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Protagonists
Winnie
Winnie Coyle
- Voiced by: Geraldine Viswanathan, Kaya McLean (child)
- Childhood Friends: With Steve, a.k.a Rayburn Junior, whom she got to know while her father coached his father Rayburn. They appear to have been pretty close, as Winnie immediately recognizes him when she sees him as an adult in a ring in Pittsburgh.
- Daddy's Girl: Winnie was very close to her father, to the point she accompanied him to the ring and watched the fights from his shoulders. Everything she knows about Monster Wrestling, Winnie learned from Jimbo.
- Foil: To Steve/Rayburn Jr. Winnie wants to uphold her father's and Rayburn's legacy against all odds and save the stadium erected in their honor as it's the last thing she has to remind her of her dad. She's also very passionate about wrestling and strategizing. Wholly unlike the cynical and apathetic Steve, who has mixed feelings about his famous champion dad and (at least at the start) is Only in It for the Money.
- Innocently Insensitive: Winnie can get swept away in her enthusiasm for things and not notice when she says or does something that hurts others. Best shown when she keeps trying to train Steve like Rayburn, down to making him learn Rayburn's signature finisher, until Steve calls her out on it.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By telling Tentacular the key to winning against King Gorge (watch for his tell, then attack), Winnie unknowingly helps him establish a brand so he can leave Stoker behind.
- Passionate Sports Girl: Downplayed as Winnie obviously doesn't step into the ring herself, but she is nevertheless a very hands-on coach with a genuine love for monster wrestling as a sport. Tentacular only wins his match against King Gorge because Winnie notices Gorge has a tell that makes him easy to predict and under her training, Steve becomes a succesful monster wrestler who becomes the new world champion at the end of the movie.
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Winnie is a Passionate Sports Girl for monster wrestling who puts her all into cheering in matches and coaching, but also has her hair dyed bright pink.
Steve
Rayburn Jr./Steve the Stupendous
- Voiced by: Will Arnett, Gracen Newton (child)
- Ass Kicks You: Steve's signature Finishing Move, the "Moon Boom" consists of him ramming his butt into his opponent. Fittingly he uses it to finish off Tentacular at the end of their match.
- Big Fun: Steve is more on the rotund side and a lot less highstrung than Winnie, often joking around during training and having a passion for dancing.
- Dance Battler: Steve loves dancing, so Winnie decides to incorporate dance moves into his fighting style. The combination of classic dance and wrestling, while at first rejected by a lot of people in the wrestling community for not being "real wrestling", allows Steve a win-streak as well as a victory against the current world champion.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Isn't too keen on being called Rayburn Jr. as he doesn't want to be associated with his father and the expectations such a legacy brings. When challenging Tentacular, he finally uses Rayburn Jr. to introduce himself, showing that he's confident enough to make his own legacy now while simultaneously accepting his dad's.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even though Steve has complicated feelings about his dad, he's still taken aback by the sheer lengths Tentacular goes to to completely demolish Rayburn's legacy.
- I Am Not My Father: Downplayed. While Steve does look up to Rayburn and misses him, he makes it clear to Winnie that he isn't going to just be "the son of Rayburn" when he fights. He even changed his name specifically to avoid invoking his father's reputation.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While he's being unecessarily harsh and rude about it, Steve isn't exactly wrong for calling out Winnie's plan to make him into a copy of his father, something he already told her he didn't want to be.
- Jobber: His role in Lady Mayhen's fighting ring. He's paid to be the guy other wrestlers beat to a pulp with little effort. When he screws that up thanks to Winnie's meddling, his boss is not pleased about it.
- Red Is Heroic: A red monster wrestler and a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- Sucksessor: Seems to be this to his much more talented father Rayburn at first. Difference in figures aside, Steve's only experience with wrestling at the start of the movie are stage fights where he's paid to throw the match. As a result he doesn't even try in his very first actual fight against Ramarilla and almost gets bodied. In fact, the fear of being seen at this is what got Steve to leave Stoker in the first place. It's only when Winnie starts individualizing Steve's training to be more suitable to him that he starts coming into his own as a fighter and manages to win the championship on his own terms.
Monster Wrestlers
King Gorge
- Voiced by: Chris Eubank
- Bad Boss: During his entrance, Gorge casually slaps one of his trumpeteers into the screen-wall.
- Break the Haughty: His brutal loss against Tentacular traumatizes Gorge so much he refuses to fight again at all and has to be coaxed and begged by his trainer to at least try a match against Steve.
- Bully Bulldog: Gorge is introduced as a wrestler who's gotten rather comfortable in his position as world champ and looks down on any potential challengers. His very first move against Tentacular is to put him in a headlock and squeeze his face several times.
- Cone of Shame: He's wearing one the next time we get to see him, to signify how sad and pathetic he's become after being beaten by Tentacular.
- Evil Brit: His entire thing. He's a foppish, arrogant wrestler with a British accent and a disdainful attitude toward everyone. All of which makes it very easy to root against him at the beginning of the movie. As if to hammer the point in, his Leitmotif is "Rule, Brittannia".
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Gorge is a bulldog-monster with massive curved bull-horns and spikes on his back.
- Starter Villain: As the world champion at the time with the arrogance to match, he's the first antagonist of the movie. After Tentacular beats him though, Gorge pretty much disappears into the background with Tentacular becoming the movie's main antagonist instead.
- The Tell: One that ends up screwing him over in his match with Tentacular: Winnie realizes that Gorge always licks his nose before attacking. She relays that information to Tentacular, who promptly uses it to dodge Gorge's attempt at a finisher and then beats him with a well-placed counter-attack.
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse?? Downplayed. He's set up to battle Rayburn Jr. by his trainer in order to get his groove back but the movie never shows us the match or if it even happened after Rayburn Jr. beats Tentacular. Gorge is, however, part of the movie's Dance Party Ending which seems to suggest he's recovered a little.
Ramarilla
- Voiced by: Joe Anoa'i
- The Berserker: His fighting style is really just him going ape on opponents with all his might until they stay down. Not even the confines of the ring can stop him. Deconstructed, as him always going haywire leads to him getting tired out faster.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Ramarilla is genuinely disgusted when he realizes Steve is trying to throw their match, even threatening the referee to stop counting because he doesn't want a win like that.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: He's a monster-gorilla with ram-horns.
Rayburn
- Voiced by: Charles Barkley
- The Ace: He was the best monster wrestler of his time, with everyone speaking in awe of him even long after his passing, handsome, friendly and humble and always trying to inspire a passion for monster wrestling in others. Deconstructed, as his legacy of being the greatest of all time is shown to negatively affect younger monster wrestlers like his son and Tentacular who struggle to make a name for themselves in a scene that constantly compares every up and coming athlete to his example.
- Heroic Build: Broad-shouldered and big-armed, Rayburn's figure was pretty much perfect for a wrestler.
- Lost at Sea: Him and his trainer Jimbo died in a storm while taking a boat to a wrestling match overseas.
- Parents as People: While there's no question that Rayburn Sr. loved his son, he wasn't very supportive when it came to Junior's passion for dancing and tried to force him to practice more traditional wrestling instead.
Tentacular
- Voiced by: Terry Crews
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: At first he seems Innocently Insensitive at worst, being pleasant to his fans and actually taking Winnie's advice in his match while everyone else tends to dismiss her as a coach due to her age. His leaving Stoker for a town that pays him more is a dick move, sure, but there doesn't seem to be any genuine malice behind it. However, when Winnie and Steve try to keep Stoker's mayor from signing away their stadium, Tentacular shows his true colors, flat-out admitting that it was his idea to have the stadium bulldozed so he won't be overshadowed by Rayburn's legacy anymore.
- Blue Is Heroic: Subverted. He's a light-blue shark monster and though he starts out as a relatively heroic character, the warning signs pointing to his egotistic personality are there very early on. After he wins the world championship, Tentacular abandons Stoker for the much richer and bigger Slitherpool and demands of his new sponsor to bulldoze Stoker's wrestling stadium out of jealousy over Rayburn's legend.
- Evil Counterpart: To Steve/Rayburn Jr. Both are aspiring monster wrestlers trying to get out of Rayburn's shadow and make a name for themselves in the wrestling scene. But while Steve achieves this through inventing his own fighting style and learning to ignore what the public says or thinks of it, Tentacular tries to achieve this by spitefully destroying every single reminder of Rayburn there is, down to the stadium Rayburn and his trainer Jimbo built together.
- Face–Heel Turn: Literally: He goes from the underdog newbie wrestler taking on the current world champion in order to save a small, dying town (Face) to the arrogant gloryhound who abandons said town after winning the belt and becomes the Final Boss for the new underdog character Rayburn Jr. (Heel). This is even demonstrated by his two entrances into the Stoker stadium. The first time he's cheered on by its entire population, who all show utmost faith in him despite the odds being largely against him. The second time before the climactic fight of the movie, Tentacular is booed and heckled the moment he steps out the door and the odds are very much in his favor.
- Hypocrite: Derides Rayburn Jr.'s Dance Battler fighting style as not being real wrestling but only manages to put him on the ropes in round two of their match due to incorporating dance moves into his own strategy.
- It's All About Me: The reason he abandons Stoker, which is struggling financially and depending on him for survival? Slitherpool paid him more and is more famous. He even says this trope word for word after Winnie begs him not to take Stoker's stadium away.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: A shark-monster with octopus-tentacles.
- Nothing Personal: How he sees demolishing Stoker's stadium to erase the memory of Rayburn so it won't get in the way of his own legend. He doesn't have anything against Jimbo or the Coyles, he just doesn't want anyone else sharing the spotlight with him. He tells Winnie as much, not that that makes her feel better.
