the backstage producers for changing the Rumble results multiple times. This was supposedly the result of what Day 1 was supposed to be at that timeline, but the writing was very poorly handled.
  • Elimination Chamber. The moment Lesnar mentioned entering the Chamber without any build-up already spelled title vs. title match for Wrestlemania 38. Many were hoping that he did not win as this has never happened before. As predicted and feared, not only did Lesnar win the Chamber, but he eliminated everyone by himself (outside of Lashley who was legitimately injured).
  • Moving on to Summerslam, many fans wonder if Brock and Roman are just going to fight it out for yet another hundred times. See Roman Reigns below.
• Roman Reigns yet again, post-Wrestlemania. While he still gets praise for the Tribal Chief gimmick, the current storylines have him as a part-timer with no more challengers to contend with for the Undisputed World Heavyweight Championship. As of today, he has only put the belts on the line against Riddle, with Lesnar having his rematch at Summerslam, making this the 2nd time he will have a Pay-Per-View match since Wrestlemania Backlash. While Lesnar gained X-Pac Heat for part-timing as champ, many are seeing this as the fault of the WWE for not creating stars to contend with Reigns at this time, combined with critical releases and lack of booking efforts. Things also got worse as fans finally noticed that his title matches always have a dirty finish of his cousins interfering to bail him out without fail.

WCW

• David Arquette. See Guests below.
• Then there are those cases where the problem isn't that the audience rejects someone, it's that the other wrestlers hate that person.
  • Disco Inferno was a rare case of this happening In-Universe, where it was the wrestlers who felt this way about him. On the August 23, 2000 WCW Thunder, WCW Commissioner Ernest "The Cat" Miller insisted that, despite the other wrestlers' wishes, he couldn't fire Disco because he had a "no-cut contract." This led to a scene of the Filthy Animals walking out of Miller's office and coming face to face with Jimmy Hart and a hallway full of wrestlers and other WCW employees. Hart asked and the Animals had to tell everyone that they couldn't do anything.
  • Disco's tag team partner Alex Wright went through this as well, as a lot of wrestlers resented him being pushed so hard for someone so young.
  • Miss Patricia, a valet in Raven's Nest in ECW, qualifies for reasons similar to those for Alex Wright. Apparently, the rest of the roster didn't exactly feel bad when she left.

Impact Wrestling

• Lacey Von Erich is regarded as one of the worst female wrestlers in all of history to step into the ring. She's arguably even more incompetent in the ring than the WWE Divas at the time, botched moves as often as she connected with them, and a failure at selling even the most basic of moves. The only person ever to display less in-ring talent than her in TNA history is Jenna Morasca. The worst part? She's got enough natural athleticism that there's no reason she couldn't pull a Trish Stratus and become good, but because of her wrestling pedigree (being part of the Von Erich family), she has never actually gone through wrestling training. It didn't help that she insisted on following in her family's tradition by using the Iron Claw as her Finishing Move. Kurrgan, a 7'0, 350 lbs. monster, had started using it back in late 1997 in WWE, calling it The Paralyzer, and wasn't able to get it over. If Kurrgan, with his huge hands, couldn't get people to buy into the move, then there was no way Lacey, at 5'10 and 155 lbs., with noticeably small hands, was going to make it believable. It also didn't help that she was a member of The Beautiful People, who had each been the scrappy at some point of their career (unless you consider hired gun Moose to be a member, Cute Kip got enough for being another WWE transplant, Angelina Love for being "too skinny", Velvet Sky for "botching" and Madison Rayne for a screechy voice, for a summary).
• Brooke Hogan. See Guests below.
• TNA's Dixie Carter. The woman has no charisma or business sense and would not work heel, even though TNA's fans and haters alike despised her. She had Tommy Dreamer beg on national TV for one last chance to show the world about ECW (something that did not happen for WWE's One Night Stand, because if it did, the Mutants would have destroyed Vince McMahon). Oh, and as pointed out by Spoony, she has only one facial expression, which is now known as "Dixie Carter Face".
  • She's also easily manipulated and delusional, ignoring the problems going on in TNA, her calling out the roster and telling them to step it up when at that time TNA was putting on quality shows and matches, and it went down the drain once she wanted to take a more active role in the company despite having no clue how to run the business. Dixie Carter's Face–Heel Turn did help out somewhat, when it culminated in Bully Ray putting her through a table, finally ending her career.
• Jeff Hardy's Epic Fail moment that was the Victory Road PPV, where Jeff came out to wrestle for TNA's title completely destroyed on drugs. After that, people have started to migrate away from Jeff.
• Wes Brisco and Garrett Bischoff, another example of Nepotism. Garrett even was Captain of a Lockdown team in 2012 being captain of guys like AJ Styles, Austin Aries, Rob Van Dam, and Mr. Anderson which obviously didn't go so well with the fans.
• Bubba The Love Sponge (a trashy net radio personality). See Guests below.

Ring of Honor

• Jeff Hardy during the early part of the 21st century. He was mainly Mr. Fanservice, and the male fanbase resented him for this. Also he was demotivated and drugged up. Things bottomed out when he made an appearance at Ring of Honor. High pitched squeals of female fans who'd gone to the show just to see Jeff, mixed with the roughly 1000 ROH regulars chanting "We Want Matt" and "Don't Come Back" at him.
• When Konnan went to Ring of Honor, he got the same treatment. For that matter, so did Matt Hardy, although he stuck around for a few more matches and put some of the Ring of Honor regulars over, redeeming himself in their eyes.
• As for wrestlers who had an extended stay in Ring Of Honor, the most obvious example is poor Xavier. Already seen as an inferior version of Low Ki, Xavier went on to become the focal point of the otherwise well received Prophecy stable, even over The Leader Christopher Daniels, when he began feuding with the more popular Ki and won. On the plus side, his hatred made the ascension of Samoa Joe all the more appreciated.

Other Promotions

• Vampiro is one of the most popular foreign luchadors to ever work in Mexico, but there was one enterprise in the country where the fans didn't accept him. Lucha Libre Internacional's fan base disliked Vampiro so much that many swore off LLI and The Universal Wrestling Association entirely after he defeated El Canek, who had been LLI's top star for over a decade, and won the UWA Heavyweight Championship belt. LLI/UWA realized their mistake soon enough and had Canek win the belt back, but LLI's ratings, merchandise and ticket sales never recovered as the newer enterprise AAA gradually pushed it out of business. To Vampiro's benefit and LLI's detriment, Vampiro experienced his usual popularity while working for AAA.
• After he was finally out of New Japan Pro-Wrestling affairs, consensus was Tadao Yasuda was the most hated IWGP champion of all time. That doesn't change the fact Brock Lesnar's run with the belt was loathed. From the get go he was brought by Simon Inoki, the son-in-law of Antonio Inoki who almost led NJPW to bankruptcy and Lesnar's very presence was seen as a ripoff of All Japan Pro Wrestling's use of Goldberg two years before hand, which itself was seen as a failure. Booking didn't help as Lesnar won the belt in a triple threat match, which the New Japan fan base felt was an insult to Puroresu tradition and then, as would later become characteristic, Brock Lesnar did not work a full-time schedule, giving the impression he was a slacker(former and succeeding outsider champions would at least defend the belt overseas or something when they weren't at NJPW shows). Lesnar's title matches were well below the quality expected of an IWGP champion and he refused to drop the belt, trying to hold on to it even after being officially stripped of it. But perhaps worst of all, he refused to take Antonio Inoki's fighting spirit slap.
• Although the promotion Dragon Gate is popular with fans, it is something of a Scrappy to many other pro wrestlers. Dragon Gate's matches generally end with flat out barrages of finishing moves rather than a finisher. Many other Japanese wrestlers see this particular style as flat out disrespectful to the business itself.
• Lince Dorado, best known for wrestling in CHIKARA. When he debuted he was pushed as a very big deal face, and ended up coming down with the nickname "Cena Dorado." Chikara then went through a period of alternating between pushing Lince like any other face rookie and pushing him like a top of the card wrestler. He fairly quickly became The Scrappy of the promotion. This attitude was in full effect at King of Trios 2009, when Lince's team (The Future is Now) was defeated by the eventual winners of the tournament (Friends in Similar Tights, aka Team FIST); despite being the heels, FIST got cheered for taking out TFiN. Lince was eventually depushed. A string of generally improved performances and a well executed Face–Heel Turn nearly resulted in Lince being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap. Then he got fired for no-showing a card and/or appearing in a video without his mask.
• In Progress Wrestling there's Lion Kid, a wrestler who was on only two shows; whenever someone jokingly suggests he returns on the Facebook group, the idea is met with disdain from pretty much everyone.

Guests

Generally, non-wrestlers or guests will receive this kind of heat due to companies wanting to bring in star power to increase the ratings. For the most part, the blame all falls under the promotion's decision to bring them on board and prioritize them higher than their current roster.

• David Arquette. winning the WCW title caused "Nitro" ratings to plummet a full five points, as pretty much everyone took umbrage at a guy who wasn't actually a professional wrestler becoming the World Heavyweight Champion of such - all to promote a film that few saw and fewer liked. Ticket sales dropped off as fans boycotted the show. Arquette would redeem himself in the eyes of the fan base by quietly donating his WCW salary to injured wrestlers and/or the families of dead wrestlers, but his run remains one of the most spectacular failures in the history of the industry. The booker responsible, Vince Russo, has never been forgiven, and by giving himself an onscreen role where he also won the WCW title, he condemned himself to be forever a scrappy in the eyes of pro wrestling fans, especially to Jim Cornette. Also helping Arquette's case but hurting Russo's at the same time is that fact that Arquette himself voiced that it was a terrible idea, knowing fans would hate it, but Russo insisted on it and he reluctantly went with it when he realized there was no budging. When the man who your plan will put in place as your champion tells you himself that said plan is a bad idea, maybe that's a cue that you should adjust it to work, if not pull the plug altogether. What made fans respect Arquette even more is that he went in the indies to work as in the wrestling business.
• Brooke Hogan. She is widely hated, as the only reason she was employed by TNA is because she was the daughter of Hulk. She's basically a black hole, neither possessing or inheriting any of her father's personality or charisma, sucking the life right out of any segment whenever she opens her mouth. Getting put in a Main Event angle with Bully Ray as well as being in charge of the Knockouts only made the fanbase hate her more.
• Bubba the Love Sponge. He had absolutely no business being on a wrestling show. However, he did simply because he's a total mark for Hulk Hogan and The Hulkster proceeded to cram the obnoxious jerk down everyone's throat. That punch Mick Foley gave him before leaving TNA? That was very real, and actually broke his nose. Keep in mind, Foley is said to be one of the nicest guys in the business and even he couldn’t stand him.
• Rob Gronkowski. Him, a non-wrestler, winning the WWE 24/7 Championship Belt made the belt a Franchise Killer. He held it for a record-breaking 57-67 days (longest title reign), but was inactive for all of those days. The belt's charm has not recovered until R-Truth revitalized it for a while before retiring it for good.
• Bad Bunny. The WWE has been overpromoting the non-wrestler Bad Bunny to attract non-wrestling fans, much to the wrestling fan's anger. Bad Bunny has received the most sales, a lot of screen time, the 24/7 Championship, and very high rower rankings. The fans aren't mad at Bad Bunny in general, but mad at the WWE's priorities of not utilizing their roster. He himself would be rescued from the heap after some well-received matches, with his match against Damian Priest at Backlash 2023 being the best match of the night and showing off Bad Bunny's genuine love for wrestling.

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