Board 8 > B8's Greatest Wrestlers Ever Ranking

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think you're missing the key of how I feel about Edge. I still really like Edge. it's just that looking at all of wrestling through a historical lens... I don't think he's even a name you discuss. Hulk Hogan very clearly is

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I don't know who my top 25 are beyond the first few and I certainly don't feel like fighting anybody over them shrug

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Glad Edge made the top 20. He deserves it. One of my favorites ever. I'm usually a sucker for wrestlers who spent many years with the company or in the business before getting a shot at the top. My most recent guy I want very badly to move up in the spotlight is Cesaro. But that guy totally used to be Edge.

I had Hulk because he brought the audience to wrestling in America. Every wrestler on my list is likely technically better at wrestling than him, but he knew how to fire up a crowd in match and cut a passionate promo. You ask any random on the street to name any wrestler and he'd be mentioned more often than not. Would easily belong on the Mount Rushmore of American wrestling if he weren't a jackass.

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junk_funk posted...

I had Hulk because he brought the audience to wrestling in America.

No no he didnt. Please educate yourself about wrestling outside the WWEs approved narrative.

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You can separate the art from the artist though. The Cosby Show is still among the greatest sitcoms of all time.

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Hulk Hogan brought the wrestling fans to the WWF and the WWF to their biggest audience. He was the star that enabled them to go national and make fans in Florida, Texas, Minnesotta etc into fans of New York wrestling and for that reason is hugely important to the way wrestling is today.

He did not, however, bring the audience to wrestling. There were more people attending live wrestling every week in the 70s than Hogan's run, and I think that's true of television as well.
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I get it you guys hate the WWE. Sheesh. I'm not tearing your favorites down, and just because I watch the most popular wrestling in world and I think they are among the greatest wrestlers in the world I am a newb.

Change of narrative needed in this topic.

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junk_funk posted...

I get it you guys hate the WWE. Sheesh. I'm not tearing your favorites down, and just because I watch the most popular wrestling in world and I think they are among the greatest wrestlers in the world I am a newb.

Change of narrative needed in this topic.

Please educate yourself before saying stupid things. I tried to explain the facts to you, since it seemed like you didn't get it. If you disagree with something I'm saying let's talk about it!
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Steiner and Ed are just stating facts. The facts don't care about what wrestling you like or hate or what wrestling we like or hate.

Even if I loved Hulk Hogan, he still didn't bring wrestling to the USA.

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MarkS222222222222222 posted...

You can separate the art from the artist though. The Cosby Show is still among the greatest sitcoms of all time.

What does this have to do with the topic?

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scarletspeed7 posted...

What does this have to do with the topic?

Sorry, I meant in regards to discounting Hulk for aspects of his personal life. I'll edit my post

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It's not unfair to bring up - I probably would have considered Hogan, and definitely would have considered Benoit, were it not for unpleasant parts of their personal lives. I think Hogan is ranked pretty fairly, too! I just wanted to make clear the premise that he introduced wrestling to the audience was patently false - there's a lot you can credit Hogan with, so let's be accurate.
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time to settle this

in a steel cage

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Please educate yourself before saying stupid things eh?

Didn't realize I was sharing a topic with a bunch of professional Meltzers.

"My opinion is right and yours is wrong" are the worst people in the world.


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Ah, okay, you're trolling. I get it now.

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junk_funk posted...

Please educate yourself before saying stupid things eh?

Didn't realize I was sharing a topic with a bunch of professional Meltzers.

"My opinion is right and yours is wrong" are the worst people in the world.

I'm not debating opinions - only the incorrect "facts" you stated. Don't know why you're finding this difficult
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Also initially I wasn't even trying to debate anything - was only trying to educate that your statement was untrue. Sorry if you thought I was being hostile.
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Again I love Hogan. I do.

I also hate him because of what a racist, sexist, scumbag he is.

But Hulk Hogan is not the figure that brought wrestling to the masses.

What he is is the figure who WWF was able to use as a bludgeon to go National

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And the education line is unfortunately necessary.

WWE have turned themselves into stewards of wrestling history and they have twisted that narrative to make Capitol/WWWF more important than what they were - a successful, but not THE most successful territory. In general their narrative is one that makes WWF the heroes and the center of the universe and leaves just so much out. There were other promotions, many of them more popular and featuring better wrestling.

Hogan captured the 80s Zeitgeist well and was able to legitimately be turned into a national icon but let's also address the monkey in the room here - what drove WWF to be a national promotion was savvy media strategy and a desire to go National not anything that was happening in the ring, though Hogan certainly helped things along. He was bringing easily accessed higher production quality TV wrestling to an audience that already knew and loved wrestling.

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I'll push back a little bit - I don't think wwf peaks as high in the 80s if it's Kerry Von Erich, or Ric Flair, or anybody else you consider for the spot. Really Hogan glued with Vince's promotion and mentality so flawlessly, although it's worth remembering that Hulkamania itself even predates the WWF edition - as Wade Keller is fond of regularly reminding listeners, Hulkamania was born in the AWA, and it was from there that he slotted easily in as the top guy in WWF
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I wonder what happens if like, Memphis is the first to go national. They could have done it after the Kaufman angle! Imagine Lawler as the face of US wrestling
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so you're saying that he was just the right gay guy in the right place at the wrong at the right time?

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Sure, I think because Vince has lasted so long and because both have been so successful apart from one another that it does sort of get lost what a perfect marriage Vince and Hogan were.

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I think it gets lost in the shuffle, also, that quantifiably, Austin at his peak was bigger than Hogan at his peak. Hogan drew more over a longer period of time, but the true lightning in a bottle was Austin, who was the biggest merch mover outside of South Park in the era where that revenue stream was the strongest. And Austin repeatedly got WWF newer contract deals - Austin's very existence is what started TV as the profit center in wrestling, not to mention turning WWF into the publicly traded company it is today. In the nearly ten years where Hogan is at the top, he certainly has a few clear moments where he pulls in a larger number of viewers on network television, but that can also be attributed to Andre's presence as well. Austin was a consistent market-defining worker, and it really can't be ignored that, if anyone brought people to wrestling in a measurable way - it was Austin. With him, there was a huge trend upward. When he left, the downward trend never leveled off. Ever.

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I definitely give Hogan more credit than Vince in that marriage.

Hogan would have been a megastar in any territory that would allow him to be

Vince just had the right platform
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scarletspeed7 posted...

I think it gets lost in the shuffle, also, that quantifiably, Austin at his peak was bigger than Hogan at his peak. Hogan drew more over a longer period of time, but the true lightning in a bottle was Austin, who was the biggest merch mover outside of South Park in the era where that revenue stream was the strongest. And Austin repeatedly got WWF newer contract deals - Austin's very existence is what started TV as the profit center in wrestling, not to mention turning WWF into the publicly traded company it is today. In the nearly ten years where Hogan is at the top, he certainly has a few clear moments where he pulls in a larger number of viewers on network television, but that can also be attributed to Andre's presence as well. Austin was a consistent market-defining worker, and it really can't be ignored that, if anyone brought people to wrestling in a measurable way - it was Austin. With him, there was a huge trend upward. When he left, the downward trend never leveled off. Ever.

It surprises me that a guy as marketable, intelligent, and affable as Austin has spent his post-wrestling career hosting a relatively small-time podcast and no-name cattle ranch reality show. It seems to make him happy and that's great, but as you said, in his peak, Austin was a supernova. He should have enjoyed mainstream Hollywood success to at least rival Hogan and freakin' Cena.

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I respect Austin for just doing what makes him happy

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Same, and perhaps he just never made a serious attempt into mainstream Hollywood entertainment, but I imagine he would have at least given it a shot (he does live in Los Angeles).

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I don't think what they had with Austin was sustainable in any way.

But who knows. If he doesn't turn heel at Mania 18 maybe they could have eased into the transition easier. The real issue is that they lost he and rock at basically the same time and had to turn to Triple H

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CaptainOfCrush posted... Same, and perhaps he just never made a serious attempt into mainstream Hollywood entertainment, but I imagine he would have at least given it a shot (he does live in Los Angeles).

He sort of tried, but his first attempt was a critical and commercial failure (The Condemned, and yes it's terrible).

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Austin credits the heel turn to his eventual departure. Austin as a face at the start of the Invasion means he takes a more active hand in it... a lot could change there.

It's all hypothetical, of course, but I think that you could run with Austin for two or three more years at his level of success, quite honestly.

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I just think people need to admit wrestling was sort of a fad in the late 90s

I don't think there's anything from that era that works as a playbook for success beyond Austin himself

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Were I forced to rewatch, I'd probably enjoy 1996 WCW a lot more than 1998 WWF. So much of that era's WWF programming would be cringey, bizarre, or plain offensive today. Conversely, the nWo in 1996 is probably my favorite angle ever, and perhaps the most timeless. I'll still occasionally look up those first Scott Hall promos where he walked in through the audience, or the segment where Hall and Nash left a portion of WCW's roster damn near dead in the parking lot.

Considering Bret was off TV during that time, there was absolutely nothing WWF could do to compete with that, at least for my attention.

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Eddv posted...

I just think people need to admit wrestling was sort of a fad in the late 90s

I don't think there's anything from that era that works as a playbook for success beyond Austin himself

And that's the influence of Austin and the failure of Russo in a nutshell.

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CaptainOfCrush posted...

Were I forced to rewatch, I'd probably enjoy 1996 WCW a lot more than 1998 WWF. So much of that era's WWF programming would be cringey, bizarre, or plain offensive today. Conversely, the nWo in 1996 is probably my favorite angle ever, and perhaps the most timeless. I'll still occasionally look up those first Scott Hall promos where he walked in through the audience, or the segment where Hall and Nash left a portion of WCW's roster damn near dead in the parking lot.

Considering Bret was off TV during that time, there was absolutely nothing WWF could do to compete with that, at least for my attention.

The nWo angle wasn't exactly novel at the beginning- but it was well executed! The part that was novel (how enormous the stable got) wasnt necessarily a positive.

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Yeah, I know the idea was done in Japan first, but how many American wrestling fans knew that at the time? For me as a 10-year-old, it was probably some of the most captivating TV ever!

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It was actually a somewhat common old territorial story - two guys from a rival territory come in and claim theyre better than the locals. That was pretty standard. The Hogan thing was a neat wrinkle, though I think its a pretty obvious evolution on the concept.


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I do remember that even Flair came in claiming to be the "real world champion" back in the early 90s, so they were obviously selling the story that he was from a rival competitor. What really separated the nWo angle for me is the way the commentary team and "known" WCW wrestlers sold it as a real life incident. Hall and Nash didn't have their names acknowledged for weeks, and when Hall first appeared, the guys in the ring wrestling actually stopped.

I was 10 years old and what the fuck.

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Sorry for the delay. There will be posts coming - and I'm very happy with the writeups!

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Spoilers. Glacier is next

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Whiskey_Nick posted...

Spoilers. Glacier is next

Assuming Glacier would be this low.

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I just woke up so post will be coming a little later.

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22. CM Punk
Score: 115
# of Lists: 8
Highest Vote: Extha, 4th place.

(Guest writeup: PepsiPlunge)

So turns out Board 8 users voted on the Greatest Wrestlers Ever & of course debate will be had but that's not what I'm here for. I'm here because I was asked to write about someone who I love dearly. Look at my username. I may not have ever met the man but I love him all the same & do consider him one of the greatest ever. I shall attempt to explain why both personally, and with as much objectivity as possible.
Despite kind of losing my passion for wrestling or at least not caring to the level that I used to, CM Punk was possibly the last wrestler I cared for in every aspect. I'm just a wrestling person. What you can do in that ring is all I need to become a fan, nothing more. It's not like that for everyone & that's fine but I say that because what first caught my attention with Punk & made it so I *had* to see this man, was his two matches in 2002, in IWA-MS vs. Chris Hero. One being a TLC match that went 55 minutes & the other being a 2/3 falls that went 93 minutes. Aside from personally loving long matches, I simply had to see how the hell two men could go that long, twice, & have good matches. Not that all the talk meant they were good but it meant I had to see them. I would say they are early indie classics though certainly not 5 star caliber. It was guys being allowed freedom in a place where nobody would care & it could get attention. Which it did. IWA-MS would be a hot promotion for a while eventually & Punk is certainly one of those reasons why. Then later in 2002, he made his way to Ring of Honor & that is where myself & plenty of others truly fell in love with that man.

The first real feud he was put into was with Raven, another personal favorite. This is where me mentioning loving Punk as a total package comes in. For the story, you had a legit Straight Edge person with certain morals against a legit former & probably current at the time drug user in Raven. This feud was one of the first times I really heard the man cut promos & he pulled me in from the start. Usually a thing in wrestling I skip but when he spoke, I always listened.

Even with the best matches of CM Punk, not everything he does, if anything, truly looks pretty. You might even look at him as a sloppy wrestler. He never had a great looking body, his moves never looked crisp & clean, but even so he could draw you into a match with almost anyone. The Raven feud worked. The man would have three classic bouts for the RoH World Title with Samoa Joe. Two of which went to an hour draw & one of which Meltzer did give 5 stars. Not that star ratings from anyone is the measure of a wrestler but more to say that regardless of style or how flashy your moves look, anyone can have a classic, captivating match with the story they tell in the ring. To me, Punk was a master at doing that. This was in a time period where between the shows happening & hitting video to be seen, 3-6 month turnaround. I would read results on the message board, know Punk didn't win & yet in both of those draws, he had me sucked in to the point that I somehow forgot.

He would eventually win the title, in his "Farewell match" that I bought, hook, line, & sinker. Everyone that would sign away to WWE would usually get a title shot & lose on their way out. Just how RoH worked. But that night it was the opposite. He won. If you watched the Summer of Punk in WWE & were disappointed with how it turned out, the original RoH version is something you may want to see. That man had turned a fanbase that loved him so dearly into people that seemed like they wanted to legit kill him, especially when signing his WWE contract on the RoH Title. I haven't seen the match in years but still remember the pop of him losing the title. Him getting us to eat out of the palm of his hand was not a problem at all.

From there, if you knew none of what I was talking about (I tried to keep it brief & coherent I swear), you probably became aware of CM Punk sooner or later when he was in WWE. If it wasn't before "The Pipe Bomb Promo", I doubt it was after. Even now in 2020, as someone that doesn't care for promos, I could probably recite most of it to you without needing to look it up.

I could rant about Punk, his matches, various promos, things he would say during matches to make me laugh, & hell I didn't even mention how CM Punk helped bring some of us here on B8 together to go to a Ring of Honor show. He may not have been there at that time anymore but it was the love for him & wrestling that initially brought all of us together.

Ranting aside, why would I try to argue CM Punk as one of the greatest wrestlers ever? Because despite a sloppy looking style of wrestling, he could pull myself & others into matches regardless of how good they may or may not look. Because when he spoke, I would listen while nobody else could get my attention like that. Hell, put him on commentary like they did & he'll get me to watch matches I have no interest in just to hear what he might say. Not just from a humour perspective but the man knew how to call a match too. He may not have ever had the usual wrestler look, or size, but he had the love & passion. That resonated with a lot of us in a way that not everyone can do.

https://www.bilibili.com/video/av22429135/; CM Punk vs. Chris Hero (February 28, 2004) (wXw - Iron Man Match)
https://youtu.be/d3NJyWauUE0?t=1302; CM Punk vs. Austin Aries (June 18, 2005) (Punk's "Final match" in ROH)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x65wvb0; CM Punk vs. Brock Lesnar (August 18, 2013)

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21. Jumbo Tsuruta
Score: 119
# of Lists: 7
First Place Votes: 1, Semi

"Jumbo Tsuruta is the greatest wrestler of all time. Now fuck off and watch some Jumbo matches, you fucking nerds." Semi
Were going to talk a lot about the Four Pillars of Heaven, the four men who symbolized the golden era of All Japan Pro Wrestling in the 90s. But while the 90s ushered in a new dominant style in the Kings Road, and freshened up the booking of AJPW by sticking to strict clean finishes (a departure from the 80s booking, which would often feature matches between major stars end without a satisfying finish), it all has to start from the man who was on top for the transition Jumbo Tsuruta.

To me there are two men synonymous with the Triple Crown championship Misawa would hold it through most of the era it held the most prestige, but the man who brought that prestige was Jumbo, who unified the PWF Heavyweight, NWA United National and NWA International Heavyweight championships, creating the Triple Crown Championship in April of 1989. Within 2 months of the Championship being born, one of the most iconic and important matches in history was contested over the belt as Jumbo Tsuruta would lock horns with Genichiro Tenryu in the match most historians point to as the first step on the Kings Road.

I chose to start this story in 1989 as thats what Im most familiar with but, as you can guess by the fact he unified their championships, Jumbo was already definitively the top Japanese wrestler in All Japan at this point (It could also be argued he was the top Japanese wrestler in North America, as his time in America saw him become one of the first Japanese wrestlers to be cheered by American crowds, as well as picking up an AWA World Heavyweight Championship). Jumbo was established as the company Ace and my possibly controversial take here is that Jumbo is the greatest Ace of all time. He perfectly moved between being the face of the company and Japan against gaijin like Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy to the arrogant Ace role against the younger Japanese talent most notably, Misawa himself.
Jumbo and Misawa would first meet on June 8, 1990 in one of the most legendary matches of all time. If youve ever listened to Observer Radio, youve heard Dave tell the story of being in the building for this match Mitsuharu Misawas first singles match after removing the Tiger Mask, he defeats the Ace in the biggest match of his life and All Japans most iconic star was born. As well as being an iconic match and result, this match is so important as it really begins the era of the Four Pillars.

Even if we only consider two matches vs. Misawa, and vs. Tenryu Jumbo Tsuruta would have one of the most important careers in wrestling. These two matches laid the groundwork for the Kings Road style the style you see in all major wrestling promotions today. Beyond that, these two matches alone show the brilliance of Jumbos character as the Ace. Only a year apart, Jumbo is essentially playing the same character but is the hero in the Tenryu match, and the villain / bully in the Misawa match. Both matches do an amazing job of making you feel like Jumbo is the man, which only makes the result for Misawa that much more impactful.

But he didnt only wrestle two matches! He wrestled over 3000 matches over 26 years, in both the US and Japan. As was the style in All Japan at the time, as well as the legendary Triple Crown matches Jumbo would routinely be involved in tag team matches most famously during the Tsurutagun vs. Super Generation Army, where Jumbo would team with his allies such as Akira Taue and Masanobu Fuchi to take on the next generation of All Japan Misawa, Kobashi and Kawada. This series in particular produces what could be the best 6 man tag of all time with all 6 men selling their place in the story and their hatred for the other team in a way rarely seen through all of wrestling.

The last few years of Jumbos life are a sad story, as is so often the way in wrestling. But for twenty years Tomomi Tsurutas wrestling influenced so many; his wrestling ability, size and presence making him an act that not only drew eyeballs but kept them captivated and enabled the birth of stars all around him. Semi was right watch some fucking Jumbo matches, you nerds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsMQi6B7WuA; Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (June 8, 1990)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaO3Y1RXofo; Jumbo Tsuruta, Masanobu Fuchi & Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Toshiaki Kawada (April 20, 1991)

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22. CM Punk
Extha - 4 (22 points)
Whiskey_Nick - 5 (21 points)
Rock - 8 (18 points)
Maniac - 10 (16 points)
junk_funk - 11 (15 points)
illuminatusbubu - 15 (11 points)
scarlet - 19 (7 points)
Mega Mana - 21 (5 points)

21. Jumbo Tsuruta
Semi - 1 (25 points)
voltch - 2 (24 points)
Iceman - 6 (20 points)
Steiner - 9 (17 points)
scarlet - 11 (15 points)
WarThaNemesis - 13 (13 points)
illuminatusbubu - 21 (5 points)

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muddersmilk posted...

These two matches laid the groundwork for the Kings Road style the style you see in all major wrestling promotions today.

sorry i misspoke and forgot about lucha please don't report me to cubsfan

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Is that our first #1 to drop since Naito?

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oh yes, great spot Ed I had meant to mention that!

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Anyway now that we're down to the top 20, does anyone have predictions? IMO you should be able to piece together who is left

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Steiner posted...

sorry i misspoke and forgot about lucha please don't report me to cubsfan

Also in most places its a poor imitation of Kings Road <_<
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