The Woobie/Professional Wrestling


 * Mick Foley
 * Tommy Dreamer
 * The ECW in general is seen as the woobie of the professional wrestling brands, it was just Too Good to Last.
 * Though it may seem strange at first, the IWC thinks of Kane as a woobie for all of the terrible feuds he's been put in.
 * Ditto for Chavo Guerrero, despite being a very skilled fourth generation wrestler, he's been stuck in jobber level angles for years, reaching its nadir in a rivalry with a midget dressed as a leprechaun.
 * Watch the interviews of him after both Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit died. Note that he was the person who discovered that Eddie died and was one of the last people Benoit had spoken to before committing suicide. Also note how close Eddie and Chavo had been their entire lives and how the reportedly private Benoit must have felt about Chavo if he let him stay at his home and would call him before committing suicide.
 * Jeff Hardy, during the recent rivalry with his brother, Matt, he was definitely this. Matt's use of mixing real life events into the situation to help sell the angle made it all the more powerful.
 * Your Mileage May Vary, but some see Vicky Guerrero as a Jerkass woobie, her husbands death, mixed with playing the queen bitch Heel of the WWE made a lot of people feel sorry for her; made all the worse by her very noticeable weight gain becoming an angle for mockery.
 * However, some see her as despicable, because she never should have agreed to enter the WWE for the Eddiesploitation money.
 * Most people however acknowledge that Vickie was simply trying to provide for her family. Face it, if you had bills to pay and young daughters to raise you wouldn't say no to a relatively easy and well-paying job from Vince. Although the constant references to Eddie were distasteful, Vickie has worked hard at her character to the point where she's a mega heel in her own right.
 * Lampshaded by Edge during his retirement speech. As he was thanking the people in the back for helping with his career, Vickie's name came up. As if on instinct, the crowd erupts in loud boos. Edge just smiled and mentioned that even when being spoken of out of Kayfabe, the fact she can get the crowd to boo her is a testiment to how well she played her heel character.
 * The Knockouts division of TNA has become this in the eyes of the IWC. What used to be a dead sexy division of Action Girls has become the poor mans version of the WWE Divas, the irony in TNA making fun of the WWE for their treatment of the Divas is undeniable.
 * Awesome Kong became one of these after she got fired for beating up Bubba the Love Sponge, ''even though Bubba's sucked TNA dry with his paycheck demands, and many were offended by his infamous "Fuck Haiti" comment.
 * It's especially impossible to not read this article and not want to give either Madison Rayne or Taylor Wilde a hug. And then, there's Daffney.
 * Poor, poor little Funaki. Seems he exists only to be pummeled by the likes of The Undertaker, The Big Show and Great Khali.
 * Another Your Mileage May Vary one, but plenty of people are surprised by how they're feeling for John Cena being forced to be part of (also the bitch of) The Nexus.
 * What, no love for Rhino here? His contract was due to run out so he was forced to make a deal with Eric Bischoff because his so-called friends in EV 2.0 didn't seem to care about his impending job loss and he wanted to care for his daughter. Since then, he has lost all his friends, the fans have turned on him, and due to his inability to defeat Tommy Dreamer or Rob Van Dam, he didn't get his contract renewed anyway, making the entire exercise pointless.
 * Admit it, you wanted to give Kelly Kelly a hug after Vickie fired her for helping Edge retain his title.
 * Kelly was WWE's biggest Woobie long before that. From managing asshole boyfriend Mike Knox, to falling in love with Balls Mahoney only to see the Miz squash that, and to the fact she usually loses her matches (even getting pinned by Vickie Guerrero).
 * It even extends outside the ring. She dated Andrew "Test" Martin until he passed away in March 2009.
 * Mike Awesome. He took a lot of heat for leaving ECW for WCW as World Champion. After that passed, he retired from wrestling to spend time with his family. Then his family left him. He didn't take it well, at all
 * AJ Lee when she got eliminated from NXT. Here was a girl who had dreamed of being a diva for most of her life and was stuck with an unlikeable gimmick in the early part of the show. And just minutes before her elimination she was in one of the best matches we'd ever seen from the divas. Hell even the critics who hated the show were calling her elimination a "miscarriage of justice". And yes, there were tears.
 * And then, when she was brought up to the main roster, she was promptly betrayed by her mentor Natalya for no other reason than that she was a "cute, perky little princess".
 * Not to mention her recent appearance on Smackdown, post-injury, cowering away from Big Show, even stopping his fast with her tiny little hand... made this Troper want to hug her and take it all away.
 * Even more of a woobie now after Daniel Bryan crossed the Moral Event Horizon by chewing her up and spitting her out on the April 6th 2012 edition of WWE Smackdown just for giving him a good luck kiss before Sheamus beat him in 18 seconds at Wrestlemania 28.
 * The talented and unfortunate Christian. Spent many years of his career jobbing to the bigger names, and only received recognition when he teamed up with best friend Edge. He clawed in vain to get a main event status push, working his whole career towards it, and it finally came because Edge had to retire, so Christian would replace him to take on Alberto Del Rio for the WHC. When he won, he reportedly went up to Vince McMahon, hugged him, and said "Thank you!" So what does Vince do next? Make Christian lose the WHC to Randy Orton, someone who has had a shorter career and more title shots/wins, not two days later at Smackdown. What makes it worse is at their rematch at Over the Limit, Christian lost yet again. BUT WAIT, there's more! On top of that, it's reported at the latest Smackdown taping that there was a match to determine who would be #1 contender for the WHC between Christian, Mark Henry, and Sheamus.  With all these factors, it wouldn't be surprising to see Christian pull a Face Heel Turn in the coming months.
 * He did, and was shortly turned into a whiny heel who constantly begged for one more title shot. Fans were infuriated by the whole thing.
 * Lita anyone? Remember when Matt Hardy came onto Raw and said there was a question he wanted to ask her? Sounded like he was going to propose right? Then they were in a match with Lita's job on the line. Matt cost her the match and broke up with her, resulting in her being fired. Christian got her job back but the poor girl was a convincing crier.
 * From the same story, you wanted to give Trish Stratus a hug when she overheard Christian and Chris Jericho talking about a bet to see who could sleep with her or Lita first.
 * George "The Animal" Steele, during his 1985-1988 face run in the WWF. Steele's character was that of a neanderthal who could only grunt a few words ("Duh, 'Lizabeth! Cute! Love her!"), and gave fans the cutest puppy dog-eyed look during his ring entrances, promos, etc.; he was also well known for breaking open the ring turnbuckles and throwing the stuffing in his opponents' faces. His crush on Elizabeth (note the line earlier in this entry) sparked his best-known feud, with Randy "Macho Man" Savage (a heel whose valet was Elizabeth, and whose character was that of "you'd better not even so much as glance at her or else I'll kill you"). Later, Steele was known to carry a hand puppet called "Mine" to the ring (that is, until Andre the Giant ripped it up and stuffed its remnants down Steele's throat during one particularly brutal match ... OK, just kidding about that one.) Steele, by the way, was actually Jim Meyers, a quite intelligent man who played the "neanderthal" type to perfection, and had successful runs in the WWF as both a villian (prior to 1985) and as a face.
 * I'm surprised no one's mentioned Vince McMahon yet. He had a terrible childhood with an abusive step-father, and has go on to say that had he not died, Vince would've killed him himself.
 * Probably because, as much as his childhood was hell, he hasn't exactly endeared himself very well to his company's fanbase. He's more of Jerkass Woobie.
 * He's also dyslexic (and not just with his step-father, but possibly his mother abused him as well) and his father refused to let him achieve his dream of actually becoming a wrestler. You feel for the guy.
 * Mick Foley revealed that the reason Vince tries so hard to put on the front he does is because he is so traumatized by his childhood that (t least until 2001, when Foley is Good was written) he would privately cry like a baby. If that doesn't excuse most if not all the messed up things Vince does wht would?
 * Bill and Randy Mulkey were a tag-team in Jim Crocket Promotions that developed a cult following as quite possibly the most sympathetic pair of jobbers of all time. The Mulkey Brothers were beaten and humiliated without getting so much as a single offensive move on a weekly basis. To rub salt in the wound their abysmal win-loss record was featured on NWA television each week when they wrestled. Shortly after they reached a record of 0-180, the team earned their first and only victory earning them entry in the Jim Crocket Cup and their own Moment of Awesome.
 * Oh my goodness, Rey Mysterio, Jr.. Where to start? He's often picked on by other much bigger wrestlers (kayfabe) for simply being the underdog, and with his small stature, it's easy to see why. He was also hit particularly hard by Eddie Guerrero's death, and Chavo Guerrero turning on him a few months later costing him the World Championship didn't help much either. And then there's the issue with CM Punk going after his family...