What if their was never a Jimmy Snuka

[Disturbed]

Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka is the innovader of high flying wrestling. He was the first to jump off a steel cage and he set the tone for many superstars today. I am not a big Snuka fan but what if he never existed? Would high flying wrestling exist? Would small guys like Mysterio, HBK, Chris Jericho, or brett Hart still have won all the titles they did? What would have happened if Snuka never wrestled?

I think high flying wrestling would still have occured. Snuka wasn't the only wrestler to have the high flying style back then. Lucha Libre stars were adapting to it and it would have adapted in the United states too when Lucha Libre stars came up here.

I have to disagree with most people and say Jimmy Snuka had nothing to do with the high flying wrestling style becoming popular. Sure he jumped off a cage but someone else would have ended up doing that too. He was just the first one crazy enough to do it. Lucha Libre is the main reason High flying style became so popular in America and if it had not became so popular I would not like wrestling as much.

What are your thoughts?

 

[PsychoBlack]

You just contradicted yourself making you sound like you have no clue what you're talking about.

Jimmy Snuka did not innovate shit except for wrestling without shoes. The first high flyer was Antonino Rocca who was a major draw n the 50's while Snuka did a splash off of the cage in the 80's. El Santo is someone else who can be credited with the highflying Lucha style seeing how he was one of the first and argyably the best to do it.

Also you talk about how small wrestlers would have faired if it were not for Snuka. What you fail to realize is that Jimmy Snuka is 250 pounds. All of the wrestlers that you mentioned are smaller than him and also have greater legacies.

 

[mulkeymania]

im sure it would have become popular at some point because it seems like the wrestlers need to push the envelope farther and farther to entertain the fans and get their pops so someone else would have tried something like the dive off the top of the cage eventually.

 

[Dagger Dias]

If Snuka had never wrestled then the high flyers of today would be far different, if they would even exist. He used to be the only one allowed to do top rope moves and he became so influential through that for today's high flying wrestlers. Perhaps they would eventually have found someone else to trust enough with flying moves, who would go on to take the spot in history that Snuka holds.... but things would indeed be very different because he was one the first very influential high flyers. Either someone else would have done what he did for today's flyers, or it might not exist in WWE and TNA.

 

[Dyno Kid]

There were high flyers before Snuka and there would be high flyers if he had never stepped foot inside a ring ! He wasn't the first guy to go bare footed as lots of the Japanese guys in the states were doing it, he wasn't the only guy allowed to come off the top rope as guys like Steamboat and Dynamite Kid were doing it, and he may not have been the first to dive off the cage as Adrian Adonis did it in a tag match in the AWA back in 1979.

Snuka was a major star for sure but I don't think he was all that influential.

 

[ROCKnSOCK55]

If there was no Snuka, i might not be a wrestling fan. My dad loved Snuka and when he showed me a tape of him I fell in love with wrestling. That being said, I think that Mysterio, Psicosis, Juvi, Eddie, and Jericho wouldn't have ever been given such a push. Snuka revolutionized WWE with his moves. His flashy style intoxicated fans. People were tuning in to see what he would do next. Where do you think Hardy got jumping off of 20 foot ladders? Everything highflying in the WWE from the 1980s to the late 1990s, high flying wise was his creation or had been done in his image. Snuka is a guy that doesn't get enough credit. Show some love for Snuka and go watch some of his matches.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I think he WAS influential, but I think that people would have eventually seen other wrestlers attempting top rope splashes, dives and just copied them instead of copying Snuka, so I dont think the wrestling landscape would be that different.

However, maybe Mick Foley may not have jumped off his garage roof and become famous through the Dude Love videos he made after seeing Snuka dive off the top of the cage at MSG. Thats the only difference I can really see happening

Guys like Mysterio were not influenced by Snuka, but by lucha libre in Mexico and the US wrestlers who saw Snuka and liked his style would simply had to wait a bit longer to be exposed to the high-flying style and just imitated that instead.