The most influential wrestling trainer?

[8thwotwATG]

The business of sports entertainment is still around and in fine fettle, due to the fact that there are performers who chose to instruct others in the ins and outs of the peculiarly unique performance art that is professional wrestling. It's a pretty fair bet that most of the top mat stars have trained, or help train at least one or two grapplers, but there have been only a handful of trainers that have managed to produce a large majority of mat superstars. My question to the WZ community who hangs here in the Old School section would be which trainer contributed the most mat stars to the wrestling business? My vote would be for Verne Gagne, who trained (or helped train) some of the greatest of all time, ie; Ric Flair, Jimmy Snuka, Bob Backlund, and the Undertaker, among others. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the responses to this .

Try and expand your posts a bit folks, a lot have needed to be deleted here.

 

[realoldskoolfan]

i agree, Verne Gagne hands down. the list of guys he trained is a basic whos who of modern wrestling. i would go with Stu Hart after that. the Dungeon produced alot of great stars.

 

[jasonhainline420]

Stu Hart is my choice. C'mon, Bret and Owen Hart,"Superstar" Billy Graham, Greg Valentine, Bad News Allen, Davey Boy Smith, Brian Pillman, Jushin Liger, Ricky Fuji, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Lance Storm, Tyson Kidd, Natalya Neidhart, and others too numerous to name.

 

[realoldskoolfan]

Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Jimmy Snuka, Curt Hennig, Larry Hennig, The Undertaker, The Andersons, Sgt. Slaughter, Jimmy Valiant, Bob Backlund, Blackjack Mulligan, Buddy Rose, The Iron Sheik, Baron Von Raschke. thats just a small taste. sorry, but i think this list right here is way more impressive. Flair and Steamboat alone trump anything on that list and yes that includes "The Hitman".

 

[burnout4200]

Dwayne Bruce AKA Sarge. We're talking influential here. When wrestling was at it's peak WCW was talking about The Power Plant constantly for years and Sarge was labeled as the trainer. Imagine how many people were inspired to look into getting training because WCW put it in their head. It may sound like a long shot but I'm most likely right. Who knows how many kids or adults said "Wait, I can be a wrestler?" then looked into it eventually.

 

[realoldskoolfan]

yea but the point here i believe is, TRAINER. how many guys did he train?
he did train Goldberg, i will give him that. but other than that, name another guy in this sport he had a direct influence on?

 

[RatedRCodeezie]

Stu Hart didn't actually train Chris Jericho, it was just his training methods that were supposedly used. Still though, he didn't actually train him so I don't think he deserves credit for Jericho's success or anything. However Edge did also spend some time at the Dungeon, just for another big name guy you could use in defense of it.. But once again from what I read in Edge's book he spent 0% of his time with Stu just like Jericho so should that really count?

Oh and for the same reasons as Jericho, Lance Storm shouldn't count either.

 

[ARLO]

I'm gunna throw Dory Funk jr. out there. His Funking Conservatory trained (or contributed to the training of) Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Christian, Lita, Kurt Angle, Edge, Ted DiBiase, Chris Sabin and Paul London to name a few.

 

[Dyno Kid]

Stu Hart is my choice. C'mon, Bret and Owen Hart,"Superstar" Billy Graham, Greg Valentine, Bad News Allen, Davey Boy Smith, Brian Pillman, Jushin Liger, Ricky Fuji, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Lance Storm, Tyson Kidd, Natalya Neidhart, and others too numerous to name.

Stu never trained Graham, Bad News, or Davey Boy Smith. Those guys all worked for him but they were already in the business for a few years before they came to Calgary.

Plus, there's no way at his age did he train Tyson Kidd or Nattie. He trained a lot of people but not these.