The Wrestling Thread

[PixelPunk]

Where does Randy Savage fit on that list?

[the King]

What does the Rock's movie career or Austin's lack of movie career have to do with the question at hand?

The answer without a doubt is Hulk Hogan. Ric Flair has said as much himself. The WWF during the 80's was built on his back and then WCW's rise in the 90's to compete against the WWF was built around him as well. The biggest angle in probably wrestling history was centered around his heel turn. No one has or will match the draw Hogan had.



Hogan
Flair
Austin
Andre
Undertaker

and then the Rock, Randy Savage, HBK and Bret Hart

[Luke]

I think the Undertaker has a shout at being the Greatest too. I'm sure most people I know think of an undertaker as the wrestler rather than a funeral director.

If we're talking about athleticism and actual wrestling, not the personality, the Undertaker needs to be in the top 5 for sure. He's like a vicious ballerina in the ring, and his "walking the ropes" is a great example at how talented he is at the actual sport.

Shawn Micheals also stands out as someone who's matches were usually fairly incredible.

But this is all subjective at the end of the day. Hogan was a presence, but good Lord he was clunky as hell in the ring and Austin seemed to telegraph every move. When I look back at wrestling I definitely vote for performance over character, but again it's subjective.

[Bootaaay]

Disregarding the Hulkamania phenomenon and purely looking at wrestling ability and promo work, Ric Flair hands down.

Stan Hansen would be a personal choice of mine, as he was on top as one of the best gaijin talents in Japan for twenty years solid and helped make more stars than damn near anyone except...

Terry Funk. He's a legend, one of the best promo men of all time, one of the best brawlers of all time who understands perfectly the psychology of wrestling and made so many people's careers.

On the Japanese side of things, Genichiro Tenryu and Kenta Kobashi for being two of the most solid and consistent in-ring performers of their time, Jushin Liger, Naoki Sano & The Great Muta for revolutionising Junior Heavyweight wrestling and Mitsuhara Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada for the GREATEST prolonged, career-spanning feud EVER in wrestling.

[BurningDoom]

I don't think we all agree on those four. However, if I have to choose between those four, it's the Rock. He's bigger than pro wrestling now. Only a few guys achieve that. Hogan is one of them. Austin is not, despite what his fans say. Austin never achieved anything outside of his popularity during the Attitude era. Rock and Hogan have far surpassed him as pop culture figures and Rock is a movie star now. Between Hogan and the Rock though, Rock is building a better legacy while Hogan has been embarrassing himself for years now

Flair had an amazing career, but outside of the pro wrestling fanbase and his home state of North Carolina(correct me if I'm wrong on that), he's kind of a nobody. Plus, like Hogan, he's been embarrassing himself and tainting his legacy for some time now. He should have left wrestling when he retired from the WWE

Ric Flair most definetly belongs with those other guys. He's held more World Championships than any other wrestler, EVER. He's held more championships, of any kind, than any other wrestler, EVER. He was undoubtedly the face of NWA & the pre-nWo WCW. Whenever Flair showed up a local promotion's show, the crowds would hugely expand, even. And before the WWF hit big, NWA was the biggest wrestling organization in the world and drew the biggest crowds and had the most T.V. time. Then when WWF did hit big, it stayed in the #2 spot until WCW was bought out in 2001. Hell, he was a founding member, and the only member alongside Arn Anderson to be in every incarnation of The Four Horsemen. Factions like The Hart Foundation, Nexus, nWo, Degeneration-X, and others owe their thanks to the Four Horsemen.

Now, that said, I do agree that Hogan should be #1. Soooo many people that aren't as big of wrestling fans as the rest of us automatically think of Hogan when they think of pro-wrestling. Hogan is responsible for the boom in the 80s with Hulkamania, and definitely had a huge part of the boom in the late 90s with the nWo. To borrow a line from Blades of Glory: Hogan is professional wrestling.

[Gamerforlife]

I don't think we all agree on those four. However, if I have to choose between those four, it's the Rock. He's bigger than pro wrestling now. Only a few guys achieve that. Hogan is one of them. Austin is not, despite what his fans say. Austin never achieved anything outside of his popularity during the Attitude era. Rock and Hogan have far surpassed him as pop culture figures and Rock is a movie star now. Between Hogan and the Rock though, Rock is building a better legacy while Hogan has been embarrassing himself for years now

Flair had an amazing career, but outside of the pro wrestling fanbase and his home state of North Carolina(correct me if I'm wrong on that), he's kind of a nobody. Plus, like Hogan, he's been embarrassing himself and tainting his legacy for some time now. He should have left wrestling when he retired from the WWE

Ric Flair most definetly belongs with those other guys. He's held more World Championships than any other wrestler, EVER. He's held more championships, of any kind, than any other wrestler, EVER. He was undoubtedly the face of NWA & the pre-nWo WCW. Whenever Flair showed up a local promotion's show, the crowds would hugely expand, even. And before the WWF hit big, NWA was the biggest wrestling organization in the world and drew the biggest crowds and had the most T.V. time. Then when WWF did hit big, it stayed in the #2 spot until WCW was bought out in 2001. Hell, he was a founding member, and the only member alongside Arn Anderson to be in every incarnation of The Four Horsemen. Factions like The Hart Foundation, Nexus, nWo, Degeneration-X, and others owe their thanks to the Four Horsemen.

Now, that said, I do agree that Hogan should be #1. Soooo many people that aren't as big of wrestling fans as the rest of us automatically think of Hogan when they think of pro-wrestling. Hogan is responsible for the boom in the 80s with Hulkamania, and definitely had a huge part of the boom in the late 90s with the nWo. To borrow a line from Blades of Glory: Hogan is professional wrestling.

Is Flair a household name? No. Sorry, but if you want to narrow a list down to just four guys in the entire history of wrestling and say who is the greatest ever, Flair just doesn't cut it. Macho Man Randy Savage is more well known than Ric Flair is. I don't care what his accomplishments were, outside of wrestling, Flair is a nobody. If we're going by pop culture penetration and mainstream recognition, I'd have taken Flair completely off your list and replaced him with Savage. At the end of the day, pop culture penetration/mainstream recogniton is ALL that matters. That's why wrestling isn't doing as well now at it did in the 80s or during the Attitude Era. Vince has lost the ability to make people at large care about wrestling. Not surprising, given that he thinks a farting diva is a good storyline and he keeps pushing a guy that half of his audience hates as the face of his company.

Hogan WAS pro wrestling. Now he's a tired, vain, old man who loves to lie a lot, loves to publicly embarrass himself and is a complete embarrassment to pro wrestling. Nobody cares about Hogan anymore. He's not even news anymore. The great legacy that he created single handedly, he's also single handedly destroying with every passing year. Today, Hogan is a joke. No wrestling fan takes him seriously and to the mainstream he's just that tired, has been who was in that crappy reality tv show with the crazy ex-wife and the stupid kid who was in a car accident.

Meanwhile, the Rock is getting more and more mainstream recognition every year with more and more movies. Already Rock has surpassed Hogan. He's had more real movie roles than Hogan ever did. His mainstream recognition is pretty much on par with Hogan's. Everyone knows who the Rock is and if they don't, they know who Duane Johnson is. He's taken seriously by wrestling fans except for the small bunch of whiny haters who can't stand how successful he is. He's well regarded in the mainstream since he hasn't appeared on some garbage reality show with an insane family like a certain has been named Terry Bolea. Plus, Rock is still building his rep in wrestling with his big match at Mania with Cena. In another five, ten, fifteen years I can see Rock getting bigger than Hogan ever was.

Now if we're talking my personal faves, aside from Rock, I wouldn't pick anybody on your list. That's just personal tastes, throwing objectivity out the window. I'd pick HBK Shawn Michaels for sure and I'm not sure who the other two would be. I'd like to say Jericho, and maybe Mick Foley

[BurningDoom]

And I say you're completely off your rocker to replace Flair with Macho Man. Macho Man is only more recognized if you completely ignored NWA/WCW like the WWF did. Macho Man was a great wrestler, no doubt, and was a big star during both the booms. But it always felt like to me that he was riding on the curt-tails of Hogan's success, and did well at doing so.

And while Flair may not be a household name in our generation, ask anyone over the age of 35-40 who Flair is, and I'd be willing to bet that 3/4 of the time, they know the Nature Boy.

[Gamerforlife]

And I say you're completely off your rocker to replace Flair with Macho Man. Macho Man is only more recognized if you completely ignored NWA/WCW like the WWF did. Macho Man was a great wrestler, no doubt, and was a big star during both the booms. But it always felt like to me that he was riding on the curt-tails of Hogan's success, and did well at doing so.

And while Flair may not be a household name in our generation, ask anyone over the age of 35-40 who Flair is, and I'd be willing to bet that 3/4 of the time, they know the Nature Boy.

Only is they're wrestling fans. I could ask anyone at my job that and they wouldn't know, but they'll know that Slim Jim guy and know who I'm talking about if I go, "Oh yeah! Dig it!"

Most people don't even know anything about NWA.

I think we need define what you mean by best ever. If we just go by recognition by the general public, Flair doesn't quality. Hogan, Savage, Austin and Rock all beat him out in that area.

[BurningDoom]

Most people don't even know anything about NWA.

Again, most people our generation or younger doesn't know anything about the NWA. Most people people older than us, know NWA well. NWA wrestling was the big pro-wrestling organization from the 50s-70s. WWF didn't start getting nationally big until the early-to-mid 80s.

[Bootaaay]

Since when has "recognition by the general public" ever been an accurate method of discerning the "best ever" wrestler? Unless you want to get into a tedious discussion about who was the bigger draw to wrestling, "best ever wrestler" should be decided by a combination of factors, namely wrestling ability, charisma, character and promo skills.

Flair > Hogan.