All-Time Top 30 Wrestlers from Collider.com

[WTIC]

Hey everyone!

If you haven't seen their list yet, here:

30 The Ultimate Warrior
29 Ricky 'The Dragon' Steamboat
28 The Million Dollar Man' Ted DiBiase
27 Kenny Omega
26 Edge
25 Big Van Vader
24 Jake 'The Snake' Roberts
23 Rey Mysterio
22 Kurt Angle
21 Sting
20 CM Punk
19 AJ Styles
18 Daniel Bryan
17 Rowdy' Roddy Piper
16 Andre the Giant
15 Eddie Guerrero
14 Triple H
13 Dusty Rhodes
12 Mick Foley
11 Brock Lesnar
10 Chris Jericho
9 The Undertaker
8 John Cena
7 Bret 'The Hitman' Hart
6 Shawn Michaels
5 Macho Man' Randy Savage
4 The Nature Boy' Ric Flair
3 The Rock
2 Hulk Hogan
1 Stone Cold Steve Austin

Thoughts? Reactions? Read the article here: collider.com/galleries/30-greatest-pro-wrestlers-ranked/

(I hope this wasn't covered before, I should've looked first before posting! )

Todd C
WTIC

[on_the_edge]

Eh everyone has their opinions. I wouldn't put SCSA first.

[Pete]

What a bizarre definition of "all-time."

[TTX]

apparently if you started before the 70s, you weren't going to be included. Most likely someone wrote it with no background of the sport and therefore only counted wrestlers they saw.

[LAWraith]

Here’s my issue with lists like this ... are these the top 30 wrestlers or the top 30 draws?  Draws I could see.  Wrestlers I would drop Hogan and Cena down the list quite a ways.  They were good talents with decent charisma that got pushes.

As far as WRESTLERS go I might actually go Kurt Angle #1 followed by Randy Savage, Ric Flair and with great pains Shawn Michaels then Bret Hart.  With the Rock, Jericho Austin and CM Punk with strong considerations.  Undertaker right there too but is hard to rate as he had this epic experience, the guy played the part perfect and could wrestle.  Just not sure I’d put him in my top five.

So many people are really high and I think it’s more a benefit of good talent with amazing booking.  I don’t want to say it’s a Jim Cornette bias but I’ve never been blown away by Kenny Omega.  He’s really good but I’ve never been I gotta watch that match again kind of thing.

In conclusion ... Again just a really hard list to do, everyone will have their own opinion.  I will always think Hogan and Cena benefitted from the push more than there overall talent despite being good.  Whenever I would play WWE2k games I’d always bring a Cena down from a 99 to more of an 84.  But I digress, everyone’s list will be different there will never be a definitive list cause this is one where I don’t think we will ever have a clear cut list.

[Swarm]

At the risk of being hit with backlash, I’ll admit I never understood “work rate” or the argument about entertainers vs wrestlers. In my mind growing up the greatest wrestlers ever were Hulk Hogan, Road Warriors, Bruiser Brody, Stan Hansen, Ultimate Warrior, British Bulldogs and Demolition. Guys who just beat their opponents up with punches, kicks and slams. The guys who had to “wrestle” and jump off the ropes and do all these different moves had to do it because the were weak. Their punches, kicks and slams didn’t do damage to people so they had to jump off the top rope for the bigger impact, or do a lot of arm bars, leg locks etc to wear a guy down. Guys like Flair, Steamboat and Bockwinkel who needed an hour to beat an average sized guy always looked weak compared to Hogan or Warrior who just steam rolled giants with punches and slams. I still kind of feel that way.

[LAWraith]

No backlash because like I was trying to see I totally get that Swarm. I think there is no way to make a list cause everyone is going to be different. Someone may do a list and put Honky Tonk Man #1 cause he entertained them. I think a lot of different people watch wrestling for a lot of different reasons. My grandfather probably would have Dusty Rhodes #1 (there really is no one from the 70s or prior on here huh).

I don’t even know how you would formulate a list ... biggest draw would prolly go Hogan? Most time spent as Champion, guess your going R Truth? Lol Or even what you just said, do you go by the look and build (not sure exactly that’s what your saying but trying to sum up) and hail someone like Brock Lesnar as the best.

Just saying you can’t do things you can with other sports because everyone has different thoughts on what wrestling should be and they develop there preference and who that list will be based on that.

[luke929]

To me it's about the ones that make it look and feel the most "real"... Of course, within the self-contained world of wrestling. I can't stomach things like the canadian destroyer, or the way that 90% of wrestlers do a superplex (Check out Barry Windham or Bob Orton, Jr. for good ones). I would say that Flair, up to the horseman days, Bret Hart, Magnum T.A., Roddy Piper, Randy Savage... They all did that for me. I had a hard time with the "Hulking up" of people like Hogan and Warrior. Of course, that's just my take.

[Bazzy]

No Bruno Sammartino ?

[Sam Fain]

It's a fine list... But it is most certainly not the list of the 30 greatest wrestlers of all time. With the exceptions of Omega and Vader, we're looking at a list of names that represent the best of the 1980-2010 in North America. With those caveats, I can mostly accept the list if not the order.

If we're talking all time... Leaving out names like Thesz, Tsuruta, Tenryu, Misawa, Kawada, Tanahashi, Okada, Bill Robinson, Jack Brisco, Harley Race, Verne Gagne... Names like Ray Stevens and Pepper Gomez. Bruno. Strangler Lewis. Buddy Rogers. Antonio Rocca. Jim Londos. Gotch. Hackenschmidt.

It is a hard thing to quantify but this list is simply representative of a specific time period and region with a hard lean into one company. And that's fine. but it's not a list of the 30 greatest wrestlers of all time by any measure.