Larry Matysik - The 50 Greatest Professional Wrestlers of All Time: The Definitive Shoot

For Pat and Kelly,

each of whom scores

at the top of her category.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Chapter 1

The Truth

The best. The finest. The greatest ever... baseball players, movies, presidents, rock n roll tunes, actors, books, pizzas... No matter how specialized the interest, list-making almost always ignites passions.

Why should professional wrestling be any different? A colorful, chaotic, and thoroughly engrossing mix of athletics, theater, and excitement, since 1900 professional wrestling has lured countless fans and thousands of unique and supremely talented performers who have driven the industry in different and variously successful directions.

So, who is the best ever?

Its a great question, one fueled by Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment. National cable television and an omnipresent website are the perfect way for a mammoth marketing company to exploit the concept.

WWE is the twenty-first-century version of a national wrestling promotion, indeed a mammoth marketing operation, but it doesnt generally call what it produces wrestling because it fears being sneered at by some corporate type. And then the company and its leader berate that very disdain as being unfair to fans of wrestling, or does WWE want it called sports entertainment... Forget it, fans who follow WWE. Talk about wanting to have it both ways!

But that isnt the point. Late in 2010, Vince and WWE released a DVD celebrating what they called the Top 50 Superstars of All Time. Of course they didnt call them wrestlers its as if Vince K. McMahon (or VKM as he likes to be called) and his minions are embarrassed to be involved in the very endeavor that has made the McMahon family filthy rich. Wasnt it professional wrestling, by whatever title Vince wishes to give it, that allowed his wife Linda to reportedly spend $100 million in two failed attempts to become a United States senator?

Why be ashamed of a business that stuffs your pockets full of money while entertaining millions of people from all walks of life? McMahon and his company slap every fan who ever spent a penny on them in the face they can claim their tactics are just marketing, or television production, but its mostly about ego.

Certainly he has the right, perhaps even the obligation to his shareholders, to expand the company into other areas. To pretend, however, that the removal of wrestling from the business vocabulary will increase the odds of success in other promotional fields is absurd.

I want to spend the greater part of this opening chapter saying good things about Vince and WWE. Really, that is my intention. Make no mistake; Vince McMahon himself is one of a kind. Love him or hate him, but always respect him and his accomplishments while noting his failures.

After all, his company is a monopoly and a global enterprise, so how many bad decisions could he have made? Energy, imagination, ambition, need for complete control, understanding of televisions all-powerful role, little regard for either ethics or individuals when it comes to business... all that and much more describe Vince.

He revolutionized professional wrestling at a time when television was changing. Somebody was going to do it. If the timing had been right, Sam Muchnick might have promoted pay-per-view shows, Fritz Von Erich (Jack Adkisson) might have produced a seven-camera live television show, or Jim Barnett might have gone high-def.

Vince McMahon happened to be the right guy at the right time in the right place. He was very smart. And he was very, very driven.

See how difficult it is to write something praising Vince without adding except or but?

Lets try again.

Vince can certainly broadcast his list of the 50 greatest wrestlers (performers? entertainers? superstars?) to step into the revered squared circle. Nobody else enjoys his wrestling lineage, following his father and grandfather as a mover and shaker. Think of the stories he must have heard, the education he would have received, growing up in the McMahon familys highly profitable promotion.

Admittedly, with the overall wrestling business at the time fragmented geographically into numerous smaller territories, Vince may have overlooked the true value of certain headliners, since his attention would have been focused on Dads little corner of the business.

Still, Vince watched many of the stars from the early 1970s on, and once in command he made a high percentage of the stars from the late 1980s on. Of course, having the playing field basically to himself (except for Ted Turners World Championship Wrestling in the 1990s) helped. McMahon should have a legitimate grasp on the warriors who made this sport what it is today.

So, we have a right to expect a lot.

But we did not get what we expected.

Here is the list that WWE and Vince McMahon authored of the best 50 superstars to ever answer the opening bell...

1. Shawn Michaels
2. The Undertaker
3. Stone Cold Steve Austin
4. Bret Hart
5. Dwayne The Rock Johnson
6. Harley Race
7. Ricky Steamboat
8. Andre the Giant
9. Rey Mysterio
10. Rowdy Roddy Piper
11. Eddie Guerrero
12. Triple H
13. Gorgeous George
14. Randy Savage
15. Curt Hennig
16. John Cena
17. Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes (tie)
19. Edge
20. Jerry Lawler
21. Lou Thesz
22. Terry Funk
23. Hulk Hogan
24. Bruno Sammartino
25. Chris Jericho
26. Ted DiBiase
27. Fabulous Moolah
28. Classy Freddie Blassie
29. Randy Orton
30. Pat Patterson
31. Iron Sheik
32. Jimmy Snuka
33. Mick Foley
34. Kurt Angle
35. Buddy Rogers
36. Gorilla Monsoon
37. Junkyard Dog
38. Superstar Billy Graham
39. Jake The Snake Roberts
40. Big Show Paul Wight
41. Jack Brisco
42. Sgt. Slaughter
43. Kane
44. Nick Bockwinkel
45. Jeff Hardy
46. Dory Funk Jr.
47. Bob Backlund
48. Ravishing Rick Rude
49. Batista
50. Killer Kowalski

Well now, imagine a professional baseball equivalent. The lists author would be skewered by the national media and the public alike for his abuse and ignorance of the legends who built the game not to mention the total lack of comprehension about how past and present fit together.

Professional wrestling, too, has a true and real history, one that should be celebrated, not trashed in favor of the almighty dollar and the ego of a corporation that will not even admit that what it promotes is wrestling .

Call it what it is. Professional wrestling at its highest level requires an indefinable mix of hard work, showmanship, drawing power, and, like it or not, toughness and skill. By designating these 50 as the best professional wrestlers of all time, the wrestlers on this list would by definition have to embody the concept of being a superstar, a great worker, and having a magnetic personality.

When the WWE list became public, many in the industry those not tied in some way to WWE began to grumble. Even a rookie could scan the list and realize that many stars were included only to promote the current product and the alleged history belonging to WWE. Anyone could grasp what a large role personal politics played.

But really, was anyone surprised? This was marketing, with a tinge of politics. Its what Vince does, how hes always been. Get attention and turn a profit. WWE exists to make money, so why let truth get in the way? How else does Kane end up among the 50 finest talents in the history of the game? How else could The Undertaker be selected as the second greatest ever to step through the ropes?

Yet WWE putting Harley Race sixth makes you blink because its not far off the truth. Race is part of a generation to which McMahon has shown little respect. The answer to the riddle of why Race was selected over others from the old school elite is also more the result of politics and personality than anything else.