My special wall is Tentacruel, who rapid spins and sets up T-Spikes. Forretress is a similar wall who is also quite useful. I have sucessfully used Garchomp as a wall with Stealth Rocks.A wall without a recovery move is as useless as your friend claims. Bronzong, I'm looking at you. However, Skarmory, Hippowdon, Blissey, and Cresselia (who is defensive enough to survive 3 turns of Rest/Sleep Talk) can come in on something they're supposed to wall, damage/paralyze/poison/sleep whatever the opponent switches into them or set up some other type of support move, then recover off the damage they've taken when it's safe.
Bronzong would work, except I have a fire weak on my team and never really found a use for him. Nonetheless, he has hypnosis, reflect, light screen and only a single weakness. I wouldn't call him useless at all.