1. Irwin R. Schyster
Mike Rotunda’s depiction as a villainous former tax collector leads our list of the finest corny pro wrestling villains of all time. On paper, is one of those positions that seems doomed for failure. Take a guy who is well known to wrestling fans (Rotunda had formerly wrestled under his own name in the WWF and WCW, and won tag team championships as a member of the U.S.
Express and the Varsity Club), put him in dress clothing and a tie, and saddle him with a gimmick based solely on people’s distaste for the Internal Revenue Service. Yet, Rotunda ran with it and turned his I.R.S. character into a top-notch heel, working crowds into a frenzy with his pro-taxes spiel and showcasing his natural athletic talent despite the limitations of his costume. As IRS, Rotunda won the tag-team titles three times with his Money, Inc. partner “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase and challenged the likes of Razor Ramon and The Undertaker as a singles wrestler before an injury forced him out of action and for the most part signaled the end of the character in 1995.
2. Doink the Clown
The character of Doink the Clown is unusual among the other entries on this list in that it was performed by numerous different wrestlers, and functioned both as a nice guy and as a villain. Most wrestling fans seem to prefer Doink when he was an evil clown, pulling terrible pranks on his heroic opponents, however the fan favorite version included a pint-sized sidekick called Dink and was more engaged with slapstick type comedy.
He had a widely known (or notorious, depending upon your point of view) rivalry with Jerry “The King” Lawler, culminating in a Survivor Series bout between Doink and three dwarf sidekicks versus Lawler and three of his own, all costumed like kings. In the end, all the midgets turned on Lawler and pursued him about till he ending up being smacked with a pie in the face. Whether he was cruel and sadistic or slapstick and amusing, Doink was a distinct and ultimately memorable figure.
3. Brother Love
A more obscure character from the late 1980s and early 1990s, Brother Love wasn’t truly a wrestler. Rather, he conducted an interview programme on WWF television, and was an over-the-top televangelist type villain with a red-face and an obnoxious catchphrase (“I… loooooooooove… yooooooooou…”). While Brother Love never stepped into the ring, his segments would be used to launch feuds on a regular basis, and for a short time he actually served as the manager of The Undertaker. Believe it or not, the man behind this unique and somewhat controversial character, Bruce Pritchard, was actually a longtime WWF front office employee.