50 Greatest Professional Wrestlers Of All Time

Larry Matysik

Description

Who were the best pro wrestlers of all time? What makes these 50 remarkable performers so special, and what were their contributions to the massively popular spectacle of wrestling? The 50 Greatest Pro Wrestlers of All Time has the answers. Bestselling author Larry Matysik shoots from the hip about who qualifies as the very best in history. The complexity of choosing and ranking the 50 finest from a strong group of talented candidates also reveals a secondary tale about the evolution of pro wrestling and how this unique sport operates.

Sujets

• Lucha libre profesional
• Wrestling

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 14 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781770903050
• Langue: English

Extrait

For Pat and Kelly,
each of whom scores
at the top of her category.
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night



Chapter 1
The Truth
The best. The finest. The greatest ever . . . baseball players, movies, presidents, rock ’n’ roll tunes, actors, books, pizzas . . . No matter how specialized the interest, list-making almost always ignites passions.
Why should professional wrestling be any different? A colorful, chaotic, and thoroughly engrossing mix of athletics, theater, and excitement, since 1900 professional wrestling has lured countless fans and thousands of unique and supremely talented performers who have driven the industry in different and variously successful directions.
So, who is the best ever?
It’s a great question, one fueled by Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment. National cable television and an omnipresent website are the perfect way for a mammoth marketing company to exploit the concept.
WWE is the twenty-first-century version of a national wrestling promotion, indeed a mammoth marketing operation, but it doesn’t generally call what it produces wrestling because it fears being sneered at by some corporate type. And then the company and its leader berate that very disdain as being unfair to fans of wrestling, or does WWE want it called sports entertainment . . . Forget it, fans who follow WWE. Talk about wanting to have it both ways!
But that isn’t the point. Late in 2010, Vince and WWE released a DVD celebrating what they called the “Top 50 Superstars of All Time.” Of course they didn’t call them wrestlers — it’s as if Vince K. McMahon (or VKM as he likes to be called) and his minions are embarrassed to be involved in the very endeavor that has made the McMahon family filthy rich. Wasn’t it professional wrestling, by whatever title Vince wishes to give it, that allowed his wife Linda to reportedly spend $100 million in two failed attempts to become a United States senator?
Why be ashamed of a business that stuffs your pockets full of money while entertaining millions of people from all walks of life? McMahon and his company slap every fan who ever spent a penny on them in the face — they can claim their tactics are just marketing, or television production, but it’s mostly about ego.
Certainly he has the right, perhaps even the obligation to his shareholders, to expand the company into other areas. To pretend, however, that the removal of wrestling from the business’ vocabulary will increase the odds of success in other promotional fields is absurd.
I want to spend the greater part of this opening chapter saying good things about Vince and WWE. Really, that is my intention. Make no mistake; Vince McMahon himself is one of a kind. Love him or hate him, but always respect him and his accomplishments while noting his failures.
After all, his company is a monopoly and a global enterprise, so how many bad decisions could he have made? Energy, imagination, ambition, need for complete control, understanding of television’s all-powerful role, little regard for either ethics or individuals when it comes to business . . . all that and much more describe Vince.
He revolutionized professional wrestling at a time when television was changing. Somebody was going to do it. If the timing had been right, Sam Muchnick might have promoted pay-per-view shows, Fritz Von Erich (Jack Adkisson) might have produced a seven-camera live television show, or Jim Barnett might have gone high-def.
Vince McMahon happened to be the right guy at the right time in the right place. He was very smart. And he was very, very driven.
See how difficult it is to write something praising Vince without adding “except” or “but”?
Let’s try again.
Vince can certainly broadcast his list of the 50 greatest wrestlers (performers? entertainers? superstars?) to step into the revered squared circle. Nobody else enjoys his wrestling lineage, following his father and grandfather as a mover and shaker. Think of the stories he must have heard, the education he would have received, growing up in the McMahon family’s highly profitable promotion.
Admittedly, with the overall wrestling business at the time fragmented geographically into numerous smaller territories, Vince may have overlooked the true value of certain headliners, since his attention would have been focused on Dad’s little corner of the business.
Still, Vince watched many of the stars from the early 1970s on, and once in command he made a high percentage of the stars from the late 1980s on. Of course, having the playing field basically to himself (except for Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling in the 1990s) helped. McMahon should have a legitimate grasp on the warriors who made this sport what it is today.
So, we have a right to expect a lot.
But we did not get what we expected.
Here is the list that WWE and Vince McMahon authored of the best 50 superstars to ever answer the opening bell . . .
1. Shawn Michaels 2. The Undertaker 3. Stone Cold Steve Austin 4. Bret Hart 5. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson 6. Harley Race 7. Ricky Steamboat 8. Andre the Giant 9. Rey Mysterio 10. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper 11. Eddie Guerrero 12. Triple H 13. Gorgeous George 14. Randy Savage 15. Curt Hennig 16. John Cena 17. Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes (tie) 19. Edge 20. Jerry Lawler 21. Lou Thesz 22. Terry Funk 23. Hulk Hogan 24. Bruno Sammartino 25. Chris Jericho 26. Ted DiBiase 27. Fabulous Moolah 28. “Classy” Freddie Blassie 29. Randy Orton 30. Pat Patterson 31. Iron Sheik 32. Jimmy Snuka 33. Mick Foley 34. Kurt Angle 35. Buddy Rogers 36. Gorilla Monsoon 37. Junkyard Dog 38. “Superstar” Billy Graham 39. Jake “The Snake” Roberts 40. “Big Show” Paul Wight 41. Jack Brisco 42. Sgt. Slaughter 43. Kane 44. Nick Bockwinkel 45. Jeff Hardy 46. Dory Funk Jr. 47. Bob Backlund 48. “Ravishing” Rick Rude 49. Batista 50. Killer Kowalski
Well now, imagine a professional baseball equivalent. The list’s author would be skewered by the national media and the public alike for his abuse and ignorance of the legends who built the game — not to mention the total lack of comprehension about how past and present fit together.
Professional wrestling, too, has a true and real history, one that should be celebrated, not trashed in favor of the almighty dollar and the ego of a corporation that will not even admit that what it promotes is wrestling .
Call it what it is. Professional wrestling at its highest level requires an indefinable mix of hard work, showmanship, drawing power, and, like it or not, toughness and skill. By designating these 50 as the best professional wrestlers of all time, the wrestlers on this list would by definition have to embody the concept of being a superstar, a great worker, and having a magnetic personality.
When the WWE list became public, many in the industry — those not tied in some way to WWE — began to grumble. Even a rookie could scan the list and realize that many stars were included only to promote the current product and the alleged history belonging to WWE. Anyone could grasp what a large role personal politics played.
But really, was anyone surprised? This was marketing, with a tinge of politics. It’s what Vince does, how he’s always been. Get attention and turn a profit. WWE exists to make money, so why let truth get in the way? How else does Kane end up among the 50 finest talents in the history of the game? How else could The Undertaker be selected as the second greatest ever to step through the ropes?
Yet WWE putting Harley Race sixth makes you blink because it’s not far off the truth. Race is part of a generation to which McMahon has shown little respect. The answer to the riddle of why Race was selected over others from the old school elite is also more the result of politics and personality than anything else.
Overall, WWE’s “greatest ever” package fits right in with McMahon’s never-ending quest to rewrite the history of wrestling. Vince wants to run everything, control every thought, make every decision. Why not alter the past enough so that it supports the present?
This strategy works to a degree because such a high percentage of the current WWE audience is young and, understandably, knows little about the true history of wrestling. An entire generation of followers has grown up aware of wrestling only as a McMahon product. Sadly, some of the Internet voices who should celebrate a diversity of opinion and deeper knowledge are easily manipulated — so it is as if the past never counted.
This also explains how some of the goofiest ideas for booking in the WWE pass. The team responsible for creating the television shows, more and more, is made up of people who have no background in wrestling . . . and this is because of a conscious decision on Vince’s part. To most of the creative team, WWE is just a silly stunt show with comedic undertones. In other words, Vince is happy to allow these limited booking minds to believe the history he has woven. It’s a shock to some of these writers when Vince alters a plot, and the result looks at least a little like valid wrestling booking. Imagine what it’s like when they discover wrestling existed before WWE — and that it was successful. The WWE list is an indictment of the business itself, and of those who watch it. Many griped, but not enough people did. And not enough to help new followers realize there was a Babe Ruth in wrestling, and there was a Wilt Chamberlain, and there was a Johnny Unitas — and someone comparable to Elvis Presley too.
Some truly important characters made their way onto WWE’s top 50, but their lowly positions seem to display McMahon’s personal distaste or disregard. It’s politics as usual, no matter what WWE calls it. Only the most naïve could fail to see that the entire enterprise w