Who in your opinion is the most relevany/important figure of the last 15 years?
 

Wrestling in a lot of ways is like a actively written history book. Its difficult to discuss wrestling in the present sense with regard to history. (For example, in baseball you could certainly say that Albert Pujols barring injury will be one of the greatest players to ever play the game, whereas wrestling, you can't ever really state that)

In the past 15 years, a lot of significant events have occured in the wrestling world. You have the death of WCW, the shift from the over the top image of wrestling to the racy, controversial spectacle that it is now, etc. All that said, in your opinion, who is the most relevant/important figure in wrestling in the past 15 years? In some ways, it may be a difficult question to answer with some more current figures, but in your opinion, when this time span of wrestling is discussed (say 1990-2006) in the future, who will be viewed as the most significant figure of our time?

IMO, I think you can (and I have with friends I've debated this with) can make an argument for a few of the following:

Vince McMahon: Promoter, changed wrestling from its bright over the top characters, to the more darker, edgier characters, among other things

Steve Austin: The face of the biggest boom period in wrestling, the character embodied what the era represented

Eric Bischoff: Ran WCW, changed the way wrestling was presented. (live shows when WWF was still doing taped) and a prominent figure in the monday night wars

Hulk Hogan: The face of one of the most popular factions in wrestling history, not to mention he was a star before the NWO.

HHH: Same as Hogan with DX. Also known for his political pull backstage, may also eventually own part of WWE in the future, which remains to be seen.

Paul Heyman: Father of ECW, and the forefront of 'hardcore wrestling' in this region. Presented an alternative to what was thought of as wrestling at the time.

Discuss. Among the following and any others you may think of.

McMahon...IMO a very easy call with little to no contest.

Heyman is the only other person I even considered, and I threw him out in about 5 seconds.

Hands down, Vince. There is no question about it.

I considered Bischoff, because he's shown what to do right, and what to do very very wrong.

Vince was important in the 80s, he made wretling mainstream. But do not credit him for the attitufe era. He didnt want to change from the old cartoony characters. His hand was forced when the edgier characters got over huge and wrestling changed itself. Without Austin the WWE would NEVER EVER EVER have beaten WCW in the ratings. He brought in the fans, and he forced the change.

We know what you meant, because Vince's erections drive all storylines around himself.

he has been so dirty with every Diva in storylines, most for no reason!

The Hurricane.

The Rock... He had/has unparalled charisma and was the only guy to be even MORE popular than Austin in the late 90s.

What does relevany mean?

Relevant, or however it's spelled.

Didn't you ask who the most hatted man in wrestling was?

Vince McMahon easliy.

Well if not for McMahon than it would be him.

They both where hats? So what's the deal?

*The correct answer was Cena

http://us.geocities.com/shoeswrestli...SN_Jarrett.jpg
http://wwe.blogs.sapo.pt/arquivo/cena.jpg

I only see one hat apiece.

Oh but they wear a variety, these are just two pitcures. There are more I swear.

Heyman. With out him there would have been no attitude era.

I guess I'll go with the majority and say Vincent Kennedy McMahon as well.

Sure the sport and the family came a long way. Made it better, maybe. Got the sports entertainment market cornered, sure, why not. But along the way the guy made some fuck ups in professional (and private) life that made the company go backward or forward.

The others on that list can you can make a good argument as well. Eric Bischoff, Paul Heyman, and maybe a few others.

I'll play Devil's Advocate with all of the Vince voters

First, if you put a date on the attitude era, you probably have to go with Wrestlemania when Austin won the belt as the starting point. Before this happened, you have Shawn Michaels running around with Gauze in his pants on national TV,(Which Vince allegedly hated and fined Michaels for) Brian Pillman shooting a gun at Austin(which got tons of negative press), etc. All acts that would be commonplace in the attitude era, but not at their times. These acts generated controversy, and you know Vince, any publicity is good publicity. The point is A) that there was proof before hand that the viewing audience was evolving and B) you see that there was a fundamental shift in both wrestling well before the actual start of the era. Who's to say that Vince wasn't digging in his backyard and just happened to find oil? So to speak.

Second, even in the chance that vince completely authored this shift, the era needed an image and a leader. Sure, if Vince had come up with it, that's great, but at the same time, you couldn't have a 50 something promoter go on tv and tell us to suck it. No one would buy into it. Mind you, at this point it still isn't common for a promoter/owner to go on tv and be a dominant character. The shift in the era needed a fresh face at a time where you had an injured Shawn Michaels, a midcard HHH, a Rock that couldn't get over as a face and so forth. We know who and what that face went on to be.

Third, even after all this, you can't say that Vince originated all this. WCW on his ass made him change a lot of things. ECW was the underground promotion that showed of things to come. There were a lot of factors in the change, but the one thing that made it possible was the face and identity that lead the era

First of all, you can forget about ECW. ECW was never a threat. ECW would've died out long before it finally did if WWF hadn't promoted it on it's programming.

Second of all, since I was one of those who voted Vince McMahon, I'll explain why.

I didn't vote for Vince because of the "Hogan era." I didn't vote for him because of the "Attitude era.", etc. I voted Vince because of a little thing he did way back. That little thing was Vince basically saying "Fuck you" to every wrestling promoter in North America by going away from territorial wrestling.

Now you might argue this didn't happen in the last 15 years, but I can also argue that it affected it greatly. If Vince wouldn't have broken open that door, who knows where wrestling would be today, or if it would even be around at all.

:y:

I put a comedy answer like Umaga please?

I agree with everyone that Vince is the most important figure in the last 15 years.

How do you leave The Rock off the list though? He's an easy top 3... by far more important than most of the guys listed (Bret Hart, Triple H, Eric Bischoff...)

He's the biggest mainstream star to ever come out of pro wrestling. That automatically puts him up there.

Jeff Hardy

#1: Vince McMahon
#2: Steve Austin
#3: Hulk Hogan
#4: Eric Bishoff
#5: Paul Heyman

Turner, he created competition