Best Rookie Class

[Tastycles]

Wrestling is always looking for the next big thing, largely because for the most part, wrestlers have quite a short marketable lifespan, if not exactly short careers on the whole. As a result, every year we see wrestlers debuting in their dozens, but with so few making the grade, what I want to know is which year produced the best.

I'm interested in a wrestler's first début in a major promotion, which for this purpose will be WWE/F, NWA/WCW and TNA. So, for example, The Big Show was a rookie in 1995, when he debuted in WCW, but not in 1999 when he joined the WWF. The wrestlers needn't have made a big impact in the year they were brought into the company, so Edge, for example, counts towards 1998's rookie class, but obviously the closer their success to their debut year, the more likely you are to remember when they started.

I made this thread with 2002 in mind. 2002 was not a vintage year for the WWE, but it is the year when 4 out of the next 8 first time WWE champions debuted - Lesnar, Cena, Orton and Batista. However, when you consider that the only other significant wrestler to debut that year was Umaga, it's not so clear cut, and I think there's a better choice and I'm missing it. So, people of the forums, give me your suggestions.

 

[Jsaturn14]

Alright, I might not completely understand your thread completely. Are you talking about what year was the best for rookie debuts in general, or are you talking about what single wrestler had the best rookie year? If your talking about single wrestlers, then the single best Rookie Year for a wrestler belongs to Kurt Angle. In his Rookie year (November 1999-November 2000), he had a mini-undefeated streak lasting for about two months, he won both the Intercontinental and European titles at the same time becoming the "Eurocontinental" champion He had a great 2 out of 3 falls match at Wrestlemania 16 against Chris Jericho and Chris Beniot, he won the King of the Ring tournament, he was involved in a love triangle with HHH and Stephanie, he had an awesome Triple Threat match for the WWE Title against The Rock and HHH at Summerslam 2000, he won the WWE title against The Rock at No Mercy 2000, and although he wasn't technically a rookie at this point, he defeated 4 of the greatest WWE superstars in history, and Rikishi in a 6 man HIAC at Armageddon 2000. No Rookie year is better than this.

However, if you are talking about year's in which Rookies debuted, two years that I would put onto the list of best ever are 1986 in which Lex Lugar, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Sting were all rookies, and 1990 which was the rookie year for Kevin Nash, Rob Van Dam, and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Both pretty good years seeing as how three legends were rookies in each of them

 

[mat1992clarke]

I have to agree, 2002 was definately the best rookie year (that i can remember) Lesnar, Cena, Orton, Batista, who would have guessed in their debut matches that they would be former World Champions?

 

[ABMorales787]

Hard to say really. There really isn't a year in particular that stands out for having as solid a list of rookies as 2002. Mostly because before then, wrestlers could debut in small territories. However, 1984 seems like one. It was the U.S. debut year of both Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. Two of the all-time greatest. Not to mention it's when Hulkamania started. Sounds like a pretty damn good year.

 

[The Crock]

I'll have to agree with you on this one, Tasty. Cena, Orton, Batista, Lesnar, they all made a huge impact on wrestling for the time that they were around. Lesnar was an instant megastar and would have been one of the biggest things in wrestling history had he stayed around, Batista was a mainstay in the main event scene for the better part of 5 years and a multiple time World Champ, not to mention all his other accolades. Now we come to Orton and Cena, the "crown jewels" of the rookie class. They've been legitimate main eventers for years now, and they are the two biggest stars in wrestling today. Not only that, but Cena is the best superstar since Rock and Austin. That is undoubtedly one of the best rookie classes ever.