The 25 Best Pro Wrestlers Of My Lifetime

About two months ago, Dustin Rhodes tweeted something out that got a bunch of people talking.

He asked people where they would rate him on their all-time lists based on the career he’s had to this point. As of right now, the tweet has over one million views, with over 5,000 replies and hundreds more quote tweets.

Some fans, whether they’re kissing his ass or being honest, have Dustin ranked in their top ten all-time. Others say he’s definitely in the top 100, top 50, top 25, and so on.

Of course, that got me to thinking about the people that are on my all-time greats list.

Then, I decided to change “all-time” to “during my lifetime.” It’s too difficult for me to truly rate someone like Rikidozan, for example. Yes, he is one of the most influential people in the history of pro wrestling, and has been nicknamed “The Father Of Puroresu” for everything he did for pro wrestling in Japan, but he also last wrestled over 62 years ago. It’s not like I can just hop on Netflix and watch his entire career whenever I want, you know?

You’re going to notice that some all-time greats from “back in the day” don’t make the cut on my list. If that’s the case, it’s probably because a huge chunk, at the very least, of their best work took place before I became a wrestling fan.

With that out of the way, I had to think about criteria. What puts someone on my own list of the best wrestlers? Is it about who had the best matches? What about the wrestlers who drew the most money? Perhaps it’s the most influential?

Hell, why not just include everything?

You can’t talk about the “best” without looking at someone’s ability to have high quality matches, but also in their ability to win those high quality matches and earn championships, otherwise, what’s the point? The better you are in the ring, and the more you’re winning, the higher your influence should realistically be, so there’s that.

The best thing about this is how subjective everything is. This is MY list, and I’m fully aware that YOUR list might be completely different. Maybe you’re a huge Lucha Libre fan, and that will heavily influence who is on your list. Perhaps you’ve only been watching pro wrestling since 2010, and that will heavily influence who is on your list.

Let’s not waste any more time. Based on the criteria I’ve already laid out, here is the list of who I feel are the 25 best pro wrestlers of my lifetime.

 

25. Edge/Adam Copeland: Inevitably, someone is going to complain about Mr. Copeland being in this spot, as if it’s some bad thing. He isn’t in “last place,” folks. Of all the countless wrestlers I’ve seen through the decades of my wrestling fandom, he is the 25th best. That’s an amazing spot to be in.

Four WWE Title reigns, seven WWE World Heavyweight Title reigns, five WWF/WWE Intercontinental Title reigns, one WCW United States Title reign, 12 WWF/World Tag Team Title reigns, two WWE Tag Team Title reigns, King Of The Ring winner, Money In The Bank winner, two-time Royal Rumble winner, two AEW TNT Title reigns, one AEW Tag Team Title reign… that’s the main reason you’re seeing Adam Copeland listed here. It’s an amazing list of accolades, and I can’t help but wonder how many things would’ve been added to that list if he wasn’t forced into retirement for nearly nine years with a serious neck injury.

 

24. John Cena: If we’re talking about my FAVORITE wrestlers from my entire fandom, Cena would rank much higher here.

As it is, Cena is someone that took on a very unenviable task… becoming the top guy in a company that was still reeling after losing The Rock, Steve Austin, Mick Foley, and also shying away from any sort of “edgy” content for the more family-friendly TV-PG rating.

With WWE on his shoulders, the company reached new heights globally and financially, and while he certainly wasn’t ever going to be confused with Lou Thesz or Dean Malenko in the ring, his string of great performances, specifically on the biggest stages, is one of the lengthiest and most well-rounded in wrestling history.

 

23. Roman Reigns: When The Shield made their WWE debut in 2012, almost all of the attention was on Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. For multiple years prior to that, Tyler Black (Rollins) and Jon Moxley (Ambrose) were “indy darlings” and made big names for themselves for independent promotions all over the map. I, however, took notice of Roman Reigns. He was clearly the greenest and the rawest of the trio, but one look at him would tell you that he was EVERYTHING Vince McMahon could ever want in a huge superstar. I didn’t think he was going to be successful right away, but I knew he would eventually go on to become successful.

Boy, was I right.

A lot of fans hold it against him that he was “shoved down our throats” for so long by WWE, but how exactly is the fault on him for that? He did everything that was asked of him, and if you’re going to blame someone for it, that falls solely on the shoulders of Vince McMahon.

While Roman saw a good amount of success in that initial run… a WWE Tag Team Title reign, three reigns with the WWE World Heavyweight Title, a United States Title reign, an Intercontinental Title reign, and a Universal Title reign… it’s the last six-ish years of his career that have him being placed here on this list.

His run as the “Tribal Chief” and “Head Of The Table” has become one of the greatest stretches of a wrestler’s career over the last several decades. 1,316 days as the Universal Champion. 735 days as the Undisputed WWE Champion. He was completely repackaged from what fans were used to seeing from his days in The Shield and his “Big Dog” days, and there has been no looking back.

 

22. The Undertaker: Like Reigns and Cena before him on this list, a certain percentage of readers are going to be upset that Taker is getting praised for anything, but any list of this nature that doesn’t at least consider him is, at best, disingenuous.

While I will freely admit that The Undertaker doesn’t have as extensive a list of in-ring classics as some of the other names on this list, I think he more than makes up for it in his overall influence and the longevity at or near the top of the card. Besides, I think a lot of the flak he receives for the lack of classics, especially in the first half of his WWF tenure, is misguided and misdirected. People poke fun at his WrestleMania Streak because of the stinkers that were there in the early days, but what would you expect?

A nearly 50-year-old Jimmy Snuka that was already showing signs of physical and mental decline? Six minutes with Jake “The Snake” Roberts? Giant Gonzalez? King Kong Bundy? Do you honestly think those could’ve been great matches if you replaced The Undertaker with someone else? It’s not exactly a coincidence that the Mania matches started to get a lot better once the company started putting more focus and attention on them and on who he was having the matches with.

Sure, he probably hung on for too long, where he could’ve/should’ve headed into retirement years earlier than he did, but even if you want to dock “points” from him for that, it doesn’t counter the Streak, the titles won (including being a seven-time World Champion), and him showing multiple generations of “big man” wrestlers what was possible for them to achieve in the business.

 

21. The Great Muta/Keiji Muto: I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty sure that The Great Muta was the first Japanese pro wrestler I ever saw. Even if he wasn’t, when I saw him for the first time in 1989, it changed the game for me. From the way he looked to the way he moved to the way he wrestled, he stood out to me immediately, and he quickly became one of my favorites.

As I got a little older, I was able to discover New Japan Pro Wrestling matches that aired on television in Hawaii, and Muta was a big part of that, as well. I’ve continued to be a fan after all these years, even after his retirement in 2023.

The list of championships he’s won is impressive. Four-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion, six-time IWGP Tag Team Champion, one-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, and a one-time G1 Climax winner in New Japan. Three-time Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion, five-time World Tag Team Champion, and a three-time Champion Carnival winner in All Japan Pro Wrestling. One-time GHC Heavyweight Champion and one-time GHC Tag Team Champion in Pro Wrestling NOAH. One-time NWA Television Champion and one-time WCW Tag Team Champion in WCW. There’s more, but those are the key wins.

However, I think his influence is even more important than the titles he’s won. Moves like the Shining Wizard, Moonsault, Muta Lock, Dragon Screw Leg Whip, Space Rolling Elbow, and more were either invented or popularized by the man. You can also add spraying mist in the faces of his enemies as something else that he helped to popularize in pro wrestling. Even the theatrics of the Great Muta character itself, even to the over-the-top entrances, attires, face paint/masks, and so on is something that has been replicated time and time again in promotions all over the world.

If he did all that as a bad wrestler, he’d still be worthy of discussion here, but he was so, so good and so, so ahead of his time. If you saw him in WCW in 1989, like I did, you’d think you were watching someone that time traveled from the future.

 

20. AJ Styles: This is a man whose career is full of “it never should’ve happened, but it did” moments.

NWA: TNA, and later, TNA is a company that many feel never should’ve lasted. The weekly pay-per-view model was “too weird,” and everything was “too different” than what fans were used to seeing with the WWF and with WCW and ECW, as well. Not only did the company last, but AJ would become their biggest success story, becoming a “homegrown” talent that would go on to win the company’s World Title five times, its X-Division Title six times, its Tag Team Titles six times, and its Legends/Television Title two times.

An “undersized” gaijin wasn’t supposed to become the top performer in New Japan. Prior to AJ’s time in New Japan, only five non-Japanese man had ever won the IWGP Heavyweight Title… Big Van Vader, Salman Hashimikov (a 265-pound amateur wrestling World Champion from Russia), Scott Norton, Bob Sapp, and Brock Lesnar. All huge men, while AJ was under six-feet-tall and was barely over 200 pounds during his career. Well, there AJ was in 2014, defeating Kazuchika Okada to win the title, reaching the top of the New Japan mountain.

In the land of a Vince McMahon-led WWE, someone of AJ’s physical stature and (maybe most importantly) success outside of the WWE umbrella wasn’t supposed to show up and have success, let alone immediately. Then AJ debuts with an all-time Royal Rumble surprise entrance, would defeat John Cena multiple times, and would be the WWE World Champion before his first year with the company was over. Before he retired, he would add another WWE World Title reign, three United States Title reigns, two World Tag Team Title reigns, and one Intercontinental Title reign to his list of accomplishments.

His combination of aerial ability and technical wizardry is nearly unmatched throughout the history of this great sport, and he has used those in-ring skills to carry him to a Hall Of Fame career that saw nearly a full quarter-century’s worth of success and accolades.

 

19. Hiroshi Tanahashi: Back to New Japan for the company’s “Ace.” For over a quarter-century, Tanahashi remained one of the most important cogs in the NJPW machine. In New Japan alone, he’s an eight-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion (most in the title’s history), a three-time IWGP United States Champion, a two-time IWGP Intercontinental Champion, a one-time NJPW Television Champion, a three-time IWGP Tag Team Champion, a two-time IWGP U-30 Openweight Champion, a one-time NEVER Openweight Champion, a six-time NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Champion, a three-time G1 Climax winner, and a two-time New Japan Cup winner. Nobody has had a more decorated career in New Japan when it comes to championships won than Tanahashi.

In the 20 years of the company’s Wrestle Kingdom event, which was their own version of a WrestleMania type supershow, Tanahashi worked the main event 11 times, which is an insane statistic to think about.

He was the most consistent performer on the company’s roster, and was their top guy as they reached more fans and made more money than at any point in company history. It’s impossible to ignore that type of thing. The company knew they could count on him, and their belief in him was so strong that he was announced as the President of New Japan in December 2023 in hopes that he could use his leadership in other ways to carry the promotion to new heights.

 

18. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat: When you talk about Ricky Steamboat, you have to talk about just how smooth he was in the ring. Everything he did looked effortless, and as if we were watching a pro wrestling robot come to life.

He might be the best pure babyface in the history of the business, but that is also why many people don’t view him as someone who could/should be ranked higher on lists like this. He was such a good babyface because he was such a good human being outside of the ring, and he was such a good babyface outside of the ring that he could never be a heel. Nobody would buy it. Have you ever listened to him cut a promo? Not even just a promo… have you ever heard him speak, like on a wrestling documentary or something? It’s crystal clear to me that the man doesn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body. There’s even the famous story of him returning to the WWF in 1991 and pitching a heel turn where he would come back under a mask, build a bunch of heat, and then get the shocking reveal at some point, but Vince McMahon turned it down almost immediately.

If we were counting the entirety of someone’s career, I think I would put “The Dragon” in a higher spot. Unfortunately for him, a lot of what many feel is the best in-ring work of his career took place before my wrestling fandom began. A lot of it is stuff I’ve since been able to go back and watch, and it’s fantastic work, but it doesn’t work under the criteria I’m using here.

 

17. Kurt Angle: In the history of pro wrestling, you could make the argument that nobody ever caught on quicker than Kurt Angle when he began his career. Yes, he might be the greatest amateur wrestler of all-time, but he came to pro wrestling without being a lifelong fan of the pro business. It’s damn near like he walked in off the street, trained for a little bit, and was performing on WWF pay-per-views months later.

He would go on to become one of those characters that could do absolutely anything you asked of him. Need a goofy comedy heel? He can do that, and do it well. Need a psychotic wrestling machine heel? He can do that, and do it well. Need a sympathetic babyface? He can do that, and do it well. Brawl all over the arena? Wrestle a seven-footer? Technical classic? He can do that, and do it well.

I have a sneaking suspicion that he’d be ranked higher on a lot of your lists of this fashion, and I get it. That’s fine. The only thing that prevents him from being higher (word choice done purposefully) here is his run with TNA. There was plenty to like about his time with TNA, sure, but it was so crystal clear that he was dealing with his substance abuse issues. As great as he was, and as great as a lot of his opponents at the time were, he wasn’t close to being 100% at any point in TNA, and I think that hurt his overall tenure there. Lots of great matches, but there’s that “asterisk” on everything for me.

Before anyone complains… yes, I’m aware he was dealing with pills during his first WWF/WWE run, but he’s the first to admit that it truly became a problem once he started working in TNA.

Without that, there’s no telling where he could be on this list.

 

16. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper: Influence, influence, influence. That explains his spot here, even though a huge chunk of his in-ring career took place before I started watching wrestling. I think… I could be wrong… but I THINK the first Piper match I watched live was his WrestleMania 3 match with Adrian Adonis, and I don’t think I was amazed by a match of his until his WrestleMania 8 match with Bret Hart. His promos, talk segments, and commentary work was always entertaining, and I would certainly see a lot of his work in later years, but when I really started watching the WWF, Piper wasn’t someone who was around to have five-star classics at every pay-per-view.

That influence, though… my goodness. Here we are, nearly 11 years after Roddy passed away… nearly 15 years after Roddy’s last match, nearly 20 years since Roddy last held a championship of any sort, and at least 40 years since Roddy’s physical prime… but his name is still brought up all the time. He remains THE heel in the eyes and minds of many people, both fans and wrestlers alike. There are decades worth of wrestlers who have borrowed bits and pieces of Piper’s work for their own heel careers. His work on the microphone is among the very best that pro wrestling has ever seen, and his mannerisms and facial expressions only added to the mystique of the Roddy Piper character. If you’re young and looking to make it in the wrestling business, I highly recommend that you gather as much tape of Piper’s career as physically possible. If you can’t learn something from him, you belong at a desk in a nine-to-five job instead.

 

15. Jushin Thunder Liger: If you read my entry for The Great Muta, a lot of what I said can be said about the career of Jushin Thunder Liger, as well. The major difference was that, while Muta was becoming a huge star as a heavyweight, Liger was doing the same as a junior heavyweight. In the 40-year history of the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title, nobody has more reigns than Liger (11), more successful title defenses than Liger (31), or more combined days as champion than Liger (2,245).

Liger also has the innovative offense that Muta had. The Shooting Star Press was created by Liger after he saw something similar in the Fist Of The North Star manga series. Among the other moves that he either invented or popularized are the Liger Bomb, the Romero Special (aka The Surfboard), the Shotei palm strike, Crash Thunder Buster, Rolling Koppu Kick, and many more.

My favorite part about Liger was how well-rounded he was in the ring. He could obviously work more of a Japanese style, and I mentioned his legendary status as a junior heavyweight, but he’s also someone that was a successful amateur wrestler in high school, wrestled throughout Europe during multiple excursions there in the 80s, trained under Stu Hart in the legendary Hart Dungeon in Calgary, and was even doing catch wrestling in Germany for a while. Although he didn’t stay long before being brought back to Japan, he also began his wrestling career by training in Mexico, learning the art of Lucha Libre. Everywhere he went, he picked up bits and pieces of the art of professional wrestling in different parts of the world, and he added it to the repertoire that would ultimately become his very own legacy.

Even in 2026, it’s hard to watch a pro wrestling match anywhere without seeing something somewhere that was at least partially influenced by Liger.

 

14. Mistico: It’s easy to look at his run in WWE as Sin Cara and completely write him off because of what he did (and didn’t do) with the company. His signing was viewed as a huge deal at the time, with the expectation being that he would go on to become the “next Rey Mysterio” and help to expand the company’s takeover in Mexico and Spanish-speaking countries. It didn’t work out at all, though, thanks to a combination of terrible creative decision making from WWE and what was said to be a poor attitude from Sin Cara himself, especially once things started falling apart with his character and the push he was receiving.

As Mistico, though, he is one of the biggest stars that Lucha Libre has put out over the last few decades. If you only watch major promotions based in the United States, it might be hard to believe, but for the first decade of the 2000s, I don’t think there was a bigger box office draw in all of pro wrestling than Mistico was for CMLL. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter gave Mistico the award for Best Box Office Draw of the 2000s… ahead of the likes of John Cena, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, The Rock, Kenta Kobashi, and more. Week in and week out, CMLL was selling out Arena Mexico for multiple shows, and that’s unheard of for this era. At the height of his success, Spanish pop rock band La Quinta Estación was dominating music charts in Mexico, Spain, and the United States with their smash hit “Me Muero,” and the group capitalized on the success and star power of Mistico by making him the star of the song’s music video. The song became connected to Mistico so much that he began to use it as his entrance theme for special shows, even though it’s a slow love song about someone dying to kiss someone else and feeling the depths of true love throughout your body and soul.

During his record-breaking popularity, he has been able to use his in-ring work to take Lucha Libre to tremendous heights, and has won a bunch of championships along the way. Not only has he been successful in CMLL, but he has also been a champion for AEW, New Japan, MLW, IWRG, and more.

Please allow yourself to use a Neuralyzer and wipe any memories of Sin Cara from your brains, focus on what he has done and continues to do as Mistico to this very day, and you’ll see why I have him ranked in a spot like this.

 

13. Rey Mysterio: We went from the man who was supposed to be the “next Rey Mysterio” to Rey Mysterio himself. Makes sense.

There have been a million wrestlers through the years that like to fly all over the ring during their matches. Some are a lot faster than others, and some are more athletic than others, but if you ask me, when he was in his physical prime, nobody made high-flying offense look as beautiful and as breathtaking as Rey Mysterio did. I’ve said it before, but one of his wrestling names before he was given the Rey Mysterio Jr. name was Colibrí, which means “Hummingbird,” and that was a very fitting name for him. Watching him wrestle back then was like watching a human being that could hover this way, zip around that way, flutter and fly back this way, and so on.

When Rey debuted in WWE, I wasn’t sure what to expect, as Vince McMahon was clearly not the same type of supporter when it comes to cruiserweights that Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman were. I would go on to be pleasantly surprised that he wasn’t just confined to competing for the Cruiserweight Title and doing nothing else. Yes, he won the Cruiserweight Title on three different occasions in the first two years of his WWE career, but he was also wrestling against the bigger guys, working in the tag division (winning the WWE Tag Team Titles with Edge was his first taste of gold with the company), and showing more of an all-around in-ring game than he had before.

The man is going to turn 52 this year, and has A TON of miles on his tires, so to speak, since he made his pro debut at the age of 14, but he continues to have entertaining matches when he can stay healthy. That’s the key for him, though. He has dealt with a lot of injury issues over the last several years, and I think that might be preventing him from being ranked a bit higher here. Without those injury issues, he probably has more memorable and noteworthy matches, and more championships won, all of which would earn him more points in exercises such as this one. Either way, he has more influence in the business than most wrestlers you’ll ever meet. He was able to show decades worth of young, undersized high-flying wrestlers that they could overcome the lack of height and find success in the business.

 

12. Kazuchika Okada: If the discussion is the best in-ring performers of all-time, I think Okada would be ranked no worse than fifth, and you could make a good argument for him in every single spot in those first five. He’s that good. I know most of you don’t care about this particular thing, but Dave Meltzer’s star-rating scale was forever broken because of Okada, when Dave felt that a mere five-stars wasn’t even good enough to accurately describe the performances he was having. Over the last nine years, Okada has wrestled a total of 16 (!!!) matches ol’ Tuna Meltz has scored at higher than five-stars, including a 2018 match against Kenny Omega that Dave handed out seven stars for, which is the highest score he’s ever given.

For years, Okada was able to take that grueling New Japan schedule and deliver great match after great match after great match, helping to take the company to its most profitable era ever. I already mentioned that Hiroshi Tanahashi was largely responsible for that, as he was the company’s top guy at the time, but it’s impossible to overlook Okada’s rise to the top during those years as another reason fans continued buying tickets to NJPW shows.

Bringing up Tanahashi again, I mentioned earlier that he wrestled in the main event of New Japan’s Wrestle Kingdom shows 11 times, which is a crazy stat. Even crazier, though, is the fact that Okada has done it 12 times, including four one-on-one bouts against Tanahashi himself (as well as one tag match that saw him and Tanahashi as teammates). In one four year span from 2013-2016, Tanahashi vs Okada was the Wrestle Kingdom main event three times, with the only variation being in 2014, when Tanahashi faced Shinsuke Nakamura in the main event. That initial trilogy is one of the greatest such series of matches in wrestling history, with Tanahashi able to defeat the rising star the first two times before the true “passing the torch” moment in 2016 when Okada was finally able to topple him on the company’s largest stage. Their match at this year’s Wrestle Kingdom, which was Tanahashi’s final match, was another incredible match full of emotion and Okada being a great enough “dance partner” that he helped carry Tanahashi to the best singles match he participated in since, maybe, a match during the 2021 G1 Climax tournament… when his opponent was Okada. The in-ring chemistry those two shared was off-the-charts.

I know a lot of people are down on Okada’s run in AEW, but I don’t think that’s fair to him. He has been a different type of character in AEW than he ever was in New Japan, but that’s not on him. AEW has made an effort to show more personality from him, almost making him a comedy character at times, but when his number is called on to have great matches, he continues to have the ability to do so. With the lack of the New Japan schedule taking its toll on his body year after year, it’s fair to wonder if Okada has a bunch of time left before he decides to retire. If that’s the case, he could absolutely find himself ranked a lot higher if I were to do something like this a decade from now, because… spoiler alert… every name ranked ahead of him here is either deceased, long since retired, or is in retirement limbo at the moment.

 

11. Bret “The Hitman” Hart: Of everyone on this list, I’m not sure that anyone moved up and down more in previous drafts than Bret Hart did. That has nothing to do with anything. I just felt like pointing that out.

The nickname “Excellence Of Execution” really fits Bret. Everything he did in the ring was so crisp, so clean, and so smooth. Singles matches, tag matches, main events, curtain jerkers, big man opponent, small man opponent… it didn’t matter. If you were watching a Bret Hart match, you were getting some high quality professional wrestling. Even as a young fan, before understanding the definition of terms like “workrate,” I was in clear understanding that Bret was simply head and shoulders above just about everyone else in the business when it came to what he was capable of in the ring.

One of my favorite things about Bret’s run in the WWF was the natural progression he had up the proverbial totem pole. He started off as a tag guy, working with Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart in the awesome Hart Foundation tag team, and they would go on to win the WWF Tag Team Titles twice. As Bret began to gain more confidence in himself, especially during promos, he would begin working a mix of singles and tag matches before eventually breaking off as a full-time singles performer in 1991. A few months after he and Neidhart split up as a team, Bret won the Intercontinental Title for the first time, then won the King Of The Ring tournament two weeks later. Just one year later, he would become the WWF Champion after defeating Ric Flair at a house show in Canada. Like I said, it was the type of natural progression that made you really appreciate a wrestler’s career, because you’re watching them grow and evolve before your very eyes.

Bret’s biggest “sin” at the time was that his singles rise came at a time when WWF business wasn’t necessarily at an all-time high. The huge boom of the 1980s and Hulkamania was over, and things weren’t moving in the right direction. I would like to clarify, though, that I do think Bret’s ability to draw is viewed incorrectly by many fans. There’s a lot of “Bret wasn’t a draw at all” discourse, and I think that’s just plain false. Bret certainly wasn’t the draw that Hulk Hogan was before him, nor was he the draw that “Stone Cold” Steve Austin was after him. He wasn’t even the draw that names like John Cena and Roman Reigns have been. However, Bret was able to keep the WWF afloat during what could’ve been very tough times for the company. Internationally, Bret was a much bigger star than he was in the United States, and we saw that play out with his on-screen character in 1996 and 1997, but he was never as bad a draw as many have claimed him to be over the years. I do have to wonder how history would view Bret if he did help lead the WWF to another positive business period, though.

 

10. El Hijo del Santo: El Santo is the most legendary and iconic performer in the rich, storied history of Lucha Libre, and to be honest, it isn’t even close. That can’t make things easy for his offspring, El Hijo del Santo, to enter the business and try to live up to his family’s legacy.

Not only did Santito live up to the legacy that his father created, but he also helped ensure that he and his father will go down as perhaps the greatest father-and-son duo in the history of the sport.

When first discussing Santito’s career, you have to look at how smooth he was in the ring, and in a variety of ways. He was able to perform the “regular” Lucha Libre style, and could do it very well, but he also loved to throw down and showcase his technical wrestling ability. When the situation required it, he could also brawl with the best of them. That type of versatility allows for your number to be called on in many ways, against many types of opponents in many different scenarios.

After becoming one of the top técnicos in all of Mexico for his entire career, it was a heel turn to the rudo side in 1996 that really helped to solidify Santito’s position in Lucha Libre history. In the immediate aftermath of Hulk Hogan’s shocking heel turn to join the nWo in WCW, El Hijo del Santo would shake the foundation of Lucha Libre by turning heel and nearly starting a riot by doing so. The turn didn’t last very long, with him turning face a little less than two years later, but it helped to revitalize the financial landscape in CMLL, at a time when they weren’t performing all that well. After years of becoming one of the biggest draws in Lucha Libre as a face, he proved that he could also do it as a heel. That’s rarified air in wrestling, and only a handful of wrestlers anywhere can say they’ve been able to do that.

While he may not have become the same level of superstar that his father was outside of the ring, that’s not fair to him because it could be argued that El Santo in Mexico was the biggest star outside of the ring than anyone has ever been in wrestling. Bigger than Hulk Hogan at the peak of Hulkamania, bigger than Steve Austin or The Rock in the Attitude Era… period. I’d say that Santito was a better in-ring performer than his father, though, and that helped him to carve out a career that lasted for nearly 44 years.

 

9. The Rock: In high school, my entire core group of friends were all huge wrestling fans. Before every pay-per-view, we’d go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of junk food and soda, then head to a friend’s house to watch the show. We couldn’t wait to get to school every Tuesday morning so we could discuss what happened on Raw and Nitro the night before. Without fail, each and every one of my friends viewed “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as their favorite wrestler.

I was the only one who chose The Rock as “my guy.”

Sure, I loved watching Austin raise hell every week, but there was just something special about Rock on the microphone, verbally eviscerating anybody he wanted to.

There has been a lot of debate over the years on who was the bigger draw between Austin and Rock. Generally, people are quick to point out that Austin was the bigger draw, sold more merchandise, and broke just about every record there was to break.

While you can’t deny a lot of the statistics that would place Steve Austin at the top of the box office mountain, there are a few counterpoints that are worth pointing out here. When the WWF was getting its highest television ratings of all-time and was drawing the most overall shows with 10,000+ fans in attendance, who was the guy at the top?

Rock.

Not only was Rock the top guy, but Austin wasn’t even there, as he was out of action with his neck injury.

When Rock would take off to film The Scorpion King in 2001, would you like to take a guess as to what happened to television ratings? They went down to Raw’s lowest numbers since mid-1998.

When Rock returned from his Scorpion King filming, would you like to take a guess on what happened to Raw’s ratings? They went back up again.

I’m not saying… I’m just saying. I don’t think there’s a “wrong” answer in the debate, but I also don’t think it’s as easy to solve as many fans seem to think it is.

You may have noticed, though, that Rock is in this spot, but you haven’t seen Austin on the list yet. Here’s another spoiler… Austin is ranked higher than Rock here. Even if you think Rock was a bigger draw than Austin, I think Rock was more of a one-dimensional character, and Austin had better matches. Once I added everything up, that put Austin ahead in the end, even with Rock having multiple runs in later years after Austin retired.

Rock sure was special, though.

 

8. Eddie Guerrero: Earlier, I mentioned the crispness and the smoothness of Bret Hart’s offense in the ring. If Bret wasn’t the smoothest of all-time, then that honor might go to Eddie Guerrero. Everything Eddie did in the ring, from his work in Mexico and Japan to ECW to WCW and to his time with WWE, looked amazing all throughout his career. It really shows you how much time and effort he put into his training growing up, even before it was actual “training” and it was merely him as a kid performing “matches” in the ring with Chavo Guerrero Jr. during intermissions at shows run by Eddie’s father, Gory, in El Paso, Texas.

As I was putting this column together, I kept thinking about Eddie’s tragic death and how the rumor was that, at the time of his passing, he was days away from winning the World Heavyweight Title on an episode of Smackdown. It’s obviously impossible to know how long Eddie would’ve continued wrestling if he didn’t pass away in 2005, as he was only 38 at the time of his death, but a World Heavyweight Title reign to go with the WWE Title reign that he already had, plus the potential to continue adding to his list of achievements and accolades means that he definitely could’ve found himself ranked even higher on this list.

Now, I’m sad all over again. Damn, I miss Eddie, even as we come up on 21 years since he left us.

 

7. Mitsuharu Misawa: While we’re on the subject of wrestlers that passed away too soon, we get to Mitsuharu Misawa.

Maybe you know Misawa best from his time with All Japan Pro wrestling, where he was one of the “Four Pillars Of Heaven” for the promotion, along with Kenta Kobashi, Toshiaki Kawada, and Akira Taue. Perhaps you know Misawa best from his time in Pro Wrestling NOAH, which he founded in 2000 after he led a mass exodus of 24 (out of 26) Japanese talents from the AJPW roster due to fighting and disagreements with the widow of Giant Baba, one of All Japan’s co-founders, after Baba’s death the year before.

Either way, if you know the name Mitsuharu Misawa at all, you know the quality that it carries with it. Even in the relatively early days of the internet being available to the masses, I was learning about Misawa, All Japan, and the Four Pillars Of Heaven. I wasn’t able to see any of their work at the time, but all I’d read about was how amazing their work was, how hard-hitting it was, and how they were helping to lead the next evolution in the world of pro wrestling in Japan. In the days of tape trading, All Japan shows were becoming hot commodities as fans all over the world were looking to see what the hype and the buzz were all about.

As I got older, and as I got better technology and internet connections that allowed for me to do so, I was finally able to check out the All Japan and Pro Wrestling NOAH stuff for myself. I was blown away from the start. Led by those Four Pillars Of Heaven, the All Japan stuff was like watching scenes in action movies, where these people would beat the holy hell out of each other and make you wonder how they were surviving. Sure, wrestling wasn’t “real,” but with the way these guys were landing on their heads and necks, there’s no way you could tell me it wasn’t “real,” either.

Misawa was a huge star for All Japan, winning a total of 14 titles there, including five reigns as the Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion. He then went on to start an entire promotion from scratch, turning it into one of the biggest and hottest companies in all of puroresu, winning five more titles there, including three reigns as the GHC Heavyweight Champion. On the day of his death in 2009, he was competing for the GHC Tag Team Champions, which means that he was literally in a position of importance until the very end.

That influence, helping to create the “King’s Road” pro wrestling style, is his most important piece of legacy, though. He helped to create a desire in countless people to become wrestlers and look to find that avenue of success for themselves, and continues to be viewed in conversations about all-time greats, 16 years after his death.

 

6. “Macho Man” Randy Savage: It is relatively common knowledge online that Randy Savage was a wrestler who had to meticulously go over every match he was in, spot-by-spot, ahead of time, rehearsing it with his opponent almost to the point of annoying them. Seemingly most wrestlers from that era preferred to call things in the ring, wanting to listen to the crowd and let the fans basically dictate the direction of the match, but Randy was Randy, and because he was… let’s just say he was intense… people went along with it.

I’m not trying to make a point by bringing that up. It’s just something I’ve always found to be amazing. Putting a wrestling match together like that seems incredibly difficult, but putting a wrestling match together like that and not making it look like something that was overly choreographed seems damn near impossible.

That says a lot about the kind of wrestler that Randy Savage was. Simply special in every way. He could work multiple different styles, and he made them all look good. His runs as a face were successful and profitable, but his heel runs were great, as well. He’s someone that could do anything that was asked of him. You know what they say… the best type of ability to have as a pro wrestler is dependability.

When you wrestle for the WWF in the 1980s, and you’re arguably just as well-known as Hulk Hogan, that is all people need to know about you.

 

5. Hulk Hogan: Oh, hey, speaking of Hulk Hogan… it’s Hulk Hogan! If you’re reading these words, there’s a really, really good chance that Hulk Hogan, either directly or indirectly, is the reason you’re a wrestling fan to begin with. The birth and rise of Hulkamania helped to set off one of the biggest and most profitable eras in pro wrestling history.

He was making money hand over fist for nearly a full decade, and then fan sentiment began to change, and his character wasn’t evolving like it should’ve been. It looked like Hulk was going to retire. He was 40 years old and was looking to become a star in Hollywood, but that dream wasn’t coming true the way he perhaps would’ve liked, so when a chance meeting with WCW took place, he took the money and jumped ship.

When WCW tried to do the same things with Hulk that WWF fans were already sick of, a decision needed to be made. A roll of the dice would be required… and a heel turn for Hulk was put on the table. He had been a face for 15 years, going back before the days of Hulkamania, but the big change was a last-minute Hail Mary attempt to save things for him.

That heel turn led to the nWo, and once again, Hulk Hogan had helped to change the entire wrestling business. Once again, Hulk Hogan was making money hand over fist. After having one of the biggest and most successful face runs ever, he came out of nowhere to have one of the biggest and most successful heel runs ever.

Thanks to a complete and utter moron named Vince Russo, Hulk would leave WCW in the summer of 2000, and again, it seemed like he was going to retire. What else was there for him to do? At this point, he was 47 years old and moved around like someone at least ten years older than that. This was during the period when the WWF Hall Of Fame was on hiatus, so it’s not like fans could predict that Hulk would come home for a final appearance and a Hall Of Fame induction.

To everyone’s surprise, he did return to the WWF and he did well initially. Wrestlemania 18 was a phenomenal success for Hulk, and the nostalgia run he started to have after that was fun, but then it was back to the same old same old again, and fans grew weary of a man who was about to turn 50 and was now moving around like someone who was about to turn 70.

The fact of the matter is that Hulk Hogan made a ton of money. A TON of money. Adjusted for inflation, there’s certainly a possibility that nobody in wrestling history made more money than he did. He has what could be the highest highs of all-time, but while I wouldn’t say he also had the lowest lows, I would say that he had a lot more lows than many of the other names at the top of this list, and no, I’m not even referring to any of his issues outside of the ring.

For many people, Hulk would also lose points in discussions like this because he wasn’t having Match Of The Year classics on a regular basis. People say he “can’t wrestle” and things of that nature, but I’ve been clear in my columns before… he absolutely could wrestle, and do it well, but he simply didn’t need to. If you’ve ever watched the stuff he did for New Japan in the first half of the 1980s, you’d know that he was more than capable of having really entertaining in-ring performances. Wrestling in the WWF and then in WCW didn’t require him to do much in matches. Yes, you can dock him points for not having five-star bout after five-star bout in North America, but it’s simply worth knowing that he was merely doing what he was asked to do.

A helluva career, no matter what you think of those lows, in and out of the ring.

 

4. Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan: I’ve said this a million times, but I really do feel that Bryan Danielson is the best in-ring performer in wrestling history. When it comes to strictly what someone can do in a wrestling ring from bell-to-bell, nobody has ever been better than Danielson. His dedication and focus on the craft of professional wrestling was evident even when he was working the independent scene in front of no more than a few hundred people every night, and he only got better as the years went on with new opponents, new styles to learn, new teachers to learn from, and so on.

The connection he was able to build with fans, ESPECIALLY during the “Yes! Movement” years, is also unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the sport. If you look at the most popular wrestlers ever, they’re almost always people who look like cartoon characters (Hulk Hogan) or who have over-the-top on-screen personas (The Rock). Not only did Danielson not look like a cartoon character or have an over-the-top on-screen persona, he didn’t even look like any sort of pro athlete. He looked like someone you would see working at your local grocery store, but fans fell in love with him, and they were willing to run through walls for him in an attempt to get him to the top of the sport.

Perhaps you don’t think about Danielson when you think about “influence” in pro wrestling, but he is one of the most influential independent wrestlers to ever live. He built a name for himself on the independent scene in the early-to-mid 2000s, and it seems like every single independent star that came along after that has named him as someone they idolized as they were becoming fans and as they were entering the wrestling business themselves. Then he had his WWE run, where he showed you could look like an elevator repairman and become a huge star in pro wrestling, and he had another set of wrestlers who attempted to follow his path because they, too, looked like line cooks at Denny’s.

 

3. “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels: HBK’s an all-time “yeah, but” guy. Talk to anyone that worked with him in the 90s, and the answers are all the same.

Was he a difficult person to get along with backstage? Yeah, but holy hell, what a pro wrestler.

Was he ever a prick to you at any point? Yeah, but nobody could match what he was doing in the ring.

Even people who hated him, like Bret Hart, can’t help but praise how good Shawn was in the ring as they’re taking shot after shot at the human being he was at the time.

Do you know how good you have to be for that to happen? I’ve wanted to put my fist through the skulls of various people throughout my life, but I was never in a position to “yeah, but” them and praise how good they were at something at the same time.

Like I said in the Bret Hart entry earlier, I think a lot of the talk that Shawn Michaels was never a draw is overblown. Like Bret, Shawn’s initial rise to the top of the WWF came at a very tough time for the company, with guys like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage leaving for WCW. Even though Shawn and Bret didn’t take the WWF to another boom period on their own, it was their hard work that kept the company from slipping into further doom and gloom, and once the supporting cast around them got better… and once some of Vince McMahon’s poor creative decisions were improved on… that DID lead to another boom period for the company.

Shawn is universally revered for what he did in the ring, and it helped him to have a lengthy run at the top of the WWF/WWE. If it wasn’t for a four-year hiatus from 1998 to 2002 when he was going through what everyone thought was a permanent retirement from the sport, he could’ve had a run at the top that approached a full decade-and-a-half, which would’ve been longer than pretty much any other company name on this list.

 

2. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin: I feel like I already covered Austin’s entry while doing Rock’s section, but here we are. You can debate for days on end whether Austin was a bigger draw than Rock was, or if Rock was the bigger draw. Even if you did the scientific breakdown, marking things down to the dollar, and you figured out once and for all who the bigger draw is… the guy in second place of that debate is leaps and bounds ahead of 99.99% of every wrestler that has ever lived. That’s not a bad place to be.

As I said in Rock’s section, Austin is ahead of him, no matter where the draw debate goes, because of other factors. For one, and most importantly for my own preferences, Austin was a much better in-ring performer. His stuff in WCW during the first few years of the 1990s is generally really fun. He was a much better wrestler before injuries to his neck and his knees forced him to pivot stylistically and become more of a brawler, but even with the brawling, he was able to put out some great work in the WWF against a wide variety of opponents.

Austin was so big during the Attitude Era that he started to become a well-known name in households who didn’t even watch wrestling, and that connection simply had to do with wrestling. We’re not talking about him leaving the company to become a huge movie star and that’s how your grandmother and her pinochle group knew him. No, he was such a big star in wrestling that he was appearing on magazine cover after magazine cover, and was being talked about on non-wrestling news shows, and THEN your grandmother and her pinochle group talked about how he looked like such a nice young man and how they would hand him an unwrapped Werther’s Original from the bottom of their purse if they ever met him.

 

1. “Nature Boy” Ric Flair: Ric Flair was so good that he was making superstar money in pro wrestling at a time when it was completely unheard of to be making superstar money in pro wrestling.

Ric Flair was so good that almost every one of the other 24 names on my list have, at one point or another, either said that he is the greatest wrestler of all-time, that he was the person who influenced them to become wrestlers, or both.

Ric Flair was so good that he set the all-time record for most World Titles won, and even though the recognized official record was eventually broken by John Cena, the unofficial record remains his, and will probably remain his for decades to come, if not longer.

Ric Flair was so good that he made being the traveling NWA World Champion look easy, even though he was having to fly all over the world and work a schedule that would probably be against more than one of the Geneva Conventions if those extended to wrestling.

Ric Flair was so good that, at his peak, he spent more money on spilt liquor in bars from one side of this world to the other than you made because he was the Rolex wearing, diamond ring wearing, kiss stealing, wheeling dealing, limousine riding, jet flying son-of-a-gun, and he was having a hard time holding those alligators down.

In a wrestling ring, there has never been a wrestler who was a better combination of in-ring performer, money-making draw all over the world, and a generational influence for decade upon decade that is still being felt today, from the top of the industry all the way down to the people just getting started.

 

Now, I turn things over to you. Please don’t feel like you need to give me your own Top 25 complete with multiple paragraphs for each entry, but who are YOUR picks for the best professional wrestlers of your fandom, however long that may be? You can use the criteria that works best for you, but try to keep it to strictly what people accomplished in the ring and what that work in the ring led to. As always, feel free to hit me up in the comments section below, on Twitter (@HustleTheSavage), or on Bluesky (@aaronhyden.bsky.social), and let me know what’s on your mind.

Let’s switch it over to my Weekly Power Rankings before closing things out with the list of songs I was listening to as I put this column together.

 

 

Weekly Power Rankings

El Grande Americano vs Original El Grande Americano: I don’t want to make the column any longer than it already is, so I’m skipping my usual commentary during the rankings. However, I felt I had to mention that EGA vs OG EGA was an absolutely fantastic pro wrestling match in front of a molten hot crowd, with the right amount of callbacks and drama. The guitar shot from the returning Pimpinela Escarlata (what a pop, by the way) leading to the near fall for EGA got me jumping up out of my chair when it happened. This might be the most fun I’ve had watching a wrestling match since Roman Reigns vs Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 40. When it’s done right, there is nothing like pro wrestling. I love this shit.

Kris Statlander vs Hikaru Shida

Roman Reigns vs Jacob Fatu

Oba Femi vs Brock Lesnar

Penta vs Je’Von Evans

Jack Perry vs Mark Davis

Rhea Ripley vs Jade Cargill

Brody King vs Claudio Castagnoli

Konosuke Takeshita vs Daniel Garcia

Seth Rollins vs Montez Ford

Cody Rhodes vs Gunther

Chris Jericho vs Ricochet

Becky Lynch vs Sol Ruca

 

 

This Week’s Playlist: “hate that i made you love me” by Ariana Grande… “Pape” by Ro$ama… “How To Write A Song Without You” by Nick Jonas… “One To Create You” by Zero 9:36… “Nightmare Walking” by D12, Xzibit & Ice-T… “Waiting Room” by Aaron Page… “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star… “Glory Box” by Portishead… “Bone, Bone, Bone” by Bone Thugs N Harmony… “Home” by Bone Thugs N Harmony & Phil Collins… “Pump, Pump” by Bone Thugs N Harmony… “Outstanding” by The Gap Band… “Love’s Holiday” by Earth, Wind & Fire… “Cutie Pie” by One Way… “Make It Last Forever” by Keith Sweat & Jacci McGhee… “Casanova” by Levert… “Nite and Day” by Al B. Sure… “Why Don’t We Fall In Love” by Amerie… “My Boo” by Ghost Town DJs… “Erotic City” by Prince & Sheila E