So, I got thinking the other day, who were actually the smallest guys to ever step in a WWE ring? It wasn’t like a big research project, more like I saw some old clips and one wrestler looked tiny compared to the other, and it just stuck in my head.
I decided to actually look it up. Fired up the old browser and just started typing stuff in. You know, things like “shortest WWE wrestler ever” or “small wrestlers WWE history”. It’s kinda messy, you get a lot of fan sites, lists, sometimes conflicting info. You gotta sift through a bit.
My Process Looking This Up
First, I just skimmed a few articles that popped up. A lot of the same names kept appearing, especially from more recent times. That was easy enough. But I wanted to know about older guys too, from back when I first started watching, or even before.
So, I tried changing my search terms. Added stuff like “80s” or “90s” to the search. That brought up some different results, sometimes forum discussions where old-school fans were arguing about it. That’s usually where you find some interesting tidbits, people remember things differently.
It got me thinking about how wrestling has changed. Back in the day, it felt like everyone was trying to be the next Hogan, just huge dudes. But you always had those smaller, quicker guys who stood out because they were different. I always had a soft spot for the underdogs, the ones who weren’t giants but could really go in the ring.
I specifically remembered guys like Spike Dudley, just flying around, taking crazy bumps. He wasn’t the absolute shortest maybe, but compared to the guys he was wrestling, he looked like a featherweight.
Finding Some Names
After poking around for a while, I started seeing a pattern. Some names were consistently mentioned for being really short. Obviously, Hornswoggle comes up instantly for anyone watching in the 2000s. Can’t miss that one.
But digging deeper, especially into that older stuff and the lucha libre connections WWE sometimes had, brought up others. I jotted down a few that seemed legit based on multiple mentions:
- Hornswoggle (Yeah, had to list him)
- El Torito (Remember him with Los Matadores?)
- Max Mini (From that late 90s period with the minis)
- Little Beaver (Goes way back, different era entirely)
- Spike Dudley (Maybe not the shortest ever, but often cited as very short for his time)
Seeing names like Little Beaver really takes you back to a different time in wrestling. The whole midget wrestling division back then was… well, it was a thing. Definitely viewed differently today.
Anyway, that was my little dive into the topic. Started with a simple question and ended up reading about guys from like 40 years ago. Funny how that happens. Just wanted to see who the record holders were, more or less. It’s clear size isn’t everything, though some of these guys were definitely presented more as novelties than serious threats, which is a shame sometimes.
