AEW is known for having some of the best wrestlers in the world, but it also has some of the worst.
Not all signings can be hits, and there are often quite a few misses when it comes to supplementing their already expansive roster.
Some of AEW’s worst wrestlers have spent years in the company, although thankfully most were removed from TV a short time after making a splash on AEW Dynamite.
In this list, we’ll look at the 10 worst wrestlers in the history of AEW. While there were hundreds of wrestlers who fought in single appearances on AEW Dark, we will only be looking at those who were signed full-time to AEW deals.
One notable exception we will mention is Vickie Guerrero. While she is by far the worst in-ring performer to attempt to wrestle in AEW, she is not a pro-wrestler.
Because of this, we’ll let her off – despite being part of one of the worst matches in AEW history.
10. Parker Boudreaux
When he signed for AEW in 2022, Parker Bordreaux was named “The Next Brock Lesnar” by some very optimistic fans.
Like Lesnar, he was a former Football player-turned-wrestler, but didn’t show the same promise “The Beast” did.
Although Boudreaux was released by WWE (where he worked as Harland in NXT), he was picked up by AEW and put with Ari Daivari and Slim J as part of a stable named The Trustbusters.
Here he showed just why WWE released him. His in-ring work was bad, he showed zero charisma and was a far cry from Brock Lesnar as anybody has ever been – aside from his size.
There is still time for the 25-year-old to turn things around, but Parker Bordreaux has only wrestled 3 times in 2023, and could have given up on the business entirely.
9. Anthony Ogogo
The former Olympic Boxer Anthony Ogogo signed to AEW with great promising, rejecting the WWE to sign with the upstart company in 2019.
The company hoped he would become a big star for the company, bringing his fanbase from the UK along for the ride of his rise to main event status.
Sadly, multiple eye surgeries kept Ogogo out of the ring for many months, stunting his growth as a wrestler. An ill-fated feud with Cody Rhodes exposed his significant deficiencies in the ring, and he soon stopped wrestling in AEW completely around 2022.
Despite wanting to become the first black and first British AEW World Champion, it doesn’t look like Anthony Ogogo is going to progress much at all in the company.
8. Dr Luther
The Death Dealer Dr Luther has been a part of AEW since 2019, but was purely a nepotism signing for Chris Jericho.
He and Jericho wrestled together in Calgary at the start of their careers, before travelling to Japan to wrestling in the Wrestling and Romance promotion together.
He had a middling career for three decades, with Dr Luther not wrestling for any major promotion for two decades before getting the call to join AEW.
While he has a fun “crazy” character, Luther is slow and sloppy in the ring, although his team with Serpentico helped get the young star on TV more – including in the main event of Dynamite against Chris Jericho once.
7. Sonny Kiss
Despite showing early promise at the start of AEW, Sonny Kiss failed to improve in the years following, up until their release from the company in 2023.
While a tag team with Joey Janela showed promise, a lack of in-ring time in and outside fo AEW did not help in the inexperience issues Sonny Kiss showed in the ring.
Given that Sonny Kiss’ biggest match in AEW was a sub-minute squash match that didn’t even last as long as Kenny Omega’s entrance, it was clear that she was one of the worst wrestlers in AEW.
6. Mel
Few people will remember Mel’s run in AEW, given how short and terrible it was.
She only wrestled a handful of matches for the company, being stuck in the disastrous “Nightmare Collective” faction alongside Brandi Rhodes, Luther and Awesome Kong.
In 7 months, she only wrestled 5 matches in All Elite Wrestling. On Cagematch, these averaged about a 2.5 rating, which even with the tiny sample size is an appalling figure.
Mel simple wasn’t a good wrestler. She was most memorable for being the only bald woman in the division, but that was not enough to make her a star in the company.
5. Abadon
Abadon has one of the best gimmicks in wrestling today, but she is one of the worst wrestlers in the company’s history.
As a demonic monster, she terrified everyone that saw her crawling across their screen, embodying fear like nobody since the days of The Boogeyman in the WWE.
Tony Khan usually brings her about for a match during a Halloween episode of Rampage, although she has not been given an extended run on TV in the past five years.
Despite her fantastic gimmick, Abadon’s actual wrestling ability leaves a lot to be desired, suffering from the same issues that stopped The Boogeyman’s WWE run in his tracks.
4. Rebel
While she spent most of her time as a valet to Britt Baker, Rebel (not Reba) was one of the worst wrestlers in AEW when she stepped into the ring.
Thankfully, this was not often, and fans grew to love her as the loveable sidekick to the heel champion Britt Baker.
Upon Baker’s face turn, Rebel was taken off TV and eventually released by AEW.
3. Brock Anderson
Not all second generation wrestlers have the talent of their fathers, and nobody is more of an example of this than Brock Anderson.
Despite being the spitting image of his father, Brock Anderson shows none of the in-ring ability or charisma that made his dad one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
He has been part of numerous tag teams, but has never shown anything to justify his place on TV alongside stars like Cody Rhodes or Malakai Black.
To me, Brock Anderson needs to leave AEW to work on his wrestling abilities in order to not be known as one of the worst AEW wrestlers of all time.
2. Leva Bates
While Blue Pants was a big meme in NXT back in the day, she was never the best wrestler in NXT.
In fact, once Leva Bates brought her god awful librarian character to AEW (alongside Peter Avalon), it was clear that she was one of the worst wrestlers in AEW.
Crowds went silent whenever Leva Bates came to the ring, with every match she was in becoming the opposite of must-see – they were “can’t watch”.
1. Big Swole
While it may be a controversial answer for the worst wrestler in AEW history, nobody has gotten such a big push out of the gate and shown so little.
In the early days of AEW, and with the women’s division struggling due to the lack of Joshi’s coming to America due to COVID, Tony Khan had a much smaller pool of talent to push.
This led to Big Swole being pushed as a babyface, entering into a long-term, high profile feud with Britt Baker (culminating in the terrible “Tooth and Nail” match at All Out 2020).
Big Swole was poor in the ring, showed no charisma outside of it, and simply made very little impression in AEW.
Despite the name “Big Swole”, she was neither big, nor swole. It made no sense whatsoever, and just added to the confusion of why she was even in AEW.
Big Swole also had some controversy with Tony Khan after her release, but that is irrelevant to her being voted as the worst AEW wrestler in history.