Top 20 Pro Wrestlers in the 1990s

Professional wrestling in the 1990s have always been famous for their storylines, and feuds, and (most of all) star power. This is an absent aspect in today’s wrestling and it’s one of things that make all wrestling fans feel right at home whenever they go back to this decade. Many of the most popular wrestlers (that are over the age of 50) had the best time of their lives from 1990 – 1999. As the wrestling industry got very fierce with competition, every promotion pushed their roster to go even futher (for ratings purposes). WCW, WWF, ECW, NJPW, AJPW, AJW, and FMW really made the most out of their wrestlers during this time. That means being charasmatic with promos had to be honed, making memorable moments to remain relevant, and in-ring psychology to keep people tuned and talk about for years to come. There are hundreds of favorite wrestlers in this decade, but I’m only including twenty different wrestlers based on one thing; greatness. By professional wrestling standards, greatness isn’t based on how good your gymnastics are (cough… cough… indie smartmarks), it’s based on the memorable moments that gets everyone talking about for many years to come. To get your audience continously bring up those moments, you need to have a great number of people knowing of those moments in time – whether if it’s winning the promotion’s most prestigious championship, making match of the night, creating feuds to get fans interesting, or have a segment that get people realize that there’s more to wrestling than workrates. What we’re judging here is the ammount of accomplishments during a wrestlers time in January 1st, 1990 to December 31st, 1999. Charisma, in-ring psychology, appearance, becoming a big selling draw, and accomplishments is what creates a true star, but we’re looking at those dates at what made wrestling as a whole truly special.

Top 20 Wrestling Pay Per Views of the 1990s

We’re lucky that we have the internet and streaming media now because televion cable and pay per view providers were the only way to watch the competition between WCW, WWF, and ECW in 90s North America. Though Streaming services are absolutely convenient, it took the magic away. Vince McMahon, Eric Bischoff, and Paul Heyman were absolutely fierce about keeping their pormotions alive. However the true experience of revisiting 1990s wrestling is how it is the most transformative period in wrestling. Not only was it the end of the Gold Age of Wrestling (1984 – 1992) but we had the dark age of wrestling with New Generation Era and WCW-Hogan era (1993-1996), and we also had a renaissance with the Attitude Era and NWO era (1996 – 1999). Both WCW, WWF, and ECW would ever get noticed if they didn’t take influence from Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling’s hardcore wrestling style, All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling’s gender alternative, or All Japan Pro Wrestling & New Japan Pro Wrestling’s invasion angle. Because wrestling fans from the 1980s already grew up, wrestling had to do the same as well. There’s no wonder why many of us wrestling fans look fondly with this era. Even taking off our nostalgia glass, this period of wrestling is so much better than what we have now. We didn’t rely on just spotfests or high flying gymnastics, we had grappling, starpower, epic moments, and storylines to not only help build our characters but also the business as a whole. As a wrestling historian, I had absolutly fun going back and top a Top 10 Best shows of each year of the 1990s decade. It’s because lost so much today that back thin had everything. If I could go back and relive all of these moments I would. After experiencing almost earything that ’90s wrestling offered, what was the best night of wrestling in from 1990 – 1999? 

Top 10 Wrestling Pay Per Views of 1995

Here’s a question, is 1995 in Professional Wrestling really that bad? (Is the pope Catholic?) Of course it’s has been debaded as one of the worst years of professional wrestling. It’s bad enought that 1993 – 1994 had a lot of inconsistency, but this is the pit when it comes to the qaulity of wrestling, characters, and storylines (meaning not good at all). This is the era where booking that’s meant to appeal to children has gone way too far. None of these childish characters could ever get over becasue nobody wanted to see this awful stories being told nor did they had any attachment to the cringiest of characters. This was the year where the competition between WWF & WCW started to do monthly Pay Per Views because they wanted to put their stars into more action hoping that they’ll gain more credibility. Who really wanted to even pay for any of these shows if they were going to oversaturate this piss-poor quality of “sports entertainment.” The Kliq were in sufferable with thier bullying and being the boss’s ear that they couldn’t get save themselves in the television ratings or sell as many tickets. It’s no wonder why Diesel is seen as the worst WWF Champion in history. Nearly everything he’s done during his reign as the company’s top champion has been putrid. And all of these midcard characters from 1993 – 1994 and debuting characters in 1995 were just trash. Minotaurs, evil pirates, , magicians who stole underwear (seriously),dentists, plumbers, and more. It was the last gasp of the previous era and it went out kicking and screaming. WCW was equaly as bad if not worse for creating the Dungeon of Doom faction who’s only purpose was to destory Hulk Hogan. You couldn’t get any more phony than this. This was when any illusion of pro wrestling being real turned out to be fake after all and they didn’t even try to make it real. Hulk Hogan made the second half of 1994 for WCW insufferable and it got worse in 1995. Do you see why 1995 is that bad of a year in wrestling? It was so hard to find good wrestling this year. But, like every bad year, there has to be merits, right? Well that’s where thetoplister comes in to show you what was actually good in the worst year in wrestling. Be surprised to see that there are some good stuff in this mountain shitpile.

The Year 1995 Wrestling Rewards

• Wrestler of 1995: Hayabusa
• Underrated Wrestler of 1995: Hakushi / Jinsei Shinzaki
• Feud of 1995: Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer
• Wrestling Match of 1995: Atsushi Onita vs. Hayabusa – Exploding Barbed Wire Cage Bomb Deathmatch – FMW 6th Anniversary Show
• Wrestling Promotion of 1995: Extreme Championship Wrestling

Top 10 Years of the 1990s

There’s something about the 1990s that some of us refuses to let go. Perhaps a lot of things nowadays are so mundane or hard on us that we want to reflect on the golden years. Many of us, 90s kids, fully appreciated this decade for being so fun and a bunch of stuff is happening all at once that it would make a historian sweat researching about it. Weather if it’s the video games, the movies, comic books, television programs, the music, or any other releases, we still go back to the last decade before we’ve entered the 21st Century. Sometimes whenever we encounter something that was released in the 1990s, I stumble to look at the back of the object and see what year was it released. I find it important to me to know that sort of information because I some of them as a historical artifact; it’s more significant to me than you realize. That’s the reason why I’m composing the top 10 years of the 1990s based on releases and historical significance. Since none of us can remember almost everything from every year, I’m only judging each year on how much fun they were to many of us. Releases are important because we’re looking at what kept us interested when we were living in those 365 days and the historical significance is more important because we need to have something that represents not only that year but also the whole decade as well. Admittedly I’m only focusing at first world countries but that’s the main focus here. No decade is perfect and neither is there a “perfect” year, so I can’t speak for everybody on that. However, I can still reflect on how much fun everyone is having at the time so what’s what I’m looking at in my final top 10 list of the 1990s.

Top 10 Albums of 1995

Number 10.  –  Liquid Swords – GZA

In the 90’s the Wu-Tang Clan was the biggest thing going on in the hip hop world. These guys were everywhere.  They rushed onto the scene as a crew, but after that they played a game of divide and conquer as everybody got busy with their solo albums. In 1995 GZA was ready to bless the world with Liquid Swords, which was actually his second solo album, but his first as a member of the Wu. Compared to the hip hop that gets played on television or the radio, this sounds absolutely nothing like it at all. Liquid Swords is so unique and different, that it transcends hip hop. This record opened my eyes (or ears) to what a hip hop record can sound like and this shows you can achieve when you work outside its boundaries. Not only is this is a great achievement in hip hop, but also in music in general. There is a beautiful display of great lyricism from GZA. Even the mellow delivery of his rhymes are really a great touch and perfectly suits the music. Also, got to love the guest appearances from the other members of the Wu.  But what I love about this record is the fantastic production from RZA. This is a very low key, and sparse sounding album. Even though a lot of the songs are sparse sounding, it’s somehow still has a really strong ominous atmosphere and it really keeps building up as the songs progress. The thing I love about Liquid Swords is that I feel truly immersed in the music from start to finish just like any other classic album. It is atmospheric, but in the most subtle way and any record that is able to do that is genius to me. If you have never listened to hip hop record and already have a preconceived notion of what hip hop sounds like, think again. Liquid Swords will definitely surprise you and make you regret not delving into the genre before.