Alberto del Rio

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Jimmy Redman]

I will say, his best WWE stuff is very good indeed.

 

vs Rey, Smackdown October 2010

The entire Christian feud, all over SD and the ladder match at ER 2011

vs Edge at WM27 is a great opener

vs Cena, LMS at Vengeance 2011 in the broken ring - interesting premise but also a great gimmick brawl

vs Cena, Christmas-themed gimmick match - tremendous fun

vs Big Show, LMS Smackdown Jan 2013

vs Dolph, Payback 2013 double turn match

 

And I could be forgetting stuff.

[Matt D]

His CMLL stuff does not help his case. I remember his first squash match when he came into WWE and everyone going nuts for the wink followed by shoving a guy off the apron.

[Jimmy Redman]

That was a great spot.

 

There's also vs Punk at Survivor Series 2011.

[InYourCase]

I truly think he's one of the worst wrestlers ever. The worst wrestler that has been nominated, for sure.

 

He does nothing convincing. His body language in the ring is so off-putting that it kills any interest I could possibly have in his work. Lazy. Awkward seller. He's not good.

[El McKell]

I wouldn't ever consider voting for Del Rio, lazy, boring on a week to week basis, his best stuff is good but not stand out at all, and he was part of one of worst tv matches of the decade that nobody seems to talk about w/The Miz & Tommy Dreamer vs 3MB.

That being said I think Case is way off to suggest he's the worst wrestler nominated.

[InYourCase]

 

That being said I think Case is way off to suggest he's the worst wrestler nominated.

I can accept that. I've never disliked a wrestler more than him and he's pushed as being "good" by a lot of people, so I'm clearly biased here.

[Righteous River]

Among the most underrated guys ever in my opinion. The Ziggler match from Payback 2013 is the best WWE match of the 2010s. He was pretty stiff and rough for a modern WWE guy, had a cool moveset, and his matches kept a really good pace with snap to the action. He was great technically and was always riveting on offense in my opinion. Specifically, focused and brutal arm-work to set up for his finish. He is at his best as a heel but his Lucha Underground run showed that he can be a great, fiery babyface and brawler. To me, it always felt like he was over-hated because of his bad booking in WWE. From a purely in-ring perspective, I think he is great at everything.

[Jmare007]

Very good highs but not a chance in hell of making my ballot. I watched too much "bleh" Del Rio stuff every week on WWE TV to overcome the times he had great matches. He was a very situational guy, it really depended on how motivated he was and the type of match he was having (or his opponent).

[Rah]

Jmare007 makes a good point about it really depending on how motivated he was. He has some legitimately great performances (vs Big Show most notably), especially when he returned to Mexico following that (first) debacle with WWE. The problem with Del Rio, though, is I don't think he's ever been the best guy on the card. 

Certainly not the worst wrestler mentioned (Canek is on the list) but he has way too many "ughs" putting me off doing any meaningful deep-dive with a fine-toothed comb trying to find his motivated work. He's the Randy Orton of Mexico, basically.

[KetamineEnjoyer]

I do think that the Ziggler double turn match is probably a top 20 WWE match ever, but I never really found any other matches of his to be particularly compelling. The same goes for his face run, while the Big Show LMS match was done well, it fell flat from there on out. His heel work was always solid but, outside of the aforementioned Ziggler match, he never quite reached that top level for me, even when I was watching as a child.

[Reel]

I really like the Ziggler match too, not as high as some other people in this thread, but it is certainly better than the sum of its parts. 

Every match of his later WWE run seemed to have that spot where a guy hangs onto the ropes in the tree of woe for no reason, only to get stomped, and there are few things in the history of wrestling I dislike more. 

[Cap]

He always felt like a guy I wanted to like more than I did.  I don't think he was bad, esp when he was on, but even at his best he never quite clicked with me. 

 

He strikes me as someone who is indeed pretty good at everything. He understands the parts of being a good pro wrestler, but it usually felt flat or lifeless.  I almost think those words are too harsh for what I mean, but I don't have better ones.  It is actually a relatively rare phenomenon, but he isn't the only wrestler I feel this way about.  Lots of the boxes get checked for me to enjoy his work, but I rarely feel more than "fine" about it and I'm never exited by it or interested in seeking it out.

 

Maybe I'll dip my toes into his work at some point to see if I feel differently about it, because as I said, I want to like him. Who knows.

[Makai Club #1]

He was a solid wrestler most of the time. Lacking real crowd connection hurt his run a ton, especially when he was a babyface. He had some cool matches against Christian, Big Show , Rey Mysterio, etc. He peaked real high with Dolph Ziggler of all people, having one of the better WWE matches of the 2010s but there isn't much else. 

Not fit for a Top 100 but he's more appreciable when you look beyond that.