While there has been a long history of UK wrestlers in the United States, Germans have come on the scene of American mainstream wrestling only fairly recently (although German-gimmicks were en vogue after both world wars).
Since the 1990s, Germany, once a hotbed of European pro wrestling thanks to Otto Wanz (an Austrian) and his CWA promotion and currently home to the widely praised wXw promotion, has produced only seven wrestlers that appeared on WWE, WCW, or ECW shows. Here they are, ranked from worst to best.
7 Brakkus
Achim Albrecht was a bodybuilder and therefore exactly to Vince McMahon’s liking. He signed with the WWE in September 1996 and attended the same training camp as Mark Henry and The Rock. Unlike both those guys though, Brakkus never really understood pro wrestling. He wrestled a number of dark matches until vignettes began to air in mid-1997 – which led nowhere. Instead, he was sent to the USWA and ECW to get more experience before returning to the WWE in early 1998. Again, Brakkus was mainly used on house shows and dark matches before entering the Brawl for All tournament, losing to Savio Vega. He wrestled one match on Raw is War, beating Jesus Castillo jr of Los Boricuas before being let go.
6 Tim Wiese
Tim Wiese was a professional soccer goalie who played in the German Bundesliga and even had some international appearances for Germany. By 2014, Wiese retired from soccer at age 33. Rumors began to circulate that he was signed to NXT and he indeed began training at the Performance Center in 2016.
He eventually wrestled one match during a live event in Munich, teaming with The Bar (Sheamus and Cesaro) to defeat Primo, Epico, and Bo Dallas. He eventually left WWE in 2017 but his decent performance in one match already puts him ahead of Brakkus, if only for the fact that he realized quicker that wrestling wasn’t for him.
5 Ulf Herman
It was an odd sight to see CWA veteran Ulf Herman turn up in ECW in 1998. Herman was used mostly in the undercard and eventually joined the Full Blooded Italians stable. During his time in ECW, Herman challenged Rob Van Dam for RVD’s TV title on a number of occasions but was never successful. His last match came against Sabu in January 1999 before he returned to Germany. A decent technical wrestler with good size, Herman’s biggest flaw was a lack of personality.
4 Alexander Wolfe
Wolfe was a member of NXT’s Sanity group alongside Eric Young, Killian Dain and Nikki Cross. He was the first German to win a title in WWE when he won the NXT tag team titles alongside Eric Young at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn II.
After Sanity’s main roster run was cut short, Wolfe joined the Imperium group of Marcel Barthel (now Ludwig Kaiser), Fabian Aichner (now Giovanni Vinci) and Gunther in NXT but was relatively quickly kicked out of the group before being released by WWE in May 2021.
3 Ludwig Kaiser
The son of former German wrestler Axel Dieter, Barthel began wrestling under his real name in NXT as part of the Imperium group, mostly in a tag team alongside Fabian Aichner. After being called-up to the main roster in April 2022 he was renamed Ludwig Kaiser and eventually began teaming with Aichner – now renamed Giovanni Vinci – again. Since Kaiser is still active in the WWE system, it is a bit harder to say where he will eventually rank. At only 33 years old, he still hasn’t reached his full potential in WWE despite holding the NXT tag team titles twice alongside Aichner/Vinci.
2 Alex Wright
The first German to really make an impact on modern American pro wrestling was Alex Wright. The son of English professional wrestler Steve Wright, Alex was scouted by WCW during tryouts at a European tour in 1994. He would debut on television later that same year at only 19 years old, dubbed ‘Das Wunderkind’ (the miracle kid). Wright was pushed with a win streak that would only end at Slamboree 1995 when he was defeated by TV champion Arn Anderson. He later would win the Cruiserweight and Television title in 1997, and the tag team title in 2000. He was also set for a major push as Berlyn in 1999 before the Columbine school shooting put an end to his goth gimmick. He stayed under Turner contract even after the WWE buyout of WCW and eventually returned to Germany where he operates a wrestling school whose most notable graduate to date is Imperium’s Giovanni Vinci.
1 Ilja Dragunov
While Alex Wright may have had the biggest impact (and longest career) of any German-born wrestler in mainstream US wrestling so far, Ilja Dragunov is well on his way to overtake Wright. While born in Russia, Dragunov grew up in Germany. He debuted for WWE in 2019 with the NXT UK brand where he eventually won the NXT UK title from WALTER (now Gunther). After the UK brand was dissolved, Dragunov moved to the US-based NXT brand where he eventually won the NXT title at No Mercy 2023 from Camello Hayes.
