WRESTLERS from Canada

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Canadian Wrestlers of all time. This list of famous Canadian Wrestlers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Canadian Wrestlers.

1. Pat Patterson (1941 - 2020)

With an HPI of 65.46, Pat Patterson is the most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages on wikipedia.

Pat Patterson (born Pierre Clermont; January 19, 1941 – December 2, 2020) was a Canadian-American professional wrestler and producer, widely known for his long tenure in the professional wrestling promotion WWE, first as a wrestler, then as a creative consultant and producer, or agent. He is recognized by the company as their first Intercontinental Champion and creator of the Royal Rumble match. He was inducted into the WWF Hall of Fame as part of the class of 1996. In 2019, Patterson became the oldest person to win a title in WWE history, after winning the WWE 24/7 Championship at age 78. He was described by journalist Dave Meltzer as "Vince McMahon's right-hand man" and "one of the chief architects of the WWE, playing an integral role in helping it become a global phenomenon".

2. Rocky Johnson (1944 - 2020)

With an HPI of 63.27, Rocky Johnson is the 2nd most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Rocky Johnson (born Wayde Douglas Bowles; August 24, 1944 – January 15, 2020) was a Canadian professional wrestler. Among many National Wrestling Alliance titles, he was the first Black NWA Georgia Heavyweight Champion as well as the NWA Television Champion (2 times). He won the WWF Tag Team Championship in 1983, along with his partner Tony Atlas, to become the first black champions in WWE history. He was the father of actor and wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and the grandfather of wrestler Simone "Ava" Johnson.

3. Christian Cage (b. 1973)

With an HPI of 61.21, Christian Cage is the 3rd most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

William Jason Reso (born November 30, 1973) is a Canadian professional wrestler and actor. He is signed to All Elite Wrestling (AEW), where he performs under the ring name Christian Cage and was the leader of The Patriarchy stable. He is widely known for his tenures with WWE as Christian and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) as Christian Cage. Reso made his debut in 1995. He wrestled in Canadian independent promotions early in his career, where he competed in singles and tag team competition with his best friend Edge. In 1998, he signed a developmental contract with the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF, renamed to WWE in 2002) and made his debut the same year, immediately capturing his first championship in the company, the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship, in his debut match. Edge and Christian formed a tag team and gained notoriety for their participation in Tables, Ladders, and Chairs matches. They won the promotion's World Tag Team Championship on seven occasions. They are considered one of the major teams that revived tag team wrestling during the Attitude Era. The team parted ways in 2001, after which, Christian held various singles titles in WWE, including the European, Hardcore, and Intercontinental Championships. In 2005, Reso departed WWE and signed with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) under his Christian Cage ring name, after which, he won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship twice. He left TNA in late 2008 and re-signed with WWE in 2009, where he won the ECW Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship twice each until retiring in 2014 due to concussion issues. He was the 23rd Triple Crown Champion and 11th Grand Slam Champion in WWE history. In March 2021, Cage made his debut for AEW, again reverting to his Christian Cage moniker, and officially resuming his in-ring wrestling career. Following this, he won the Impact World Championship on the first episode of AEW Rampage in 2021 (as AEW and Impact had a partnership at the time), and in 2023, he won his first title under the AEW banner in the AEW TNT Championship, which he has held twice. Additionally, he is a former one-time AEW World Trios Champion. In total, between WWE, AEW, and TNA, Cage has won 26 championships, including seven world championships and nine tag team titles and is regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. He has headlined multiple pay-per-view events between WWE, TNA and AEW, and was one of WWE's most prolific pay-per-view performers.

4. Bret Hart (b. 1957)

With an HPI of 60.87, Bret Hart is the 4th most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 42 different languages.

Bret Sergeant Hart (born July 2, 1957) is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. A member of the Hart wrestling family and a second-generation wrestler, he has an amateur wrestling background at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal College. A major international draw within professional wrestling, he is credited with changing the perception of mainstream North American professional wrestling in the early 1990s by bringing technical wrestling to the fore. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time; Sky Sports noted that his legacy is that of "one of, if not the greatest, to have ever graced the squared circle". For the majority of his career, he used the nickname "the Hitman". Hart joined his father Stu Hart's promotion Stampede Wrestling in 1976 as a referee and made his in-ring debut in 1978. He gained championship success during the 1980s and 1990s in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), where he helmed The Hart Foundation stable. He left for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) following the controversial "Montreal Screwjob" in November 1997, where he remained until October 2000. Having been inactive from in-ring competition since January 2000, owing to a December 1999 concussion, he officially retired in October 2000, shortly after his departure from the company. He returned to sporadic in-ring competition from 2010 to 2011 with WWE, where he won his final championship, headlined the 2010 SummerSlam event, and served as the general manager of Raw. Throughout his career, he headlined the respective premier events of the WWF and WCW, WrestleMania (9, 10, and 12) and Starrcade (in 1999). He was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame upon its inception in 1996, while still an active performer. Hart held championship titles in five decades from the 1970s to the 2010s, 32 throughout his career and 17 between the WWF/WWE and WCW. Among other accolades, he is a seven-time world champion; a five-time WWF Champion and a two-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion. He went the most combined days as WWF Champion during the 1990s (654) and was the first WCW World Heavyweight Champion born outside the United States. He is the second WWF Triple Crown Champion and fifth (with Goldberg) WCW Triple Crown Champion. He is also the 1994 Royal Rumble match winner (with Lex Luger), and the only two-time King of the Ring, winning the 1991 tournament and the first King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1993. He co-headlined multiple pay-per-view events as part of an acclaimed rivalry with Stone Cold Steve Austin from 1996 to 1997. He is the first wrestler to be inducted three times into the WWE Hall of Fame: in 2006 individually, in 2019 as a member of The Hart Foundation, and in 2025 when his Submission match with Stone Cold Steve Austin at WrestleMania 13 was inducted as the inaugural entry into the Immortal Moments category. Outside of wrestling, Hart has appeared in numerous films and television shows such as The Simpsons as well as featuring in several documentaries, both about himself specifically and others about his family or the wrestling industry in general. He also helped found and lent his name to the major junior ice hockey team the Calgary Hitmen and has written two biographies along with a weekly column for the Calgary Sun for over a decade. After his retirement, he spent much of his time on charitable efforts concerning stroke recovery and cancer awareness, due to his experiences with the two.

5. Chris Benoit (1967 - 2007)

With an HPI of 59.81, Chris Benoit is the 5th most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 46 different languages.

Christopher Michael Benoit ( bə-NWAH; May 21, 1967 – June 24, 2007) was a Canadian professional wrestler. He worked for various pro-wrestling promotions during his 22-year career, but is notorious for killing his wife and youngest son. Bearing the nicknames The (Canadian) Crippler alongside The Rabid Wolverine throughout his career, Benoit held 30 championships between World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment (WWF/WWE), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW – all United States), New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW – Japan), and Stampede Wrestling (Canada). He was a two-time world champion, Benoit having reigned as a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion and a one-time World Heavyweight Champion in WWE; he was booked to win a third world championship at a WWE event on the night of his death. Benoit was the twelfth WWE Triple Crown Champion and the seventh WCW Triple Crown Champion, and the second of four men in history to achieve both the WWE and the WCW Triple Crown Championships. He was also the 2004 Royal Rumble winner, joining Shawn Michaels and preceding Edge as one of the three men to win a Royal Rumble as the number one entrant. Benoit headlined multiple pay-per-views for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) including a victory in the World Heavyweight Championship main event triple threat match of WrestleMania XX in March 2004. In a three-day double-murder and suicide, Benoit murdered his wife in their residence on June 22, 2007, and his 7-year-old son the next day, before killing himself on June 24. The incident profoundly shocked and changed the professional wrestling industry and drew intense mainstream media criticism regarding brain injuries, substance abuse, and the long-term health of athletes in contact sports. Subsequent research undertaken by the Sports Legacy Institute (now the Concussion Legacy Foundation) suggested that depression and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition of brain damage, from multiple concussions that Benoit had sustained throughout his pro-wrestling career were likely contributing factors of the crimes. Due to his murders, Benoit's legacy in the professional wrestling industry is controversial and heavily debated. Benoit has been renowned by many for his exceptional technical wrestling ability. Prominent combat sports journalist Dave Meltzer considers Benoit "one of the top 10, maybe even [in] the top five, all-time greats" in professional wrestling history. Benoit was inducted into the Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame in 2003. His WON induction was put to a re-vote in 2008 to determine if Benoit should remain a member of their Hall of Fame. The threshold percentage of votes required to remove Benoit was not met.

6. Roddy Piper (1954 - 2015)

With an HPI of 59.17, Roddy Piper is the 6th most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Roderick George Toombs (April 17, 1954 – July 31, 2015), better known as "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, was a Canadian professional wrestler and actor. In professional wrestling, Piper was best known to international audiences for his work with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) between 1984 and 2000. Although he was Canadian, Piper was billed as coming from Glasgow and was known for his signature kilt and bagpipe entrance music; this was because of his Scottish heritage. Piper earned the nicknames "Rowdy" and "Hot Rod" by displaying his trademark "Scottish" short temper, spontaneity, and quick wit. According to The Daily Telegraph, he is "considered by many to be the greatest 'heel' (or villain) wrestler ever". One of wrestling's most recognizable stars, Piper headlined multiple pay-per-view events, including the WWF and WCW's respective premier annual events, WrestleMania and Starrcade. He accumulated 34 championships and hosted the popular WWF/WWE interview segment "Piper's Pit", which facilitated numerous kayfabe feuds. In 2005, Piper was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by Ric Flair, who dubbed him "the most gifted entertainer in the history of professional wrestling". Outside of wrestling, Piper acted in dozens of films and TV shows. Most notably, he took the lead role of John Nada in the 1988 cult classic They Live and a recurring role as deranged professional wrestler Da' Maniac on the FX comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

7. Kevin Owens (b. 1984)

With an HPI of 56.97, Kevin Owens is the 7th most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Kevin Yanick Steen (born May 7, 1984) is a Canadian professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Kevin Owens. Steen began his career in 2000, at the age of 16. Prior to joining WWE in late 2014, he wrestled under his birth name for Ring of Honor (ROH), where he held the ROH World Championship and ROH World Tag Team Championship. He also wrestled extensively on the independent circuit for 14 years, most notably in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG), where he held the PWG World Championship a record three times, as well as the PWG World Tag Team Championship on three occasions. Steen also competed for International Wrestling Syndicate (IWS), where he held the IWS World Heavyweight Championship three times, and Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW), where he held the CZW Iron Man Championship. Steen signed with WWE in August 2014, and joined their developmental branch NXT before debuting on the main roster in May 2015. In WWE, he has won nine championships – the NXT Championship once, the Universal Championship once, the Intercontinental Championship twice, the United States Championship three times, and the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship (consisting of the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships) once with Sami Zayn. He has headlined the company's flagship annual event WrestleMania on two occasions; the first at WrestleMania 38 - Night 1, in which he lost to "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in a one-off match 19 years after Austin's retirement, and the second at WrestleMania 39 - Night 1, where he teamed with Zayn to defeat The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship, which made Owens WWE's 23rd overall Grand Slam Champion.

8. Natalya Neidhart (b. 1982)

With an HPI of 56.86, Natalya Neidhart is the 8th most famous Canadian Wrestler.  Her biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Natalie Katherine Neidhart-Wilson (née Neidhart; born May 27, 1982) is a Canadian-American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Natalya. She also wrestles on the independent circuit under her real name, stylized as Nattie Neidhart. She is a two-time women's world champion, having won the WWE Divas Championship and WWE SmackDown Women's Championship once each. She is also a one-time WWE Women's Tag Team Champion with Tamina. A third generation wrestler, Neidhart is a member of the Hart wrestling family through her mother, and is also the daughter of Hart Foundation member and Hall of Famer Jim Neidhart. She trained in the Hart family Dungeon under the tutelage of her uncles Ross and Bruce Hart. From 2000 to 2001, she worked for the Matrats promotion, before debuting for Stampede Wrestling in 2003. In 2004 and 2005, she wrestled abroad in England and Japan. She became the inaugural Stampede Women's Pacific Champion in 2005, and won the SuperGirls Championship the following year. In 2007, Neidhart signed with WWE and spent time in Deep South Wrestling, Ohio Valley Wrestling, and Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) developmental territories. While in FCW, she managed her cousin, Harry Smith, and her husband, T.J. Wilson. She debuted on the main roster in 2008, allying herself with Victoria. The following year she and Wilson were joined by Smith to form The Hart Dynasty. In 2010, Neidhart won the Divas Championship. In 2017, she became the SmackDown Women's Champion after defeating Naomi at SummerSlam. She is the first woman in WWE history to hold both the Divas Championship and the SmackDown Women's Championship. From 2013 to 2019, Neidhart appeared in the reality television series Total Divas, the sole consistent main cast member across all nine seasons. She has set six records as recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for female WWE wrestlers – most pay-per-view appearances, most matches, most wins, most Raw matches, most SmackDown matches, and most WrestleMania matches. Neidhart is the longest-tenured female WWE wrestler, actively being with the company since 2007.

9. Sami Zayn (b. 1984)

With an HPI of 56.66, Sami Zayn is the 9th most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Rami Sebei (Arabic: رامي السباعي; born July 12, 1984) is a Canadian professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Sami Zayn. He is a former 4-time WWE Intercontinental Champion. Sebei made his professional wrestling debut in 2002 under the ring name Stevie McFly. Prior to joining WWE, he competed for Montreal-based promotion International Wrestling Syndicate (IWS), where he became a two-time IWS World Heavyweight Champion, and achieved breakout success in the United States with Los Angeles-based promotion Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) and then-Philadelphia-based promotion Ring of Honor (ROH), all under the ring name El Generico, using the character of a luchador from Mexico with the catchphrase "Olé!". He wrestled while masked from 2002 to 2013. During his time in PWG, Sebei became a two-time PWG World Champion and five-time PWG World Tag Team Champion. He is the only person to have won both of PWG's annual tournaments, the Dynamite Duumvirate Tag Team Title Tournament in 2010 and the Battle of Los Angeles in 2011. In ROH, he held the ROH World Television Championship and the ROH World Tag Team Championship as part of a team with Kevin Steen, with whom he later earned the 2010 Feud of the Year award from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. He has also performed in Chikara and Evolve. Sebei also competed internationally for Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw) in Germany, where he won the wXw Unified World Wrestling Championship, and in Japan for DDT Pro-Wrestling and Dragon Gate (as well as its American branch), having won the KO-D Openweight Championship in the former promotion. Upon signing with WWE in 2013, he took on the ring name Sami Zayn and began wrestling without a mask in WWE's developmental brand NXT, where he won the NXT Championship. After being promoted to the main roster, he became a four-time WWE Intercontinental Champion. From April 2022 to January 2023, he was involved with The Bloodline faction. In addition to his other WWE accomplishments, Sebei also headlined several pay-per-view events, including WrestleMania 39 - Night 1, where he became one half of the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions (consisting of the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships) alongside Kevin Owens.

10. Bobby Roode (b. 1977)

With an HPI of 56.37, Bobby Roode is the 10th most famous Canadian Wrestler.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Robert Francis Roode Jr. (born May 11, 1976) is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE, where he is a producer and was formerly a wrestler. Roode is best known for his twelve-year tenure in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). After debuting for TNA as part of Team Canada in 2004, he won the NWA World Tag Team Championship with Eric Young. Following the team's breakup, embarked on a singles run before forming a tag team with James Storm as Beer Money, Inc. Together with Storm, he is a six-time TNA World Tag Team Champion and they are the longest reigning champions in TNA history. Roode eventually became a two-time TNA World Heavyweight Champion, with his first reign being the second longest reign in the company's history at 256 days, only behind Josh Alexander's reign at 335 days. In his later years with the company, Roode also won the World Tag Team Championship with Austin Aries and was a one-time TNA King of the Mountain Champion. In 2016, he began his WWE career in NXT, where he was a one-time NXT Champion prior to his main roster call-up. Roode debuted on SmackDown in August 2017, winning the United States Championship in January 2018, his first championship on the main roster, and he won the Raw Tag Team Championship with partner Chad Gable that December. He also has held the 24/7 Championship once and has held the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships once each with Dolph Ziggler. Overall, Roode is a two-time world champion in professional wrestling.