Best / Favorites Ever

[304underground]

A friend and I are having a kind of heated debate about who are the best wrestlers ever, from anywhere at anytime, and in the process I’m trying to break down a top ten of my favorites ever. So I ask, if you had to do a top ten of each how would they look?

[sportatorium]

Best or favorites? It’s like trying to narrow down a favorite song or movie. I would say the “best” boil down to who drew the most money, so the predictable list of Hogan, Bruno, Andre, Flair, Austin, Rock, Taker, Cena, Savage, Dusty, Von Erichs

Favorites for me:
Brody
Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert
Arn Anderson
CM Punk
Austin
Dusty
Dr Death
Jake
Taker
Jericho

[304underground]

Aug 5, 2020 14:24:15 GMT -5 sportatorium said:

I would say the “best” boil down to who drew the most money, so the predictable list of Hogan, Bruno, Andre, Flair, Austin, Rock, Taker, Cena, Savage, Dusty, Von Erichs

I forgot to mention, his absolute #1 choice for “best” is AJ Styles because he’s “never seen him have a bad match”, so I guess with that line of thinking it would need to be the quality of their work.

[Deleted]

Aug 5, 2020 15:07:00 GMT -5 304underground said:

Aug 5, 2020 14:24:15 GMT -5 sportatorium said:

I would say the “best” boil down to who drew the most money, so the predictable list of Hogan, Bruno, Andre, Flair, Austin, Rock, Taker, Cena, Savage, Dusty, Von Erichs

I forgot to mention, his absolute #1 choice for “best” is AJ Styles because he’s “never seen him have a bad match”, so I guess with that line of thinking it would need to be the quality of their work.

Never seen his WWE matches with KO, huh? Lucky him.

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

Top draws is the “objective” way to do it but so much of who gets to the top is luck. Getting liked by the right promoter, finding a character that happens to catch fire. Not to mention personal circumstances including injuries in and out of the ring. (What if Flair dies in the plane crash? What if Magnum TA wasn’t in that car crash?)

It’s just the least interesting thing to discuss for me.

[Deleted]

All ten are Sid.

[Deleted]

Aug 5, 2020 18:38:04 GMT -5 @rebelliousworkhorse said:

All ten are Sid.

That's five brains total.

[Stone Coke Miami Watson 🥃]

1. Bruno Sammartino
2. Ric Flair
3. Eddie Guerrero
4. Nick Bockwinkel
5. Bret Hart
6. Curt Henning
7. Christian
8. Ricky Steamboat
9. Sid
10. Demolition

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

I can only really give my personal favorites, because wrestling is a subjective art. Everyone has different GOAT criteria.

Macho Man is probably my #1, due to him being such a complete package and also one of my guys when I first started following it.

Going through some other people I enjoy the most: Bret Hart, Ric Flair, Kurt Angle, Vader, Eddie Guerrero, John Cena, Mitsuharu Misawa, Chris Jericho, Akira Hokuto, Harley Race, Daniel Bryan, Undertaker, Genichiro Tenryu, Kenta Kobashi, Rock, Minoru Suzuki, Shawn Michaels, Jushin Liger, Owen Hart, Jun Akiyama, Hiroshi Tanahashi, William Regal, Booker T, HHH, Dusty Rhodes.....probably too many for me to narrow down to a top ten without feeling I left someone out.

As for current stars: Asuka, Styles, Kofi, Big E, Okada, Orton, Naito, Ibushi, Hikaru Shida, most of The Elite, Bianca BelAir, the Undisputed, Jericho, Hiromu Takahashi, Keith Lee, ZSJ, Taichi, Toru Yano, Nyla Rose, Tomohiro Ishii, Cody and Kento Miyahara are all fun.

And I forgot to mention Mick Foley and Stan Hansen. See?

[Bad Moon]

Aug 5, 2020 14:24:15 GMT -5 sportatorium said:

 I would say the “best” boil down to who drew the most money,

I never understood this line of argument, ever. There's no artform on the planet earth where quality is measured by the amount of money something makes. Who outside of maybe some corporate advertising addled zombie thinks that My Heart Will Go On is the best song ever or that Disney's Marvel's Robert Downey Jr.'s The Avengers Part f***whoevenknowsanymore is the best movie ever made?

[Deleted]

Best and Favorites are two different lists for me.

Favorites
MVP
Ken Anderson
AJ Lee
Daniel Bryan
The Fiend
Ryback
CM Punk
Liv Morgan
Bret Hart
Vince McMahon (character wise)

Thats a really random list, I know. But these are the people I genuinely looked forward to seeing and wanted to win.

My "best" list looks a lot different.

[Deleted]

"Best wrestlers" is pretty broad. We talking ring work or just overall?

Wrestlers whose actual matches I enjoy watching in no certain order:

1. Tenryu
2. Bret
3. Misawa
4. Dustin
5. Windham
6. Choshu
7. Beautiful Bobby
8. Mutoh
9. Macho Man
10. Regal

And there's lots of guys probably didn't pop in my head who I like just as much as those guys.

[Dub H]

Not gonna use any specific order

Becky Lynch
MVP
Kenny Omega
Minoru Suzuki
Daniel Bryan
Moxley
Orange Cassidy
Hangman Adam Page
Naito

There is some of the AEW/Joshi Woman that I need to watch more and they certainly will take a place there,Itoh,Shida,Yuka Sakazaki for example are absolutely amazing and have potential to be on the top of my list

[Deleted]

My top ten favorites list would probably look something like this:

Stone Cold
Bret Hart
Becky Lynch
Shawn Michaels
Chris Jericho
Randy Savage
The Rock
The Undertaker
Mick Foley
Jake Roberts

I had to do some thinking before I put Jake in there. I just absolutely love his promo and character work, so I had to include him.

If you're trying to be objective, there are probably 3 or 4 people in that list who you could argue is the best ever.

[koreycaskets]

Best ? I honestly don't know but who's entertained me the most over the past 30 plus years of watching wrestling .. totally personal opinion here.

1. Tie at first RVD and Undertaker
2. Steve Austin
3. Roddy Piper
4. Demolition
5. New Jack
6. King Kong Bundy
7. Kevin Sullivan
8. Iron Sheik
9. Paige
10. Lita


Honorable mentions to.. Christian, Trish Stratus, Kane, Ric Rude, Hulk Hogan, Jesse Ventura

[Laces]

Bret Hart
Shawn Michaels
Matt Hardy
Edge
Christian
Molly Holly
Jeff Hardy
Kenny Omega
Hangman Page
Undertaker

uh no particular order and with a personal challenge to rapid fire type the first ten that came to mind

[Mochi Lone Wolf]

Great Muta/Keiji Mutoh will always be my all time favorite.

Charismatic,versatile, athletic, an excellent in-ring storyteller, and an even better mind for the industry. Don't believe me? Look at some of the talent he's trained and mentored.

Others in the list for me of who I love:

Jericho

Tanahashi

Bockwinkel

Liger

Suzuki

Piper

Rock

Stone Cold Steve Austin

Ric Flair

Dusty Rhodes

Bret Hart

Randy Savage

Misawa

Jake Roberts

Hayabusa

Rey Mysterio

Mick Foley

Terry Funk

Ultimo Dragon

And I'm sure many more

[XIII]

Favorites (in no order)

Great Muta
Batista
Bad News Brown
Ravishing Rick Rude
Kenta Kobashi
William Regal
Hakushi
Macho Man
Sabu
Kurt Angle

['Foretold' Joker]

Aug 5, 2020 12:50:41 GMT -5 304underground said:

If you had to do a top ten of each how would they look?

What do you mean by each? Like as in per promotion or by separate sections like Main Event, Midcard, Tag teams, Cruiserweight etc?

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Best and favourite are each subjective anyway, but also both subjective to each person - The Room is one of my top 10 favourite movies, for example, but it's obviously not a GOOD MOVIE.

I think the main thing that changes things when deciding between and best and favourite for wrestlers is drawing power.

For me, Jericho is the single greatest wrestler of all time when you look at all of the things that make a wrestler good - adaptibility, longevity, variety of gimmicks and wrestling styles, catchphrases, gimmick changes, etc. - he is great at all of it and just doesn't draw as much as say, Hulk Hogan.

But this is part of what makes Hogan a 'best' rather than a 'favourite.' Hogan made millions for decades off doing three or four actual moves a match - this is part of what makes him the best ever to so many wrestlers, because it is a business above all else.