10 Worst Taunts & Poses In Wrestling History

Every wrestling promotion would have a locker room full of talented performers competing against each other to get to the top spot. While the common goal of the performers is to entertain the fans, they would also want to distinguish themselves with certain traits, styles, and move sets that would help them to stay in the fans' memories for a long time.

One such means the wrestlers used to achieve that goal is to have unique poses and taunts, which they use during the matches. Wrestling fans have seen iconic wrestlers like The Undertaker, John Cena, and Randy Orton distinguish themselves with unique taunts in WWE.

RELATED: 5 Best Taunts Of WWE's Attitude Era (& 5 Worst)

However, there are certain poses and taunts that didn't reach the popularity of the others, and with that said, let's take a look at ten of the worst taunts and poses in wrestling history.

10 Titus O'Neil's Bark

Titus O'Neil holds a unique position in WWE as the Global Ambassador of the company. He's been with the company since 2009 and is a former Tag Team and 24/7 Champion and also received the Warrior Award in the 2020 class of the WWE Hall of Fame.

Apart from the accolades he achieved in his pro wrestling career, he is also known for his signature taunt. He makes a weird hand pose before barking loudly, which became annoying as time went by.

9 Ryback's Rile Up

Ryback was one of the strongest wrestlers to have stepped inside a WWE ring. Despite his initial run with the company as part of The Nexus under the name Skip Sheffield didn't take him anywhere, the company repackaged him as Ryback and gave him a strong booking right from the get-go.

While the signature taunt he performs in the ring looks more decent, the taunt he did at the entrance ramp during his entrance by raising his arms one after the other looked pretty unnecessary. Even Vince McMahon reportedly questioned him as to what he was doing during his entrance.

8 Santino Marella's Trombone

It's not easy for a wrestler to get the right reaction from the crowd, and many wrestlers, including Roman Reigns, battled with the task. But some wrestlers had the natural gift of connecting with the fans, and former Intercontinental and United States Champion Santino Marella had the gift of summoning laughter from the fans.

RELATED: 10 Things Fans Should Know About Santino Marella

Santino Marella earned tons of fans for himself with his mannerisms inside the ring and through his hilarious backstage segments, but the trombone pose he does during the matches always summoned mixed responses from the crowd.

7 Boogeyman Smashes The Clock His Head

Everything about The Boogeyman has a creepy shade behind it, as the mysterious worm-eating superstar made his adversaries and the fans close their eyes in disgust.

His attire, signature walk, and his style of wrestling made him unique from the other wrestlers on the roster, and he usually carried an oversized alarm clock as a prop.

He used that alarm clock as a way to taunt his opponents by smashing it on his head. The stunt looked dangerous and unnecessary as it looked like it could hurt him and also didn't hold the same amount of significance as him eating worms.

6 Carlito's Apple

Sometimes wrestlers had to endure some uncomfortable situations to add more weight to the storylines and entertain the fans, and the list also includes getting spit on the face by another wrestler.

Carlito Caribbean Cool's first gimmick was to have him take a bite of an apple and spit it on the face of persons he didn't consider cool. The taunt was both unnecessary and unsanitary, not to mention disrespectful, but the wrestlers who worked with him had to endure the treatment as it was the entire point behind his gimmick.

5 John Cena's Shoe Pump

John Cena has multiple poses and taunts in his arsenal, including his iconic "You Can't See Me" motion and the hand gesture. While the fans didn't have any problems with these two poses, they had questions as to why Cena used to pump his shoes during his early days in WWE.

Cena used to pump his shoes before going for his signature Attitude Adjustment, or F.U. as he called it at that time. It had no implications for his finishing move, but Cena did it with much vigor, but he soon left it out of his signature poses as time went by.

4 Jeff Jarrett Strut

When wrestling fans see a wrestler strutting inside the ring, their minds will go toward Ric Flair by default. No one arguably does the strut better than The Nature Boy, as he monopolized that gesture with his flawless rendition.

RELATED: 10 Things Fans Should Know About Jeff Jarrett's WWE Career

But former WWE Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett also used the strut as his signature pose during his time as an active in-ring competitor. While some fans considered it as an alternate version of Flair's, the majority were of the impression that it was a rip-off of The Nature Boy's iconic pose.

3 MVP's Ballin

The mastermind of The Hurt Business MVP might be a full-time managerial figure in WWE at present, but he was a decent performer with some good accolades to his name during his first run with WWE.

He introduced himself as the hottest free agent in sports and became one of the best heels of that time. He went on to win the United States and Tag Team Championships in his first run, and the one thing that faced some mixed responses from the crowd was his signature pose, in which he danced around a bit before acting like throwing a basketball.

2 Hunter Hearst Helmsley's Curtsy

Before Triple H made a name for himself in WWE and became a 14-time WWE Champion, he started his career with the company under the name Hunter Hearst Helmsley.

He had a Connecticut blue-blood character that speaks about proper etiquette and greets his opponents with a flamboyant curtsy with the intention of enraging them.

It was the exact opposite of his later degenerate character, but the curtsy looked way too awkward and didn't have the proper impact to be a pro wrestler's signature taunt. The Game would eventually evolve from that character to become The King of Kings he is today.

1 Bobby Lashley Showing His Behind

Following his return to WWE on the Raw after WrestleMania 34, Bobby Lashley continued to work as a babyface until he turned heel for the first time in his WWE career in 2018.

He recruited Lio Rush as his on-screen manager and made him work as his mouthpiece as he showcased his vicious side to fans. However, there was one glaring flaw in Lashley's first heel run WWE could've avoided, and it was the butt-pose he did inside the ring.

Lashley has one of the best muscular physiques in pro wrestling, and he chose to showcase the muscles from a questionable area when he bent down and showed his glutes to the fans.