Thread: The greatest of all time.
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Old 04-13-2009, 02:07 AM   #129
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Loose Cannon View Post
The list is pretty much the same as mine, except I wouldn't have HBK on there. While he's definately a top five greatest wrestler of all-time, he's not in the same class as the other four guys you have up there. He hasn't really transcended the wrestling business like Hogan, Flair, Andre and Austin. Same with Taker.

I would put guys like Rogers, George, Piper and Rock in front of him.
That's a fair assessment, though out of the people you listed I really could only see George being a suitable replacement.

Rocky was fun, but his direct impact is a litle hard to gauge. It's like if Warrior has been talented, people liked him, but they were really mainly there to see Austin (or in the Warrior analogy, Hogan). He's served as a great ambassador of sorts to the rest of the entertainment industry, but his contributions to wrestling on a whole weren't exactly industry changing.

Piper, while great, truly never broke the mold. Again, he served as an incredible co-star...but never quite the main dish. Now I grant, WrestleMania couldn't have happened without Piper there to counter Hogan, but he served as the yang, and not the yin...I guess what I'm trying to say is, he came second in the equation.

Rogers...now that's a tricky one. If the question was who was the most influential to OTHER wrestlers, I would say Rogers is probably #2 or 3 on the list. But in terms of what he did for the business, I'm not really sure he would be someone to which the crowd owes their appreciation of their love for the sport.

Now George...he's someone who if there was anyone who might be able to knock Michaels out of the top 5 spot, it would be George. When you have guys like James Brown and Ali tributing their personality after a wrestler, you know you've struck gold. Really the first gimmick to get over. And while he was still somewhat of a regional performer, his influence kind of changed the way the sport was run from a straight up "tough man" approach of guys who could legit stretch you, to that of the gimmick style that more or less personified the business in thelast 20 years...only he was, you know, 50 years ahead of that. In the end, it's kind of a judgement call...and we all know how I went with it...but it's an interesting argument to be made for sure.

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