"The ultimate villain of the story, who's causing the problem the heroes must solve."
Note that Big Bad is not a catch-all trope for the biggest and ugliest villain of any given story. The Big Bad is the one who turns out to be behind several other seemingly independent threats.
- Vince McMahon during the World Wrestling Federation's invasion of Jerry Lawler's USWA in 1992. Vince would later become the big bad of his own company as he abused his power, initially to take down "Stone Cold" Steve Austin but eventually just for the sake of it. He has dipped in and out of this status ever since.
- Dr. Cube has been a constant in Kaiju Big Battel since its inception in 1996, though there are other rogues outside of his control, more often than not its all his fault.
- Eric Bischoff frequently in WCW, especially when he took the side of the New World Order in 1996.
- Since he was the owner, Paul Heyman frequently in ECW. Also more frequently in WWE, where he manages wrestlers who tend to hold the championship belt for quite some time.
- Triple H on Monday Night Raw for most of Eric Bischoff's tenure as general manager, since Bischoff was usually bullied into doing whatever Trips wanted. Once Triple H let Bischoff get humiliated by Eugene though, he grew a spine and stopped bending to Triple H's will.
- Triple H and Stephanie McMahon during The Authority angle.
- Vickie Guerrero during most of her time as GM. She abuses her power to create biased match stipulations such as banning Edge's spear in or out of matches in an attempt to fire him.
- CZW owner John Zandig when the roster invaded Ring of Honor staring in January of 2006. However, he had nothing to do with Chris Hero's initial antagonizing of ROH in 2005(though Hero threatened to get him involved if Bryan Danielson refused to respond) or Hero's continued antagonism after the feud was "officially" ended by Homicide in July. On the other hand, Zandig is partially responsible for the existence of ROH anyway, so Hero's actions ended up being driven by his even when he wasn't involved.
- Perro Aguayo Jr. in 2008 when he took Los Perros Del Mal out of CMLL and launched an entire promotion with them as the center of attention. Héctor Garza was the one who originally made Aguayo evil though, so he could be considered the big bad for Perros Del Mal's CMLL run at least but didn't jump over to PDM until 2011.
- John Laurinaitis during the "vote of no confidence for Triple H conspiracy" angle on Raw.
- Jimmy Havoc was this for Progress Wrestling during his 600+ day reign as champion.
- CHIKARA usually has story arcs that last for an entire seasonnote , and so there have been several Big Bads over the course of the promotion's history.
- For Seasons 1 and 2, Blind Rage, leader of first the Night Shift then the Dark Breed.
- For Season 3, Larry Sweeney, leader of Sweet 'n' Sour International
- For Seasons 4, 5 and 6, Chris Hero, leader of the Kings of Wrestling
- For Seasons 7 and 8, Vin Gerard, leader of the UnStable. He briefly formed a Big Bad Duumvirate with Mitch Ryder of the Fabulous 3.
- For Seasons 9, Ares, leader of Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes.
- For Season 10, another duumvirate with Ares and Sinn Bodhi, leader of the Dark Army.
- Season 11 didn't quite have one - the first half of the season was spent with a number of heels contending for the vacant Big Bad spot while the faces feuded with GEKIDO. GEKIDO's leader 17 wasn't quite formidable to be the Big Bad though. Another top contender for the spot, Brodie Lee, vanished abruptlynote . The second half of the season, the top contenders were Tim Donst and Delirious, but they were too concerned with their respective feuds against UltraMantis Black and Eddie Kingston to be Big Bads to the entire promotion.
- For Season 12, Wink Vavasseur, the corrupt Director of Fun as a Non-Action Big Bad.
- For Seasons 13 and 14, Deucalion, The Titan of Titor, the leader of the Flood. From National Pro Wrestling Day to You Only Live Twice, it originally seemed Jimmy Jacobs was the leader, but instead was The Dragon then The Starscream at the close of the season.
- For Season 15, Hallowicked, who claimed to be doing the bidding of an entity named Nazmaldun and formed a stable called the Nightmare Warriors.
- For Season 16, Nazmaldun was incarnated into the body of UltraMantis Black. Since Mantis suffered a career-ending injury and no longer wrestles, this would make Nazmaldun a Non-Action Big Bad and Hallowicked his Dragon. Jakob Hammermeier made a spirited grab for the title when he tried to use the mind-controlling device the Eye of Tyr on Hallowicked. However, it didn't work and Hallowicked stole the Eye from him.
- Roman Reigns is this during his Tribal Chief run. His first act as the Tribal Chief is to torture The Usos into joining them by forcing Jey to say "I Quit" after choking out Jimmy at Hell in a Cell 2020, turning them into his lackeys. His first words as the Tribal Chief? "Acknowledge me."
