The Greatest Hardcore Wrestling Legends of All Time

While some fans and writers talk about their love for the pure athleticism of professional wrestling, each of us, if we admit it or not, love a good hardcore match.

Hardcore wrestling didn't start with the old ECW and has been around for decades.

As the slide above show even in the '60s and '70s a match with hardcore performers was given equal billing as entertainment legends like Evel Kenevil, Marvin Gaye, and even Elvis!

No rules, no holds barred, bring out the foreign objects, and lets get down to business.

Here are the 10 greatest hardcore wrestlers of all time.

10. Edge

Edge is not only one of the best technical wrestlers in the business today but also can put on tremendous hardcore matches.

The king of the TLC Match, despite being the smallest member of this list is as tough as any performer in the business today.

Edge's hardcore credentials were born in a legendary tag team TLC match with the Hardy Boyz and The Dudley's in the late '90s.

As a singles wrestler his place on this list was assured by taking on nearly every active hardcore legend in the business, and beating Mick Foley by putting him through a flaming table at Wrestlemania 22.

9. Exotic Adrian Street

Ask any old school wrestling fan or historian who the toughest wrestler was during the 1970s and the name Adrian Street is always at the top of the list.

Of course if your gimmick is that you are a gay drag queen you had better be a tough SOB.

Street worked hardcore matches in both Europe and North America for nearly 25 years, taking on everybody from the Original Shiek to Bruiser Brody.

Adding to his hardcore factor was his valet (really his wife of over 40-years) Miss Linda, who was widely considered "the toughest broad in the business."

8. Tommy Dreamer

No performer is as synonymous with ECW as Tommy Dreamer.

Nobody will argue that Tommy Dreamer was a good wrestler, and in reality some might claim he was nothing more than a glorified jobber.

However his legendary status comes from the fact that he could take more pain and physical abuse than almost any performer in the history of the industry.

Long-term feuds with Raven and the Sandman (who caned Dreamer ten times after a Singapore Cane Match) did nothing but improve his hardcore credibility.

7. (The Original) Sheik

Ed Farhat wrestling as "The Sheik" was the godfather of hardcore wrestling.

The Shiek gained his legendary hardcore status as a booker, putting himself in no disqualification matches against some of the toughest men in the business.

Adrian Street, Chief Jay Strongbow, Dick the Bruiser, Gene Kiniski, Bobo Brazil, Classy Freddie Blassy, Abdullah the Butcher, Kevin Sullivan, and the Funk Brothers were all chief rivals of The Sheik during his nearly 40-year career.

The Sheik wasn't just another great hardcore wrestler, he invented hardcore wrestling!

6. Abdullah the Butcher

Perhaps the biggest sadist in wrestling history, Abdullah the Butcher terrorized both wrestlers and fans for over thirty years.

If you went to see a card with Abdullah wrestling you were always guaranteed to see blood, and pints of it being spilled from both Abdullah and his opponents.

Aside from his massive 450-pound frame, Abdullah always carried a fork in his trunks which he would use to gouge his opponents eyes and cut them open.

Few performers have ever been as blood-thirsty or as violent as Abdullah.

5. Sandman

Jim Fullington wrestled for years as a pretty boy, a surfer dude, and a pimp before finally becoming "the innovator of violence."

As the Sandman, Fullington took hardcore wrestling to extremes fans in the United States had never seen.

The Sandman character was revolutionary as a beer guzzling, nihilistic, modern day American barbarian.

Rarely one for technical wrestling, the Sandman would always use tables, chairs, canes, and baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire to use on his opponents.

4. Bruiser Brody

There are few wrestlers in the history of the sport with as much of a legitimate tough guy reputation as Bruiser Brody.

Brody was the king of hardcore wrestling in the 1980s making his reputation as one of the most popular wrestlers in the south, Japan, Puerto Rico, and the Von Erich's WCCW.

With a wild man persona, hardcore attitude, and an unwillingness to take any B.S from either promoters or his fellow competitors in or out of the ring Brody was considered one of wrestling's true legitimate tough guys.

Sadly in 1988 after a dispute with an official in Puerto Rico, Bruiser Brody was murdered. However, his legacy continued through Mick Foley and nearly everybody on the old ECW roster.

3. Terry Funk

Terry Funk has always had a reputation to uphold.

Begining in the mid-1960s when he began his career in the old NWA territories and his family's home base in Amarillo, Texas; Funk has always done things a little different.

Never one to "play by the rules" of the established wrestling business, Funk became THE hardcore legend over 30 years ago and is still going strong well into his '60s.

Despite having been an excellent amateur wrestler and a well trained mat technician, Funk always perfected the blood and guts hardcore style that made him famous on five continents.

Terry Funk could have played by the rules and became a multiple-time World Champion like his brother Dory, but he did that he wouldn't be Terry Funk.

2. Mick Foley

Perhaps the most mild mannered, intelligent, and articulate man to ever be a part of the wrestling business.

That was until he stepped foot in a wrestling ring.

Call him Cactus Jack, call him Mankind, or call him Dude Love; but regardless of what you call Mick Foley, his hardcore credentials are through the roof.

The blood, the broken bones, the missing teeth, and the lost ear are all testaments of the greatness of Foley as a hardcore wrestler.

And we haven't even talked about the matches yet.

1. Sabu

"Homicidal, suicidal, genocidal."

Sabu was the real-life nephew and student of The Sheik, so not only was he taught hardcore wrestling from it's originator, hardcore wrestling was in his blood.

For legends like Bruiser Brody or The Sandman the idea of hardcore wrestling was always to inflict as much physical punishment on your opponent as possible.

However, for Sabu the idea was that if you can inflict punishment on your opponent, by inflicting punishment on yourself; well that was even better.

Sabu broke his neck twice yet never stopped wrestling the style that made him famous and in fact became even MORE HARDCORE after these injuries.