Who do you think is Truly the best wrestler of all time?

[Odisho]

I know this question has been asked so many times, but i havn't seen one since before summer, and its always nice to refresh old and expired threads.

Anyways, me and my friend were just walking on a side walk and he asked me one of the most popular question in wrestling history, ''Who do you think is the best wrestler of all time?''.

So i thought about it for about 5 minutes and came up with Chris Benoit. I mean sure he was no The Rock, He was No Stone Cold, but in my Opinion, Benoit could have wrestled circles around them, no disrespects to the greats. I mean I was watching war games 1997, and he looked so beilevable kicking 3 guys' ass at the same time. He looked so tough, while he was no Batista. he had such a tough look, he looked like the terminator of wrestling. He had such a passion for wrestling, he risked his own body and litterally gave his brain to vince mcmahon to eat because he loved his job so bad.

The only weakness according to ''U GUYS'' is his mic skills, which i dont give a SH!T about. he was a multiple time champion. Was a 4 horsemen.

He is pretty much The perfect Daniel Bryan who say is the benoit of today(benoits son's name was Daniel

Besides what Benoit did the day he died, Chris Benoit was one of the greatest IN-RING wrestlers that have ever lived.
AND IN MY OPINION IS THE BEST OF ALL TIME.

So plz take ur time or dont take ur time to answer one of the most asked questions of wrestling history.
WHO IN YOUR OPINION' IS THE BEST OF ALL TIME?

 

[UrbanDynasty]

Im going to have to go with Chris Benoit.
I personally hold no grudge against him for what he did.
I blame WWE and their late crackdown on headshots with chairs and whatnot.
He was the best in the world. And imo still is. The only one who I think could challenge him would be Angle or maybe Eddy Guerrero.

 

[IHW]

WWE Said That HBK, Shawn Micheals was the number one greatest superstar of all time. And i have to agree. He is my all time favorite, and he has done i all in the wrestling business. He was really good in the ring and on the mic... So, HBK it is.

 

[HollywoodLuthias]

Hulk Hogan

Does he draw fans to the arenas? Yes
Is he a great performer? Yes
Is he a great technical wrestler? In the United States and Canada, absolutely not. But he is more of a technical wrestler when he wrestles in Japan.
Did he sell a lot of merchandise and draw television viewers? Yes

Hulk Hogan was the best of all time

 

[tarp]

When I see this question I think a wrestler not entertainer, wrestling in my days of growing up was you got on the mic said what you would do and back it up in the ring. That was perfected by The Nature Boy Ric Flair. When HBK and Hart had there iron man match it was praised as awesome that two competitors could go that long. in Flairs hey day he wrestled 60 minute matches three or fours time weekly, and was a ring master. Technical wrestling started with Lou Thez and was perfected by Flair. Other greats Chris Beniot, HBK, Hart and Angle.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

Since other folks have built their responses on more than one style I will go the same way:

Best Entertainer: Hulk Hogan. In his early career he had a reputation as a vicious and powerful heel. Instead of using the Legdrop as his finisher it was more of a signature move and he rarely used it. Instead he would use backbreaker submissions and bearhugs to end most of his matches. Yes, I understand that there will be haters on this topic that will tell me that Hogan still couldn't work a match and who knows maybe I am wrong but I feel Hogan in his early career showed that he could work a certain style and it was as a brawler, this obviously paid off or else he'd have just been a novelty act who never made it past the mid card. And at times I think Hogan has shown that he can wrestle a match that's outside his typical superhero simplicity. A 30 year plus run in the business says that all. I will agree though with several critics that his act can be tiresome at times and to non-fans I can appreciate their being fed up with him but Hogan I think has shown that he can rise to the occasion. Just watch matches like SummerSlam 2005, WrestleMania V-VI, WrestleMania X8, Backlash 2002 and some of his AWA and Japan (his 1993 match with Muta and 1994 match with Fujinami were good - Also don't give me the whole he had a good opponent to carry him speech, yes having a great dancing partner helps but if people seriously believe that rationale to the finest extent than that means anyone of us can put ourselves in Hogan's place and have a great match as well and honestly I don't see that happening). While I definitely throw realism out the door when I watch a Hulk Hogan match I am no less entertained when seeing him in action.

Best At Versatility: Bret "The Hitman" Hart. Bar none while I think Bret's best years were occurring when the WWF was not at its very best commercial success-wise. Bret was a competitor that made the WWF a watchable program even in the WWF's dark ages where you had garbagemen, plumbers and hog farmers as the staples of the Federation. Bret Hart while in today's WWE gets a lot of praise for his contributions it wasn't until 2010 when he's truly been given the acclaim he's deserved. Yes I know that in 2005 that started to change with his co-produced DVD with WWE and then his subsequent 2006 HOF Induction, but it wasn't until four years later when he finally had a recurring role back in WWE story lines where fans of today truly got to witness what Bret Hart has contributed to the wrestling business.

To me Bret Hart made every match just look like an all out actual fight, no matter who he was wrestling be it Yokozuna, Owen Hart, Jeff Jarrett, Kevin "Diesel" Nash, Shawn Michaels or Scott "Razor Ramon" Hall, Hart had a flare to show just how his style was a breath of fresh air after Hulk Hogan left the WWF and the title scene needed new faces. Bret brought the title scene back to something it had not seen since Bob Backlund's days as the champion. Although I will say that while he does not get the credit for the same charisma that guys like Hogan and Savage had, Hart I think did have a more intriguing personality than Backlund ever had and that's no disrespect to Backlund either but I think Hart offered what Backlund couldn't in the way of actual emotion in the ring and what Hogan couldn't offer in the way of versatility from match to match.

People who might knock Bret Hart's lack of personality I implore to just watch his body language in the ring and the way he would perform his move set. Everything Bret did had a reason and a method and the way he'd react to a loss in the ring just spoke better than any words he could ever say. However I always thought his promos while not high octane like Savage or Hogan had a sincerity to them that fit his character very well. That combined with the fact that he wrestled three different matches at King Of The Ring with three very different opponents and they all ended in their own unique way. This led to him winning the tournament and in my mind this legitimized him just as much as his World Title win over Ric Flair if not more so to be honest. WrestleMania X was another showcasing of Bret's resourcefulness in the story lines, he goes from losing one match to Owen (and showing the best reaction I've ever seen a wrestler display after a loss) and afterwards in the same evening avenging his loss from the year before by beating Yokozuna in a rematch to win back the strap. His subsequent World Title feud with Owen was a great showing too and I remember those days just like they were yesterday.

For this alone I don't think there's anyone better at working within different dynamics than Bret Hart, yes I do indeed hold in high regard individuals like Shawn Michaels, Randy Savage and The Undertaker but when it comes to this category I don't think anyone touches Bret Hart. I can only wonder what things would have been like had he stayed with the WWF further into the Attitude Era instead of leaving during its transition point.

Best Franchise Player: The Undertaker. I say this because when you think about it all the greats from Hogan to Hart to Savage have all come and gone in terms of their staying in one place. That's not to fault them, other offers have come their way and they took upon those offers for better or worse (some fans even myself from time to time wish that this wasn't always the case but hey that's not my call). However ever since leaving WCW in 1990, The Undertaker has never looked back. Coming up on 21 years now, The Undertaker has stayed put in the WWF/E. Granted he has taken some long breaks (and deservedly so) but out of all the other greats he has been the constant in WWF/E. After all Jim Ross has labeled him as the conscience of the promotion. No one else can make that claim and while he's not at the name recognition and level of a Hulk Hogan, The Rock or Steve Austin, if you are a fan of professional wrestling, particularly WWE, you know who The Undertaker is and if you do know who he is you know this guy has had some of the best storylines in the promotion.

Even with my least favorite eras like the American Badass and Ministry, The Undertaker has been the most enduring figure I think of any one single wrestling promotion. He's one of my top favorites for sure, and while I must admit bias and say that I am still a bigger fan of Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan, if someone were to ask me who's the one guy you could say is the best example of that franchise player in professional wrestling, it's the Taker. He's worked with practically every superstar that has come and gone in WWF/E and that alone says it all. Also, he's very likely to retire from the profession with a perfect WrestleMania record (don't want to speak too far ahead but I am hopeful).

Since my definition of a wrestler is different from a lot of other people and vice versa I had to follow the same route and discuss this like everyone else did. I have so many favorites and all that, that I feel it's hard for me to objectively pick who truly is the best of all time.

 

[SmattyG]

I've been watching wrestling for 35 years now...I never saw Lou Thesz in his prime, but from what I've read and seen I'll use him as a starting point.

We talk about the best wrestler in terms of technical skill, ring psychology, mic skills, drawing power, championships held, longevity - not too many have all of those qualities.

Taking all of the above into account, I have to say Kurt Angle is the greatest wrestler of all time. Ric Flair is a damn close second but I think Angle has it over him on technical skill. Benoit and Guerrero were fantastic but their careers were tragically cut short. Stone Cold and Hogan may be the biggest draws ever but they can't top all of the above categories. Same for Cena, Bret and The Rock.

I dunno if Angle would be in my all time favourite top five, or even ten; but taking everything into account I truly think he is worthy of being called the best wrestler of all time.

 

[Rated sj]

Hulk Hogan

Does he draw fans to the arenas? Yes
Is he a great performer? Yes
Is he a great technical wrestler? In the United States and Canada, absolutely not. But he is more of a technical wrestler when he wrestles in Japan.
Did he sell a lot of merchandise and draw television viewers? Yes

Hulk Hogan was the best of all time

Well I guess if you are using this criteria to determine the best even. Then that makes John Cena the greatest of all time because as far as I remember, he draws fans to arenas, he sells a hell of a lot of merchandise and he can wrestle a good match.
But in all seriousness the best of all time is HBK.There was know one in my eyes that can ever compare to him he was one of the full packages. 100% of the time you could expect a show stealing match out of him, and to top it all off the fans loved him.

 

[FarFromFine]

I think it has to be Flair. He could do every style of match and make it believable. He was obviously best as a heel but when he was at his peak in the NWA and WCW days he put on great matches with everyone and he was never afraid to put someone over. He definitely tarnished his legacy by wrestling far too long past his prime but I think that's better than the alternative of other guys that either had their careers cut short by tragic accidents (eddie, beniot, pillman, etc) or by their own choice (lesnar, namely). He was the perfect heel in my opinion. He was the dirtiest player in the game but also got plenty of clean victories as a heel which seems to be something lost on today's product. That's one of the reasons I love(d) Mark Henry's push so much as he was beating Orton clean. Looks like their going to make him a more cowardly heel now which will wreck his character but now i'm veering off topic.

In short my vote goes to Ric Flair.

 

[Jfrankart81]

Well This is a tough one. But for me the best "Wrestler" Of all time is Bret hart. I would say Chris Benoit, But Chris himself said he patterned Himself after the Hitman And Dynomite Kid so....Benoit would be number 2. Number 3 Mr. Perfect, Number 4 Scott Hall, Number 5 Ric flair, number 6 Kurt Angle, And Number 7 Eddie Guererro. As far as the Greatest All around Performer...HBK Hands Down Followed By Undertaker, The Rock, And Stone Cold :XD

I also think Randy Savage, Steamboat,Owen Hart, Dynomite Kid, British Bulldog, Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman Should be listed as well, but im through with numbering them LoL!!!!

On a side note....John Cena better not be listed in this topic! If this was soly best entertainer, Hed be in the top 10.....but Hes not a great....Hell even a Good Wrestler! I give john his props for his work ethic and commitment to the WWE, But he should never be compared to the Harts, Benoit, Angle, Bulldogs,Perfect,Flair,Andersons, Guererros etc.....Not even in their league!!

 

[tman2019]

The biggest draw of all time was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Take into account his multiple world title reigns, i thought he was one of the best in ring workers there was (just because he doesn't use submissions constantly doesn't mean he's not a good technician, this isn't a video game) and his promos were awesome too. Not to mention the fact he was involved in one of (if not the) best rivalry of all time vs. McMahon.

The only downfall I see in Austin is that he was really only relevant for 5 years or so. 97-99 then he was out for a year, and 01-02. I still think that doesn't mean he wasn't the best but longevity should also be factored in. I'm gonna stick with Austin tho, just for the fact that he was on top of wrestling during the "golden age" of wrestling. If you are the top draw and constant main eventer during the most prosperous time in wrestling history that's gotta make you #1.

 

[ProudFlairMark]

Best All Around Performer: Ric Flair, no questions asked. If I have said it once, I've said it a thousand times: no one encompassed more of the attributes it takes to be an amazing pro wrestler than Flair. Charisma, dynamism of character, promo/mic work, in ring ability, etc. Only one who comes remotely close is Michaels.

Best Promo: Flair, Rhodes and Rock could all contend for the top spot.

Best Worker: Henning and Steamboat both sold great for everyone they faced and both put a ton of people over. Hennig in particular probably could've extended his career if he wasn't such a bump dummy in the ring.

 

[rkinne01]

I'm going old school with my pick...

George Wagner. Yup George Wagner aka Gorgeous George!

George may well be the single most influental wrestler of all time. He has been credited by many people as bringing wrestling to TV, people loved tuning in to see him beat up everyweek. He also took the art of the wrestling gimmik to new heights, his flamboyant gimmick has influenced wrestlers like Rick Flair, Mohamed Ali, and other athletes. George, like Hulk Hogan, was not only a popular wrestler but a major celebrity in his own right.

He was also a good wrestler, praised by Lou Tesz (rare for praise indeed from Lou) for his in ring wrestling ability.

THe man was the total package. Drawing Power? Check. Wrestling Ability? Check. Great Gimmick? Oh Yeah. Charisma? More than Hogan.

 

[Jsaturn14]

Biggest Name: Hulk Hogan, no question. He is among a handful of guys that a person who has never seen a second of wrestling knows about, and among them, he is the biggest.

Biggest Draw: Stone Cold Steve Austin: while Hogan during the 80's was huge, and while Cena today is equally huge, the WWF/WWE has never made more money than they did during the Attitude Era, and that is solely because of one man, Stone Cold.

Best Entertainer: The Rock: Nobody past, present, or future, will ever match the Rock's ability to hold a crowd, and entertain a crowd on the mic. People are literally putty in his hands when he speaks, and he can get them to say anything he wants them to say. That is an ability that will never be matched.

Best Technical Wrestler: I have to go with Kurt Angle on this one. The man is an Olympic Gold Medalist for a reason. The guy knows how to work a mat, and keep people down. Benoit is a close, close second, but to me, Kurt is the best technical wrestler of all time.

Best In-Ring Performer: No Question, it is Mr. Wrestlemania, Shawn Michaels, and it isn't close at all. The guy has an innate ability to have a great match with anyone at any time, and to steal the show on the biggest stages. I could list off at least two dozen HBK matches that I feel like will never, ever be forgotten by wrestling fans, but I don't think I will Unless you guys want me too, that is. Anyways, yeah, HBK rules when it comes to putting on memorable matches.

Best Big Man: Undertaker, end of story, end of discussion. To be that big and be that agile, and to have the longevity that he has had, it has been unbelievable. Andre is a close, very close second, but to me, Taker wins this.

Best of All Time: So, it really depends on what you value the most. Do you value the ability to draw money, do you value technical prowess in the ring, do you value the ability to put on memorable matches? As you can tell from my sig, you know what I value the most, and who I think is the best of all time. I know it doesn't mean much, but I think it is funny that both "Who is the Best" dvds WWE has released has put HBK at the top as well. Just something to think about