The 2010s saw a widespread change in WWE. The product went full PG, meaning less blood whenever possible. NXT was created with the purpose of turning prospects into stars, to varying results, and the women's division especially, slowly but surely, started gaining the attention and elevation that it deserved for very long.
RELATEDThe Best WWE Finisher Every Year Of The 2010s
With the new decade, wrestlers put on various types and colors of wresting attire, and just like in the past decades, each of them carried varying levels of coolness. Some were excellent; a few were horrible; and others lay somewhere in between. But here, only the ends count...
10 Worst: Mojo Rawley
Ever wonder why Mojo Rawley was one of the most obscure WWE superstars of the 2010s? That is because almost nothing about him stood out in a good way.
RELATED10 Things WWE Fans Need To Know About Mojo Rawley
There is already the discussion about his utterly atrocious finisher, the Hyperdrive, but Rawley's problems go further way back than that. For starters, there was his uncanny preference for brightly colored trunks, which would not be a problem for a kid-friendly babyface like Bayley at the time, but was surely unusual for a brutish former football player.
9 Best: Summer Rae
Summer Rae an easily be considered one of the unsung heroes of the Women's Revolution. While never the best in-ring female worker of the early NXT era (Paige and Emma would gladly share that honor, given their prior wrestling experience), she shone best as a character, perfectly playing the role of conniving heel, without whom her fellow BFF's Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks would not have developed as characters.
It is a shame that she was unable to show her in-ring skills as often as she could have, because what she wore to matches would normally constitute a star-making look: a "window" in the chest and long "stockings" that helped to accentuate her 5'10" frame.
8 Worst: James Ellsworth
Remember James Ellsworth? He may quite possibly be the most overexposed jobber in the history of WWE. The only thing about him that stood out was his chin, and yet either Vince McMahon or one of his closest confidants decided that he was worth pushing on SmackDown over infinitely better workers like Rusev.
And then there was his wrestling outfit - as bland as any jobber in a bygone era can be. The only time he tried to stand out was, ironically enough, being Carmella's "pet", and it usually amounted to nothing more than copying her urban style.
7 Best: Corey Graves
As a commentator, Corey Graves is best known for defending heels and fawning over particularly gorgeous women like Mandy Rose and his current wife Carmella.
However, what many may not know about him is that he was once a professional wrestler himself, even winning the NXT Tag Team Champions with (Adrian) Neville (better known today as PAC). And his look was as badass as one could imagine - many tattoos, bare arms, and especially a pair of rugged pants - those elements would have been the makings of an excellent heel had concussions not gotten in his way.
6 Worst: Heath Slater
Heath Slater was one of many wrestlers who began their WWE career via the NXT, and by extension, the Nexus. In hindsight, it was not a great fit - Heath has excellent comedic gifts, as evidenced by his later rin with 3MB, yet the promotion wanted to shoehorn him in a dark and gritty stable.
His outfit was a strong indicator in this - since everyone in what ultimately became the Nexus wore trunks, so did he have to, robbing him of his harm. It was not until he got out of Wade Barrett's (then Justin Gabriel's) shadow that he was finally bale to switch to pants that better suited his rock star image.
5 Best: Alberto Del Rio
Today, Alberto Del Rio is one of the most controversial figures in professional wrestling, having a range of character issues ranging from no-showing bookings to committing crimes.
This descent to lowly, entitled scum is a fall from grace from someone whom WWE had initially presented as the opposite - a snobby, entitled aristocrat who drove himself to the ring in expensive cars and wore gold. Yes, gold trunks. That screamed "the next great Hispanic thing in WWE", although it obviously did not pan out in the long term.
4 Worst: "Bluetista"
Batista's 2014 run is already the stuff of legend for all the wrong reasons: the painfully telegraphed Royal Rumble win, the impromptu heel turn, the lackluster performances he delivered during matches, and so forth.
And yet he did end this wretched run on a rather humorous note: by wearing a blue outfit at Payback. It was garish sight to see, given what everyone else was wearing: mostly black, with Triple H and Randy Orton adding smatterings of white to their trunks. To this day, Batista hates hearing that word.
3 Best: Charlotte Flair
Love her or hate her, Charlotte has been at the top of the sartorial side of professional wrestling since she started wrestling in 2013. Initially starting out with some basic outfits, she gradually improved her fashion as she climbed through the ranks.
By 2016, she had standardized the look that she would carry into 2020: bejeweled bustier-style tops and matching shorts with exquisite designs. For better or worse, it was the look of a winner - one of multiple title reigns, to be more specific.
2 Worst: Constable Corbin
Baron Corbin is a rather polarizing figure in WWE. On one hand, detractors think he is a charisma vacuum who never really had the tools to succeed. On the other, supporters think he might have been a star had circumstances not piled up against him.
Whichever side someone stands with, they should at least find solace in saying that Constable Corbin had quite possibly the most baffling fighting gear: a suit. A suit should be hard to fight in for its wearer, but apparently not Corbin, who kept on wearing it even after his ouster. Fortunately, he ditched it at the King of the Ring tournament.
1 Best: The Shield
"Sierra, Hotel, India, Echo, Lima, Delta - SHIELD."
That intro, to this day, is still one of the most iconic in modern wrestling history, and when it came up, you knew what you were getting: three ominous-looking men in tactical gear - black vests, gloves, pants, and boots. That was the gear that put Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Dean Ambrose on the map and sent them on the path to superstardom. "Why be needlessly exotic when we could be cold-bloodedly simple?" was the name of their game, and it worked.
