5 Times Wrestlers Were Overpowered And The Fans Loved It (& 5 Times It Sucked)

The term “overpowered” is used to describe the strongest video game or movie characters that are impossible to defeat. Wrestling uses a concept built on talents fighting each other and trying to look stronger than one another. Every promotion having characters looking overpowered can go one of two ways with fan reaction.

RELATED: 10 Times John Cena Was A Totally OP Wrestler

Some scenarios feature fans loving it and getting lost in the moment of something wild going down. Others unfortunately led to fans viewing it negatively and souring against the wrestler involved. Both sides will be viewed in depth when looking at the history of WWE and beyond. The following times of wrestlers being overpowered either saw fans loving it or thinking it sucked.

10 Loved: Goldberg’s Elimination Chamber Domination

SummerSlam 2003 featured the peak moment of Goldberg’s first WWE run right before things fell off. Goldberg destroyed everyone left in the match when he joined with eliminations of Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho and Randy Orton with ease.

RELATED: 7 Times Steve Austin Was Totally An OP WrestlerWWE designed the time for Goldberg to take over the match and eliminate everyone before Triple H entered the ring. Fans ate it up, but WWE instantly ruined it by having Triple H pin Goldberg. This would have been the perfect night to get the peak success out of the WCW legend.

9 Sucked: Roman Reigns Kicking Out Of Five F5s By Brock Lesnar

Fans expect some big kickouts in the main event of a WrestleMania event since that level of drama is needed. However, it can become overkill if said storytelling format ruins the fan interest by not feeling organic or captivating in the moment.

WrestleMania 34 showed this with Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar main event losing the fans. Reigns kicked out of five separate F5 finishers by Lesnar. The audience did not react as expected, and the match treaded water until Brock pulled off a shock win after Roman survived all those finishers.

There was a time when Braun Strowman felt like the next big top star on the main event tier with Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar. SummerSlam 2017 featured a wild fatal four-way main event between Reigns, Lesnar, Strowman and Samoa Joe competing for the Universal Championship.

Barclays Center was electric for the first few minutes of the match with Braun destroying Brock in shocking fashion. Strowman powerslammed Lesnar threw two commentary tables and used a third to tip over on top of him. WWE could have made Braun a true top star if he won the gold that night instead of another Brock retained match.

7 Sucked: D-Generation X Overcoming Vince McMahon’s Odds Every Time

WWE reunited Triple H and Shawn Michaels to reform D-Generation X in 2006 over eight years after their last time working together. Vince McMahon trying to hold them down led to him putting together many heels together against Michaels and Triple H.

SummerSlam 2006 featured an overbooked tag match with a bunch of heels interfering and DX still overcoming it. A handicap Hell in a Cell payoff match saw Triple H and Michaels defeating the trio of Vince, Shane and Big Show by being overpowered.

6 Loved: Kane’s 2001 Royal Rumble Eliminations

The Royal Rumble is one of the best scenarios for a match to have an overpowered wrestler since thirty performers enter the ring with all but one winner eliminated. Kane had an all-time dominant performance with 11 different eliminations in 2001.

WWE had Steve Austin win the match, so Kane was given the chance to be the overpowered wrestler with all his carnage. This is still the standard for all future Rumble matches when a wrestler piles up the eliminations as Kane made it feel special.

5 Sucked: The Mega Powers Defeating Eight Heels In Doomsday Cage Match

WCW went overboard looking to make Hulk Hogan come off strong when he played a babyface there. One of the worst storylines in company history featured the Alliance to End Hulkamania forming to give them an unfair advantage over Hogan and his tag partner Randy Savage.

RELATED: 10 Times Roman Reigns Was Totally An OP WrestlerUncensored 1996 featured Hogan and Savage defeating a total of eight wrestlers in a double decker doomsday cage match. WCW even picked some names that were bigger than both babyfaces. All the heels looked like jokes due to the Mega Powers tag team being that overpowered to new heights.

4 Loved: Brock Lesnar Squashing John Cena

The gimmick of Brock Lesnar is basically that he is the most overpowered wrestler at his peak. SummerSlam 2014 featured WWE taking that to a new level with a wild story of Brock decimating John Cena to win the WWE Championship in a borderline squash match.

Cena barely got any offense in during a match with Lesnar doubling down on the Suplex City presentation. WWE protected Cena as the biggest star for years, so Brock destroying him with ease for the top prize was a truly surreal atmosphere.

3 Sucked: Brock Lesnar Squashing Kofi Kingston

Brock Lesnar being overpowered is loved against some opponents, but it can easily lead to crowd hate. Kofi Kingston’s WWE Championship match was an all-time feel good moment that created an organic title reign that played into the fans’ emotions.

Everyone that loved Kofi was devastated at the overpowered match of Brock hitting his finisher and pinning Kingston in under 10 seconds. WWE gave Kofi zero credibility in defeat all in an effort to make Lesnar look like the strongest wrestler on the roster again.

2 Loved: Big Show Returning To Choke Slam Everyone

The big man character of Big Show had too many ups and downs. An episode of Smackdown featured Big Show coming back from an injury as a babyface ready to raise hell. WWE had Big Show enter after a lumberjack match to attack everyone in the ring.

Big Show hitting chokeslam after chokeslam to huge pops may have been the peak single moment of his WWE career. The booking for Big Show slowed down the momentum, but no one could take away that epic return moment of a great overpowered wrestling beat down.

1 Sucked: John Cena & Randy Orton Facing Raw Roster

One of the wildest instances of wrestlers being overpowered featured John Cena and Randy Orton in a shocking match against 17 different wrestlers. Triple H was able to pick a match for the two ahead of their big WrestleMania 24 showdown and decided to make them team against the entire heel roster.

Cena and Orton held their own against each person tagging in to make all individual heels weak by association. The heels eventually entered the ring for a DQ finish, but fans hated seeing the two most overpushed stars surviving against all odds for 95% of the match.