Motherfucking ZEUS!! He would definitely be on my top 200. Ta Gar one of those awesome oddball wrestling characters I never would have heard of if it wasn't for Baker.

I'm going to put this on hold for a day or two. Need a rest. Just don't feel like doing the work tonight. I also plan on taking another look at what is to come in case any late adjustments need to be made. Plus there's an elephant in the room I want to address...

The very next entry will be yet another super heavyweight. Short-lived gimmick wrestlers were always destined to do well on the list. That was a given. But this love of super heavyweights was not something I really foresaw. Apparently I love the big fellas! While doing Akeem's entry I realized the majority of 350+ pounders active between 1987-1996 made The List. I want to take the time to explain why this is so. It has to do with The Process and the oft discussed, previously top secret formula....

To aid in this project I consulted a series of posts I made in the Year End Awards thread where I listed my favorite wrestlers by year from 1987-2009. Nearly all the wrestlers mentioned in those posts cracked the overall Top 200. That's really all The Formula was. (I also included some pre-1987 and 2010s wrestlers I dug so every era could have some representation)

Large and in charge wrestlers from that 87-96 period tended to score well on the formula. The big reason for this is I was anti-Hogan (and Hogan types) growing up. Fatties and giants were often booked as the top rival to Hogan and his clones. They were treated as big deals. They were involved in a lot of the big angles. They were often my best hope of dethroning The Hulkster. So you better believe I was backing the big boys.

Let's use Akeem as an example. If given the choice today between watching an Akeem match or watching a match with some good wrestler who didn't make my list I am probably going to choose the Good Wrestler match 9 times out of 10. But I never marked out for the Good Wrestler the way I did for Twin Towers era Akeem. I know this because Good Wrestler would have made my list if I had.

So that's The Process. I guess it's not so much my 200 favorite wrestlers today but my 200 favorite wrestlers over the years. Although.....my Top 200 favorite wrestlers today might be even more 'out there'  :lol:

It's all in good fun anyway. I no doubt take this far more seriously than any of my readers and I'm honestly not taking it all that seriously....at least not until we get up to the 60s or 70s. That's when we get to The Elite. Then it starts to become Serious Business.

Anyway, we've got another big boy coming up next. Then The List gets Extreme....

Never knew the Texas Hangmen were Disorderly Conduct. Both were good fodder for Harlem Heat.

Fun read so far.

#169 Kamala



*C&P from my post in UT's Facepainted Wrestlers Countdown

The whole presentation of Kamala ruled what with the face paint, body paint, tribal music, that creepy big ass mask he used to wear, wrestling barefoot, and (in WWF) having that nutter The Wizard spouting nonsense while Kim-Chee lurked around like some sort of deranged beekeeper. Very young Baker totally bought into Kamala as a barely controllable savage monster. 

I'm glad you guys brought up how terrifying Kamala was. Because it's true. Kamala was the first of only a handful of wrestlers to ever legitimately scare me. Kamala was the top monster heel when I started watching WWF in early 1987. I basically thought other wrestlers just beat people while Kamala may very well have killed them for real. That splash was no joke! And sometimes he'd break out the Top Rope Splash which I legit thought was instant death. I used to feel so sorry for those poor ham and eggers who had to go up against Kamala. I may have even looked away from my tv screen once or twice in horror.

I've told the story before of how the very first WWF show I ever went to was headlined by Hogan vs. Kamala in a cage. I rooted for Hogan! Yeah, I was already anti-Hulk, but no harm would come to anybody if Hogan won. Yet if Kamala could best the mighty Hulkster and escape the Cage I genuinely thought some 12,000 lives might be in serious peril. Kamala may very well splash us all todeaths. Either that, or my very young self would be trampled in the ensuing riot as thousands of people stampeded for the exits to get away from the wrestling equivalent of Godzilla.

Kamala was also one of the last great traveling territorial special attractions. He'd come into a territory, wreak havoc by squashing jobbers for a few months, take out a low-mid card babyface or two, and then finally meet his comeuppance in the form of a top babyface. Rinse and repeat around the country for several years.

Kamala may have not have aged well, but he was a perfect fit for that era, and I was just the right age to be in awe of The Ugandan Giant. His look and gimmick demanded your attention. And he'd get out of town before becoming stale, as a one note gimmick like that is eventually bound to become.

Kamala wasn't THAT bad in the ring. Shootist mentioned his athleticism. A 400 pound man doing top rope splashes alone is more than enough athleticism
for the 80s. Kamala would also break out leapfrogs(!) and even a quasi-Superkick on occasion. Plus he was very good at wrestling like a savage. There are a whole lot of guys worse than Kamala.

I may have been terrified by Kamala the first time around but that had already morphed into "Kamala is awesome BECAUSE he terrified me" nostalgia by his 1992 WWF return. I was so into his initial feud with fellow 'scary' wrestler The Undertaker. Shame how that whole thing turned out. Kamala quickly became maybe the worst guy in the company and I could never take him seriously again after that. He was now a bad joke.

But we'll always have the 80s and that awesome facepaint.

#168 Tim Horner

Aug 9, 2019 0:24:42 GMT Baker said:

A few months back I was only half joking during an argument with my brother where I went to bat for Big Daddy (and another wrestler who will show up later) as the greatest babyface(s) of all time.

Tim Horner is that other wrestler.

My favorite babyfaces tend to be the hard luck types like Foley, Dreamer & WWE Benoit who usually come up just short in big matches. It makes you want to see them win all the more. Then you have the Local Heroes like Lawler, Cheetah Master & Sandman. Then you have the OTT white meat babyfaces. This type takes the good guy shtick so far over the top that it almost becomes an unintentional parody. It's so ridiculous that I can't help but just go along with it and enjoy the ride. Big Daddy is one example. 92-93 Bob Backlund is another. And this is the category into which SMW Tim Horner falls.

SMW Tim Horner is just so sincere in his aww shucks good guyness. The man known as "White Lightning" used to throw foam lightning bolts to his adoring fans in the crowd. (Tim Horner foam lightning bolt > Bret Hart sunglasses) Then there was the time he sang Garth Brooks' "Shameless" for over 2 minutes in what appeared to be an actual recording studio. This had to be a rib by Cornette (more on that later). The Garth Brooks connection continues with Horner using Garth's "The Thunder Rolls" as his entrance music. Automatic pop from me. Horner's finisher was a fancy rollup and he had an exquisite mullet. Add it all together and how could Tim Horner be anything less than my favorite SMW wrestler?

Horner spent more time than you think working for the Big Two. But there's a good reason why you don't remember him. He was mostly stuck in the low card. The biggest angle he ever got in WWF or WCW was being Ole's little buddy in 1987 NWA after The Horsemen kicked Ole out of the group. It did not go well for Ole & Tim. Horner's other big claim to fame is once pinning a young Road Warrior Hawk in the Georgia territory. Lots of old school wrestlers speak highly of Horner as a good worker, with Arn in particular putting him over huge as a mentor and teacher. That's all well and good. But the only Tim Horner that matters is SMW Tim Horner. His runs elsewhere made no impact on me.

Jim Cornette famously can't stand Horner. This only helps Horner's cause since I can't stand 2010s Jim Cornette.

#167 Hack Meyers



*Stupid Hack Meyers was one of the two wrestlers I initially forgot when I started posting the list.

Just kidding. I'm the stupid one. Not Hack. How could I forget the oldest looking young man who ever lived? Hack had a sort of dirtbag charm and was one of those 'only in ECW' cult favorite acts. He spent the entirety of his ECW career toiling in the low card while doing his damnedest to make his opponents look good. His big thing was being "The Shah of Philly." A nickname he acquired by making a "SHAH" sound when he threw punches. It caught on, with the fans chanting "SHAH" for Hack's punches and "SHIT" when he got punched. It was a neat gag they'd later recycle for Balls Mahoney. It's also the precursor to the modern day YAY/BOO punch exchanges. Hack's closest thing to a claim to fame was being Sabu's opponent when he returned to ECW at November To Remember '95. They had a pretty good match with Sabu giving Hack a lot of offense. That's where I "got" Hack Meyers. Before that I have to admit he was a borderline fast forward guy on par with the Broad Street Bully and even below the dreaded Rottens. Below the Rottens!  Yikes! I was an idiot. But I eventually came to my senses and  have loved the dude from the Sabu match on. Hack Meyers was just pure ECW. 

For about a month or two in 2002 or 2003 I actually worked at a restaurant with Hack Meyers' sister. She was a character. Her name was Donna. She was older than my friends and I. Maybe late 30s-early 40s. A little rough looking, not unlike her brother. She said her friends called her "Downtown" Donna. I'm guessing she spent a lot of time at Hammerjack's in the 80s and now I am jealous.

On Monday nights my friends and I would turn Raw on to watch would we could (Mondays were our slowest night so we'd often get to watch a good bit of Raw). Donna happened to be working one particular Monday evening. This is the conversation that took place as best I can remember.....

Donna: You guys are wrestling fans?
Friends: Yeah.
Me: YEAH!
Donna: Cool. My brother is a pro wrestler.
Friends: Really?
Me (perking up): REALLY?
Us: What's his name?
Donna: Oh, you wouldn't know him.
Me: Bet I would.
Donna: Nah, you wouldn't.
Friends: Don't be so sure about that. (Baker) knows just about everything there is to know about wrestling.
Donna: Fine. My brother wrestles as Hack Meyers.
Friends:.....
Me (just about bursting): No way! THEE Hack Meyers?!? The SHAH of Philly! ECW legend! (lol)
Donna (jaw dropped): Holy shit!

*Then I rambled on about Hack Meyers and ECW for like 5-10 minutes in front of an increasingly bored crowd. Donna got Hack's autograph for me on an 8x10 photo. She left the restaurant not long after that. I never saw or heard from her again. I came across the autograph a year or two back after not thinking about it for like 15 years. 

#166 JT Smith



My other favorite early ECW lower card cult darling. JT just "got" pro wrestling. He was good in the ring (first guy ROH Gabe ever saw do the Northern Lights Suplex) and even better as an entertainer. The FBI is such a bush league gimmick. It initially started out as a hyper localized thing to get heat with Philly's large Italian community. All incarnations of the FBI sucked imo.....except original incarnation lead by JT Smith. I guess there was just no following my favorite paisan. He was hilarious as the FBI's Godfather, singing Sinatra and just being awesome in general.

The botch gimmick was entertaining enough but I feel like it hurt him in the long run. He was a good wrestler....or at the very least a good 'moves' guy by mid 90s standards. Yet they'd always have him crash and burn for the lulz. Oh well. At least it gave him a chance to show off his bumping skills, which were also above average. Everybody needs to see the clip where Mike Awesome just about breaks JT's back on a dive that didn't go according to plan.

I was lucky enough see JT live (and probably give him the "We're Not Worthy" treatment) when he randomly showed up for reasons I forget (probably just because young Gabe was a fan) on an early ROH show. I once saw JT Smith live! Truly a life well lived.

#165 Too Cold Scorpio



Like most fans, my first exposure to Scorpio was in 1993 WCW. Even as a dumb mark who didn't care (much) about in ring ability I could tell Scorp was a cut above the rest. He was the most mind blowing high flyer I had seen up to that point. He had the moves, both wrestling and dance, to be a star. He also had tons of charisma. Not top guy material due to size and style, but even dumb 1993 me pegged him as a perennial US/TV champ or contender. Basically a younger, even more high flying version of 90s Steamboat or Pillman. 

But he never fully won me over (story of his career as you will see) due to being stuck with another born Jannetty in Boring Bagwell. So while I liked Scorp in a 'pretty cool' way it never went beyond that due to the anchor of Bagwell. Like I'd kind of root for Scorp while simultaneously rooting harder against Bagwell. It was an odd dynamic.

My predictions of gold never came to fruition. Scorp vanished a few months into 1994 (I recently heard his departure was due to a failed drug test). Out of sight, out of mind. Until the spring of '95 when Scorp turned up in shitty AWF 1.0, where still they wrestled in rounds. This time Scorp had sympathy support from me due to being the best (and probably youngest) guy in the company. I felt so sorry for him slumming it in AWF with a bunch of oldsters even WCW wouldn't take. Nor did I get why he wasn't in WWF or WCW when he probably had cooler moves than anybody there.

A few months later via the Apter Mags I found out Scorp now spent the bulk of his time in ECW where he finally was the perennial secondary champ or contender I always thought he was destined to be way back in 1993. I was intrigued by the idea of a pushed Scorp in this ECW promotion.

By November 1996 I thought Scorp had finally hit the jackpot. He was debuting at Survivor Series. That's huge! They didn't fool me with that Flash Funk nonsense. Now I wasn't thrilled about the name change. Why couldn't he just be 2 Cold Scorpio? That's a cool name! And surely he already had some fan following, right? Scorp's debut did not go all that well. Furnas & LaFon outdid him in both push and moves that night. That scrub Rocky Maivia also outdid him in push. But I was ready to back to the new Funker. Just give me a reason to care...the smallest hook would do. I liked his match with Leif at the December 96 PPV. It was very state of the art for 1996 WWF. While he hadn't got off to a great start, I still had high hopes for Scorp in 1997......

Yet, like Furnas & LaFon, that interest soon faded when WWF gave him.....nothing. Before long he became one of the guys on the WWF roster I was most likely to forget existed. He rarely made Raw, made PPV even less, and I didn't get any B Shows on tv until mid 1998. Even today I always forget he was on the roster for two and a half years. Even now it boggles my mind that they did so little with him. It would have been so easy....

My first big plan was to have him be Ahmed's ally against the Nation. Just let him do his thing and BOOM! Instant popularity. Instant new star. Then I had an idea for him to upset Hunter Hearst Helmsley for the IC Title. Would have been soooo much better than boring Rocky Maivia. At the very least they could have thrown me a bone by giving us some 8 minute Raw matches with the likes of Owen & DX Michaels. But nah. 

I was mildly excited when he renounced the Flash Funk gimmick, went back to 2 Cold Scorpio, and started teaming with the original Funk. But that never really went anywhere. Then came the JOB Squad, which was whatever. Then he was gone.

OK. So in WCW he was saddled with Bagwell. AWF 1.0 was a joke, and I only saw him there like 2 or 3 times anyway. And his WWF run was a major flop. But surely he would excel in ECW! With no politics and no restrictions. As I got more into workrate, I was wicked hyped to see Scorp in ECW. Turns out his ECW run was a major disappointment. ECW Scorp was probably the the first 'good wrestler' to ever infuriate me. He was forever picking guys up after finishers or walking around twirling his fingers after hitting finishers. He's probably also the first guy who I ever thought could have used an agent/editor. Fwiw my favorite ECW Scorp moment was his going away angle at November To Remember 96. He was gold as a heel in that segment and it got a new guy (Louie Spicolli) over. Just a win-win segment all around.

So the story of Scorpio is one of a wrestler who was on the cusp of becoming a Baker Guy 4(!) different times yet never truly won me over for a variety of reasons. He was forever "Next Year's Baker Guy." 

*So much for shorter blurbs 

D'oh! I just discovered an upcoming wrestler who really doesn't belong this high. Don't think they belong on the list at all to be honest. While I respect this person as a legend today, they don't really meet the criteria I devised for this project. Not sure how they slipped through the cracks this long. So I have 3 options here....

1. Hope I forgot another wrestler who actually is worthy to substitute in. 
Prospect: Unlikely. I was extremely thorough in the vetting process with close to 300 acts being considered.

2. Include this person in the next spot even though I don't think they're worthy.
Prospect: Unlikely. Because I'm just as OCD as 🤯 .

3. Bump Nikita or Jack Evans back on the list and edit all the other placements.
Prospect: Likely.

Whatever I decide, there will be no new names added to the list today. Most likely I'll be busy editing again.

Aug 14, 2019 22:33:06 GMT Baker said:

D'oh! I just discovered an upcoming wrestler who really doesn't belong this high. Don't think they belong on the list at all to be honest. While I respect this person as a legend today, they don't really meet the criteria I devised for this project.

*Put Nikita back on the list. Fwiw the wrestler in question was Dusty Rhodes. While I am a Dusty fan/respecter today, I only ever liked him in real time during his short-lived 1988 Midnight Rider run. Couldn't stand him in WWF, and never even thought of him as a big star until the mid-late 90s. In real time he was just a chubby goof in polka dots who had go away heat with me. 

#164 Pitbull #2



I first became aware of the Pitbulls via the Apter Mags in late 95-early 96, but they didn't really register with me until a few months later when I read about Pitbull #2 winning the ECW TV Title. I thought it made ECW look super bush league. "He's the admitted Jannetty of his team! Why is the #2 man in a tag team winning a singles title?"

Barely Legal was my first time seeing him in action. It did him no favors. Sure, I rooted for him over the hated Douglas, but they easily had the worst match of the night. And I still didn't understand why the admitted lesser member of a tag team kept getting all these high profile singles match. The only saving grace of that match was the cool post match angle with Rick Rude & Brian Lee. Then he jobbed to Taz in like a minute at November To Remember 97, cementing his status as a jabroni in my mind.

A year later I started watching ECW tapes. The Pitbulls were a perfectly acceptable no selling meathead tag team. Just kind of there for the most part, but I didn't hate them or anything. The Superbomb was cool and they had a pretty good look.

Then I got to Pitbull #2's singles push all the way to the TV Title. Wonder of wonders, it was actually good! I guess a lot of the credit has to go to Shane Douglas for being a truly detestable heel, but Douglas vs. Pitbulls is an easy Top 10 feud in ECW history for me. Great stuff. So now I understood why the #2 of a tag team won the TV Title. And I actually liked it! He was hugely over as a babyface for a while there. 

While he'll never be confused with Shawn Michaels, 2 of my 4 favorite ECW matches involve Pitbull #2- The Pitbulls vs. Raven & Richards sports entertainment masterpiece and the 4 Way for the TV Title at Heatwave '96. Throw in the epic Douglas feud, and Pitbull #2=ECW GOAT? I'm also a big fan of his TV Title loss to Jericho, and obviously loved him during the Douglas feud.

I popped when the Pitbulls randomly showed up to the wrestle The Headbangers on a 1998 episode of Shotgun. But that match kind of exposed them. See, the Pitbulls were basically ECW's version of the Road Warriors. Well, it's hard to retain credibility as no selling badasses when you're dwarfed by the freaking Headbangers. The 'Bulls were both under 6 foot, meaning their 'badass' wrestling style would have been laughable against like anybody but Kaientai in WWF. Some wrestlers are just destined to be big fish in small ponds. The Pitbulls are a good example of this. And there's nothing wrong with that!

#163
911



Yet another 'only in ECW' act. 911 was a one trick pony. But it was a hell of a trick. He basically served as ECW's mascot. This big, biker looking dude would come out to chokeslam insufficiently extreme jabronies while the bloodthirsty Philly crowd ate it up. It was more or less the ECW version of throwing Christians to the lions. The chokeslam wasn't even that cool of a move! It was just a set up move for big guys like Taker & Sid! Hell, for years I didn't even know it had a name, let alone was called the Chokeslam Then 911 came along. And the Chokeslam suddenly became cool. I think there is an argument to be made for 911 being the most popular act in 1995 ECW. Listen to those pops! Especially when he chokeslams Fonzie during the aforementioned Pitbulls vs. Raven & Richards match.

911 apparently got tired of being a one trick pony. He wanted to do more as a 'proper' wrestler. Bad idea. It did not go well. Though we did get that one epic on paper 911/Rey vs. Eliminators tag. 911 soon did a quick job to Taz and that was that. Then he flirted with the Big Two. According to Bruce Prichard, Vince was over the moon about 911.....until realizing he wasn't 7'2. Vince passed. Again, it was that same ECW effect which benefited the Pitbulls. In reality 911 was about the same height as Billy Gunn. But he seemed much bigger in ECW. 911 ended up in WCW where he did a quick job to The Giant on Nitro....in Philly. Ouch.

ECW recycled the 911 formula many times over the years- Sandman, Taz, New Jack & Spike all got their '911 moments.' But you gotta respect the original.... The Chokeslamming biker badass that was 911. 

#162 Erik Watts



OK. Stop it. I can already hear the groans. Watts your problem?!? Allow me to explain....

I actually didn't mind Erik Watts in WCW. I knew nothing about backstage politics, was barely aware the concept of 'bad wrestling' existed, and don't even think I knew who Bill Watts was until late 95-early 96. Now I didn't love Erik Watts, or even like him. His white meat babyface shtick was not my cup of tea. But I didn't hate him either. He was just kind of there in a 4/10 way. What made me tolerate Watts was the STF. That was his big hook. I had a friend who thought the STF was the coolest submission move in wrestling, and I think his hype jobs won me over. So even though Watts wasn't really my cup of tea, I could at least look forward to the dreaded STF. For me, the only time they came close to jumping the shark with Watts is when he made the finals of the TV Title Tournament. Now I'm sure I'd have turned on him if he won. But he didn't. So Watts was still ok in my book.

A few things instantly come to mind when I think about early 1994 WCW....Lord Steven Regal being awesome as TV champ. Maxx Payne & Cactus being an awesome tag team in a cool feud with the stupid Nasty Boys. Flair & Steamboat feuding again. And Erik Watts feuding with the Texicans over the Rookie of the Year trophy. I was weirdly into this Worldwide exclusive(?) feud. Information on this feud is so hard to come by that I half thought I imagined it for a little while. But it does exist! See, Watts won the trophy. The Texicans took offense so they either stole or broke it (I forget which). Voila! Instafeud. With Watts recruiting partners like (I think) Dustin & Arn to help him battle those trophy obsessed Texican goons.

Watts would later pop up in my beloved 95-96 WWF as one half of Tekno Team 2000. To this day it boggles my mind that glorious 95-96 WWF botched a New Breed gimmick. I mean, that sounds like a recipe for greatness. But TT2K sucked and made no impact. Sweet outfits though. Very befitting of a tag team from the far off future of.....2000.

Watts would later show up in late 90s ECW. I think I was a closet Watts fan by this point. Guys like DDP & Raven put him over as "the most underrated talent in wrestling" or "a guy who deserves to get a big break"...stuff like that. But he came and went without making an impact.

The years rolled on and I eventually became a Watts hater because the internet told me he sucked.

Then he showed up to groans in 2003 TNA as 1/3 of this awful proto-Legacy stable that somehow managed to be even more boring than actual Legacy. Until something amazing happened. Erik Watts became awesome. I swear this happened! I will defend TNA Erik Watts until the day I die. Some guys just get it. A lightbulb goes off. Something clicks. That was TNA Erik Watts. You know how some guys are ring generals? Well, TNA Erik Watts was a Sports Entertainment General. It's honestly hard to explain. But he just carried himself like a star. He had so much confidence. He was in complete control of things. Got the crowd to hang on every word. Knew exactly what he wanted to do and when to do it. 

His character started off as....well, a douchebag. I mean, just look at that pic! But he was so darn good at it! The promo that won my friend Bryan (huge Watts fan by the way) and I over was about waiting for his "friend" Jeff Jarrett at the mall. It was hilarious. Trust me. So we dubbed him "Mallrat" Erik Watts. TNA Erik Watts was definitely a guy who would cruise around malls to "pick up chicks." Underage ones, most likely.

Before long the TNA faithful realized what I already had. Erik Watts was awesome. So they started cheering for him. And Watts became a babyface. Now it's hard to find recaps of those early TNA shows as "proof." Most of the ones still available are written by Scott Keith influenced hacks who still hated Watts because he botched a dropkick this one time in 1992. But a while back I did find some recaps by a guy who actually went to TNA shows at the time. This guy started out as a Watts-hating skeptic but within a few shows he loved Watts as much as I did. His best writeup was basically a tribute to Watts. He mentioned a lot of the same things I did a while back- Crowd Control. Charisma. Confidence. And it ended with something like "I can't believe I'm saying this, but more Erik Watts, please. Push this man to the moon" Another one mentions Watts getting the biggest pop of the night while working the pre-show Xplosion taping. Another one mention fans chanting "WATTS" during non-Watts segments. Alas, I can no longer find the recaps written by this fellow Watts true believer. But I swear I'm not making this up!

I would later discover Watts had a late 90s WCW B Show run where he dressed like the third Hardy Boy and did a low key Innovator of Offense gimmick. Watts also hit the first Buckle Bomb I ever saw in.....ECW? WXO, maybe? The point is Erik Watts is the man. And if you're still not down with that.....

Watts your problem? 

#161 Brian "Underfaker" Lee



I loved the Undertaker vs. Undertaker storyline. That stuff was right up my alley. Definitely my most anticipated match of Summerslam 94....and Owen Hart was my favorite wrestler! At first I thought the Fake Undertaker was the real one. LOL Then came UNDERTAKER SIGHTINGS~! YES! Underfaker vs. Tatanka from Superstars is a legit good match. Once upon a time I loved the Undertaker vs. Undertaker match. It had that larger than life feel.  Plus Tombstone reversals~! It's honestly pretty terrible. And the crowd is dead. But 1996 me loved it. 

Undertaker vs. Undertaker was also huge in my real life extended circle. I heard people I didn't even know were wrestling fans talking about it. It was already getting talked up at baseball in the early summer, and would later be a huge topic of conversation at soccer practice and in the early days of the school year. Keep in mind these were mostly just random people I didn't even know were wrestling fans. Basically, even the casuals were talking about this. So imagine my shock when I get online a few years later and find out this feud supposedly sucked. Mind blown!

A few years later Brian Lee had some nice Apter Mag buzz. His feud with Dreamer was amazing in magazine form. All those pics and stories about the two chokeslamming each other through tables from high places made it seem like pretty much the greatest feud ever.

I popped big time when my beloved Underfaker swerved the hated Shane Douglas with some help from Rick Rude at Barely Legal. I was ready to embrace Brian Lee as a top ECW babyface.....

Only he went to WWF as Chainz instead. Awesome! Now I get to see him every week in WWF! Sure, DOA sucked, but the "Prime Time" Underfaking Brian Lee was awesome. "Stupid WWF needs to push Brian Lee!" was definitely a typed entirely too much when I first got online in 1998. The truth is Brian Lee honestly kind of sucked. But I was a true believer. Just goes to show what one cool gimmick and a well-hyped car crash feud will do for a wrestler's reputation.

"Prime Time" is still one of the coolest nicknames in wrestling history. Brian Lee was a (low) midcard for lifer in our USWA action figure league. Until I found out his nickname was "Prime Time." Then he got an instant push and the single longest title reign in USWA history (secondary title, but still) at 18 shows.....all because I thought he had a sweet nickname. 

Brian Lee would later resurface in the early days of TNA as 1/2 of Father James Mitchell's New Church tag team alongside Slash (Wolfie D of PG 13). They had a cool theme and a bunch of good matches with AMW. Beyond that, my biggest takeaway from this run was how emaciated Brian Lee looked. Somehow the Underfaker had become thinner than a member of PG 13!

I've also seen his babyface run in SMW. Ouch. Of all the poor man's Hulk Hogan's out there SMW Brian Lee may very well have been the worst. He doesn't even pass the mustard as a bush league Hogan in a bush league fed. Bad matches. No charisma. Not even much in the way of look (he was more Dan Spivey with love handles than The Hulkster). I've heard his later heel run with Candido & Sunny is much better, but I conked out before I got that far both times I went through SMW chronologically. 

Still, we'll always have The Underfaker and chucking Tommy Dreamer through tables from high places.

Watts could have been something, but he was pushed WAY too hard by his daddy when he was still green as grass.

#160 Jay Briscoe



Jay > Mark from Day One of ROH simply because Jay was legally allowed to wrestle in the state of Pennsylvania whereas Mark was not. Jay quickly established himself as a good, young 100 mph movez guy. The Briscoes were a fun team. I didn't love them or anything, but I did like them. And even way back then I thought they should have been ROH Tag champs more than they were simply due to my 'real team' fetishism. I loved Red, and liked AJ at least as much as the Briscoes. But they weren't a 'real' team like Jay & Mark.

Jay > Mark became written in stone when I saw Jay take Joe to the limit at a then-rare 2003 Baltimore area ROH show. I had 0 interest in a Joe/Jay match. Joe was an increasingly unstoppable champ who had just 'upset' The Chosen One Christopher Daniels. Why would I want to see him against a tag team specialist with no chance in hell of winning? But the damnedest thing happened. Jay took Joe to the limit. Just about the entire crowd was backing Jay by the time Joe wrecked him a lariat for the win. Jay Briscoe lost the match but gained a ton of credibility in the process. Fwiw this is one of the most underrated matches from the Golden Age of ROH. Check it out if you can find it.

Jay > Mark was further established as fact a few months later when I saw Joe have an easy time with Mark in a dull match on the Philly show with Muta. A few months after their minor Maryland classic Joe & Jay had an even better bout. This time a brutal bloodbath of a Cage Match in Jersey with Joe once again emerging victorious.

The Briscoes would soon take a year and a half off. When they came back I just didn't have the time or energy for much alternative wrestling. I followed them online, along with the rest of ROH, for a few years before losing interest in wrestling altogether.

The Briscoes had become company legends by the time I came back to ROH as a semi-regular viewer in 2014-2015. They had changed their style and refined their characters. Jay was now a ring general who took his time in the ring and actually had one of the smaller movesets in the company. What stood about Jay now was his intensity. He reminded me of prime "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. You really got the impression Jay Briscoe would stab a man in Reno just to watch him die. He was ROH champ for a long time and had a cool Title vs. Title feud with Jay Lethal. He was also better than most in the company on the mic with his badass psycho redneck shtick. The Briscoes were the most over act on at least one of the two Baltimore area ROH shows I went to in 2014. Lots of Briscoe merch in the crowd and they got big pops for relatively simple matches. At some point, I just realized the Briscoes were really, really good at pro wrestling. Fwiw Mark was a late cut who would have finished around #209.

It'll probably never happen in Jay's case but I'd like to see The Briscoes (along with another longtime ROH standout named Jay who will appear later) go somewhere else. They've been in ROH for 17 years minus that one year and a half hiatus. Anybody is bound to get stale after 17 years. I doubt it would get me to watch, but I think it would be cool if they (along with Other Jay) got a NXT run at some point. If nothing else, those 3 deserve it just for being about the only guys still going from the big indie boom generation who never got a NXT/WWE run at some point.

#159 Val Venis



Remember that Simpsons episode where Bart becomes the "I Didn't Do It" boy? He becomes a big deal. Everybody thinks he's hilarious....until they don't. Val Venis is the wrestling version of that.

Val is a case of the right gimmick in the right place at the right time with me being the right age. You could never have done that gimmick at any other time. Not in the 80s. Not even 2 years earlier. And I don't think there is any way it would fly today. But the porn star gimmick was perfect for the late 90s. Wrestling eras can be defined by their midcarders as much as by their main eventers. Val (and the Godfather) are the quintessential Attitude Era midcarders. The porn star and the pimp. It just doesn't get anymore 1998 than that.

My friends and I loved early Val Venis. Like you have no idea. I was probably the low vote on Val in our little group and he is my 159th favorite wrestler of all time based solely on that one hot run. His vignettes were hilarious. Ditto for his all timer of a Titantron. I distinctly remember our group bringing a "Val Venis: Cumming Soon" sign to the May 11, 1998 Raw tapings. At a November 1998 Raw taping my cousin brought a "Pal Penis" sign. Sorry, guys. I have no idea what that was supposed to mean. I assume the Cousin just thought it was funny. But I distinctly remember that. Pal Penis. Yep.

Val's wrestling was irrelevant. Who cared whether he was good or not? What weirdo wanted to see Val in matches anyway? Normal people just wanted more vignettes, more double entendre ladened promos, and maybe the occasional addition to his GOAT contender Titantron from time to time. He was good at taking DDTs. I vaguely recall a good match or two with D'Lo. But, yeah, peak Val was all about the gimmick.

I got a kick out of Val for about a year. Around Wrestlemania 15 I just stopped caring. And literally nothing could bring me back. Val was now in a Catch 22 situation. The porn star gimmick was played out. But anything other than the porn star gimmick was lame. I'd be all "Bring back the porn star gimmick!" whenever Val strayed from it. Then I'd pop the first week it was back. But by the second week it was old hat again.

They tried pushing him as a serious heel in late '99. Yawn. Though he did have a match with Austin on Smackdown that I thought was one of the best WWF matches of the year.....just because it was a long for a 1999 WWF TV match and Val got more offense than I was expecting. Then came the RTC stuff. He honestly did some good stuff with Rikishi during that run. But once again it did not translate into me caring. Chief Morley was dire. Morley/Storm have to be in the running for most boring tag team of all time. Then he became a Heat regular. The company actually had a lot of faith in Val. He was the guy they used to test potential signees. If they liked your Heat work against Val you'd get signed. CM Punk is the most famous guy to pass The Val Venis Test. 

Post-prime Val gained an internet cult following as a good worker. I never liked his in ring stylings as much as most. He was too 'mechanical' which is a weird criticism I think I've only ever given to one other wrestler (Tracy Smothers) but it was like his matches were too pre-planned.....too choreographed. 

Val is one of many flash in the pans on this list. But for about a year there he was definitely one of my favorite acts in all of wrestling.

#158 Hanson



The only Hanson on this list (controversy!) was a Day One guy who wowed me the first time I ever saw him in action during the ROH 2014 Top Prospect Tournament. He looked like a big, badass viking and moved like a cruiserweight. I forget the opponent, but he cartwheeled out of danger, wrecked this jabronie with a clothesline, and then damn near decapitated him with a spinkick of doom for the win. I immediately had a new favorite ROH wrestler. Pete can probably confirm all this. Hanson would go on to win the Top Prospect Tourney because duh. He was clearly the valedictorian of that class. I also dug the fact that Hanson, being a borderline super heavyweight, did not fit the traditional ROH mold.

Hanson was the big draw for me when I watched ROH tv pretty regularly in 2014-15. I even went to 2 Baltimore area ROH shows mainly for Hanson. In addition to the sequence I mentioned above, he also did a chest crushing Bronco Buster that actually looked painful rather than merely insulting, along with top rope splashes, and even big guy dives.

It would be doing Hanson a disservice to ignore his glorious beard, which I'd put as a Top 5 facial hair in wrestling history. That thing is just magnificent. I also dig his attire. My big thing at the time was pushing for Hanson to be a Wyatt Family member.

Hanson wrestled mainly in a tag team called War Machine with a guy named Ray Rowe as his partner. They're in WWE today as The Vikings or something like that. Over time I came to the sad realization that Hanson was a bit of a one trick pony. He never progressed beyond his handful of cool spots and sequences. Nor did he cut many promos or have much of a character beyond the vague viking aesthetic. In time I actually grew to prefer Rowe to Hanson. Rowe had the best knee strikes in a promotion where everybody threw knee strikes. He also scored a 9/10 on the Jay Briscoe Intensity Scale. Ray Rowe came across as a guy who would definitely stab a man. But Ray Rowe was never anywhere close to be the draw prime Hanson had been, and was never under consideration for The List. He'd probably crack a Top 400 though. 

I have never seen the Viking Warlords or whatever they're called in WWE but I'm glad they made the big time. Beards as wonderful as Hanson's should always be showcased on the biggest possible stage.

#157 Monty Brown



I can't remember exactly when I first saw Monty Brown. My TNA viewing was real sketchy in 2004. I was a big TNA fan in 2003. Got about 2/3rds of the weekly pay per views with my friend Bryan. But by 2004 we had stopped getting the weekly pay per views. Then I think they landed on some little watched cable channel. I didn't tune in often. Whenever it was, I do recall being anti-Monty Brown at first. He was big AND a football player! Eww! Yuck! Gross! See, because in 2004 I knew REAL wrestlers were little guys stealing moves from obscure wrestling tapes while toiling in obscurity themselves for years before anybody noticed them. Monty Brown was an aberration. He didn't do things "the right way." He lacked authenticity.

Nor can I remember exactly when I shed my pseudo intellectual ways in regards to the Master of the Pounce. But it was a real quick process. Like one day Monty Brown was a boring 2/10. The next he was an awesome 8/10. And I never looked back.... 

Monty Brown was a promoter's dream. He had The Look. He had the charisma. He had the mic skills. (Alright, so he did ramble from time to time. Big deal! So did The Rock!) He had a real sports background. And he had The Pounce. Before long I came to the conclusion Monty was a cross between The Rock and Goldberg. They were two of the biggest stars of the previous generation ever. Therefore, Monty Brown was officially The Next Big Thing.

I was unsurprisingly a Jeff Jarrett apologist during those years in which he had a stranglehold on the NWA Title. "He's the biggest star they have! He's the one guy WWF would NEVER poach if TNA ever did happen to pick up steam!" But there were 3 occasions when even I, Jeff Jarrett fan numero uno, thought he should have dropped the strap. The first was to Raven in the first half of 2003. The last was to Samoa Joe sometime in 2006. The other is of course to Monty Brown.

They built up this one JJ/Monty PPV clash real big. This was it. The changing of the guard. Monty Brown was the homegrown babyface star TNA had been desperately trying to create for their entire existence. He checked all the boxes for what it took to be a major superstar. The TNA faithful loved him. And then....

Jarrett won. What a letdown. Monty Brown just got Lugered. To add insult to injury, he turned heel to join Jarrett a short time later. Horrendous booking.

Monty Brown signed with WWE not long after that. Aww yeah! Here we go! Monty Brown was a Vince McMahon wet dream. He played pro football. He looked like an action figure. He had charisma. He had the one big move.

WWE was pushing Blandly Lashey real hard around this time. The internet hot take, and I actually agreed for once, was that Monty Brown was the world's best Bobby Lashley. Buh Bye Lashley. Hello Monty Brown umm....Marcus CorVon. The next big thing had arrived....

They brought him in as a heel.....on WWECW. O...K? This isn't really what I had in mind, but let's see how it plays out....

He ended up a member of Other New Breed, a decent enough midcard heel stable. They had a pretty cool feud with the ECW Originals. He hit some wicked Pounces. Then he was done. He left the WWE for personal reasons. I forget the exact details. Something to do with his family, I think.

Monty Brown is a case of wasted potential. He had all the tools to be a major star. Yet he never made it big for a variety of reasons. But he did leave one lasting impact on the business in his short career- The Pounce. To this day it is called The Pounce. Probably anywhere in the world. And what a move it is!

The Pounce was my favorite move in wrestling for a while there. It looked like death against the right opponent. Sabu was unsurprisingly my favorite Pouncee. As for matches, I really liked Monty's Turning Point 2004 bout with Abyss. It was the only TNA PPV I owned on tape(!). Great show! With Monty/Abyss adding to its goodness. There was also a really good ECW Originals vs. New Breed match on WWECW tv. 

#156 Mike Knox



I knew a wrestler named Mike Knox existed dating back to his early 2000s run in California based WWF Developmental fed UPW. Knox made his mainstream wrestling debut in 2006 during the early days of WWECW. I was not a fan. He was terrible. Such a boring wrestler. I literally cannot tell you a single thing he did for like two years. Hell, I paid such little attention to Knox that I didn't even know he was a particularly big guy for those two years. He was a black hole of charisma. He was death to my interest. I didn't watch WWECW very often. If I did happen to be watching when Mike Knox showed up I would go do something else. Meaning he literally had "change the channel" heat with me.

Then he grew a beard and became awesome.

I remember the exact match that turned me into a Knox fan. It was against Matt Sydal/Evan Bourne (an Honorable Mention, albeit one well down on that list) on WWECW. I was like "Whoa! Mike Knox grew a nice beard." He then proceeded to have a Hansonesque ass kicking performance against the ROH alum. My Knox fandom only grew from there.....

To the point where he was one of my absolute favorite wrestlers going. My interest in wrestling was waning. I stopped watching full shows. But there were a handful of guys (and one gal) I would still check out on Youtube pretty regularly. Mike Knox was in this esteemed group.

Knox had a great look and a handful of cool moves- Bicycle Kick, his version of Bray Wyatt's Sister Abigail for a finish, and best of all The Knox Body~! Yep, the 293 pound Bearded Menace would wreck guys with the GOAT crossbody. It was awesome. Looked like he engulfed them.

Then there are the promos. Mike Knox looked like an inarticulate shouty dude all the way. Yet he cut these intelligent sounding, soft spoken promos about.....anatomy. Yep. It's even better than it sounds. Sometimes he wore glasses while doing so to really sell the aesthetic. 

Then there was the time he attacked Rey Mysterio. When pressed for an explanation Mike Knox could provide none. He did not know why he attacked Rey. He just did.

This deranged kinesiologist gimmick, coupled with above average big guy wrestling ability, was setting Mike Knox up to become the greatest psycho character wrestling had seen since......well, a really a long time ago. Yet WWE did nothing with him. They accidentally stumbled upon the awesome psycho hoss they had been desperately searching for since the days of Snitsky & Heidenreich and....nothing. Mike Knox should have been huge, dammit! Instead he is a mere blip on the radar of wrestling history.

The last fan fic thing I wrote before coming to PW was a half tongue in cheek story about Mike Knox and His Beard on my 2007-2009 go to wrestling forum. It was definitely my masterpiece on that board. Sadly, I can no longer find it. But it was a hell of a tale that also included Cena, Albert, Prince Nana, and WWE becoming a pop culture phenomenon again....all because of Mike Knox and His Beard.

Mike Knox is also an overlooked influence on 2010s wrestling. Back in the 80s Bruiser Brody brought the unkempt beard, wildman look to wrestling. The Berzerker picked up Brody's torch and carried it into the 90s. Then.....nothing. For 15 years. Until Mike Knox brought that look back to mainstream wrestling. Said look exploded in the 2010s. Hanson, Daniel Bryan, the Wyatt Family, and probably many others all owe a debt of gratitude to Mike Knox for making beards great again.

Knox left WWE at some point. He had a cup of coffee in TNA but never made much of an impact there or anywhere else. I'd have thought he would have been a natural for Japan. But it never happened for whatever reason. I just checked. Mike Knox is still only 41 years old. Man, he should have owned the 2010s. And it's a minor tragedy that he didn't.

#155 Abyss <>



I first saw Abyss in 2003 TNA. He was brought in as Kid Kash's muscle. I wasn't a fan. Thought Abyss was pretty bush league...just a dime store monster. If anything, I thought he was bringing down Kash, who had been on a hot streak. Though I vaguely recall Kash riding Abyss to the ring once or twice. That was cool.

I started coming around on Abyss a few months later when he had a good series of matches with AJ Styles. Now this honestly shouldn't have impressed me since AJ was the TNA version of Benoit in that like half the roster had their best match with him. But I guess I didn't know that yet?

Abyss then showed up in ROH for a cup of coffee. This time he was intended to be the enforcer of the Special K stable. But that never really went anywhere since the RF incident happened a short time later, causing TNA to (justifiably) pull their talent from ROH shows.

I lost track of TNA and Abyss for a little while before reconnecting with them around late 2004. He had a pretty cool match with Monty Brown on a TNA PPV, and an even better Cage Match with AJ Styles a few months later. Before long he became a guy I actively looked forward to watching. 

Prime 2005 TNA had a neat little unofficial Hardcore Division to compliment their strong X & Tag Divisions. I always viewed Abyss as the star of this scene. JJ/AJ/AMW/Abyss- each anchored their respective divisions....at least in my head. Abyss had a long stretch of good ECW style matches on PPV. I loved his feud with a resurgent Sabu, for example. 

Abyss wore his Foley influence on his sleeve. Hell, he even dressed a little like Mankind. He took big bumps, especially for a big man. He fell on tacks what felt like every other week. He bled a lot. He had some cool offense too- a Bossman Slam (often with extra rotations) and that sit down Torture Rack being my favorites. 

By this point Abyss is a solidly respected talent in my book. But still not a guy I'm gonna go gaga over. What puts him over the top is his ROH run with The Embassy. The Embassy is one of my all time favorite stables. Abyss was their Big Guy. ROH booked him really well. In TNA he went 50/50 with just about everybody. In ROH he dominated guys half his size. Poor Jack Evans was the most frequent recipient of Abyss beatings, including a sub 3 squash when such things were extremely rare in ROH. Abyss beat Jack a bunch of times. It all paid off when Evans pinned Abyss in a big Steel Cage Warfare (think War Games, ROH style) blowoff match. So great. Simple booking in theory. But why does nobody else do it?

TNA would once again pull their talent from ROH shows a few months into 2006. The Embassy was in the midst of a big push. Abyss was in line for a title shot against Bryan Danielson. That surely would have been a fun bout. Then there was the inevitable Abyss babyface turn on Nana & Rave somewhere down the line. Abyss vs. Rave (and Nana) would have been a fun feud. Alas, it was not to be.

I lost track of Abyss not long after that. Then I (mostly) stopped caring about TNA altogether. Abyss' TNA backstory became awfully convoluted. I think James Mitchell was his father? And didn't he have a kayfabe brother? Perhaps another fictional relative or two?

The big criticism of Abyss was "he did too much." While technically true, this criticism was laughable to mid 2000s me. Doing stuff is good. Bumping is good. I liked King Kong Bundy well enough. But I'll take Mick Foley over King Kong Bundy 10 times out of 10. Abyss went the extra mile. I could respect that.

But I did have my own criticisms of Abyss. He always did this one taunt that made him look constipated. If you've ever seen Abyss wrestle you know exactly what I am referring to. He also lacked a chantable name- an increasingly important thing to have in mid 2000s wrestling. TNA fans tried getting "uhhhhBYSS" over. But that was terrible. So it flopped. The KaneKind (or ManKane) cracks were also spot on. Abyss was such an obvious cosplayer. It was easy to make fun of him in that regard.

He was rumored to be offered a feud against Taker culminating in Taker going over at Wrestlemania 22. I would have been into this at the time. It would have been reminiscent of an old school classic Taker Monster Mash. And Abyss, being the ultimate try hard, would surely have went the extra mile to create a Wrestlemania moment in defeat.

In closing, Abyss really was a bush league monster (in presentation more than ability). Now he was a GOOD bush league monster, mind you. But a bush league monster nevertheless. And that's ok! It's only fitting that TNA, a bush league promotion, would feature a bush league monster. And good on him for landing a cushy WWE backstage gig as his career winds down.


#154 The Giant



I first saw The Giant in those legendary Dungeon of Doom segments . They were the first WCW thing other than the Blue Bloods I had cared about in a year. The Giant burst through a wall and cackled maniacally while Hogan touched water that was not hot. It was great. I was definitely intrigued by the newest Giant. Pretty sure I bought into the "Son of Andre" stuff for a while too. 

Then came War Games '95 where he attacked Hogan after the match and channeled Zeus by giving Hulk the dreaded neck twist. I was ready to buy The Giant as The Next Big Thing....

Only to lose interest for a little while. WCW definitely jumped the shark by giving him the once-prestigious WCW Championship in his very first match. He won it on a technicality. But still! It was then taken away from him. Also on a technicality.

The next 5 months are honestly a blur when it comes to The Giant. I know he was heavily featured but I....just don't remember anything he did. It was probably a combination of the "overpush" and just being more interested in other guys that caused this indifference.

Giant won me over for good when he squashed Loch Ness in one of my most anticipated matches of the year. The tallest wrestler vs. the heaviest! 7 foot vs. 700 pounds! Monster Mash! Colossal Jostle! Sign me up! 

For the next few months The Giant was to me what Goldberg or Lesnar were to normal people.....The biggest badass in wrestling....An unstoppable force I 100% bought into. He no sold the Figure Four and Chokeslammed Ric Flair to win the WCW Championship as a rookie. Yet rather than the righteous indignation this would normally cause, I just nodded my head like "Yep. The Giant is badass." 

WCW booked him superbly over the next few months. He regularly beat credible midcard big men on Nitro in title matches. I also liked his PPV matches with Sting & Luger. Young Giant was in great shape. He was a 7 foot, 430 pound athletic freak capable of dropkicks (including those of a Missile variety) and kip ups. He also had the best Chokeslam ever. He was in the midst of the most dominating rookie year wrestling had seen up to that point. I thought he was destined to go down as the greatest big man in wrestling history, if not the greatest wrestler ever, period. The bulk of my 1996 dream matches involved The Giant. Who could possibly dethrone The Next Big Thing?....

Hulk f'n Hogan. That's who. The worst! I've told the story a million times of how Hogan beating Giant for the belt pretty much killed WCW for me. I carried on for a few more days. Long enough to see The Giant squash Chris Benoit in a match featuring the big man throwing a dropkick. Once again, I just nodded like "Yep. Giant is a badass." And I loved 1996 Chris Benoit! But that night marked the end of WCW for me....

I followed Giant from afar. Hated him joining the NWO. He should have been leading the WCW troops, dammit! In my infinite wisdom, I actually wrote a letter to WWF Magazine some time in 1997 explaining how they could overtake WCW. #1 on the list was "Bring In The Giant" (and Scott Norton). I don't remember if I ever actually sent this letter, and it was definitely never published if I did, but I definitely wrote it. 

A few years later my dream was about to come true. The Giant was indeed coming to WWF. YES! Game changer! I popped for his debut. Couldn't have drawn it up much better myself. He got the rub of debuting in a huge match and made an immediate impact. Hell, I'd have bought Austin vs. Giant as the main event of Wrestlemania 15. No doubt.

But The Giant peaked in WWF on night one. I lost interest amazingly fast considering The Giant in WWF had been a personal dream of mine for 2 and a half years. He just didn't have "it" anymore. He was bigger and slower. Plus big men in general were less cool than they had been 3 years earlier. The Foley matches did not end up being Foley vs. Vader 2.0 as I had foreseen. Within months The Big Show had actually become one of my least favorite guys on the roster.

Show had more misses than hits in WWE. I disliked him more than I liked him. He was a 3/10 or 4/10 guy for the bulk of his WWE run. Even the good Show stuff I would always describe as being "surprisingly" good. Like "Big Show had surprisingly good matches with Lesnar." Or "Big Show had that surprisingly awesome WWECW title match with Flair." Or "Big Show had that miracle match with Mayweather." Etc.

WWE Big Show was at his best in comedy stuff imo. His Hulk Hogan impression against Angle at Backlash 2000 was legitimately hilarious. He had equally funny spots in comedy matches against Funaki & Regal. He was a part of that awesome batshit insane Taker promo about stranding Show in the desert. Then there was the surreal mat wrestling match with Kane.

Show also excelled in multi-man matches. That's really the only time he was ever treated like a true badass monster in WWE. And one time he hit a GOAT level spear Cole or Tazz dubbed "The Flying Bus." Unfortunately we would never see The Flying Bus again. Too dangerous, I reckon. On the flip side, he turned entirely too much. 

Nowadays I've come around enough to become Big Show respecter. He was a solid role player who was rarely as bad as I made him out to be. Yet he never did come close to fulfilling the expectations I had for him in 1996, and definitely peaked as a rookie. All in all, he had a good career. But a mere 'good career' is a far cry from the all time great career I had once predicted for him. 

#153 Maxx Payne



Maxx Payne really stood out as something different in the neon-tinged wrestling world of 1993. He was dark and edgy by 1993 standards what with the black attire, skull fetish, and wild hair. He was pushed pretty strong right from the start, having squash matches on all the WCW syndicated shows I watched. I actually don't think I was a Maxx Payne fan right away. He was too creepy....a little 'off'....the kind of guy who would have legit scared me a few years earlier.  He'd have made a fine freak show opponent for Undertaker had he been in WWF. But he was in WCW. Uh oh! Who in WCW will take down this psycho?

Hopefully nobody! Because Payne won me over when he shot stupid Johnny B. Badd in the face with stupid JBB's own stupid Badd Blaster. And thus a new Baker Guy was born. Maxx Payne was now cool in my book because JBB was pretty much the worst. 

Maxx Payne was introduced as hailing from "The State of Euphoria." I only had a vague idea of what that meant in 1993. But Larry Zbyszko had a line I always got a kick out of- "I hear the State of Euphoria is right next to Vermont!" or something along those lines. This lead to me ribbing my brother about the State of Euphoria being the 51st State. Pretty sure he bought it for a little while. I also remember putting a little State of Euphoria in whenever I had to do anything with the US map. Or maybe I renamed New Hampshire? Don't remember the exact details. But I was definitely a State of Euphoria mark. It was most certainly A Thing.

Anyway, Maxx Payne eventually turned face after becoming an early example of a "cool heel." He soon formed a tag team with another 1993 WCW Baker Guy in Cactus f'n Jack. Hell yeah! I was all in on this squad. They were definitely the coolest tag team in 93-94 wrestling. They had a pretty sweet feud with the stupid Nasty Boys that peaked with an ECW style match on PPV. At some point cool Maxx Payne was replaced by uncool Kevin Sullivan as Cactus Jack's partner because stupid power tripping bookers always like latching onto the hot, hip thing. It would be Jack & Sullivan who actually won the tag titles from the Nastys with poor Maxx Payne reduced to a mere cameo appearance. He would leave the company a few months later. Sad. 

Only to turn up in WWF as Man Mountain Rock. MMR was everything Maxx Payne was not. In short, he sucked. He was booked as a 'cool' rocker babyface while being a total dweeb. He had a feud with Mr. Backlund over rock music (really!) before quickly fizzling out. I was not sad to see him go this time around. Though I will admit his customized WWF guitar was pretty epic. Payne also secretly filmed WWF stars during this time. Maybe that's why he was fired? I can't remember the details. For years he threatened to release this footage but it has still never seen the light of day. Fwiw Maxx Payne also sued Max Payne the video game over stealing his name. I think he claimed to have received an undisclosed financial settlement in that one. But I may be wrong. It's too late to look up details.

It pains me to say even WCW Maxx Payne has not aged well. His squashes are actually really bad. They're usually short. He doesn't have much interesting offense. Then he slaps on his Payne Killer armbar for the win. His attire is not flattering either. But I was a big fan of his in real time. So he's definitely listworthy.

It's kind of amazing how bad he is given the fact that he was a real life All American college wrestler at Iowa State (historically an amateur wrestling powerhouse) who was also one of the first (if not the first) Americans to train in the notorious New Japan dojo. Given his pedigree you think he'd be god tier level in the ring. But nah. He's basically a chubby Snitsky with a more interesting persona. 

*cuts out the stories and the next pick is Jay Briscoe*

Why you gotta cut me so deep fam? I get it, but maybe a blip for the "main event" of each batch? I gots to have the goods!

I read all the stories and miss them. This is my own fault for just reading and not commentating. Like who is Maxx Payne and why is he awesome? I'll never know.

Nothing will ever be as hype as Don West shouting POOOOOOUNCCCEEEEEEE!

Aug 17, 2019 11:36:51 GMT @ness said:

*cuts out the stories and the next pick is Jay Briscoe*

Why you gotta cut me so deep fam? I get it, but maybe a blip for the "main event" of each batch? I gots to have the goods!

Aug 17, 2019 11:59:54 GMT PB said:

I read all the stories and miss them. This is my own fault for just reading and not commentating. Like who is Maxx Payne and why is he awesome? I'll never no.

Nothing will ever be as hype as Don West shouting POOOOOOUNCCCEEEEEEE!

Count me in with these gents with a strong ditto.

The most interesting batch so far, and no blurbs!?

The emotional pain I'm in will only be physically equaled by my knees after I go for this run.

Very well then.The people have spoken. I’ll edit blurbs in over the next day or 3.

Edited in blurbs for Jay Briscoe & Maxx Payne. Will get to the rest at my own leisurely pace. I'm determined to finish this. It just might take until the end of the year. I'm in no hurry.

Shout out to Maxx Payne for releasing a trailer for a wrestling documentary that was going to expose the biggest wrestlers than never releasing the full movie. I imagine he got threatened with lawsuits from like 20 different people and realized it wasn't worth it, but I like to imagine that he only had 10 minutes of footage and he was just trolling the internet.

I actually like this compromise Bake, it spares you hours upon hours of slaving away and writing satisfactory justifications while giving the thread a sense of interactivity. For instance, I'm well aware of your fandom for Hansen, Mike Knox and The Giant but couldn't recall you being a Jay Briscoe fan at all.

I also strongly disagree with your ranking for Disco Inferno. Nobody likes him that much.

It'll probably never happen in Jay's case but I'd like to see The Briscoes (along with another longtime ROH standout named Jay who will appear later) go somewhere else. They've been in ROH for 17 years minus that one year and a half hiatus. Anybody is bound to get stale after 17 years. I doubt it would get me to watch, but I think it would be cool if they (along with Other Jay) got a NXT run at some point. If nothing else, those 3 deserve it just for being about the only guys still going from the big indie boom generation who never got a NXT/WWE run at some point.

Reportedly they were on their way in 2016 until Jay posted some homophobic stuff on Twitter and the WWE brushed them.

They did work NJPW at one point, winning the IWGP Tag Team Championship, but that was the extent of their work outside of ROH. Considering the direction AEW is going in, I'm not sure if they'll get a shot there.

Jay Briscoe reminds me so much of two of my uncles. The way he talks, the look, everything. So I've always gravitated towards him. When Sinclair (it's hilarious thinking about it now...) bought the company and they/he was a focal point I loved every second of it. DEM BOYZ promos were a highlight for sure. If you don't get a kick out of Mark throwing chicken carcusses in the back of a truck while Jay is going off and saying "sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit" I dunno why you are even on this board honestly. I just bought everything about them. Blah blah blah personality @ 11 and all that.

Obviously they'll never get into NXT due to social media stuff and I think they were denied at one point because they weren't "cosmetically pleasing" but that just endeared them to me more. Not in a against the machine type of way, but the look just screamed wrestler to me. Like you gotta have a few screws loose to wanna get in DIZ BIZNESS and Jay looked like he'd fuck you up and that's what I want from my rasslers.

Not counting a WWE run, I'm kinda surprised they never branched out anywhere else. At least for an extended periods. I dunno if that's a lockerroom thing or perhaps they're like Hallowicked or Mschif in that way they're happy in a spot and have decent shoot jobs they aren't willing to give up. Which I assume is the chicken farm so we can get our tendies at the local eatery.

That Jay writeup just might be my favorite yet.

And also can't agree on Payne having more personality than Snitsky, at least not during his 2004-2005 run!

Added writeups for Val Venis and Monty Brown.

Aug 17, 2019 11:36:51 GMT @ness said:

*cuts out the stories and the next pick is Jay Briscoe*

Why you gotta cut me so deep fam? I get it, but maybe a blip for the "main event" of each batch? I gots to have the goods!

I appreciate the interest but you're wrong about one thing. Jay Briscoe was not the main event of this batch. Disco Inferno is. Disco getting the rare gif treatment proves it. 

Aug 18, 2019 10:48:19 GMT Big Pete said:

I actually like this compromise Bake, it spares you hours upon hours of slaving away and writing satisfactory justifications while giving the thread a sense of interactivity. For instance, I'm well aware of your fandom for Hansen, Mike Knox and The Giant but couldn't recall you being a Jay Briscoe fan at all.

I also strongly disagree with your ranking for Disco Inferno. Nobody likes him that much.

That settles it. Disco Inferno is definitely next.
 

Jay Briscoe was never an "OMG! This guy is awesome!" type the way Hanson was during that weird Hanson phase I went through. But I'd often put Jay over in a more low key way when I was doing ROH show reviews. Like *lots of words* ending with Jay Briscoe: damn fine professional wrestler. 

Jay got on the list by being a 7/10 guy for two pretty long runs nearly a decade apart.

Aug 18, 2019 14:21:56 GMT 🤯 said:

And also can't agree on Payne having more personality than Snitsky, at least not during his 2004-2005 run!

This....eh....ok. I can buy it. Snitsky did have....something going for a little while there. But Payne was definitely more interesting! Snitsky was like a meme wrestler. A fun one for a little while to be sure, but still just a meme wrestler. Fwiw he did not make my list. I need to retain SOME credibility here.

You'd definitely have to be some kind of Lionheart pseudo intellectual to hate Monty. The Pounce. Even better than the spear. Potentially equalled only by the Gore. Easily in my Top 10 running strike finishers.

#152 Nova



Nova had two things working in his favor right from the start in the BWO and the Innovator of Offense gimmick.

I was a huge BWO fan. Loved them. It was the right gimmick in the right place at the right time. Now Nova was definitely the third man in the BWO, but 3rd man in the BWO > 3rd man in the NWO to late 90s me.

While it would eventually become a running gag used to mock Nova, I totally bought into his Innovator of Offense gimmick in real time. For a while there every time I saw Nova in action he would break out a move I had never seen before. I was gonna list them all, but it's a really long list, and we can't have Nova surpassing Disco in length. Anyway, it also took 20 years and a guy on another forum before I realized the Innovator of Offense nickname is actually a pun. See, Nova is the Innovator of Offense. *points to head* The more you know....

I was a Nova fan before I ever saw him wrestle due to the BWO connection. Seeing him in action for the first time at November To Remember '97 only made me like him more. He teamed with the Meanie and innovated a few moves that night.

I never understood why ECW didn't push him more. Nova was a homegrown guy with the BWO rub and the coolest moves in wrestling. 1998 ECW kind of sucked on paper compared to the ECW heyday stuff I was watching on tape. My biggest complaints at the time were "Why isn't ECW pushing Kronus more?" and "Why isn't ECW pushing the BWO to the moon?" Still think they'd have been much better tag champs than the FBI or Storm & Candido.

My local indie fed, MCW, had good working relationships with WWF & ECW. They'd often bring in ECW stars and WWF "stars" like Gillberg & Headbanger Mosh. The very first MCW show I ever went to in October 1998 featured a bunch of ECW guys. The BWO outpopped and outworked Sabu that night. I swear! They also broke out a Midnight Express or two I had never seen before. 

Meanie left for WWF a few months later. Good for him! And good for Nova! Now he can finally become the singles star worthy of his overness and wrestling ability. Wrong! Nova was now paired with a total Marty in Chris Chetti who might as well have been called Chetti The Jannetty. I was actually really annoyed that Jerry Lynn, who I still had no attachment to, got the big push opposite RVD when Nova was right there being more over than Mr. JL and having equally cool moves at the very least.

Felt like Nova & Chetti opened every ECW show I saw for the next year and a half opposite Doring & Roadkill. They ran that match into the crowd. Come to think of it, that's probably why I never took to Doring & Roadkill. I was too busy cheering on Nova and his luggage. 

One of my big fantasy booking ideas for the rest of 1999 was making Nova the Next Jerry Lynn opposite RVD. I refused to give up on Nova.

Then I lost interest in ECW and the promotion folded a little while later. Nova & Chetti broke up late in ECW's run. Chetti was rumored to be going to WWF Developmental but I don't think that ever happened for reasons I forget. Nova found himself a man without a home when ECW folded. His big claim to fame over the next few years was "discovering" Frankie Kazarian. They formed a somewhat popular tag team on the east coast indies known as Evolution. 

Nova eventually made his way to WWE in the dreadful Simon Dean gimmick. This was during a period where WWE was recycling a lot of their classic characters. I can kind of see why they introduced a new Narcissist and a new new Razor, but was the world really clamoring for the second coming of Skip? I think not! And they didn't even have the decency to give New Skip a New Sunny. The only good to come out of this gimmick would have been giving Funaki the Barry Horowitz push opposite Simon Dean's Skip. But that never happened. So the stupid Simon Dean gimmick was a total waste of time that had huge go away heat with me. Nova didn't even innovate anymore. He was just boring. Although.....

I also would have accepted Monty Brown Pouncing Simon Dean off his stupid scooter into the 3rd row every single time Dean came out. Like that's the gag. Simon Dean comes out on his scooter. Monty Brown Pounces him into the crowd. Every. Single. Time.

Simon Dean was later given power in OVW. Every person I've ever heard comment on this said he was terrible.

But we'll always have Nova- a perennial second tier ECW favorite during the peak of my real time ECW fandom in the late 90s. Fwiw that's why Nova is above that block of ECW guys in the 160s. I actually saw him in real time whereas those guys were tape darlings who were mostly done with ECW by the time I was able to watch the promotion in real time.

#151 Disco Inferno



I will not let this Disco dismissal stand. He is now getting a standalone post which is bound to be my longest one yet.....

Before I even get to Disco Inferno I must set the stage....

I wasn't really "into" music in the mid 90s. The modern rock scene was dire. I was never much of a pop fan. That stuff was for parents. I had a teeny tiny bit more time for rap, but was hardly the hip hop head my brother was becoming. My hardcore country music phase died down around 93-94. The hair metal I liked as a kid, and even the Meat Loaf fandom of a few years earlier, was already out of sight, out of mind. 

In the mid 90s I mainly listened to Harry Chapin and Johnny Horton. Yeah, I wasn't cool. Maybe I'd pop in my dad's Foreigner tapes from time to time. Don McLean's American Pie, Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise, and Warren G's Regulate were personal favorite songs I had on tape. I might listen to Queen on occasion via Wayne's World or Mighty Ducks. But Chapin and Horton were my go to guys. Along with....

Disco! Yep. I was a Disco dude. This local radio station played a Disco show every Saturday night called Retro Saturday Night. My brother and I recorded it on tape most weeks until we got all the songs we liked. It was not at all uncommon for another friend or two to join us in some wholesome radio listening.

70s Culture was real big in my area during the mid 90s. Now I don't know if this is just another weird hyper localized thing or not. I don't think it is. Grease experienced a national revival. That 70s Show would soon become a thing. But, yeah, retro 70s stuff was real popular here for a few years. My yearbooks are "proof" of this. We had 70s themed events and the like. 

So it was the perfect storm of events for wrestling to debut a Disco character. I was naturally all in on Disco Inferno from day one. He debuted right around the time I came back to WCW and was honestly one of the big things that made WCW cool again to me after thinking it was terrible for over a year. 

I loved Disco Inferno in 95-96. He was a hoot. Definitely a Top 10 WCW guy both years for me. Hell, probably Top 5 in 1995. Not every character needs to a World Title contender. Guys like Disco are invaluable in filling out a card. I'd much rather see a Disco type being fun in the low card than some boring gimmickless ham and egger filling the same role. 

Favorite Moments include the sports entertainment masterpiece on Worldwide where he was squashed in like 30 seconds by Mr. Wonderful and the cool match with Malenko at Bash At The Beach where Disco played an almost sympathetic heel. He was like a sort of goofy, ineffectual villain version Rocky who was in over his head. But because it was his one shot at the big time he brought an A Game nobody, including himself, ever knew he had. Good stuff!

Disco was a quality sports entertainer from the very beginning. Before long I grew to appreciate him as a wrestler. He actually had some cool moves. He executed stuff well. Occasionally he'd string together a solid series of maneuvers. I realized all this before the Malenko match. The Malenko just confirmed my previously held beliefs.

Although I do feel it's only fair to mention his awful match with Kurosawa on Nitro that ended with a Disco Ball hitting Kurosawa. That would be Worst Match of the Year in a normal year where the Doomsday Cage Match didn't exist. It's still one of the absolute worst matches ever though.

Not long after the Malenko match I went off WCW. Disco was one of the guys I missed the most. 

So you can imagine my excitement when Disco quit WCW over refusing to job to Jacqueline. Surely WWF will be picking him up! He always seemed like more of a WWF Guy than a WCW Guy to me anyway. While it wasn't quite The Giant or Scott Norton defecting, 1997 me still would have taken Disco over like 90% of the WCW roster. It seemed to be a done deal. Disco Inferno was going to debut as The Honkytonk Man's protege!!!! OMG OMG OMG I'm surprised I didn't drop dead then and there of joy overload. WWF Magazine even ran a story on HTM's mystery man accompanied by a picture of a shadowy figure doing a Disco pose. The wrestling radio show I listened to said it was happening. This was going to change the game....

Swerve! Disco made up with WCW at the last minute. WWF ended up sticking Billy Gunn with Honkytonk Man in the dreadful Rockabilly gimmick. Dammit! Something wonderful had turned to crap because of stupid Disco Inferno and the Evil Empire.

I turned on Disco here for weird Baker-y 1997 "sellout" reasons. But it's not like I was watching WCW at the time to even get the satisfaction of booing the man. Yet I never did like him again. He's one of my least favorite parts of late 90s WCW on the rare occasions I go through that stuff. His TNA run as Glen Gilberti: Serious Wrestler was serious dreck. 

Glen Gilberti has a bad reputation. He just comes off as one of those naturally unlikeable, obnoxious, punchable types. So for years I just sort of always assumed that even early Disco Inferno sucked. And it would be one of those embarrassing Al Snow/Brian Christopher/Hurricane "How the hell did I ever like this goofball?" situations. 

Wrong! 95-96 Disco still rules. Now a gimmick like that bound to get old over time (see: Val Venis). But those early Disco years are still the bee's knees.

I do wonder whether swerving WWF in '97 cost him later in life. Disco was still pretty young when WWF bought WCW. He was a solid hand with a decent look who knew how to get heat. People also knew who he was. He was popular with the boys. Not bad on the mic. Yet WWF never even gave him a tryout as far as I know. At the very least I don't see why he never got an Ernest Miller-style run as an obnoxious short-lived wrestler everybody hated before becoming an obnoxious Velocity commentator everybody still hated. Vince holding a grudge? I think it's very possible.

Only the Baker Man could be most excited about a Disco Inferno defection during the height of the Monday Night Wars.

Man....this thread is inspiring me to do shit that I know I will only half ass and not do nearly as well.

Do I even know 200 wrestlers? I must.

I loved Monty Brown, and happy to see him pop up, on your list Baker. He's definitely one of those guys who I wonder what could have been.

That said, I respect the hell out of him, his sister died and he left the business to help raise her kids.

Aug 19, 2019 2:26:27 GMT 🤯 said:

You'd definitely have to be some kind of Lionheart pseudo intellectual to hate Monty. The Pounce. Even better than the spear. Potentially equalled only by the Gore. Easily in my Top 10 running strike finishers.

The Pounce was kind of crap to be honest.    Don West's call for it is better than the actual move itself.

Disco gets the longest essay post. What have we done PW?

Aug 19, 2019 6:47:00 GMT thereallt said:

Aug 19, 2019 2:26:27 GMT 🤯 said:

You'd definitely have to be some kind of Lionheart pseudo intellectual to hate Monty. The Pounce. Even better than the spear. Potentially equalled only by the Gore. Easily in my Top 10 running strike finishers.

The Pounce was kind of crap to be honest.    Don West's call for it is better than the actual move itself.

I'll concede it depended almost entirely on who was taking it and how they sold it. But more often than not, it looked great. So I don't know what kind of pseudo intellectual trip you're on, brudda.

I agree that The Pounce sucked. Or least I thought it did at the time. However, Lance Archer has started using it in NJPW and it looks pretty killer. But Lance is even more physically imposing than Monty Brown, which adds to the effect. Also, Archer doesn't use it as a finisher. It's not a finisher-worthy move.

Aug 19, 2019 17:23:14 GMT Emperor said:

I agree that The Pounce sucked. Or least I thought it did at the time. However, Lance Archer has started using it in NJPW and it looks pretty killer. But Lance is even more physically imposing than Monty Brown, which adds to the effect. Also, Archer doesn't use it as a finisher. It's not a finisher-worthy move.

I'll concede this (somewhat begrudgingly). It's a killer setup for a finish though!

Added writeups for Hanson & Mike Knox. Which reminds me....

I once booked them as a tag team called The Bearded Menace in a fan fic draft. It went over like a fart in church. PW sucks sometimes.

I also had no idea there are lost souls out there who don't love The Pounce. This is sad and disturbing news.

Might finish up this batch later tonight. If not tonight, tomorrow for sure. From there on out I'm only intending to do 1 or 2 a day.

Love the Maxx Payne write-up, outside of teaming with Cactus though I had no use for him. Dedicating a whole paragraph to the State Of Euphoria was definitely a good call.