Ok I have got to wondering & figured what better place to ask.
Who are the Top 5 workers on the Mic ever in Wrestling History (& why)?
1) Ric Flair - I put him first cause he is the original so since he really didnt have anyone to truly immolate it says alot about his work
2) John Cena - His mic work changes with each person as well as rarely uses the same stuff over & over even when with the same person. His message my be the same but always done differently
3) The Rock - He can always keep u wondering what is going to come next and even though he has some stale catch phrases but he still has keeps it entertaining gets a amazing pop
4) Triple H - He is one of my personal favorites so it might be biases but I believe he has set a new bar as to what a professional wrestler should be.
5) Chris Jericho - He has evolved over the years slowly while in but a different character each time he comes up with some real silly & stupid stuff but at the same time ppl love it
I'm sure this topic in beating a dead horse but I really need to reply.
It absolutely blows my mind that you consider Cena #2 all time. I wouldn't call him bad but I would never really consider him ground breaking. I don't even know if I could call him top 5 today. I don't really consider myself a Cena hater but there is no way he should be anywhere on this list especially above The Rock, you don't even mention Steve Austin. Rock and Stone Cold can be considered the MOST "over" wrestlers of all time, theres no way they aren't top 3. I can agree with Flair being up there with them.
Honorable mentions:
Savage & Warrior: TBH I never really knew what crazy shit these guys were ranting about but both their promos were always entertaining.
Hogan: The most popular wrestler EVER, I wouldn't call his mic work always great but it got people interested.
CM Punk: Hard for me to leave him off the list. Like Austin, he feels real. A quality thats hard to achieve.
Foley: Mostly for the unique storytelling of his character in WWE.
1. The Rock - He just oozes charisma whenever he's on the mic. He has an intense energy that builds off the crowd and a slew of catchphrases that just work. 2. Ric Flair - He can go on and go about anything and everything. The man can just talk on the mic about his entire life and it'd be an emotional roller coaster. 3. Stone Cold Steve Austin - He's so in character that when he's on the mic, everything he says is exactly what his character would say. You start believing he really is Stone Cold Steve Austin in real life too. He also has his catchphrases, but the way he delivers them in his own entertaining way make him so distinctive. 4. CM Punk - A natural on the mic. During his WWE Championship reign and even when he delivered his first WWE "pipe bomb," he said everything with so much truth and passion. Everything from his facial expressions to his gestures only further complement the words he says. The man just knows how to get a reaction with words. 5. Chris Jericho - Another natural on the mic. Whenever Jericho is on the mic, you can expect something witty or humourous. He just knows how to work the crowd and has so much charisma. His exchanges with Stephanie McMahon and The Rock back in the days are prime examples of this. He's so good with comebacks and facial expressions. Nothing about his promos feel forced.
Triple H? John Cena? Seriously? You have to have been born in the nineties if you honestly believe that, because anyone who lived through wrestling's true late 80's boom period knows these guys wouldn't be anywhere close to the top of the "all-time" list. They might be up there now, but that's also because the wrestling talent pool has drastically evaporated since the peak of the late 90's. The shit that passes for "talent" these days is unreal.
But I digress...
For me, it's impossible to "rank" any of these guys, but I can give you five of the greatest all-time, each of whom may have been the best at any given point in his career:
I'm going to shy away from the modern guys, simply because I get the sense having been a member of this forum this long that this thread is going to be littered with post-after-post touting guys like Jericho and the Rock, who while they were great in their own right, owe their success to the men who paved the way before them.
Guys like Hulk Hogan. People will shit on Hogan for eternity because of his ego and because they're "sick of seeing him" on television, etc, but one thing you can never take from him was that he was wrestling's first true Hollywood star. I say Hollywood because guys like André, Race and others were certainly stars before him, but Hogan was the first guy to transcend wrestling, and it wasn't just his look that did it for him. He had an uncanny personality that was dripping with charisma and confidence. In the era of good guys v. bad guys, more commonly known as the "Golden Era", he was the king because of his ability to talk and his look. This is why I will say to my grave that the ability to actually wrestle exceptionally well in pro-wrestling is not important. Hogan couldn't wrestle his way out of a paper bag, but he still has some of the most memorable matches in wrestling history because his personality sold it.
Guys like Randy Savage. One of the original "dreamer" promo types. The guy who cut promos you could barely understand, but who's very unique vocal pattern and very unique charisma drew you in like a planetary orbit, likely without you even realizing it until it was too late. Savage could hang with the best of them, because his range in terms of the type of promo/interview he had to cut was incredible. He could cut the intensely angry promo, and the very next week come back with the quick-witted comedy, only to return again with something much more calculated and deliberate. He was a jack of all trades when it came to verbal skill.
Guys like Jake Roberts. I know I said I can't really "rank" these guys, but if I absolutely had to, Roberts would skyrocket right to the top. Again, if you were born and conditioned with this new age WWE era, you would have undoubtedly missed out on the career of one of the most gifted talkers in history. Roberts had a talent unlike many around him at the peak of his career, and his ring skill and technical prowess was made that much better by his ability to sell himself to the crowd. The way I see it, Roberts set the bar in a lot of ways for how to cut an effective promo without the need to rely on gimmicks like screaming (hi, Samoa Joe) or silly catch phrases just to get the crowd to play into your hands. Roberts did it with much more talent, because Roberts spoke through his interviews and promos. Spoke. Calmly. Cooly. Calculated. In fact, he damn near whispered half the time, yet no matter the tone of his voice, as a fan, he had you hooked from the moment the first words fell from his lips.
If you wanna know where Stone Cold Steve Austin got his footing, go watch Jake Roberts promos. Guy was amazing:
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Guys like Dusty Rhodes. Probably the most charismatic talker I've ever had the pleasure of watching. People like to talk about swag these days. This guy was the original swag. He was the original pimp. He was the original jive-talker. Where most guys with a lisp likely would have shied from verbal confrontations of any kind, Rhodes met it head on and used it to his advantage, quickly making his southern drawl and lisp a gimmick that actually helped to sell him to the crowd. Ask any wrestling fan—any real wrestling fan—to cut a Dustry Rhodes promo, and I guarantee you they can damn near recite his style and his flare without a moment of hesitation. Just like Hogan. Just like Warrior. That's how memorable this guy really was.
"The Amewhican Dweam, Dusty Rhodes bay-bay!"
"I have wined and dined with kings and queens, and I've slept in allies and ate pork and beans."
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And guys like Ric Flair, who is the absolute pinnacle and gold standard of talkers in this business. In fact, if you were to be teaching a course on it, Flair would be damn near unattainable, because what he had was sheer, natural talent. He wasn't taught how to act, and how to react. He did it off the cuff, and almost entirely without a script. He didn't need any of these things. All he needed was a fundamental understanding of what his job was in whatever feud he was involved in, and all you had to do as the guy working with him was follow his lead, because he'd carry you the whole way there.
There are obviously a number of men I've left off this list who certainly don't deserve to be (Roddy Piper, Ted DiBiase, etc), but I hope someone else has the energy to cover them.
Something else to remember here is that really there are two schools to the ability to talk these days. Guys like Jericho and the Rock come from the new age style of "entertainment", born from the "Sports Entertainment" aspect that's dominated the show for years now, where the kayfabe line is constantly toed and the crowd is worked in a much more deliberate fashion to draw heat or cheers, depending on which side of the line you're supposed to be on. The new school method is far less defined, though, and it's not uncommon for a performer to regularly toe his way back-and-forth over that line through a single feud, despite the fact he may be playing heel/face exclusively, and not the "tweener" role you see talked about.
The other school is where guys like Flair, Rhodes and Piper come from. The original book of talent. The guys who learned how to cut wrestling promos for the sake of wrestling. They worked in kayfabe and had much more clearly defined roles in terms of heel/face. To me, these guys will always be the more talented, which is why I'll always gravitate toward performers now who pay tribute to that (hey there, Bully Ray).
1. Ric Flair - Just by the amount of people he's influenced with his promo work gets him the #1 spot; but also because he was top of the line on the mic whether he was a face or a heel.
2. Steve Austin - Ushered in the "shoot" style promo into the mainstream. Didn't rely entirely on a catchphrase like most, and easily one of the quickest thinkers on the fly when dealing with a crowd.
3. The Rock - Arguably has more popular catchphrases than anyone in the history of the business, and he would be ranked higher if he hadn't relied solely on the catchphrases for long periods of time.
4. Mick Foley - Had a storytelling ability with his promos that you could almost close your eyes and watch the story he was telling you in your head.
5. CM Punk - Still has a ways to go and time to climb on this list, but he's already shown that he can hang with the best on the microphone, much in the same way that Steve Austin did. He listens to the crowd and adjusts from there.
I didn't see a lot of the wrestlers from the 80's and early 90's but having watched it the best promo of all time was Ric Flair after he won the Royal Rumble. It was so believable and he conveyed his emotions so incredibly. Even now he can still be intense one minute and then be making people laugh the next. That is why he is the best ever in my opinion.
HHH and HBK were similar in that they could flip their emotions easily. They made it believable and made it easy to forget you are watching something script. Cena is another who can get laughs and say what he needs to with passion and I never get bored of his mic-work. The Rock's catchphrases are legendary. Back when he was in his prime he was just so naturally funny and charismatic.
Cm Punk brings so much realism into his promos and that is why I love them. He tells the story so well and brings in his own twists. You can actually believe that he has made these promos himself rather than been told what to say. His altercation with Cena the night Jerry Lawler had his heart attack was incredible. Both men were at their best and was overlooked in terms of quality and professionalism.
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