WWE: The Rock and the Top 10 Wrestlers Clearly at Home on the Silver Screen

Since acting is part of their everyday job, you would figure making the transition from the ring to the movie set would be an easy one for WWE talent. The Rock has become one of the biggest movie stars in the world after his dominating run in the WWE, but not everybody who has made the jump has been able to match The Rock's success.

One of the main reasons The Rock was able to climb the ranks of the WWE was his terrific work on the mic. His promos were the highlight of almost every RAW and that is the main reason his transition to the silver screen seemed so easy.

Current day wrestlers such as John Cena and Randy Orton have made minor movies in recent years, but weren't able to make the same impact as The Rock.

If you want to try to predict which modern-day WWE superstars would make the best movie stars, just look at which of them produce the best promos.

The Miz, thanks to his Real World experiences, would make a great actor. Alberto Del Rio and CM Punk are two other guys who come to mind immediately when you think about great promos.

Here is a list of the top 10 wrestlers who made a successful jump from the wrestling world to the acting world.

10. Steve Austin

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin was a professional wrestler for 14 years before he received his first movie role as Guard Dunham in The Longest Yard.

Austin portrays exactly the type of persona you would expect: a loud, brash prison worker who has no problem with profanity or racial jokes. The movie also had several other former and current wrestlers including Bill Goldberg, Kevin Nash and The Great Khali.

Two years later, in 2007, Austin played the lead role in a WWE Films production called The Condemned. Jack Conrad was a death-row inmate who was wrangled into a game of kill or be killed. After being presumed dead, Conrad comes back and goes on a killing spree. He eventually returns home as a free man.

After another two year drought, Austin returned in 2009 as John Brickner in Damage. Since then he has appeared in four movies, The Stranger, The Expendables, Hunt to Kill and Knockout. He is in the process of filming Recoil and is expected to take part in The Package and The Expendables 2 to be released in 2012.

9. Stacy Keibler

Although most of her acting work to this point has been on television, Stacy Keibler has a made couple movies and has a bright future in the movie business.

Her first movie role was a modest one, as most are. She was a working girl in the 2001 movie Bubble Boy, about a man who must live his entire life inside a bubble because he lacks an immune system.

She was an All-American mom in the 2007 flick The Comebacks, a sports movie that spoofs other sports movies from the past. She was a part of two movies, Dysfunctional Friends and Fixing Pete, that are in post-production and are due out sometime this year.

Along with those silver screen appearances, Keibler has been seen on 11 different television shows and came in third place on the popular reality show Dancing With the Stars. She is just 31 years old and her acting career finally seems to be gaining some momentum.

8. Triple H

Triple H, otherwise known as Paul Levesque, has been focusing more on his acting career since taking a backstage development role with the WWE. His first movie role, however, came while he was still a very active member of the WWE in 2004. The movie was called Blade: Trinity and he played a character named Jarko Grimwood.

After a minor role as a wrestler in 2006's Relative Strangers, he has really begun to take acting more seriously over the past year or so. He played main character Ray Bradstone in the highly-publicized The Chaperone this year.

A former getaway driver, Bradstone changes his focus to being a good father and is the chaperone of his daughter's class trip to the Museum of Natural History in New Orleans. His former buddies aren't happy with his departure from the group and chase him the entire trip.

His next movie, Inside Out, should be released within a year. Triple H plays tough guy Arlo Jayne who was just released from prison. Should Triple H continue to pursue an acting career, there is a chance he becomes a high-profile star like The Rock.

7. Andre the Giant

Andre the Giant is one of the most famous wrestlers ever. Due to his enormous size (presented as 7'4'', 475 pounds), his roles were often simple but there were very few people that could fill them.

As an actor, when you can fill a hole in the script due to your characteristics, that is a big deal. It gets your foot in the door, so to speak.

His first film was actually in French, titled Casse-tête chinois pour le judoka, where Andre played a fighter. He then played Dagoth in Conan the Destroyer, which starred now disgraced former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The same year, 1984, he played Andre Rousimmoff in the comedy Micki and Maude.

He is perhaps best known for his role as Fezzik in The Princess Bride. A fairy tale story that is listed as No. 191 on IMDb's top 250 movies. His final role was as a circus giant in Trading Mom, that was released after Andre's death. It was his size, not acting ability, that made him a great fit for acting.

6. Professor Toru Tanaka

Charles Kalani, Jr., better known by his ring name Professor Toru Tanaka, became an action film star during the 1980s. His first role came in 1981, fittingly as a character called The Professor in An Eye for an Eye.

In total, Tanaka had over 20 film roles during his 14-year acting career. His more famous roles include Rushmore in the 3 Ninjas, Subzero in The Running Man, Dozu in Catch the Heat and Yamagani San in Shanghai Surprise.

Tanaka is best known for throwing salt into the eyes of his opponents during matches. He had good athleticism, as a former college football player, for a man of his size and that's what allowed him to thrive as an actor.

5. Lenny Montana

After spending much of his early career as a wrestler, Lenny Montana moved on in the early 1970s. He got his big break when he was cast as Luca Brasi in The Godfather. From that point forward, Montana became one of the leading actors when a film had a rough-and-tumble part.

Other notable roles Montana had included Luchino in Fingers, Jake in Evilspeak, Jerome in ...All the Marbles and The Kahuna in Seven. Alongside all of those silver screen jobs, Montana also made appearances on major television programs such as Magnum, P.I. and The Sixth Sense.

His good size (6'6'') and Italian mobster look made him a perfect fit for the movies. If he would have stuck with wrestling, he could have had a long, illustrious career in the ring as well. Montana was a well-rounded professional.

4. Terry Funk

Terry Funk was known for his hardcore wrestling that eventually landed him in the WWE Hall of Fame (among other high honors). Although most of his life was dedicated to the ring, he has had a successful acting career as well.

Funk's first role as Frankie the Thumper in 1978's Paradise Alley. His most famous role likely came in the cult classic Road House, when he played Morgan. Starring Patrick Swayze, the movie has a lot of ass kicking, making it a perfect fit for Funk.

Other noteworthy movies in which Funk appeared were Over the Top, Friday Night Lights, Holyman Undercover and The Ringer. He is 67 years old and is still doing some acting, having just completed Marriage Retreat, which is expected to be released at some point this year.

3. Jesse Ventura

At one point he was the Governor of Minnesota, but Jesse “The Body” Ventura is best known for his work in the wrestling ring and on the silver screen. Although he has never played any award-winning roles, he has been a part of several big-time films over the past two decades.

His first film was the fellow ex-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger-led Predator. Ventura played Blain. Because he has spending most of his time on the television series Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, there has been a lull in Ventura's acting career over the past year.

Some other movies he was apart of include The Running Man, Thunderground, Ricochet, Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe, Batman & Robin and most recently, Woodshop. As you would expect, most of his roles are focused around his pugnacious ways.

2. Hulk Hogan

One of the most outspoken, controversial wrestlers in the history of wrestling, Hulk Hogan spread his brand beyond the ring starting in the 1980s. It started in 1982 when he played Thunderlips in the third part of the Rocky series, Rocky III.

It would be fair to say the Hulkster isn't exactly Tom Hanks or Johnny Depp when it comes to becoming one with his character, but his charisma has taken him a long way in the acting business. His role as Randolph J. Hurricane Spencer in the Thunder in Paradise set of movies in the early 90s put him on the map moving forward.

More recently, he played Zeus in 3-D movie Little Hercules and again provided his iconic voice to the character Terrafirminator V.O. in the animated flick Gnomeo and Juliet. Later this year, his movie Black River will be released. Hogan plays Marcus Demchak.

1. The Rock

The most electrifying man in all of entertainment, as he now bills himself, The Rock is undoubtedly No. 1 on the list of wrestlers turned actors.

Once he was successful in his roles as the Scorpion King in the early 2000s movies The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King, wrestling fans began to get the feeling The Rock was turning back into Dwayne Johnson and moving his career in a new direction.

In The Scorpion King, Johnson received $5.5 million for his first lead acting role, the highest in history. Since then he has starred in 17 films and is already working on or plans to work on four more. He has received the reputation as a tireless worker that allows producers to get the movie “in the can” quicker than most other lead actors.

“The People's Champion” has appeared in big money movies like The Rundown, The Game Plan, Tooth Fairy, The Other Guys and Fast Five. And while he still makes occasional appearances at WWE live events leading up to his match at Wrestlemania 28 versus John Cena, it is clear that Dwayne Johnson is more focused on his movie career than re-electrifying The Rock character.

Overall, Johnson's movies have generated more than a $1 billion in revenue, which makes it easy to see why he stays in Hollywood rather than traveling the world with the WWE. Although many fans, myself included would love to see him return to wrestling more often, he can't walk away from that type of cash.

If ya smelllllllllll, what his checkbook, is cookin'.