You can have a negative approach to World Championship Wrestling and their long series of ups and downs, but you cannot neglect that the up for WCW were all thanks to the efforts of their wrestlers. Journalists and fanboys of a promotion forgets that it’s not the company or promotion that we’re a fan of, but instead the wrestlers in the roster. It’s very similar that a video game console is not great without the video games made for the machine. Though a promotion does set up matches and use their gimmicks to make a different feel and story to tell, the wrestlers themselves are responsible deliver what the people came to see. WCW had a history of getting the best wrestlers in their roster. All of them kept competing for the top spot and these ten wrestlers did all they could from Jim Crockett’s dying days in the late-80s all the way to WCW’s death in March 2001. That’s what I admire most about WCW is that you have a collection of the best wrestlers, what do you do with them? Why not go all out with what you have? Thanks to the finacial backing of Ted Turner, WCW was able to make the most with the roster that they got. Whenever Vince McMahon fucks up with his booking, WCW is always a great alternative. In fact, many wrestlers had a much better time in WCW than WWE considering that wrestlers mostly had creative control while McMahon’s totalitarian approach is to control wrestling. There was definetly more freedom in WCW for top stars while smaller guy were doomed to be stuck in the undercard. Sure there was no motivation to build their Cruiserweights or young talent who were too green to take the spotlight. The fact that star-power and strong storylines is what makes audiences tune in (an not spotfests) tells you why WCW is still remembered to this very day. Since we’re only selecting ten wrestlers that competed in World Championship Wrestling, who really is the best performer that set foot in the WCW roster and who put in the most effort in making the best matches? That’s why you came to see right? As the last post about WCW, I want to dedicate this article to the men and women that kept that company alive and make it all worth remembering.
Continue reading Top 10 World Championship Wrestling Wrestlers
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.
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.
While the rest of pop culture in first world countries were having a drastic change (thanks to Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit) the wrestling world still felt as 1980s as ever. To be honest 1991 in wrestling was nearly identical as 1990’s wrestling for all companies. The only big difference is that WCW lost Ric Flair because he was fed up with Jim Heard’s mismanagement and try to make him “The Gladiator.” He save his own career in moving to the WWF where Vince McMahon treated him with respect. However WCW was able to move on without Ric Flair because they had a stacked roster and made Big Van Vader the top heel of the company where few wrestlers were able to withstand his strikes. Likewise, WCW and NWA parted ways and WCW was able to be on its own as a wrestling promotion. This still is the Golden Age of Wrestling where Hulkamania was still relevant in the world of wrestling, but many of the WWF’s undercard rose to the ranks. Undertaker had a solid push to the WWF championship by beating Hulk Hogan. Bret Hart broke out to be a promising singles star. And a lot of accomplishments were being made. Of course we can’t discuss about WWF without their patriotism of supporting the United States for the Gulf War and make SGT. Slaugther a heel that became an Iraqi sympathizer. That’s when so many wrestling fans turned away from wrestling becasue it struct too close to home for many. 1991 was a mixed bag year but what a year it has been. Let’s see what was the best night in wrestling for the year 1991
It has been a while since thetoplister has done a list of each and every year of a product that we care about. We’ve done it with video games, movies, and albums. I think it’s time to do it again with our favorite subject matter – proffessional wrestling. Admittingly, we’ve recently done a 
There has to come a time where a site that talks about wrestling has to make a good argument to who’s the greatest wrestler of all time. There just wouldn’t be wrestling without the wrestlers, but who really deserves all the praise? Every wrestling fan has their own personal favorite wrestling that they mark out to, so thetoplister has to make a credible pick in deciding who really is the best grappler/performer in professional wrestling. Here on thetoplister, we do really care about giving so many people recommendations, but it has to be the best recommendation, not the most popular one. Otherwise, having Hulk Hogan, The Rock, John Cena, Brock Lesnar, and Shawn Michaels would have been too predictable to the point where we’re being dishonest. When you’ve been wrestling as long as we have (watching so many different promotions and all) you should know that there are better out there. So what really is the criteria to be an all-time great wrestler? Here are your criteria.
![Amazon.com: WWF: Backlash 1999 [VHS]: Steve Austin, Dwayne Johnson ...](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71XMNQ7BCHL._AC_SY445_.gif)
Like I said in my worst PPVs list, that it’s tiring for bookers to make a pay per view on a monthly basis. You have to somehow keep fan interest from weighing out and you don’t want to give everything unless it’s your biggest show of the year. So how about the wrestling shows that aren’t the promotion’s big ones but somehow ended up being better than anyone expected? With so many wrestling shows released, where do we begin? When you ask your average joe, they’ll usually pick a random show that they grew nostalgic for but does not hold up. Other cases, they’re shows that didn’t deliver the goods because their storylines had to be on-going after this show. Rarely does a promoter want to end an on-going storyline in the middle of the schedule unless something better is planned ahead. And even if it was a promotion’s big show, there are some who just do not talk about the flagship show. Too often do was see other shows overshadowing some of the good ones that it goes over wrestling fans’ heads. And that’s why you’re all here today. You want to see wrestling shows that nobody talks about and you want to exercise your variety. I’m here to let you know that thetoplister got you covered with welled booked cards that deserve your attention.
If you can go out on the street and tell anyone about any wrestler that’s currently in any wrestling organization, chances are they won’t even know who you’re talking about. However, if you instead talk about wrestlers that came from the 1980s to the early-1990s, chances are, people would recognize who you’re talking about. Just what is it that makes these wrestlers more iconic and recognizable than the wrestlers of today? How about the fact that each of them had a diversity of characters that felt bigger than life itself. Many of these wrestlers are the image and embodiment of professional wrestling and still to this very day we talk about each of their legacies. Even WWE knows the impact that these wrestlers gave us for making wrestling as big as it is today. We call this the Golden Age of Wrestling because WCW and WWF were in big rivalry with each other and they did almost everything to beat the competition. Dusty Rhodes created the Super Bowl of Pro Wrestling called StarCade in 1983 and Vince McMahon wanted to make a bigger event calling it Wrestlemania. Since then, wrestling started to deliver bigger events like The Big Four PPV’s and many more. This was the first time professional wrestling went on the mainstream by getting celebrity involvement (Cindi Loper, Muhammad Ali, Mr. T, etc.) and also putting wrestlers in public appearances outside of the ring and backstage area. Each of these wrestlers really felt like real-life superheroes and it drew huge attendance records and television ratings. It’s all thanks to these wrestlers that made wrestling huge as it once was and it’s time for me to pay respects to ten of my favorite wrestlers of the Golden Age of Wrestling (from 1983 – 1991).
I still believe that following the WWF’s chronology from Wrestlemania 17 all the way to Wrestlemania 18 was a very disappointing time for wrestling. The WWF bought WCW & ECW and started an invasion angle, but they screwed the whole long awaited angle up by making the Alliance (WCW & ECW) faction to be a bunch of pushovers, WWF superstars started joining sides with the Alliance, many of the top WCW stars like Ric Flair, nWo, Sting, and the rest was not in the roster till the Invasion angle was over at Survivor Series, and the whole storyline was nothing more than another McMahon-family feud, like we haven’t had enough of those already! Wrestlemania 18 is like Wrestlemania 8, it’s a big show that had a big missed opportunity. You should have made the Invasion angle last till this Wrestlemania so we could have had nWo, Ric Flair, and all the other WCW included in this finale. Instead we just had nWo come in as another Invaders now challenging the WWF’s two top stars. The highlight for this show is having some of WCW’s top stars vs WWF’s top stars; Undertaker vs. Ric Flair, Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. nWo member Razor Ramon (I’ll never call him Scott Hall) and The Rock is challenging nWo leader Hollywood Hogan. 
Kurt Angle vs. Kane – This is where the WWF just doesn’t care anymore about their talent at the time. Because you have two of the biggest and most important wrestlers in the WWF and what you did with both of them is not to have a story and not to deliver anything memorable. Sure it was entertaining to see Kurt Angle getting his ass handed to the Big Red Machine, but this is seriously the middle of the road for both of these men’s careers. We’re talking about Kane, the man who won the best Hardcore Championship match in last year’s Wrestlemania and had the most elimination in Royal Rumble 2001, and Kurt Angle who won the WWF Championship many times and is an Olympic Gold Medalist, and this is what you give us? We’ve seen these two face off many times before on Raw and Smackdown, and this match is just felt like nothing. All Kurt did was call for a challenge and Kane pops in and started this match. Kane tried to go for a Chokeslam but Angle reversed it into a roll-up and with the ropes as leverage, Angle won the match. For two Wrestlemanias in a row, Kurt Angle won by a cheap victory. This match is not that much different from their previous encounters, but it’s biggest crime is that it’s in Wrestlemania we’re talking about!
The Undertaker vs. Ric Flair – No Holds Bared Match – After having to deal with four bad matches, we finally got ourselves a Wrestlemania quality match in this card. Taker wants revenge on Ric Flair for loosing from his WWF Title shot, and Taker made it personal by beating up Flair’s son and a member of the four horsemen Arn Anderson. This was a very personal match between the two wanted a brutal fight and that’s what we got here! Ric Flair didn’t have a Wrestlemania appearance since Wrestlemania 8 with Randy Savage, this match with Undertaker was just a good (still can’t decide which is better). Flair and Undertaker captivated throughout their hard-hitting battle. Both performers seemed to give everything of themselves. They tapped into their barbaric sides, tearing at each other’s faces, cutting each other open. A supremely aggressive Flair bashed Undertaker with a steel pipe from The Deadman’s motorcycle. His head bloodied, Flair remained defiant and fearless. At certain moments, it seemed like the veteran would use his wile and cheap tactics to get the upset victory. Even with the help of an Arn Anderson spinebuster, though, Flair couldn’t finish the job. This match almost ended in a disastrous finish when Flair refused to position himself for the Powerbomb (I’m still not calling it the Last Ride) then Undertaker decides to use his old Tombstone Piledriver for the win (much better finish). This was a fantastic comeback for Flair and Undertaker brought him to his limits only to show that he’s so much superior. It sure shows that age doesn’t matter doing a very well hardcore-style match.
Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Scott Hall (with Kevin Nash) – Now this is a tough decision to make because everyone knows that Stone Cold and the Rock are two the biggest stars in the WWF, and let’s be honest here. Either one of those men could either challenge Hulk Hogan, but the other had to face Razor Ramon and Diesel (I’m a New Generation fan so I’m calling them that). I know every Stone Cold fan always wished for Hogan vs. Austin at a Wrestlemania event and I do agree that it’s something to be desired. But for all of you marks that think that this match was unnecessary, you guys have to get your heads out of your asses and remember Razor Ramon! He’s was the biggest star of the WWF in one point in time and before he move to WCW, he could have been WWF Champion. Ramon, Hogan, and Nash were hot shit in WCW forming the fucking nWo; a faction that kicked the WWF’s ratings for over 2 years! How is Razor Ramon not credible to take on Stone Cold? He beat Shawn Michaels in the Ladder match in Wrestlemania X and he was more than able to take on anyone at that age. I always wanted to see what it was like to have Stone Cold brawl with nWo and we had that many times on Raw (before and after this show) and here in Wrestlemania, it was actually fucking epic! This is something that Stone Cold needed in his Wrestlemania moment where he brawl Razor and Diesel for a match that was supposed to be one-on-one, it was a hell of a brawl! You know what? I can argue that this is some of the best brawls that I’ve ever seen in a Wrestlemania that didn’t involve blood, weapons, or ultra violence to show how serious this match is. Kevin Nash was so into this fight that he not only interfered multiple times in this match, but he also took out many referees and beat down Austin like a dog, while Austin fights back the both of them. Did all of you guys forgot how huge all three of these men in this match were before and during this Wrestlemania? In case if you forgot, this is the match where Stone Cold Steve Austin has given the best Stunner of all time!!
The Rock vs. Hollywood Hogan – Let’s be honest here, it was either Austin or Rock that was actually going to face Hogan at Wrestlemania, but because of the infamous heel turn at the end of Wrestlemania 17 and joining the Alliance during the Invasion angle, it cost Austin a whole lot of popularity. The Rock somehow took Austin’s place as the biggest star of the company and it’s a good reason why he’s facing Hulk Hogan in this Wrestlemania. Face it, Hogan and the Rock were really made for each other, and this is some of the best showmanship wrestling that I’ve ever seen. We all know both of these guy’s moves and all we ever want is to see them finally put in the grandest stage of them all. And that’s exactly what we got! As much as I like to bash Hogan for all the mistakes that he has made, there is no arguing the star power that he has that all the other wrestlers wishes. We never imagined that Hulk Hogan would ever make another Wrestlemania headline but after bringing in the nWo and 
Let’s face it, if a match in this card didn’t involve a star that came from WCW, it’s not worth mentioning. It’s only the nWo and Ric Flair matches that actually did tell us a great story and delivered great performances while the writers and bookers forgot to give a shit about the rest of the mid-card. And speaking of which, how the fuck was Hogan vs. The Rock not the main event? The Triple H vs. Jericho main event was one of, if not, the most forgettable Wrestlemania main event of all time! They’ve tried to hammer down Triple H down our throats in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is the same mistake since 
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