RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Sports and Wrestling Pulse Wrestling's Top 100 of the Modern Era

Let's face it, Top X Lists are a cliche. They're rather overdone in wrestling, in particular. After all, PWI puts out a list every year five times this size. However, if there's anyone on Inside Pulse who can turn a cliche on its ear and make it work in a new and different way, it's Mistah Joshua Grutman.

In the Super-Secret Writers' Forum, he came up with an interesting twist on creating a Top 100 list. Everyone else recognized the merits and jumped on the idea. We only had a few ground rules for doing this:

1) The list would comprise wrestlers from 1980 to present, under the presumption that none of us were really watching wrestling on a heavy basis prior to 1980. This includes me; I was watching during the 1970s, but I don't really consider myself becoming a true wrestling fan until 1982.

1a) Wrestlers who began their careers before 1980 would have their accomplishments post-1980 weighted more heavily.

2) Wrestlers would be judged on their accomplishments in the United States and Canada only. Gordi Whitelaw will be leading the way to help us create a complementary list of "international" wrestlers, giving us his guidance on the myriad meanderings of puroresu. David Brashear will assist us in deciphering the contributions of luchadores. Iain Burnside and Danny Wallace will be giving us tips on European wrestlers.

3) Wrestlers will be judged only on their accomplishments as single performers and what they brought to various tag teams and stables. Tag teams themselves are not included. Aaron Glazer and myself will be in the lead to create a complementary list of tag teams.

4) Voting would be done on this basis: we would each list our Top Ten in order, and points would be assigned based on position on each of our lists: 10 for first, 9 for second, and so on. Once voting was complete, the points would be tabulated and the top ten point-getters would be our Top 10. Then, we would repeat the process to get #s 11-20, moving up those on our individual ballots who didn't make the Top 10 and substituting new choices at the bottom of our ballots for those who did. We repeated this process for ten rounds of voting until we obtained a Top 100. And, no, despite the efforts of some people (*coughFingerscough*), the ECW World Heavyweight Champion that preceded Johnny Nitro did not make the list.

100. HOMICIDE

Real Name - Nelson Erazo
Aliases - The Notorious 187; The Latin Terror
Hometown - Brooklyn, New York
Debuted - March 5th, 1993
Titles Held - NWA World Tag Team, ROH World
Other Accomplishments - ROH MVP in 2003; slap to the
side of the head caused Steve Corino to permanently lose most of his
hearing in his left ear; TNA Match of the Year in 2006 for
LAX's Ultimate X against A.J. Styles & Christopher Daniels

Nelson Erazo, better known to fans around the world as Homicide, has been an independent wrestling mainstay since 1993. While he competed regularly throughout the 1990s with his stiff, gangsta gimmick, his most notable contribution to the independent scene in the decade came via his training school, The Doghouse. The Doghouse produced 22 graduates, notably Low Ki, perhaps (unfortunately) better known as Senshi in TNA and several former ROH wrestlers such as Dan Maff and Monsta Mack.

Homicide, with his style which is a mix of Terry Funk and Satoshi Kojima with a splash of lucha libre, first began gaining attention in Jersey All Pro Wrestling along with partner Boogalou with whom he formed the Natural Born Sinners. The JAPW work lead the then fledgling Ring of Honor to notice The Natural Born Sinners who became members of the ROH roster with its very first show.

The team was quite dominant in ROH until Boogalou jumped ship to join XPW, while Homicide stuck it out with Ring of Honor. This move would prove to be the best of Homicide's career as he went from a member of a mildly over tag team to a major singles threat over night. As a singles wrestler Homicide's natural charisma and in ring talent allowed him to immediately get over with the notoriously hard to please ROH fanbase. Homicide got so over, in fact, that when the Reborn Era kicked off, Homicide became one of ROH's major faces.

The Reborn Era of Ring of Honor began because TNA pulled all shared talent from ROH in the wake of the Rob Feinstein controversy, which we will not get into here. This controversy lead to ROH leaning more heavily on developing it's own stars, since they could no longer rely on TNA mainstays AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. Two major stars tend to get credit for the success of the Reborn Era because they have gone on to have huge success in bigger companies: Samoa Joe and CM Punk. No less important, and in fact the third major pillar of the Reborn Era, was Homicide. As the company's major heel he made life miserable for Samoa Joe, throwing a fireball in his face and disrespected the incredibly important Ring of Honor title by stealing it after Joe and Punk had an hour draw. This was only the beginning of the reign of the heel Homicide as he formed the viscous faction The Rottweilers and warred with nearly every face on the roster whether Bryan Danielson in their Best of 5 series or his brutal confrontations with Colt Cabana where he attempted to murder Colt, who he considered soft. Homicide was perhaps the most effective heel in ROH's formative years.

Come 2006 Ring of Honor, the company in which 'Cide made his name, was fighting for survival against CZW and lacking in manpower and ruthlessness against the hardcore company. In the company's darkest hour, Homicide saved Ring of Honor during cage of death, proving once again that he was a fabulous hardcore and technical wrestler. This lead to Homicide as a face and the Road of Homicide, the storyline that dominated the second half of Ring of Honor's best year ever in which they swept every major publication's promotion of the year balloting. Homicide vowed to either win the Ring of Honor title, dethroning arch-nemesis Bryan Danielson in the process, or leave ROH for good. Despite many roadblocks placed by the champion and Jim Cornette, the commissioner, Homicide was able to prevail on the year's very last show, cementing himself as a ROH icon and a MVP for the company in the year of it's greatest growth.

While this was going on, TNA noticed Homicide's skill and signed him to a contract. Despite lackluster early results, Homicide joined up with the stable LAX to become the hottest homegrown (and I use that term begrudgingly) TNA property since the rise of Samoa Joe. Homicide teamed with Hernandez, a huge power wrestler who lacks skill in the ring and tires fast, and Konnan, an aging but impressive mouthpiece to wreak havok on the TNA tag scene, feuding with teams like America's Most Wanted and Team 3-D. Although it takes a whole team to be successful, it is hard to imagine how far that team could have gone without Homicide carrying it in ring, especially in the team making feud against AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels.

Currently, Homicide and LAX are still wreaking havoc on TNA and looking for another title run against Team 3-D.

Homicide uses a brilliant blend of brawling, strong style grappling, old school heel antics and lucha libre to be one of the best and most underrated wrestlers on the planet. If not for his great work, ROH might not exist today past the Reborn Era and certainly the company would look much different without his historic run in 2006. Adding in that he is a part of one of the best tag teams in the world currently and completely carries the in ring portions of their matches and you have Homicide, our number 100 entry in the Top 100 American Wrestlers of the Modern Era.

99. STEVE WILLIAMS

Aliases - Dr. Death
Hometown - Norman, Oklahoma
Debuted - 1982
Titles Held - AJPW Triple Crown; WCW World Tag
Team; NWA World Tag Team
Other Accomplishments - NCAA runner-up in 1982;
1985's Most Improved Wrestler award from both Pro-Wrestling
Illustrated and the Wrestling Observer; won the $50,000 UWF
Challenge Cup in 1986; 1992's Tag Team of the Year from both
PWI and W-O alongside Terry Gordy

Steve "Dr. Death" Williams wrestled most of his greatest matches in Japan. His reputation in the US and Canada was very badly damaged by his role in the disastrously ill-fated Brawl for All fiasco. Still, he richly deserves to be listed among the top 100 US Pro Wrestlers of the modern era.

A legit tough guy, Williams was an All American wrestler and football player at the University of Oklahoma. In 1982, his senior year, he lost in the NCAA wrestling finals to Bruce Baumgartner by a score of 4-3. Baumgartner would go on to compete in the 1984 Olympics and capture the gold medal in wrestling.

After having a cup of coffee in the USFL, Williams was recruited and trained by the legendary pro wrestling promoter "Cowboy" Bill Watts. Watts was also a former amateur wrestler and pro football player, and he must have seen something of himself in the similarly barrel-chested and mean-looking "Dr. Death." Williams was ideally suited to wrestling the athletically credible style that was the hallmark of Watts' Mid-South/UWF promotion.

He quickly became one of the best wrestlers and top stars in the territory, forming a championship tag team with Ted DiBiase. On July 11, 1987, he pinned Big Bubba Rogers to win the UWF heavyweight title.

The UWF years were definitely Williams' best as a wrestler outside of Japan. The following matches are among the many that are worth going out of your way to see:

Texas Tornado Match: Ted DiBiase & "Dr. Death" Steve Williams vs. Hacksaw Duggan & Terry Gordy (1/21/85)
Mid-South Tag Titles: Rock n Roll Express (Robert Gibson & Ricky Morton) © vs. Ted DiBiase & "Dr. Death" Steve Williams (5/3/85)
Ted DiBiase & "Dr. Death" Steve Williams vs. The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers) (6/5/85)
Steve Williams & Ted DiBiase v Jake Roberts & Nord The Barbarian (Cage Match) - 08/09/85
Ted DiBiase & "Dr. Death" Steve Williams vs. The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers) (9/25/85)
Steve Williams vs. Rick Steiner (UWF Title Tournament- 5/30/1986)
Steve Williams vs. Terry Gordy (UWF Title Tournament- 5/30/1986)
Steve Williams vs. Dick Murdoch (6/13/1987)

In late 1987, Jim Crockett bought out Bill Watts. Williams moved to the NWA, where he became a member of the Varsity Club and feuded with the Road Warriors.

From 1989 through 1993, Williams joined up with Terry Gordy to form one of the greatest tag teams of all time, The Miracle Violence Combination. They dominated the tag scene in All Japan, and also had a brief but exciting run in WCW in 1992, where they had a couple of great matches against The Steiner Brothers, most notably at Clash XIX (6/16/92) as part of the NWA Tag Title Tourney.

Williams then went back to Japan, where he continued to wrestle in classic matches that didn't count for consideration when putting this list together.

In 1998, he was brought into the WWF to participate in the Brawl for All, a shoot tournament that Williams was expected to dominate. Instead, he was knocked out by Bart Gunn, which effectively ended his WWF push before it had begun.

The following year, he went back to WCW where he was wildly misused as part of a pathetic attempt to make fun of Jim Ross. The less said about that, the better.

Successfully recovered from a battle with advanced throat cancer, Williams has served as a trainer and special referee for the WWE in recent years. The autobiographical How Dr. Death Became Dr. Life details his inspirational story.

98. ADRIAN STREET

Aliases - "Exotic"
Hometown - Brynmawr, Wales
Debuted - 1957
Titles Held - NWA Southeast Heavyweight; NWA Americas
Heavyweight; NWA Florida Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments - runs the Skull Krushers Wrestling
School in Gulf Breeze, Florida; created Mick Foley's Dude Love
costume

As a young man growing up in Wales, Adrian Street was blessed with a good-looking, muscular body, a bantam dynamo at only 5' 7". Rather than be trapped into a blue-collar, working-class existence, he decided to capitalize on his best asset. He began posing for the cream of British physique photographers while still a young teenager, becoming a very popular model. Knowing that the lifespan of a popular model was so short, though, Street tried to figure out something to do after his modeling days were over. He came up with a brainstorm that helped create one of wrestling's longest-lasting character archetypes.

The legend of Gorgeous George was known to wrestling fans all over the world by that point. A man behaving in an overtly feminine fashion, obsessed with his looks more than any "real" man should be, could draw heel heat from typical wrestling crowds. Street, although heterosexual, was immersed in the homoerotic culture of physique photography, where the photographers had no compunction whatsoever about making moves on their models and a good portion of the models were hustler and gay-for-pay types (of course, none of them would admit to anything happening between them, especially in Britain, where homosexual activity could still be punished by prison at the time he was modeling). Street claims that he didn't start the character until he was established in wrestling, but it always had to have been at the back of his mind. It just needed a push forward, and Street claims that it was the rough British audiences calling him a fairy, among other things, that gave him that push. If that's what they wanted, he figured, that's what they'll get.

He actually entered pro wrestling at the age of 17, anticipating other adolescent British wrestlers who'd follow in his footsteps (Regal, Taylor, Finlay, etc.). Throughout the 1960s, he was one of the most popular wrestlers in the British Isles, and developed his character further, his ring dress becoming more and more outre. Eventually, he determined that he could be a success in the largest market for pro wrestling, moving to the United States. He targeted the American south and southeast, where wrestling seemed to be most popular and where the prevailing blue-collar, macho culture would ensure the success of his gimmick. He wore his hair long at a time when it was a provocation to Southern audiences, and picked up a manager. Miss Linda established a naming convention for female valets that continues to this day. The two also started the tradition of husband-and-wife wrestler/valet teams after they married, although to the audiences, Miss Linda was only Street's valet. Besides, he couldn't have had any interest in her in, well, you know, that way, because he was, well, you know...hey, look at the way he dressed, and he wears make-up, and...you can figure out the rest.

At the beginning of our ranking period, 1980, Street was on the verge of turning 40, yet he was still on top of his game. He'd already turned the sleeper hold into a credible finisher. He traveled from federation to federation throughout the south and southeast, amazing the still-markish audiences at every turn. He acted like a prissy bitch during his entrances, but when the bell rang, he could wrestle with the best of them. His most popular nickname was "Exotic", and he always lived up to that. He fused European wrestling moves with good-old-fashioned American brawling, creating a whole new style which caught on with audiences and other wrestlers. When wrestlers went into the ring with him, they knew he'd carry them to a great match and make them look good.

He'd end up having short title runs in most of the feds where he worked, and he was always a key contributor to each of them. He was a good-luck charm to feds; they always seemed to be at their peak when Street was involved with them. He was in Florida in the late 70s and early 80s when it was the hottest fed in the country. In Memphis, he not only helped Jerry Lawler improve, but he mentored a young Austin Idol. His time in Mid-South helped Cowboy Bill's territory grow (and got Street on television on a regular basis). His extended time in Ron Fuller's Southeast Championship Wrestling (later Continental) was fruitful, as he hooked up again with Idol to provide audiences with excitement. In the early 80s, he even branched out from the southeast, spending some time in Los Angeles, where a young Chris Adams learned under him. It was during that period that he even branched into the movies, playing a role in Quest For Fire.

As age finally got to him, he started to work his way out of in-ring competition, although he kept his physique and his hair. He and Miss Linda opened a school in Florida, still a popular training place today. He's established a second career as a couturier to wrestlers and as an advisor. Wrestlers know that Street is always there to help them, whether it be with a new outfit or a new image. When Dustin Runnels was in the process of creating Goldust, he turned to Street for wardrobe, make-up, and behavior tips. Without Street, Dustin would never have established his most popular and lasting character. When Rico Constantino wanted to do a variation on Street's character, he went to Street to get permission. He not only got permission, he got key tips, not only in how to behave and dress, but to do things like call Jackie Gayda "Miss Jackie", to make the tribute complete.

Street has survived a bout with lung cancer (caused, he said, by second-hand smoke). Unfortunately, the chemotherapy cost him his hair for a while. It's since grown back (mostly), and Street says that if they want him to compete today, even at the age of 66, he can go in the ring and teach some youngster a lesson or two. That's what a true legend, true influence, and true credit to the industry is, and that's why he's in our Top 100.

Adrian Street's official website is at BizareBazzar.com.

97. PAUL LONDON

Aliases - El Gran Luchadore
Hometown - Austin, Texas
Debuted - 1999
Titles Held - WWE Tag Team; WWE Cruiserweight
Other Accomplishments - won ECWA Super 8 Tournament in
2003; graduate of Shawn Michaels' Texas Wrestling Academy;
voted Most Underrated Wrestler by Wrestling Observer in 2004

Paul London got his start in the wrestling business in 1999 by training with Shawn Michaels' Texas Wrestling Academy. He was among a solid crop of graduates that included Michael Shane, Bryan Danielson, Lance Cade, his future partner Spanky and others.

He got his first big break in 2002 by working in Ring of Honor, usually against his fellow TWA alum like Shane and Danielson. It was in ROH where he really developed his high-flying daredevil style and had match of the year candidates with Danielson and a send-off match with Samoa Joe. His reckless style was appreciated by the ROH faithful and they would chant "please don't die" during his better matches as a way to show their appreciation.

In 2003 London won the prestigious ECWA Super 8 tournament, then had a cup of coffee with NWA-TNA, including a X-Division Title match at the TNA one year anniversary show. By August 2003, London had signed with WWE and was sent to Ohio Valley.

He made his first real appearance on WWE television in October 2003 as a whipping boy for Brock Lesnar. By the end of the year he and old pal Spanky were a regular team, usually featured on Velocity. Shortly into 2004 Spanky left the company and London was paired with Billy Kidman, remaining the same position on the card. It wasn't until July 2004 when they upset The Dudley Boyz for the WWE Tag Championship that London's stock would rise in the company. Kidman and London were very reminiscent of the old Strike Force, but unfortunately their reign wouldn't last long. Kidman would legit injure Chavo Guerrero in a match with a Shooting Star Press, leading to the subsequent banning of the SSP and an angle where Kidman became hesitant to do the move. The pair dropped the belts to Rene Dupree and Kenzo Suzuki in September after Kidman became self conscious of doing the SSP and then walked out on London. London and Kidman then had a brief feud that saw Kidman come out on top so London could take time off to fix his broken nose.

He returned in December 2004 as essentially a cruiserweight jobber. He won the Cruiserweight Title in a battle royal in March 2005 and feuded with former champion Chavo Guerrero. When he complained to Vince McMahon backstage about the use of high risk moves he found his push decreased and quickly dropped the Cruiserweight Title to Nunzio.

By September 2005 Spanky, now using his real name Brian Kendrick, had returned to the company and the pair reunited as a low card team. In the spring of 2006 the pair would receive a push, culminating in a WWE Tag Title win over MNM at Judgment Day.

London and Kendrick embarked on an almost year-long run as Tag Champions, feuding with teams like the Pit Bulls, KC James/Aaron Stevens and William Regal/Dave Taylor. Their crowning achievement as Champions was their win the four team ladder match at Armageddon that saw them beat The Hardyz, MNM and Taylor/Regal in the match that saw Joey Mercury's face smashed. They spent most of the spring of 2007 running against Deuce and Domino and eventually dropped the belts to D & D in April 2007.

Paul London was chosen for the Top 100 because of his amazing athletic talent and aerial ability. He had legitimate match of the year candidates in the early days of Ring of Honor with other top athletes like Bryan Danielson and Samoa Joe and has since cemented his mark as a top professional wrestler through his cruiserweight battles with men like Kidman and Akio in the WWE and his near year-long Tag Championship reign with friend Brian Kendrick. The team has gone 5-0 on PPV broadcasts and are currently listed as the fourth longest reigning Tag Champions in WWE history.

London is currently teaming still with Kendrick but it is uncertain whether the team with remain together and go after the tag belts again or whether the loss will cause a split between the pair.

96. DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE

Real Name - Page Joe Falkinburg
Aliases - Handsome Dallas Page
Hometown - Point Pleasant, New Jersey
Debuted - 1988
Titles Held - WCW World; WCW United States;
WCW Tag Team; WCW Television; WWE World Tag Team;
WWE European
Other Accomplishments - WCW Lord of the Ring in 1995;
WCW BattleBowl in 1996; WCW MTV Tournament in 1999

Diamond Dallas Page is probably the least likely major company world champion of the past 3 decades (excluding celebrity and booker champions). He first burst on to the scene as the driver of Greg Valentine and Honky Tonk Man's pink Cadillac at Wrestlemania VI. Many people who did not recognize him at the time would later point out this fact whenever they were asked to come up with a cool wrestling trivia question.

Page joined WCW as the manager of Scott Hall (The Diamond Studd at the time) and the Fabulous Freebirds. He started wrestling as a jobber, finding little to no success until he found himself a partner in Kevin Nash (Vinnie Vegas at the time). With Nash by his side, DDP was kicked off television until 1994 while they did other stuff with Nash.

But return DDP did in 1994, and he brought his hot wife Kimberly with him. Suddenly fans cared more about the nearly 40 year old guy who gave himself high fives. He was subject to a bunch of jobber feuds and took the TV Title from the Renegade (in many regards starting Renegade on the road to his eventual suicide). He won a Battlebowl but never got his title shot thanks to the introduction of the NWO.

With the NWO now ruling WCW, Page was cast as one of the main WCW heroes. He feuded with Randy Savage for a time and won WCW Magazine's wrestler of the year for 1997 when he was 41 years old. Page started gaining more and more main stream success, teaming with Karl Malone and Jay Leno against Hulk Hogan who partnered with Dennis Rodman and Eric Bischoff respectively.

Page won his first World title in 1999 after a Diamond Cutter on Ric Flair, a moment that Ric Flair is still proud to be a part of. To quote Flair, "Page was a nice guy who I think respected me, but his rise to the top will go down in history as one of the biggest jokes ever perpetrated on our industry." He lost the title 15 days later to Sting but won it back the same night. He shortly lost the title to Kevin Nash. He then teamed with Bam Bam Bigelow and Chris Kanyon, did that for a bit, helped David Arquette become world champ, sucker punched Scott Steiner and got jobbed out to him. Then WCW was sold to Vince McMahon.

In the WWE, DDP had, well, hm. He was pretty old by this point. I liked his Positively Page character with his gigantic smile. He turned out to be the stalker of Undertaker's wife. Really, he was, you know... hm. Let's not talk about the WWE run so much.

I think Ric was kind of harsh on DDP. He had a bunch of good matches. The guy worked really hard to improve, studied tape, kept himself in shape, invented the RKO, took on the title of People's Champ before Rock did, so on and so forth. Who cares that maybe, MAYBE, unfounded rumor, he wife swapped with Eric Bischoff from time to time? I'm sure lots of guys let Eric screw their wives but they weren't made WCW champion. DDP was an 8 year veteran when he won his first title, his "Bang" was a major catchphrase, he sold t-shirts and could go in the ring. Yeah, Flair was being a dick because he hated all things associated with Bischoff. DDP earned every title and PPV main event and perhaps deserved more of a push from Vince.

Diamond Dallas Page is currently a somewhat successful author and trainer who practices and teaches yoga. He also sleeps in the nude according to Mick Foley.

The entire Top 100 Wrestlers feature can be found here.

95. KEVIN SULLIVAN

Aliases - Merlin the Wizard; Johnny West;
Kevin Caldwell; Masked Lucifer; The Taskmaster
Hometown - Boston, Massachusetts
Debuted - 1970
Titles Held - WCW Tag Team; ECW Tag Team; NWA
United States Tag Team
Other Accomplishments - led the Dungeon of Doom in WCW in
1995; wife Nancy divorced him in 1997 and married on-screen rival Chris Benoit

The tale of Kevin Sullivan should be mandatory study material at every wrestling school across the country. You leave your wife at home. It�s very important that you do not take her with you. If you have to take her with you, keep her out of storylines. If she has to be in storylines, don�t have her betraying you for another man. If she does betray you for another man in a storyline, well, don�t encourage them to really get into it and live the gimmick. I guess, well, they�re going to wind up sleeping with one another.

Kevin Sullivan and his wife, Nancy, had a nice little early career. He worshipped Satan in Florida, she worshipped Satan with him, not a bad little life. If only he had stayed in Florida worshipping Satan. Instead he moved to NWA and founded the Varsity Club with Mike Rotunda and Rick Steiner in 1987. Members came and left, but Kevin Sullivan was always a constant. After the Varsity Club wore out their welcome Sullivan formed a brief partnership with Cactus Jack they would later rekindle. Before they could have some amazing matches against the Nasty Boys, Sullivan had to fulfill his greatest role as Merlin the Wizard, manager of the Great and Powerful OZ!

So Merlin didn�t work out all that well and Sullivan left WCW for Smokey Mountain Wrestling, where he was lucky enough to reunite with his wife Nancy Sullivan. He beat on Brian Lee for a bit before jumping to ECW to team with Taz and feud with Public Enemy. Realizing he was spending too much time with the wife and was quite close to putting her into a storyline where she�d be required to cheat on him and might actually do it in real life, he left for WCW.

And thus we come to the awful years. I�m not sure there�s enough blame in the world to go around for what happened in the early 90�s with WCW, but Kevin Sullivan always seemed to be right in the middle of it. He did have some great hardcore matches with Cactus Jack and the Nasty Boys, but the focus was on his relationship with his fake brother Evad, or Dave. Imagine Eugene but bigger and a worse actor and you have Evad. Anyway, Evad came back from an injury dressed as Hulk Hogan. This pissed off Kevin so Kevin feuded with Evad and vowed the destruction of Hulk Hogan.

So Kevin decided to put together a stable to defeat Hulk Hogan. This stable was comprised of himself, Brutus Beefcake (The Butcher) and John Tenta (Avalanche/Shark). They feuded with Hulk Hogan, Sting and Randy Savage. Someone figured out that having three of the most dominant wrestlers of the modern era feud with #95 and two not listed stars wasn�t too fair, so Kevin Sullivan added about 1000 lbs of shit to his stable and called it the Dungeon of Doom. Kevin Sullivan was known as the Taskmaster.

To really skip over this area is to skip over the Brian Pillman angle, but that was more a highlight of Pillman�s career than Sullivan�s. Let�s just say that the Dungeon of Doom and the resulting Alliance to Destroy Hulkamania was probably the dumbest thing ever. Not just in wrestling, ever. There have been greater evil perpetrated upon mankind by other men, I�m just not sure there was anything as stupid and misguided as this angle. New Coke? I think that caused riots it was so lousy. Maybe New Coke.

Woman, meanwhile, had been a valet for the Steiners and Doom but most famously for the 4 Horsemen. Kevin Sullivan needed to wash that awful New Coke Dungeon taste out of everyone�s mouth. HEY! He knew what to do. He was booking after all. How about Woman reveals that she was really Sullivan�s wife and pretend to sleep with Chris Benoit? And because fans had to be fooled, Chris and Nancy should spend all their time together and stay in the same hotel room and hold hands in public. My thought as to why Kevin Sullivan wanted it to go this far is because wrestling fans had only been made aware that it was all fake for about a decade at this point and needed to be swerved. This was a pretty good angle and led to about a million stiff Chris Benoit/Kevin Sullivan matches. Some of them were really good and brutal. The reason they looked like they really hated each other was because Chris and Nancy started having sex. Sullivan divorced his wife, forced her to quit wrestling by booking her to get topless, lost a retirement match to Benoit and disappeared. When he regained the booking job in 2000 it caused Benoit, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero and Perry Saturn to quit WCW.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The preceding article was written before the horrible double murder/suicide committed by Chris Benoit. We extend Kevin Sullivan our sympathies on the loss of his ex-wife.

Sullivan owns a gym and still wrestles occasionally in Florida.

94. GOLDUST

Real Name - Virgil Runnels
Aliases - Dustin Runnels; Dustin Rhodes;
Seven; Gold Dustin
Hometown - Austin, Texas
Debuted - September 13th, 1988
Titles Held - WWE Intercontinental; WCW United
States; WWE World Tag Team; NWA World Tag Team;
WWE Hardcore
Other Accomplishments - voted Most Improved Wrestler of 1991
by both Pro Wrestling Illustrated and the Wrestling Observer;
was managed in WWE by real-life wife Terri, though they divorced in
1999; did not speak to father Dusty Rhodes for several years in
the 1990s

For as long as there have been fathers and sons, overshadowed offspring have struggled to get out from under the shadow of their famous forbearers. In the old days, this could mean princes helping the king to an early death; in modern times, you see it with everything from Robin Thicke refusing to pimp his old man Alan's legendary "Growing Pains" street cred to kick start his singing career to Carrot Top dying his hair red so as not to be confused with Papa Grut.

But none of them covered themselves in gold paint and became a sexually ambiguous fetish freak—Dustin Runnels did. For that—and for being one of the most groundbreaking and charismatic performers of the 1990s—we salute the man who became much more than just the son of "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes.

When Dustin started out, he actually followed about as close in his dad's cowboy boot steps as he could. While he may have been a mite lankier than his pop and not possessing even a fraction of the old man's personality, the kid made his pedigree clear when he chose the ring name Dustin Rhodes. After modest regional success in Texas and Florida, Dustin headed north to the World Wrestling Federation just in time to share in the winding down of the darkest, yellow polka-dotted final days of his dad's career as a regularly active in-ring competitor.

In a not so memorable episode of Superstars in late 1990, Dustin donned a leather vest that would make J.R. Ewing cringe and took a seat in the front row only to find himself on the wrong end of a beat down from daddy Dusty's then arch-nemesis "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase and his bodyguard Virgil. Despite upsetting DiBiase in 10-minute challenge match on syndicated WWF programming, Dustin would not be so lucky when he and Dusty teamed unsuccessfully against Virgil and his boss at the 1991 Royal Rumble en route to being ousted from the company.

Less than a month later, Dustin debuted on more comfortable turf: his father's traditional stomping grounds in World Championship Wrestling. Nicknamed "The Natural," the younger Rhodes quickly won fans down south largely by virtue of his last name, but also thanks to a quiet charisma and basic but solid in-ring work.

Dustin would benefit greatly from being one of top babyface Sting's allies in his super hot feud with the Dangerous Alliance and forming championship tag teams with veterans Ricky Steamboat and Barry Windham. Young Rhodes also met the future temporary love of his life, falling spurs over ten gallon for Terri Boatwright, who failed to recruit him as devious Alexandra York but got a diamond ring for her efforts in real life.

By the beginning of 1993, Dustin's popularity had risen to the point where he was selected to be WCW's number two man, winning the United States title from Rick Rude. He would hold onto the U.S. title for the better part of a year, fending off Rude and a host of others before dropping the strap to a fellow young lion by the name of Steve Austin who would drop a Port-o-potty on him four years later.

Unfortunately, Dustin followed up with a less than impressive 1994, feuding with such luminaries as Bunkhouse Buck, actually trusting Arn Anderson—yes, that Arn Anderson—as a tag team partner (who of course turned on him) and ultimately needing dear old dad to come out of retirement and bail his ass out.

Perhaps feeling like he had something to prove—or perhaps realizing that nobody wanted to watch two guys punching either in between tripping in a moving truck—Dustin made the ill-advised decision to blade in his "King of the Road" match with Blacktop Bully at Uncensored 1995, violating WCW's strict no blood (if your name isn't Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair) policy. Having fallen out of favor with his father since his marriage, Dustin found himself without a place to ply his trade.

The only other game in town, the WWF, had no use for Dustin Rhodes, but they did have use for……Goldust.

In perhaps the most dramatic character reinvention since Jim Carrey tried to be a serious actor, former good ol' boy Dustin Rhodes pulled a vanishing act and in his place emerged a gold-painted enigma in a blonde wig and shimmering robe who quoted old Hollywood movies and played psychological games with his opponents like sending Razor Ramon flowers or giving Ahmed Johnson mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Nobody could have predicted how well Dustin would take to the character, boldly pulling off a role that could have easily become a joke in the hands of a less capable performer. Thriving on the venom his controversial act drew from the crowd, Goldust would claim three Intercontinental titles, climax a high octane feud with the legendary Roddy Piper at Wrestlemania XII with a lame faux O.J. Simpson car chase, and dare to step in the ring with the ever unstable Ultimate Warrior.

A brief 1997 flirtation with playing Goldust "straight" as a babyface complete with loving wife Terri (who had been managing her man as the sultry Marlena) and cutesy daughter Dakota ended when Dustin ditched the family man routine and took on Luna Vachon as his new valet, determined to push the boundaries in the WWF's new, more mature, post-Bret Hart days and make Goldust more controversial than ever.

Rifling through temporary costumes and personas as "The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust," one week "The Bizarre One" would don cone "breasts" as "Marilyndust" parodying Marilyn Manson, the next he'd squeeze his burgeoning girth into lingerie to mock WWF sexpot Sable. On one edition of Raw, Goldust even stuffed a black and yellow polka dotted singlet in a strange homage to his estranged father.

Following Wrestlemania XIV in 1998, the WWF again attempted to push Dustin in another direction under his real name with an evangelical gimmick, but the popularity of the Goldust character would not die. In fact, the only person who could kill Goldust would be Dustin Runnels.

Rumor has it that during his 1999 run with the Blue Meanie as his sidekick, Dustin pushed Vince McMahon to pay to get him breast implants for the Goldust character. This outlandish request combined with gradual receding of fan reaction and messy divorce proceedings with Terri were enough to get Goldust the axe.

When former WWF writer Vince Russo took over WCW, he scuttled plans for Dustin to return as a surreal character named Sev7n, unfortunate for any fans jonesing for a white-faced Freddy Krueger knockoff on a black horse (fun fact: according to Wikipedia, the gimmick got scrapped because Turner Standards & Practices thought Dustin would get mistook for a child molester). Instead, Dustin patched things up with his father and settled into a bland year and a half run using live chickens to hit Terry Funk before WCW died a merciful death.

With WWF now the only game in town and Vince McMahon burying Dustin on-air during the final edition of Nitro by mentioning the story about the breast implants, it seemed like the curtain had fallen on the artist truly formerly known as Goldust. However, since no bridge is ever truly burned in wrestling, the robe and wig came out of the closet (no pun intended) at the 2002 Royal Rumble and Goldust returned to the WWF. While it initially seemed that the character remained as stale as three years prior, a successful teaming with Booker T as a comedy duo and later legitimate babyface tag team plus Dustin's renewed commitment to his own fitness gave Goldust new life that he would ride out through 2003 before being quietly released due to budget cuts.

While Dustin would resurface in TNA and later Goldust would briefly return to WWE in 2005 (both appearances neatly coinciding with Dusty Rhodes' gaining backstage power at each organization), for all intents and purposes the final bow had been taken.

Goldust took the flamboyant heel character made famous by the likes of Gorgeous George and Adrian Street to the next level many never thought it would reach. Dustin Runnels earns his spot as one of the 100 most important wrestlers of the past three decades by taking the road less traveled, breaking away from the shadow of a famous father and creating an immortal character in sports entertainment history.

93. TITO SANTANA

Real Name - Merced Solis
Aliases - El Matador
Hometown - Mission, Texas
Debuted - 1976
Titles Held - WWE Intercontinental; WWE World Tag Team; ECW Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments - King of the Ring in 1989; WWE Hall of Fame inductee in 2004; worst WrestleMania record of all time

Tito Santana, more lovingly remembered by a certain class of fans as Chico, started out, as so many of them do, as a would-be football player. That's football as in using your hands, not football as in soccer, a.k.a. "what the rest of the world calls it". In fact, he even played on the same team as Mr Tully Blanchard while at West Texas State. After briefly dipping his toes into the murky depths of the Canadian League, it was off to the professional murk known as wrestling.

Chico made unmemorable appearances with the AWA and the NWA in the late '70s, yet after entering the WWF his tag team with Ivan Putski made waves and landed him with his first major title. However, it would take until 1984 for him to really make his mark. The opponent - Greg Valentine. The cause - the Intercontinental Title. The two men had a fierce rivalry that lasted the better part of two years, with Santana even taking a few months off after suffering from Valentine's figure-four leg-lock. He came back to win the belt for a second time, triumphing in a Cage Match, before dropping it to Randy Savage in a match that put the Macho Man well on his way to the main event. Tito's second reign would also see the unveiling of the fan-favourite new belt design that lasted until 1998, courtesy of Valentine smashing the old one up after his defeat. Oh, Gregory…

Furthermore, Chico's return from the leg injury was at none other than the very first WrestleMania match ever, against the Executioner (Buddy Rose). He won that match courtesy of the Flying Jalapeno (TM, Bobby Heenan) but would go on to amass the worst WrestleMania streak of all time. Barring an inexplicable comeback, his finely shabby record remains at 1-7. He's like the Anti-Undertaker, which could make him The Overgiver, but that nickname is far from as catchy as Chico, so we'll drop it and move swiftly onwards.

That was the peak of Chico's singles career, with his next big break coming from the short-lived but long-remembered Strike Force tandem with Rick Martel. They won the tag titles in 1987, dropping them to Demolition at WrestleMania IV to kick-off Ax & Smash's record-setting reign, and then had a memorable break-up angle the following year at WrestleMania V. It was one of the earliest instances of a heel turn at Mania, sparking a feud that didn't really live up to expectations but did leave some poor souls cradling their Strike Force tights for dear life, hoping, yearning, praying that one day those two kids could make it work. One such person may have been Santana, though to be honest I suspect Hatton as well.

He then went on to become the King of the Ring in 1989, years before it became a PPV event, defeating Bad News Brown, The Warlord, Akeem and, of course, Rick Martel in one night. Afterwards, King Chico had little to do other than remain eerily fond of Strike Force, although he did curiously make it to the Grand Finale Match of Survival at the Survivor Series 1990, teaming with his 'peers', Hulk Hogan and WOYAH. That appearance may have been indicative of his affable charm but it did little to stop him drifting, so in 1991 the WWF attempted to stop this by turning him into El Matador. Beyond perhaps influencing a young Chris Jericho on the supposed aesthetic delights of wearing things that were both bright and sparkly, it's hard to see what came out of the move. He should just be thankful Russo wasn't booking the place then or he'd probably have wound up fighting a buffalo for real.

Chico left the WWF in 1993 and became the ECW Champion. Calm down, this was back in the days when the E was for Eastern. Besides, the reign was far from extreme given that it ended with him forfeiting the belt to Shane Douglas, in another case of Santana bequeathing a title to someone who would have a very memorable run with it. After that, his time in the ring became more limited, though he did rack up appearances in the AWF and even WCW in 2000, where, hilariously, he defeated Jeff Jarrett on Nitro. This clearly put him in contention for a shot at the NWA champion in TNA, so WWE had to quickly intervene by inducting Tito into their Hall of Fame in 2004. Note to the stupid: that last sentence fears the factual.

Santana was a solid and respectable worker who held an easy rapport with the fans and could regularly bring the goods in the ring, not least of which was the Flying Burrito (TM, Jesse Ventura). He still makes the occasional appearance on the indy circuit, though most of his time is spent teaching Spanish at a middle school and running his hair salon in New Jersey.

92. GREG VALENTINE

Real Name - Gregory Wisniski
Aliases - Johnny Fargo; Johnny Valentine Jr
Hometown - Seattle, Washington
Debuted - 1968
Titles Held - WWE Intercontinental; WWE World Tag
Team; NWA United States; NWA United States Tag Team;
NWA North American Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments - WWE Hall of Fame inductee in
2004; voted Most Hated Wrestler in Pro Wrestling Illustrated in
1975, 1979, 1983; wrestled as the Blue Knight on Shawn
Michaels' team at Survivor Series 1993

Greg Valentine was a no-nonsense, hard-core bad ass. He could talk on the mic if he felt like it, but usually kept his words to a fairly simple explanation of how badly he was going to beat his opponent. He wasted no words, and no motion - and if he could break one of your limbs during a match, he was a happy man.

Greg was the son of Johnny Valentine, a big, good-looking, much-reviled heel in the 60's and early 70's. Greg was trained in the sadomasochistic gulag know as The Dungeon, under the very creepy eye of Stu Hart. He tried a couple of various different non-de-plumes early in his career, trying not to simply ride his father's coat tails (yes, I know - unfathomable in today's business). He finally debuted as Greg Valentine in 1975, but was billed as Johnny's younger brother, in order to prevent the audience of thinking of Johnny as too old to compete. Sadly, this became irrelevant rather shortly, after Johnny's career was ended due to a broken back he suffered in a plane crash.

Valentine really came into his own in the NWA in the late 70's, especially after forming a tag team with Ric Flair. They were an especially vicious pairing, twice leaving Flair's "cousins", the original Minnesota Wrecking Crew Gene and Ole Anderson unable to leave under their own power. Valentine also held several single titles, including the U.S. Heavyweight Championship, which he won from Flair (who appears just a bit higher on this list). His most famous feud over the U.S. title was with a then-babyface Roddy Piper, culminating in their memorable dog collar match at Starcade 1983. And yes, of course it's on YouTube. (Well okay, a clip of it is - but it's still cool.)

Most people reading this probably know Valentine from his time in the WWF, starting with his feud with Tito Santana over the Intercontinental title. In fact, that was when this writer first learned about Valentine: I was fascinated by the back-and-forth feud between these two (try and remember, Hulkamania was launching about now, so was amazed by title matches that didn't consist of babyface heat segment-heel heat segment-hulk up-punch punch punch-big boot-legdrop). You could sense, even through the television (and sometimes, on the scrambled Philadelphia cable channel Prism) just how much these two really hated each other.

Valentine's final run at the top of the card was in The Dream Team, with Brutus Beefcake (for Greg's dignity, we'll ignore the failed experiment with Dino Bravo). A more cynical writer than myself might point out that Valentine and Beefcake were two of Hulk Hogan's closest friends, so their extended run with the tag titles might, just might, be seen as backstage politics. But of course, we all know Hogan would never debase himself with that kind of power play, so I'll ignore it.

And unfortunately, even the baddest of asses sometime partake in total silliness towards the end of their careers. In this case, there was the unspeakably bad feud with Ronnie Garvin, which centered around... shin guards. Apparently, the laws of physics in wrestling state that if you twist a shin guard around while applying a figure-four leglock, the pain is beyond excruciating. However, if your opponent also wears a shin guard - he feels NO PAIN WHATSOEVER. Let me just say, the image of Ronnie Garvin sticking his thumbs in his ears, waving his fingers, and sticking out his tongue at Valentine while in a figure-four stole a little bit of my childhood from me.

91. SHANE DOUGLAS

Real Name - Troy Martin
Aliases - Dean Douglas; The Franchise; Troy Orndorff
Hometown - New Brighton, Pennsylvania
Debuted - 1982
Titles Held - ECW World; NWA World Heavyweight;
WWE Intercontinental; WCW United States; WCW World
Tag Team
Other Accomplishments - trained alongside Mick Foley;
concocted secret plan with Paul Heyman to throw down the NWA belt
in 1994 and form Extreme Championship Wrestling; has legitimate
heat with Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels and Vince McMahon, among
others

Attempting to summarize a person in one word is always difficult, especially in English. You usually have to turn to foreign languages in those cases and tap into that vein. Such is the case with Shane Douglas. The perfect one-word description for him comes from Yiddish. That word is "schmuck".

Has there ever been anyone in wrestling who's managed to burn as many bridges as Shane Douglas? Someone who's been so abrasive to the exact wrong people that he's rarely welcome anywhere? Jake Roberts is well-known to everyone as a drug addict who's turned recidivism into a lifestyle, but he gets calls from Vince to come in as a special guest. Vince will call anyone who he thinks can make money for him. But if he was free right now, with the ECW Originals angle running at full speed, would Shane, the ultimate ECW original, get a call? Absolutely not, not even with his old tag partner in charge of personnel in Stamford. That particular bridge has been well and truly burnt.

Shane Douglas' backstage rep as a troublemaker, though, is in total contrast to his behavior outside of the arena. He's always been one of the nicest and most approachable wrestlers around. He'll go out of his way for the fans. It's almost a case of cognitive dissonance comparing him around fans to the stories of him in a locker room. It's a case where someone who's willing to do so looks for a middle ground, because there has to be one between the two extremes.

I'm the type of person who does that, and the more I do so, the more I appreciate him. There's a sort of connection there in the first place. Troy Martin and I were born exactly one week apart (he's older by seven days). There has to be some kind of astrological explanation, some kind of kink in the celestial spheres, that apply to men born in November or December 1964. There's Shane, there's Austin, there's me. That's the necessary three data points right there. Now someone needs to find the answer.

We both tend to have personalities that do not endear us to others. I was able to find jobs that actually play to that as a strength. He hasn't. He has to work in an atmosphere where glad-handing and sucking-up are coin of the realm. Shane Douglas is not the kind of person to be a glad-hander. It isn't necessarily a case of simple ego. It's a strong will that doesn't put up with that kind of crap. He's a jolt to the system, in a system that doesn't like to be jolted. He's someone that the power structure feels can't be trusted. He'll ruin something, just you wait.

He certainly didn't start off that way. He trained with Dominic DeNucci in Pittsburgh, near his hometown. Out of his training group, he was considered the can't-miss prospect. He had the blond good looks and the raw ability that would impress audiences. He was certainly a different case than another guy he trained with, who was doomed even at that point to failure. Some guy named Foley. Wonder what happened to him? He was already a four-year veteran when Eddie Gilbert spotted him and convinced Cowboy Bill Watts to bring him into UWF. It was Gilbert who renamed him Shane Douglas and helped him with his intial face push. It didn't really work, though. He was a little too raw and, frankly, uncomfortable as a face.

The discomfort continued when he went to WCW. This was the Jim Herd Era, the time of wacky tag teams like the Ding Dongs. Shane was put together with a young Johnny Ace and given skateboards to ride, something neither of them could do. The Dynamic Dudes turned into a joke that would scar Shane's career permanently. Not even management from Jim Cornette and a feud with the Midnight Express could help them. Ace left for Japan, Shane left for the WWF. But his first WWF run was aborted when he left wrestling to take care of his sick father.

When he came back after a year off, he went back to WCW. This time, his tag partner was Ricky Steamboat. He was able to pick up a lot of tricks from Steamer in the ring, but still couldn't get a handle on this face thing. A four-month tag title reign and a feud with the Hollywood Blonds, then the hottest team in WCW, didn't help. Shane left again, this time to go indy.

He landed up in Philadelphia, in Eastern Championship Wrestling, and was again a face and again in a tag team, this time with a young, charismatic wrestler named Tommy Dreamer. It was then that he found himself, turning on Dreamer during a tag title defense against Kevin Sullivan and the soon-to-be Taz. As a heel, he clicked with the audience and his popularity grew.

And then came the moment that changed wrestling forever. The NWA World Heavyweight Championship had been tarnished by WCW's departure from the organization. A tournament was being held to award the belt. In all of the deprecated NWA territories, there was no heel hotter than Shane Douglas. So he was booked to win. But there were only two people on Earth who knew what would happen when he'd get hold of the belt on August 27th, 1994. Douglas and Paul Heyman had planned it out. Shane would win the strap, then ask for the mic. During that promo, he threw down the NWA belt, calling it worthless. He raised the Eastern Championship Wrestling equivalent and called it the only world title worth fighting for. And then he announced that Eastern was changing its name. It would now officially be Extreme Championship Wrestling. Shane Douglas had finally found a home as nasty as his in-ring personality.

His promos were some of the biggest highlights of ECW's formative years. He was encouraged to do quasi-shoots, which brought attention from the smarts in the audience. Feuds with Douglas were a way to the top for some lesser-known wrestlers. It's very doubtful that Sandman or Sabu would have gained so much popularity without feuding with Douglas during critical times in their careers. It was during those formative ECW years that he gave himself the nickname that's stuck with him, the Franchise, and where he used his popularity to help the careers of two wrestlers who were already technical masters, but a little, well, vanilla in their personalities. Shane Douglas, Dean Malenko, and Chris Benoit were the original and greatest Triple Threat. With the assembly of his stable, Douglas started to gain some noteworthy comparisons. In the ring, people were calling him the next Tully Blanchard. On the mic, the name "Ric Flair" was whispered. Quite ironic for what would happen later. When the original Triple Threat broke up, Malenko and Benoit headed south. Douglas, having been burned by WCW before, decided to head east.

If people aren't making fun of Shane Douglas for the Dynamic Dudes, they make fun of him for Dean Douglas. Here's a question: if it's such a rotten idea, why is Matt Striker playing the identical character today? The truth of the matter is simple. Dean Douglas, a character that played off Shane's occasional occupation as schoolteacher, essentially an obnoxious version of Lanny Poffo's Genius, was getting over. Shane was able to get up to Intercontinental Title level without any assist in his push. He knew how to be obnoxious and how to get an audience to dislike him just on that basis. Unfortunately, a little of the character rubbed off on his backstage personality. Shane was in the wrong place at the wrong time and proceeded to upset the wrong people. This was at the height of the power of the Clique, and no one was going to get over without their approval. Shawn Michaels and Scott Hall didn't approve, feeling that Douglas didn't know his place. Being a champion in a piss-ant indy like ECW didn't mean squat in the WWF. They decided to teach him a lesson, and that lesson eventually caused him to depart on the worst of terms. He will never work for WWE ever again, or at least as long as Michaels is there.

So he went back to ECW and picked up right where he left off. He formed a new Triple Threat, with Chris Candido and Brian Lee (after Lee left, Bam Bam Bigelow took his place). He picked up Francine as a manager. He started winning titles again in matches that impressed everyone. In November 1997, he got the ECW World Heavyweight Title back, and held it for over a year, despite being injured for nearly half that period. Unfortunately, during this period, Shane started to have ego conflicts with Paul Heyman (gee, what a surprise). Shane decided that maybe now was a good time to go back to WCW. So, he dropped the title and headed south.

He wasn't lacking for attention when he got there. He not only reformed the original Triple Threat, he added another ECW vet, Perry Saturn, to the mix to form Revolution, one of the most talented stables in history. He started berating Ric Flair in what was definitely a work-shoot (Flair has no clue to this day why Douglas is mad at him, and Douglas isn't telling). But this was 1999 in WCW, when nothing was getting over thanks to some of the most imbecilic booking in history, mostly from the ego of Kevin Nash. One has to wonder if the old feud with the Clique had anything to do with Douglas' situation. However, he stayed until WCW closed, getting involved in the New Blood/Millionaire's Club feud (on the side of the former). He got another tag team title run and a US title run out of the deal. But when WCW closed, he had nowhere to go. ECW was dead, and he certainly wasn't going to WWF.

Fortunately, TNA opened in 2002, and he wasn't on bad terms with Jeff Jarrett. Eventually, he hooked up with his old ECW buddy Raven to produce an attention-gathering feud. He was helping to build TNA the same way he helped build ECW. But when he hit 40, he decided that he was a little too old now for in-ring competition. He transitioned into a backstage interviewer role on-camera and a road agent's role off-camera. There was another factor involved in this decision, though: at the time, though no one knew it, Shane Douglas was getting addicted to Hillbilly Heroin, needing more and more of it to perform. He finally decided to confront the demons after his successful promotion of Hardcore Homecoming, meant to challenge WWE's One-Night Stand. In early 2006, he went into rehab and came out clean three months later. He went back to TNA, this time in a manager's role for the Naturals. That ended earlier this year, and Douglas hasn't been seen on camera since, concentrating on his backstage responsibilities.

But it's his time in ECW that's indelible to the audience that saw him. It was the perfect storm, the right character in the right place at the right time. There's a bit of an argument over who exactly deserves the title of "Spirit Of ECW". Tommy Dreamer's being pushed that way in WWE at this time (and no one's going to deny him those props for what he's done). Other people say that it's Raven. But for the attention he brought to ECW at a time when it desperately needed it to become more than just another indy, and for the attitude and balls-out honesty that he brought to the table, a hallmark of ECW at its best, my money's on Shane Douglas. That's why he's attained a position in our Top 100.

89. BILLY KIDMAN

Real Name - Peter Gruner
Aliases - Kid Flash
Hometown - Allentown, Pennsylvania
Debuted - 1994
Titles Held - WWE Tag Team; WWE Cruiserweight;
WCW Cruiserweight; WCW World Tag Team
Other Accomplishments - ECWA Hall of Fame inudctee in
2004; married to Torrie Wilson but divorced in 2006;
owns a tanning salon in Florida

During the golden age of American cruiserweight wrestling from 1996 to about 1999, Mexican luchadores dominated the air and the only way for a native son like Dean Malenko or Chris Jericho to get noticed was to play another game, either refining their technical skills or their personality. Billy Kidman was the exception to the rule: an American-born cruiserweight who could fly like a luchador, gaining success and getting over on those skills. Along the way, he won some titles, had great matches and even got the girl (for a bit), earning him a spot in our Top 100.

From the earliest days of his fledgling career in professional wrestling, Billy Kidman had to stand out from a very different crowd, training at the Wild Samoan Training Center, run by former WWF World Tag Team champion Afa, a facility better known in its early days for churning out power wrestlers from the islands, not pretty boy lightweights. Despite not fitting the traditional mold of a "Wild Samoan," Kidman was one of the facility's first success stories, gaining renown in the Pennsylvania-based East Coast Wrestling Association before signing with WCW in 1996.

For the first year-plus of his WCW tenure, Kidman, with his floppy hair and lack of muscle definition, had trouble making it past the enhancement talent level despite tremendous skill in the ring (this writer vividly recalls a particularly outstanding contest between a young Kidman and the legendary Ric Flair on a syndicated WCW Pro broadcast one Sunday afternoon in 1996).

Kidman's big WCW break came in the form of an unexpected image overhaul and character reinvention when Raven came to town in late 1997 and the babyfaced cruiserweight donned jean shorts, dirty t-shirts, a dazed demeanor and a constant itch as one of the charismatic heel's lackeys in his new stable the Flock. To go along with his bizarrely intriguing Kidman, got a chance to showcase his visually spectacular finisher, the shooting star press, far more often, briefly rechristening it the Seven Year Itch.

Though he found himself on television nearly every week, Kidman didn't really get a chance to stand out until the summer of 1998, when he wowed audiences with a series of matches against Juventud Guerrera, including a pay-per-view showdown at Bash at the Beach where he came out on the losing end but drew rave reviews. Kidman would ride the wave of critical popularity after former Flock member Perry Saturn emancipated the group by defeating Raven at Fall Brawl, becoming arguably the sole beneficiary of the group's split by using it as motivation for a face turn and victory over Guerrera for the WCW Cruiserweight title.

While he hung on to his now trademark jean shorts, Kidman traded in his t-shirts for white tank tops, grew his hair longer and bulked up a bit to create the look most still associate with him today. As 1998 closed out, he traded the Cruiserweight title back and forth with Guerrera before ending on a real high note defeating not only Guerrera and Rey Misterio Jr. in a Triangle match at Starrcade, but then beating no less than Eddie Guerrero immediately after in an impromptu challenge to hold onto his strap.

With WCW beginning to slip in the ratings at the dawn of 1999 in large part because fans were sick of the same old faces in the main event mix, mid-card acts like Saturn, Jericho and Kidman were gaining steam with the fans. In Kidman's case, it's not out of the question that WCW's largely southern fanbase just enjoyed cheering somebody who looked a lot like them in the cruiserweight division, but great matches and a burgeoning quiet charisma also played a role.

Unfortunately for Kidman, while the crowd cheered him, WCW chose to keep the focus on veterans like Kevin Nash and Sting while keeping their cruiserweight sensation safely tucked away in his niche. On the upside, 1999 was the year Kidman's career became more closely linked with the man who would become both his greatest opponent and partner, arguably the top cruiserweight of any era, Rey Misterio Jr. Following a stellar match on Monday Nitro in which Misterio won the title, the duo teamed to take the WCW World Tag Team titles from Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko and alternated over the next couple months between facing one another in matches grounded in mutual respect and defending their belts (which they eventually dropped to the reunited Raven & Saturn).

Kidman's career lost a bit of direction after the Tag title loss when Misterio focused his energies on teaming with Konnan for the woeful "Rap vs Country" feud with Curt Hennig's West Texas Rednecks, but it wouldn't be long before the shooting star press expert got in on the action, joining the Mexican duo plus Eddie Guerrero as the popular Filthy Animals stable and picking up the gorgeous Torrie Wilson as a valet along the way.

The ousting of Eric Bischoff and arrival of former WWF writer Vince Russo to WCW in the fall of 1999 was supposed to mark a turning point for the young guard of the company, whom Russo favored, but in Kidman's case, his supposed savior would provide him with one misstep after the other. First waffling the Filthy Animals between face and heel, Russo lost the group's fan support. As a result of perceived mismanagement, Guerrero left WCW in early 2000 with Konnan getting suspended after threatening to follow suit. With Misterio injured, Kidman was left alone to sleepwalk his way through dull feuds with the likes of Vampiro.

However, when Russo and Bischoff returned in the spring of 2000, things once again looked up for Kidman—this would not last long. The new/old creative heads of WCW took the organization in a new direction pitting the young studs—the New Bloods—against the old guys—the Millionaire's Club—positioning Kidman as one of the leaders of the up and comers based on legitimate comments Hulk Hogan had made on a radio show questioning his ability to draw.

While a feud with arguably the biggest star in wrestling history should have been the highlight of Kidman's career, the program was doomed from the start thanks to Hogan's creative control ensuring he would never have to lose or even look bad—Torrie Wilson inexplicably left the young and vital Kidman in favor of the aging Hogan over the course of their battles—and Kidman's lack of heel mic skills.

By the summer, Kidman turned back to being a face, but the magic was gone and he spent the summer in a go nowhere feud with Shane Douglas before rejoining a tired Filthy Animals group on its last legs along with the rest of WCW. On the final WCW broadcast of Monday Nitro in March, 2001 following a WWF buyout of the organization, Kidman and Misterio got one last hurrah, defeating Elix Skipper & Kid Romeo to win the fledgling WCW Cruiserweight Tag Team titles, which would be immediately retired.

Kidman was among those WCW talents the WWF retained the services of upon the takeover, but with the focus on cruiserweight wrestling a far cry from where it had been even two years prior and an already overcrowded main event scene, Kidman's future with the company looked bleak. Over the next three years, Kidman would win WWE's version of the Cruiserweight title several times, but the division would never be featured prominently and often he'd disappear from television for months at a time. During the appearances he did make, the former high flying superstar was almost unrecognizable, having dropped his trademark ring attire for standard trunks and cutting his hair.

Kidman looked to have one last shot at least a solid midcard position with WWE when his tag team with Paul London—a young cruiserweight who resembled and complemented him in many ways—took off in 2004 and they briefly held the Tag Team titles, but the duo split somewhat abruptly. Kidman seemed on the verge of finally having a solid heel run that same year after inadvertently injuring Chavo Guerrero Jr. with his shooting star press and then having it turned into an angle where he went from remorse to utilizing the move as a deadly weapon, but he was never given the chance to run with the ball.

In the summer of 2005, Kidman was quietly released from WWE without fanfare. His marriage to Torrie Wilson—whom he had begun a real relationship with during their WCW days—also came to an end in 2006. Today, Kidman continues to compete on the international and American independent circuits.

While there were no shortage of miscues and wasted opportunities over Billy Kidman's seven year ride in the major leagues of professional wrestling, for a brief shining period he was the face of cruiserweight wrestling in America, and that's how his fans will always choose to remember him.

88. BROCK LESNAR

Aliases - The Next Big Thing; Super Fun Happy Brock
Hometown - Webster, South Dakota
Debuted - October 2000
Titles Held - WWE Undisputed Championship; WWE Championship; IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
Other Accomplishments - King of the Ring in 2002; won
the Royal Rumble in 2003; won the NCAA Championship in 2000

I almost feel like apologising to you, the readers, and to the countless other wrestlers who contributed so much more to the industry between 1980 and the present day, for Brock Lesnar's presence on this countdown. Almost but not quite, since I never voted for him. I'm not sure why various other members of our staff did, considering he made his WWE debut in March 2002 and wrestled his last match in North America to date in March 2004, doing little of lasting consequence in between those dates besides inadvertantly giving a name to John Cena's finisher.

Still, in the interests of fairness, let's have a stab at extolling Lesnar's virtues...

Well, for starters, he did rack up a plenty impressive amateur record. He finished 33-0 at his high school, got a full scholarship to the University of Minnesota based on his wrestling prowess, wound up winning the National Collegiate Athletics Association's wrestling championship in 2000, the year after he finished as the runner-up, and became a four-time All-American by the end of his college years. I don't know what an All-American is, to be honest, but presumably it refers to something more impressive than the Rougeau Brothers song.

Then again, how relevant is anybody's amateur record to judging them as a professional wrestler, which we are doing here? Moving swiftly on...

Lesnar signed a developmental deal with WWE at the turn of the century and was sent to OVW alongside Shelton Benjamin, his former college room-mate and assistant coach. The pair became known as the Minnesota Stretching Crew, which is a hilariously lame name ("Oooh, look out, they're stretching!! I's can'ts stand's the sight!"), and made a good showing of themselves. Sadly, their interaction in later years would be reduced to Lesnar beating up Benjamin as Kurt Angle's lackey rather than getting the chance to put on a multiple-snowflake match with one another.

Hoh, well.

He debuted in WWE proper on the 18th March 2002 edition of Raw, getting to throw around such luminaries as Spike Dudley, Al Snow and Maven for a bit. Ain't that the dream. Although he wound up being the 'face' of Smackdown, he was actually a Raw guy after the initial brand extension and, backed by Paul Heyman, threw around many other people on that brand en route to becoming the King of the Ring. After that he continued to practise his throwing skills all the way up to chucking The Rock at SummerSlam 2002, becoming the youngest WWE Champion of all time - a record that still stands, thanks to Randy Orton winning 'the other one'. He was also the last person to hold the Undisputed Champion moniker, as he became Smackdown-exclusive almost immediately afterwards, resulting in Triple H being awarded the aforementioned 'other one'. His next major development came when Heyman stopped telling him who to throw around, which made him want to throw Heyman around as much as possible, but to do that he had to throw around the Big Show, Angle, Benjamin and Charlie Haas, as well as several others in the Royal Rumble. Most of 2003 saw him doing much of the same, although he did have the dubious honour of facing John Cena in Cena's first PPV title match at Backlash. Various forgettable heel turns, title wins and even a reunion with his beloved Heyman ensued, with nothing of particular greatness happening until Lesnar tapped out to Chris Benoit at Survivor Series, setting Benoit on the way to the main event of WrestleMania XX. Also that night, Lesnar met Goldberg backstage and had a polite discourse to calmly build towards their, er, special match at that same show. Before then, he got to very carefully throw Bob Holly around - unlike the time when he dropped him on his head, which, despite Holly's surly sandbagging antics, Lesnar still has to be held partly accountable for - and then fail to throw Eddie Guerrero around to full effect, dropping the WWE Championship to him in February 2004. One month later, Goldberg beat him with a Spear, Austin dropped him with a Stunner, and Madison Square Garden dumped on him from great heights. He never returned to professional wrestling in North America.

Were there any virtues extolled in the above? I don't suppose it matters. Not enough Benoit. For the record, Lesnar did have some good matches against Rock, Taker, Angle and Eddie. Oh, and the F-5 was a decent finisher for him. Also, if he had not flaked out and quit the business then Bradshaw would perhaps have never become JBL and thus we would now have some numpty like The Miz on Smackdown's colour commentary. Other than that… meh. He was just another over-pushed big guy, albeit one with greater potential than most. The important thing to note is that I'm not about to bash the guy for his career decisions. Had it not become public knowledge before WM20 that he was leaving, then the general fanbase would not have been so quick to turn on him. At the end of the day, Lesnar was simply following his heart and fair play to him for that. It could have been handled better but it wasn't, so we should all be over it by now. It still doesn't change the fact that Lesnar's WWE days ranged between 'competent' and 'decent' and his body of work as a whole does not stand up as being the 88th greatest wrestler of the modern era.

But don't blame me for it.

87. C.M. PUNK

Real Name - Phil Brooks
Aliases - Cookie Monster; Chick Magnet; Chicago Made; Charles Montgomery; Charles Manson; Chases Men
Debuted - 1999
Titles Held - ROH World; ROH Tag Team; OVW
Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments - match with Samoa Joe on 16th October
2004 received five-star rating from Dave Meltzer; dating Maria

CM Punk is the darling of the indies and one of the fastest rising stars in the WWE. Originally a backyard wrestler, Punk really decided that he wanted to wrestle for a living and attended Ace Steele's Steel Domain in Chicago where he notably met his traveling partner, frequent opponent and tag partner Colt Cabana. Punk may be the last wrestling star to have taken the old school approach to rising in the business, going from training to small indies to ever larger territories, first IWA-MS and then ROH, and finally, OVW and WWE.

Punk's early home promotion was IWA-MS where he notably feuded with Cabana, but really made his name wrestling long matches with Chris Hero including a 93-minute 2/3 falls match and a 56-minute TLC match. He also notably had great comedy matches with Delirious around the end of his tenure in IWA-MS and was a color commentator, showing his skill in all areas of the wrestling business, from comedy, to commentary, and, of course, in ring performance.

From IWA-MS, Punk found his way into Ring of Honor, the only indie that's clearly a step up from Ian Rotten's promotion. Here's what I had to say in A Modest Response about Punk's ROH tenure.

Let me set the scene for you: We're in a packed Chicago Ring of Honor show. The fans are emotional. Punk is the hometown hero. Tears are flowing freely. You see, the man who carried Ring of Honor, who saved Ring of Honor, and who made them care, CM Punk was leaving for the WWE. He spurned TNA, TNA a national promotion, for Ring of Honor in its darkest hour. His music hit. The distinctive sound of fans beating the guard rails in time to his song began before the first beat of his song.

"Love your hate
Your faith lost.
You are now
One of us!"

But he didn't emerge as the song continued. Where was Punk? Surely he wasn't missing his goodbye.

We're ahead of ourselves. First let's go back to another emotional situation. ECW. ECW mattered to people.

ECW, in its original form, mattered to people. Emotionally, the fans had a lot invested in it. They had a fan base who they knew and they gave that fan base exactly what it wanted. People traveled from all over to go see an ECW show, to be a part of that atmosphere, to see ideas unfold that were groundbreaking. That's the real ECW revolution.

Then, ECW closed. An involvement that that much time and energy is put into does not just go away. ECW fans began searching. There had to be something else worthwhile, worth throwing their support behind. Something worth caring about.

Along came Ring of Honor. As a small, regional indy fed, it always had a lot going for it. The best talent around nearly guaranteed a small four star match every show. A buzz began to grow.

Along came Raven. The ECW original was a main eventer their for years. He had spent time and been horribly misused in both WWE and WCW, so not only was he one of ECW's most memorable, successful and over stars, he was also well know in the mainstream and maintained his rebel status. As much as anyone after ECW folded, he remained singly what ECW was about. His debut in Ring of Honor alone added to the buzz that was building, but it was nothing to the crescendo that was to follow.

So, Raven debuted in Ring of Honor. CM Punk was a young wrestler who was slowly making a name for himself, mostly through wrestling Colt Cabana and cutting great promos. Punk immediately hated Raven and began attacking him.

You see, Raven was a drunk and a drug user. CM Punk was and is straight edge. That means he doesn't partake in any drugs or alcohol. Punk says that not doing drugs makes him better than Raven, better than the fans who cheered Raven, drank and used drugs recreationally.

Punk began a vicious assault on Raven every time Raven appeared. Raven, no stranger to these brawls, began antagonizing Punk. They had brutal match after brutal match as Punk appeared more and more desperate, even hanging Raven.

And then, broken down and crying, after another brutal war, Punk told Raven that he was just like his father. You see, his father drank. His father abused him. Punk couldn't get revenge on his father, but he could be better than him, and he could make Raven pay.

If you were on the net back then and knew where to look, this started that revolutionary mumbling. This was classic ECW. A great story, passionately and logically told. And we couldn't stop talking about it.

The feud continued, twisting and turning to include none other than longtime Raven enemy, Tommy Dreamer saving Raven after a brutal dog collar match at the first Death before Dishonor. The feud continued and finally ended. But CM Punk was a star and we cared about him, even though he was a heel. He was fantastic in the ring and on the mic. He suffered and lashed out. He was a human being we could understand, hate, love, and empathize with. It was only the beginning.

At this time CM Punk was being booked in TNA, as well. Due to his talent and charisma he was forcing his way up the card there, booked there in a program with Raven again. Ring of Honor's dubious owner, Rob Feinstein was a pedophile and was caught. He almost immediately sold the promotion. TNA didn't care.

TNA almost immediately pulled all of their talent from Ring of Honor. They were young and couldn't afford the bad publicity. AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels, and others understood and left Ring of Honor. Absolutely everyone who worked for both companies chose TNA. Everyone, that is, but CM Punk. He had chosen the indies. Chosen to stay one of us.

So began the Reborn Era in Ring of Honor. An era where Samoa Joe, Homicide, and Punk were left to carry the promotion. As it turns out the era might as well have been called CM Punk Reborn.

As Ring of Honor ended the Feinstein era, Ricky Steamboat debuted and immediately clashed with CM Punk. The upstart, it seemed, was ready to try and destroy another legend. Punk was naturally becoming a face at this point, after all, he stayed. But this was Ricky Steamboat. The man who was in arguably the best match ever. A former NWA champion who could work as well as anyone to ever lace up the boots. Punk might have stayed, but he had better not have cost us Steamboat! We'd lost enough.

At the same time, Generation Next, a new stable was causing waves. They decided that they were going to take everyone above them on the roster's spot, including the Second City Saints- Stable of CM Punk. This feud simmered along nicely until Generation Next attacked Ricky Steamboat. Punk, although he had his issues with "the Dragon," could not tolerate this. He saved Steamboat. Punk finally turned face officially… but not before the first time Punk met Joe.

Samoa Joe, the unbeatable monster champion, had run through everyone. Eventually CM Punk earned a title shot. Everyone who went head to head with the behemoth fell, so Punk didn't. He was a heel and smaller than Joe. Let Joe chase him and tire himself out. Punk was small and fit, he could avoid impact moves and wear Joe out.

The match was the first Ring of Honor bout to go 60 minutes and was heralded as an instant classic. The rematch was inevitable, and when it finally came, Punk was a face.

Joe vs. Punk II was a clinic on psychology and storytelling. It was the first American match in almost a decade to get 5 stars from Meltzer. Everything that they did in the first was played off of, but not payed off. Not yet. They went the full 60 again.

Joe vs. Punk III, the culmination of the trilogy, was a no time limit match, set up by Foley who decided these were two of the best he had ever seen and had to be involved. Got that? Mick Foley thought Joe and Punk were two of the best. So the feud culminated, but Joe got the win.

Joe was so exhausted from this epic set of matches, played out over months, that his next title defense was a defeat; a defeat that came at the hands of Austin Aries, the man who lead Generation Next. Aries finally took the top spot, but Punk still wanted his shot. He had beaten Aries before.

Before AJ Styles left Ring of Honor for TNA, a man stole his move and his spot as well. Jimmy Rave of the Embassy named the Styles Clash the Rave Clash and claimed he chased AJ out of Ring of Honor. He and the Embassy were messing with the Second City Saints. Before Punk went back after the title, he had something to take care of.

Much like Punk attacked Raven earlier, now Rave came after Punk. The feud built and Rave, through nefarious means, continually came out ahead. That lasted until Punk got him in the cage and claimed his revenge. Punk had no fought and beat a man AJ Styles could not, gave Samoa Joe his best matches, and rekindled the revolutionary fire of ECW with Raven. Now he was going for the belt.

As usual, fate threw us a curveball. WWE made CM Punk an offer he couldn't refuse, but before he went to WWE he was winning that belt that had so long eluded him.

When Punk finally got to Aries, it was on what was to be Punk's final show, but it was for the belt. The crowd cheered every single little move Punk made and heartily booed everything Aries did. After a battle where Aries threw everything at Punk, Punk emerged victorious.

Our guy had won the belt! One of us before he left to take them by storm! I won't spoil what followed, but the Summer of Punk only helped the underground legend grow, before he finally lost the belt.

And we arrive at Punk's final show, Punk: The Final Chapter, where he would face long time friend and rival Colt Cabana in a two out of three falls match.


We're in a packed Chicago Ring of Honor show. The fans are emotional. Punk is the hometown hero. Tears are flowing freely. You see, the man who carried Ring of Honor, who saved Ring of Honor, and who made them care, CM Punk was leaving for the WWE. He spurned TNA, TNA a national promotion, for Ring of Honor in its darkest hour. His music hit. The distinctive sound of fans beating the guard rails in time to his song began before the first beat of his song.

"Love your hate
Your faith lost.
You are now
One of us!"

But he didn't emerge as the song continued. Where was Punk? Surely he wasn't missing his goodbye.

Punk emerged from the curtain, tears flowing freely. He embraced his fans. I can't watch it to this day without getting chills. Sometimes, even now, I get choked up. The way ECW mattered to us then, Ring of Honor matters now. Punk brought us to the show and now he was leaving. The match wasn't a classic, but it was fun. And the goodbye was really special. Punk, in tears, on his knees, as the streamers engulfed him is an image engraved upon my mind.

Here's the song he left us with:

"Goodbye to me and you.
Goodbye to that life we knew.
One last long embrace,
Let go and walk on through

I'm leaving everything behind for a peace that I can't find.
The ghosts that roam this house,
Like winter air right through my soul.
And it feels like dying.
It just feels like time to go…

Goodbye to me and you.
Goodbye to that life we knew.
One last long embrace,
Let go and walk on through."

-Night Train- by The Bouncing Souls

Since this night Punk has come back for one more match when a snowstorm and TNA hurt Ring of Honor again. When I talked to the Ring of Honor head booker, the only out of ROH talent he admits to wishing would return is CM Punk. Punk returns to see shows even now when he can. He was at the December 23 show at the Manhattan Center cheering his ass off all night. Still.

It has been said by better men than I that true art hits something within the human condition which we can all feel and understand because we are all humans and share the same truths in many ways. CM Punk gave us true art. You'd better believe that still matters and we still care what happens to him. He gave us amazing performances. He took our attention and made us care. Is it the most important thing in the world? No, but it Matters. And Punk, you're still one of us.

From here, Punk signed with the WWE and was sent to their developmental territory to learn to work the WWE style. In OVW, under the sure hand of Paul Heyman, the company had its best period, with Punk, Brent Albright, Ken Kennedy, Ken Doane and Aaron Stevens. Punk's time in OVW culminated with him winning the OVW Heavyweight Championship. From here Punk was finally given the call as the key young star of the WWE's new ECW brand.

In ECW Punk immediately became one of the company's most over stars, getting a pop comparable to DX at Survivor Series and scoring many victories. His moveset has become more and more like Pro Wrestling NOAH star KENTA's, but that differentiation between himself and the rest of the roster has helped him stay over even when his initial push stalled out. Add in the personality he has displayed in his feud with the New Breed and his title feud with Nitro, Punk looks to cap his tenure in WWE the way he has practically everywhere else he's wrestled, with championship gold.

Real Name - Charles Ashenoff
Aliases - K-Dawg; Konnan el Barbaro; El Centurión
Debuted - 6th January 1987
Titles Held - WCW United States; WCW World Tag
Team; WCW Television; AAA Heavyweight; CMLL
Heavyweight; CW-USA Northwest Tag Team Championships; IWAS Heavyweight Championship; IWAS Tag Team Championship; IWC Heavyweight Championship; LAWA Heavyweight Championship; WWC Universal Heavyweight Championship; WWC Tag Team Championship; NWA World Tag Team Championship
Other Accomplishments - taught Bret Hart how to apply the
Sharpshooter; whilst in Mexico he lost his mask to Perro Aguayo
in 1991; made two music videos, "Psyko" and "Bow Wow Wow"

Konnan is a polarizing figure in professional wrestling. On one hand, he's skilled promotional assassin, capable of cutting through his opponents on the microphone in a style so viciously authentic that few can best him. As well, he's credited for not only teaching Bret Hart the sharpshooter, but also bringing the Lucha Libre style of wrestling (and the wrestlers trained to deliver it) to the United States, giving opportunity for smaller and more athletically talented wrestlers to be portrayed on a larger stage. On the other hand, Konnan isn't the greatest of wrestlers. Often compared to Hulk Hogan, both in terms of political power and limitation of technical wrestling knowledge, Konnan has often been seen as a group pariah and a bit of a heat-killer. Still, it's difficult to ignore that Konnan's presence has been both an integral and influential aspect of pro wrestling in the last decade.

Konnan first wrestled under the title "El Centurión" in the Universal Wrestling Alliance, wrestling for the first time on January 6, 1987, but soon moved to Empresa Mexicana de la Lucha Libre and changed his moniker to "Konnan El Barbaro." He, like most Lucha Libre wrestlers, wore a mask. That is, until 1991, when Perro Aguayo beat him in a hair vs mask match. Unlike the majority of Lucha Libre wrestlers who lose their mask and are never quite the same, Konnan soon became the first ever CMLL world heavyweight champion. This was just after his first tryout match in WCW. It would be six years before he actually entered the company.

During this time, Konnan, along with a number of other Mexican stars, left EMLL due to political corruption within the union (this would not be the first time Konnan would be involved with political corruption, and would in fact utilize the idea within many of his storylines), and joined AAA, shortening his name to just Konnan in the process. He fought and lost to Jake Roberts in a career-ending match on April 30, 1993, and left to work for the WWF. This is not a particularly great run, for several reasons. For one, the WWF was not a particularly lucrative place to be oneself at the time, instead opting to give everyone a gimmick and see how well that took. So Konnan spent eight months being "Max Moon," a Japanese cartoon character that shot confetti out of his arm blaster-things. Secondly, Konnan felt the character was not only terrible, but also that he was being discriminated against. Immediately following his release, Konnan went back to AAA and defeated Roberts in a hair vs hair match.

It was at this point Konnan began to turn into the man we know today. He was offered a role in a Spanish soap opera due to his crossover appeal. He won the AAA world title. He also became the booker for AAA. He also left Mexico for WCW, where he is—at least stateside—where he gained most of his exposure.

First, though, he had a cup of coffee in ECW, and was able to talk Paul Heyman into bringing in a few other Lucha wrestlers like Rey Mysterio Jr. and Psychosis. It was from this that Eric Bischoff got the idea to bring these wrestlers to WCW. Discussed in more detail on the ECW dvd, Eric successfully invaded ECW and took the Lucha wrestlers for display on WCW. While we don't know exactly how much influence Konnan had on all of these events, one can argue that without him, WCW might never have infused Lucha Libre.

Konnan was often announced in WCW as the "Mexican world champion" even though no such belt existed, and sometimes without holding any real Mexican belts at the time. The first few months of his time there were spent holding the US championship, which was a reign mostly soaked with irony. Following a loss to Ric Flair, Konnan joined the Dungeon of Doom, dropped his Lucha outfit for more street gang-styled attire, and began incorporating catchphrases that would become mainstay in the next few years.

Konnan joined the nWo on July 14, 1997, finally becoming the loudmouth gang member his character seemed destined to be. Konnan was a natural fit for the group, and probably would have been better served if he had joined much earlier. When the nWo split in early 1998, Konnan went with the wolfpac side and began referring to himself as K-Dawg. His impact on television became pretty one-note at this point. Much like the New Age Outlaws, Konnan's job was seemingly to come down to the ring say the exact same annoying catchphrase week in and week out, have a completely forgettable match with no real consequences, and repeat until everyone became pretty sick of his schtick.
This changed slightly in 1999, as he began to tag with Rey Mysterio Jr. He made up a group called the "No Limit Soldiers," which soon became "The Filthy Animals."

The Filthy Animals were a great idea. They were comprised of Rey Mysterio Jr, Juventud Guererra, Eddie Guererro, and the Disco Inferno. They were neither heels nor faces, instead pranksters with chips on their shoulders. Dressed mostly in street clothes, they felt authentic and modern at a time when we saw WCW returning to pre-nwo styles of programming. Unfortunately, they were never handled particularly well, and the idea fizzled near the end of WCW's run and has since been largely forgotten. Konnan left WCW when it was purchased by Vince McMahon and left for Europe to tour with World Wrestling All Stars, mostly acting as a colour commentator.

Konnan returned stateside for the debut of NWA:TNA. Though just as aimless and annoying in character, he soon founded another harmless group; the 3 live kru, along with catchphrase-you-to-death BG James and Ron Killings. This gimmick lasted way longer than it should have, consisted of no memorable matches, and is really best forgotten. Konnan broke up the group by turning heel, and slowly built to something incredibly interesting.

Konnan debuted two Mexican wrestlers into TNA, Apollo and Homocide, near the end of 2005. Though their intentions were not clear at first (possibly because they had to fine tune the group first, replacing Apollo with Machete and then finally Hernandez), Konnan began a series of promos so strong, the last several years of forgettable performances were soon forgotten. He was fed up with how American audiences and promotions treated Mexican wrestlers, and was not only refusing to wrestle, but he also took over the commentators stand, created his own entrance area and commentating booth (a nice nod to the Spanish Announce Team that was part of early TNA). The new group was called The Latin American Exchange, and was TNA's opportunity to set a precident on social commentary in professional wrestling.

The summer that followed was an incredible one for both Konnan and the group, both because his manifesto was emerging as something viable and potent, but also because they were given a high profile feud with AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels. Billed as "poser boys" of TNA, Styles and Daniels fell victim to four months of blood-soaked passion crimes, all narrated beautifully by Konnan. His promos, paired alongside imagery of Spanish militant footage that peppered the group's presence on screen (a method stolen from D-Generation X), fueled the group's fast rise to being the definitive reason to watch TNA in 2006.

For Mexican wrestling fans, Konnan has always held special place, but insofar as his American resume is concerned, he's never really been a serious threat. Heading the Latin American Exchange has revitalized Konnan, and in the last year he's appeared inspired and hungry. This is perhaps because he's finally telling the truth with his character, or perhaps it's because he's finally been given a role that suits his artistic passions. Either way, the last twelve months have been a hallmark year for Konnan, even though he's pretty much retired. If the year he spent with LAX was his curtain call, then one can hardly call it wasted. Arguably, there was for once a threatening, spontaneous presence in professional wrestling, and we can credit Konnan for that.

As of this time, Konnan is out due to hip replacement surgery, and is fairly desperately in need of a kidney translplant. He has also recently quit TNA Wrestling due to his unhappiness with how the company has helped (or not helped) him with his health issues. He is expected to go back and help out AAA in Mexico.

85. DEAN MALENKO

Real Name - Dean Simon
Aliases - The Iceman; The Man of 1,000 Holds; The Shooter
Debuted - 1979
Titles Held - WCW United States; WCW World Tag
Team; WWF Light Heavyweight; ECW Tag Team; ECW TV; WCW Cruiserweight; ICWA Junior Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments - credited with invention of Crippler
Crossface, Jackhammer and 3-D moves; Simon Dean name and
gimmick based on Malenko; came #1 in the PWI 500 in 1997

Dean Malenko, for his low placement on this list, very well might be the best pure wrestler out of the entire 100. Four inches shorter than me at 5'6", weighing in at 206 pounds, Dean Malenko overcame his size issues by being one of the three most technically proficient wrestlers in the world. With his "1,000 Holds", especially the Texas Cloverleaf, Malenko would generally have the match of the night with a wrestler in his weight class and could hang with those far bigger than him without looking out of place.

After a decade of wrestling with his brother Joe in Japan, he rose to prominence on a national level first in ECW forming the first Triple Threat with Chris Benoit and Shane Douglas. After winning the tag titles with Chris defeating the Tazmaniac and Sabu, Malenko went on to have a series of classic matches with his Eddie Guerrero over the TV title. His friendship with these two men would in a way define his career, as he traveled with them practically at the same time to all three major wrestling organizations in the United States. In all three his best matches came either against these men or teaming with these men.

He debuted on WCW PPV teaming with Christ Benoit in 1995 at Halloween Havoc against Steven Regal and Bobby Eaton. He won his first Cruiserweight title in May of 1996 defeating Sinijiro Otani. He begun a feud with Rey Mysterio Jr. resulting in some amazing matches. Before dropping the title to Rey, Dean had an amazing match with Chris Benoit at WCW's Hog Wild PPV at Sturgis in front of possibly the worst wrestling crowd ever. The match was a technical masterpiece going into double overtime, the crowd booing with each overtime announced.

Malenko had amazing matches over the next year with Rey Mysterio, Ultimo Dragon, Eddie Guerrero, Syxx and Jeff Jarrett among others. I'm not going to claim that his feuds were legendary in any sense, it can be difficult to remember how Jeff Jarrett turned on him during an elimination tag match versus Steve McMicheal and Chris Benoit, but his matches more than made up for the sometimes poor, sometimes random booking.

The angle Malenko will probably be best remembered for (by me anyway) is his feud with Chris Jericho where Jericho declared himself "The Man of 1,004 Holds", most of them the armbar. In my opinion this would be the peak in the careers of Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko. While Jericho would go on to higher profile feuds and world title contention, he would never be as entertaining as when he was ripping on Malenko. Malenko was a part of Ric Flair's legendary 4 Horsemen and Shane Douglas' quickly forgotten The Revolution. When Kevin Sullivan was put in charge of the booking Malenko, Benoit and Guerrero all jumped to WWE with their friend Perry Saturn and his mop, Moppy the mop.

Dean Malenko had some fun matches in the WWE, most notably the 5 man tag match with the Radicalz and DX versus Too Cool, The Rock and Mick Foley. I remember his interactions with Rikishi being hilarious. He won the WWE's Light Heavyweight title a few times but his big feud was with the Hardy Boyz as he fell in love with Lita. He was portraying the fictional character "Double Ho Seven" at the time. The feud ended with him being pinned by Lita. Retirement was right around the corner.

Dean Malenko is a backstage agent for the WWE today. Despite the loss of his two best friends in the business Malenko is still teaching and planning out matches as only one of the greatest wrestling minds in the business can. At the age of 47 does he have a few matches left in him? I doubt it.

The entire Top 100 Wrestlers feature can be found here.

84. LANCE STORM

Real Name - Lance Evers
Debuted - 2nd October 1990
Titles Held - WWE Intercontinental; WCW United
States; WCW Cruiserweight; WCW Hardcore; ECW Tag Team
Other Accomplishments - worked as a trainer in OVW;
now runs Storm Wrestling Academy in Calgary; writes for UK
combat sport magazine Fighting Spirit; Ranked 322 of 500 best single wrestlers during the PWI years (2003); Wrestling Observer's Most Underrated Wrestler (2001); the only man to hold three titles at once in WCW; the first WCW wrestler to invade the WWE on May 28th, 2001.

Underrated. That's for sure.

CRMW (Canadian Rocky Mountain Wrestling) International/North American Champion,
5x CRMW Commenwealth Mid-Heaebyweight Champion,
2x CRMW North American Tag Team Championship w/Chris Jericho,
2x CWA (Catch Wrestling Association) Junior championship,
3x ECW Tag Tam Champion - w/Chris Candido (1) and Justin Credible (2),
SMW Beat the Champ TV Champion,
2x WAR Junior Heavyweight Tag Champion w/Yuji Yasuraoka,
2x WCWA (West Coast Wrestling Association) w/Chris Jericho,
WCW Cruiserweight Champion,
WCW Hardcore Champion,
3x WCW US Champion,
WWE Intercontinental Champion,
4x WWE Tag Team Champion - w/Christian (1), William Regal (2) & Chief Morley (1)

I voted Lance Storm as the #9 greatest wrestler of the modern era and I stand firmly behind it. On top of being one of the most technically sound wrestlers anyone has had the pleasure of watching perform his art, Lance Storm is one of the most stand up guys in the business. To me, aside from Bret Hart, Lance Storm is Canadian wrestling.

Lance started by training at the Hart Brothers Pro-Wrestling Camp in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Training alongside Lance was one Chris Jericho. The two would have their first professional matches against each other. Soon after, the two would go to FMW and CRMW, known as "Sudden Impact". As a singles wrestler, Lance was also wrestling globally in singles matches winning singles titles in Europe and Japan.

They would change their name once they came to Smokey Mountain Wrestling in 1994. Most people know the pair as "The Thrill Seekers", as they were known in SMW. By 1995, he was back to splitting time between Canada and Japan. He would do this until he came to the states in a big way in 1997.

Storm debuted in ECW in 1997 beating Balls Mahoney at Crossing the Line Again. His next marquee match was with Rob Van Dam at Barely Legal. You might remember his weak chair shots which drew some heavy heat from the crowd from that match. By the end of the year, we would start to see the beginnings of the Triple Threat with Candido, who started teaming with Storm after they fought at "As Good As It Gets" in September, and Shane Douglas. By the end of the year, Candido and storm were the tag team champions of ECW. Just in time for the Triple Threat to form with Bam Bam Bigelow and kicking out Storm.

Storm had his revenge on the Triple Threat, beating Candido in a singles match and Bam Bam and Shane in a tag team match, which saw him tag with Al Snow, who was on lend from the WWE at the time. By the middle of 1998, Lance was teaming with Candido again in time for the two to have another match against each other at Heatwave 1998.

The match between Candido and Storm was, in my mind, one of the finest of the night, which was no small feat. Heatwave 1998 stands out in my mind as one of the greatest PPV events that was ever held, and having a standout match amongst the rest of those matches is a real sign of greatness. Greatness that deserves to be in the top ten, despite what all the other writers for the site might think. Bastards.

Following his loss to Candido at Heatwave, a partnership was formed between Lance Storm and Tammy Lynn Bitch, better known as Dawn Marie. Storm feuded with Candido, Jerry Lynn and Tommy Dreamer until late 1999, when a new tag team was formed.

The Impact Players, while only having a short lifespan in ECW, were one of those tag teams that you know they never saw their full potential. This was because the team lasted from the fall of 1999 until Storm left ECW in May of 2000.

In WCW, Lance Storm became the US Champion within three months of being in the company, beating Buff Bagwell, Shane Douglas and Mike Awesome in one night. Then, the Canadian magic started. Storm beat Big Vito to become the Hardcore Champion, holding two belts at once. Then, he went on to beat Chavo Guerrero for the Cruiserweight title. All three of the belts were branded Canadian and all was well with the universe. Storm made a play for the Heavyweight Championship, but he could not best Booker T and he fell short of being the answer to yet another wrestling trivia question.

Storm gave the cruiserweight title to Elix Skipper and the Hardcore title to Carl Oulette, both members of the newly formed Team Canada. Team Canada was lead by Storm against the Msfits in Action, lead by Hugh Morris going by General Rection at the time. The Team got the rub from Bret Hart at New Blood Rising in 2000. Storm lead Jacques Rougeau, Elix Skipper, Mike Awesome, Carl Oulette and even Hacksaw Jim Duggan for a little while. After their feud with the Misfits, they went to feud with the Filthy Animals.

Storm even had a go at being the WCW commissioner for a few days, beating Ernest "the Cat" Miller for the honors. Someone called his mama, and six days later, storm lost the title back to Miller. Towards the end of WCW, Storm teamed with Mike Awesome to pursue the tag team titles, but the company would be sold to the WWE before they could capture the gold.

From a RAW in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Lance Storm was the first WCW wrestler to begin the first "Invasion" angle. In July of 2001, Storm would reunite with his ECW buddies and within three months of being in the WWE, he would be capture the WWE Intercontinental title from Albert. When Team Alliance lost the 2001 Survivor Series match, Storm was "fired", but would be hired back after defeating the Rock in a one on one match. The fact that he did it with some help from Test is not of note. Let's focus on Lance Storm besting the Rock.

2002 saw the emergence of the "un-Americans", who would not go by Team Canada, but might as well have. The group was Storm, Christian and Test. Later, William Regal would join the party. With Christian, Storm became a tag team champion beating Hulk Hogan and Edge at Vengeance 2002. Within the month of January in 2003, Storm and Regal win the tag titles twice, once from Booker T and Golddust and once from the Dudley Boyz. The titles transitioned to Storm and Chief Morley because of Regals "health problems" and that was the last title Storm would hold.

It went downhill after that with the infamous "boring" angle and the Val Venis team up/kiss of death. After the 2004 draft lottery, Storm last a match to Rhyno and wasn't see again on WWE TV. He accepted a job as a trainer in OVW and wrestled a match there as well. He went on to open hsw own wrestling school and came out of retirement once more to wrestle at One Night Stand 2006, defeating the guy he fought his first match against, Chris Jericho.

The most recent Lance Storm matches seen were an ROH title match against Bryan Danielson in April of 2006 and a match against christian in Ontario in December of 2006. He's always updating http://www.stormwrestling.com as well.

If I can be serious for a minute, Lance Storm is close to the top of my list. I can still remember marking out seeing Storm put on the rolling half crab on Disco Inferno in WCW for the first time. When Lance Storm wrestled, it was art that is rarely seen anymore. #84, ha! I voted for him as #9.

83. PAUL ORNDORFF

Aliases - Mr Wonderful
Debuted - 1976
Titles Held - WCW World Tag Team; WCW Television;
NWA National Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments - inducted into WWE Hall of Fame in
2005; inducted into University of Tampa Football Hall of Fame in
1986; Pro Wrestling Illustrated Match of the Year Award 1985 - with Roddy Piper vs, Mr. T and Hulk Hogan; PWI Feud of the Year 1986 vs. Hulk Hogan; PWI Most Hated Wrestler 1986

Like many of the other athletes on our vaunted list, the man who would be called Mr. Wonderful got his start on the grid iron. Also like many of the wrestlers on this list college success was met with apathy by professional scouts. While Orndorff was not able to catch on as a running back after success at the University of Tampa, he turned to legendary wrestling trainer Hiro Matsuda, who also trained Hulk Hogan and many other top wrestlers out of Florida, to teach him the noble art of professional wrestling.

Early in his career he was a top star in many of the NWA member federations winning titles in Georgia, the Mid-Atlantic, Tri-state, and Mid-America regions. He even was tapped to pursue Ric Flair for the NWA world championship. He was unable to win and soon headed "up North" where he would achieve his greatest notoriety.

Upon his arrival to the WWF he aligned himself with "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Bob "Ace" Orton. These three soon became the top heels in the company feuding with the likes of the Junkyard Dog and Jimmy Snuka. Orndorff competed at the infamous "War to Settle the Score" defeated Tony Atlas before interfering on behalf of Roddy Piper against Hulk Hogan to set up the main event for the first ever Wrestlemania.

Orndorff took the fall in the first Wrestlemania main event, and was subsequently left behind by his former allies Orton and Piper. Over the next few months he became the unlikely ally of Hulk Hogan against Piper and Orton. This alliance was not to last though, as Orndorff soon became resentful of Hogan's popularity insisting he was the better wrestler and in better shape. Mr. Wonderful turned on the beloved Hulkster and the result was the feud of the year for 1986. Their hatred culminated in one of the best cage matches ever after both simultaneously escaping the cage the match was restarted and Paul succumbed to the Hulkamania machine. Orndorff spent a few more years in the WWF before heading south for a "cup of coffee" in the NWA.

He disappeared from the wrestling scene for a few years before resurfacing in Smokey Mountain Wrestling. It would not be long before the big time would call again. This time it was in the form of WCW and in short order he won a tournament for the vacant WCW Television title. After a short run with that belt he teamed with "Pretty" Paul Roma as "Pretty Wonderful." Say what you will about Roma, but the tandem did win two WCW tag team titles.


Injuries eventually sidelined Orndorff's in-ring career, the worst of which was a stinger that led to an atrophied right side of his body. This is where Orndorff's toughness and character truly shined through. He has stated in interviews that despite the atrophied look of his right side in many ways his right arm was much stronger. He worked very hard to make sure that this setback would not set him back at all.

Orndorff capped off his stellar career with induction into the 2005 WWE Hall of Fame. He shared this honor with Hulk Hogan, Bob Orton, and Roddy Piper with whom he shared some of his biggest moments in his WWF career. Paul Orndorff will always be remembered for his devastating Pile Driver finishing maneuver and his all around toughness as a wrestler and a human being.

The entire Top 100 Wrestlers feature can be found here.

82. KERRY VON ERICH

Real Name - Kerry Gene Adkisson
Aliases - Texas Tornado; Modern Day Warrior
Debuted - 1979
Titles Held - NWA World Heavyweight; WWE
Intercontinental; WCCW American Heavyweight;
WCCW Six Man Tag
Other Accomplishments - died on 18th February 1993 from
self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest; wrestled on a fused
ankle for many years after a motorcycle accident in 1986; PWI Match of the Year against Ric Flair (1984); Wrestling Observer Feud of the Year - Von Erichs vs. The Fabulous Freebirds (1983, 1984); Wrestling Observer Match of the Year - Kerry, Kevin, and Mike Von Erich vs. The Fabulous Freebirds (1984)

One of the most tragic stories in the history of wrestling is that of the Von Erichs. Fritz Von Erich, a native of Texas did not play up his American roots like many stars in the history of wrestling. Instead he played upon his German Ancestry and became one of the most hated heels in the country. Despite his heel career as a wrestler, he was the patriarch of one of the most dominant families of wrestlers in history. They dominated the Texas region and arguably their brightest star was Kerry.

Kerry Von Erich got his first chance to shine in the face of tragedy. Older brother David passed away and at the tender age of 25 of gastroenteritis. In response the NWA held the David Von Erich Parade of Champions in 1984. In the main event Kerry defeated NWA champion Ric Flair to become NWA Champion. Although this was certainly the highpoint of his career, he would be champion for just under three weeks. He had the third shortest title reign in NWA history, although he did lose in controversial fashion with his foot on the bottom rope.

He had his greatest consistent success in World Class Championship Wrestling, which was the Texas territory run by his father Fritz. He and his brothers, Mike and Kevin had an almost two year feud with the Fabulous Freebirds comprised of Michael P.S. Hayes, Terry "Bam-Bam" Gordy, and Buddy Roberts. They had some absolutely violent wars and tore up the South with their six man matches.

Tragedy struck again for Kerry in 1986 when a motorcycle accident left him severely injured. He attempted to walk too soon after dislocating his hip destroying the bones in his foot. The damage was so severe that it needed to be amputated. He hid this fact from nearly everyone and went on to have a classic bloodbath against Jerry Lawler for the AWA title. It was not long before the WWF would come calling.

Kerry Von Erich made his debut in the summer of 1990 and was immediately one of the most popular athletes. He entered into a feud with Mr. Perfect over his newly won Intercontinental Title filling in for Brutus Beefcake who had just had the parasailing accident that would change his career. Kerry won the Intercontinental Title from Mr. Perfect at Summerslam that year which was also only his fourth televised match with the company. He subdued the Perfect One with his patented Von Erich Claw Hold and then the Texas Tornado Discuss Punch. This was before the days of the twisting shooting star senton or Tilt-a-whirl powerbomb would only net two counts. It was a simpler time when squeezing someone's forehead, spinning around and punching them in the face was more than enough to score a victory. Much like his NWA Title reign, his tenure as IC champ would be short lived as he dropped the title back to Mr. Perfect after only a few months.

He would stay in the WWF for another 18 months before heading back to familiar territory. This time it was the Global Wrestling Federation in Texas. Sadly, this would be where he would the story would end for Kerry. After the tragic loss of his brothers David, Mike, and Chris, Kerry took his own life in February of 1993.

Kerry had the most success of any of the Von Erichs, but he could not escape the personal demons that haunted his family. He was one of the most popular wrestlers of the 1980s and early 1990s, and truly deserves his spot as one of the top 100 wrestlers since 1980.

81. HONKY TONK MAN

Real Name - Roy Wayne Farris
Aliases - Honky Tonk Wayne, A member of the Blond Bombers
Debuted - 1977
Titles Held - WWE Intercontinental; AWA Southern Tag
Team; NWA Southeast Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments - cousin of Jerry Lawler;
minister for the Universal Life Church

The following is from Wikipedia.

Farris won several regional tag team titles as one half of the "Blond Bombers" with Larry Latham who went on to become Moondog Spot. In mid-1986 Farris also won the North American Heavyweight Title from Bad News Allen in Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling as Honky Tonk Wayne.

The Honky Tonk Man debuted as a face in the WWF in late 1986. The fans rejected Honky Tonk Man as a face, however. The WWF turned him heel. As a heel, he was managed by Jimmy Hart, dubbed "The Colonel" in a reference to Elvis Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker.

The Honky Tonk Man's first feud in the WWF was with Jake Roberts in early 1987. It began in "The Snake Pit" on Wrestling Challenge, where Honky struck Jake with his guitar after Jake made disparaging remarks about Honky's name and singing talent. (Both wrestlers tell differing stories about whether Jake was actually injured. Jake states in his DVD that the Honky Tonk Man actually injured him, causing him to develop a painkiller addiction. Mick Foley also says this in his original autobiography. The Honky Tonk Man claims that this is a lie and that Mick Foley actually apologized for not calling him earlier to verify the truthfulness of this before having it published.) The feud reached its height at WrestleMania III in a match where Jake was accompanied to the ring by Alice Cooper (to counter the presence of Jimmy Hart). Honky Tonk Man won the match when he pinned Jake while holding the ring ropes (one of many ways that heel wrestlers cheat).

The Honky Tonk Man (believed by some to have been a substitute for Butch Reed) won the WWF Intercontinental Championship from Ricky Steamboat at the June 2, 1987 Superstars of Wrestling tapings in Buffalo, New York. He went on to proclaim himself the "greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time" and did, in fact, hold the title a record 15-months (454 days).

One of his major feuds as champion was with Randy Savage. Honky disrespected Savage, who was trying to congratulate him for his win over Savage's most hated enemy, Steamboat. In the weeks that followed, Honky began to use his biggest catchphrase, "the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time," and put down all who preceded him, including Savage, who was coming off an impressive year-plus long reign of his own. The feud exploded during an October episode of "Saturday Night's Main Event" on NBC when Honky shoved Miss Elizabeth to the ground and smashed a guitar over Savage's head. The two captained opposing teams at the inaugural Survivor Series pay-per-view on Thanksgiving Day 1987 with Savage, Steamboat, and Roberts lasting as the "survivors" when Honky Tonk Man (the last remaining member of his team) deliberately took a countout. Honky and Savage met again on the Feb. 5, 1988 Main Event special live in prime time on NBC, with Savage winning by countout.

At WrestleMania IV, Honky Tonk Man defended his title against Brutus Beefcake. Honky was disqualified after Jimmy Hart knocked out the referee when it appeared that Honky was about to lose to Beefcake's sleeper hold.

In correlation with an angle in which Beefcake was "injured" by Ron Bass just before a rematch at SummerSlam 1988, Honky lost the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam to the Ultimate Warrior in a 30-second squash match. At the event, Honky made an open challenge to anyone in the backstage area to wrestle him.

After losing the Intercontinental belt, Honky feuded briefly with Warrior, then teamed with Greg Valentine in a brief feud with the Hart Foundation in early 1989. He spent much of 1989 feuding with the returning "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka before reuniting with Valentine (with his normally blonde hair dyed black) as Rhythm & Blues. They sang at WrestleMania VI but were interrupted by the Bushwhackers, with whom they feuded through the summer. Rhythm & Blues also repeatedly challenged the Hart Foundation for the tag team titles. Shortly after Survivor Series 1990, Honky briefly did color commentary while continuing to team with Valentine. He left the WWF shortly into 1991.

In 1994, the Honky Tonk Man was working for World Championship Wrestling and was challenging Johnny B. Badd for the WCW World Television Championship when he left due to a dispute with management. In his book Controversy Creates Cash, Eric Bischoff states that his favorite firing was the Honky Tonk Man. Honky Tonk has responded by saying that it was an honor as Bischoff had fired a number of people while in WCW.

After a brief stint in the American Wrestling Federation, Honky later resurfaced in the WWF as a manager for Billy Gunn, who had begun a singles run. Under Honky's tutelage, Gunn became known as "Rockabilly," which was a short-lived and unsuccessful gimmick. Honky made an appearance in the 2001 Royal Rumble where he entered the Rumble but got nailed with his own guitar by Kane and was quickly eliminated.

Today, the Honky Tonk Man still works for various independent promotions around the world, such as MainStream wrestling. He was featured in The 50 Greatest WWE Superstars Of All Time, a WWE magazine released in December 2003.

Say what you will about the Honky Tonk Man's wrestling skills, but let's look at the facts. The man was never not over. He's not famous for hurting opponents, he had crazy charisma and he didn't need to have a monster body to be a credible threat. He also brought us Rockabilly, God bless him.

80. STAN LANE

Aliases - Sweet Stan Lane; Stan Flair
Debuted - 1974
Titles Held - NWA United States Tag Team; USWA Tag
Team; AWA Southern Tag Team
Other Accomplishments - entered semi-retirement in 1993;
did announcing work for the WWF in 1994, including hosting
Wrestling Challenge

If you're ever wondering what Jim Ross is referring to when he tosses around the term "tag team specialist" on Monday nights, track down a tape (or I guess a WWE 24/7 segment) of Stan Lane and you'll have a much better idea. With his good looks and polished in-ring skills, Lane probably could have had a decent run as a singles performer, but instead he spent two decades as the ultimate team player, keeping the tag team scene alive in the late 80's and early 90's as a member of two great duos and one legendary unit, which gives him his own spot as one of our Top 100 Wrestlers of the Modern Era.

Lane debuted in the National Wrestling Alliance's Florida Championship Wrestling territory as a singles competitor after being trained by Ric Flair in 1974. However, it would be six years before Lane made his first major impact on a national level.

In 1982, Lane journeyed to the Memphis-based Continental Wrestling Association where bookers Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett teamed him with another good-looking young blond wrestler, Steve Keirn. With the endorsement of legendary Memphis hero "Fabulous One" Jackie Fargo, Lane and Keirn became the Fabulous Ones, the most popular tag team in the territory. Lawler and Jarrett promoted the team with then-innovative gimmicks like music videos and dressed them like Chippendale dancers with sequined tuxedoes and top hats.

The Fabulous Ones captured the CWA's Southern Tag Team championship less than a year after their formation, the first of 15 times the duo would hold the title. Also in their first 12 months together, Lane and Keirn ignited what would be a five-year rivalry with the brutal Sheepherders (probably better known by their later docile incarnation as the Bushwhackers in the WWF). The contrast of the pretty Fabulous Ones and ultra-violent Sheepherders made for the perfect feud and their bloody matches over the next half decade showed that Lane and Keirn were capable of far more than just posing for the cameras.

Save for a brief sojourn to Texas, the Fabulous Ones remained in Memphis for the next few years, remaining perennial champions and among the promotion's biggest draws. In 1985, the team journeyed outside their comfort zone for a fairly uneventful run in the American Wrestling Association then headed back to their roots in Florida where they met with a bit more success. Towards the end of 1986, Lane and Keirn made a final trip back to Memphis for one last run with the Sheepherders.

1987 was the year that changed it all for Stan Lane. Leaving Keirn and Memphis behind, Lane received the call from the NWA's primary territory, Jim Crockett Promotions, to replace Dennis Condrey as Bobby Eaton's partner "Sweet" Stan in the Jim Cornette-managed Midnight Express, one of the top heel tag teams in all of wrestling. Overnight Lane showed his versatility, going from five years of playing the virtuous pretty boy to an instant transformation into a smug bad guy who could get under the fans' skin. The new incarnation of the Midnight Express quickly proved even more successful than the last as the two tag team specialists complimented one another perfectly in the ring while Cornette excelled on the microphone.

Lane helped Eaton and Cornette write new chapters in the feud that defined tag team wrestling in the 80's pitting them against the Rock & Roll Express—a team ironically patterned in some ways after the Fabulous Ones—but his addition of speed and martial arts prowess also propelled the Midnight Express to their first of three NWA United States Tag Team titles in May of 1987. Lane and Eaton would trade the U.S. Tag Team title back and forth with the Fantastics, yet another team inspired by the Fabulous Ones, into 1988.

In September of 1988, Lane achieved his greatest accomplishment to date when he and Eaton defeated fellow heels Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard of the Four Horsemen to win the NWA World Tag Team titles and solidify themselves as the top team in all of the NWA and possibly the world. The Midnight Express proved so dominant that despite not altering their heel tactics, crowds began to cheer the team enthusiastically, one of the first examples of the "bad guys" gaining the support of the people foreshadowing events of a decade later.

At the end of 1988, Lane and Eaton dropped the World Tag Team belts to the Road Warriors, but officially made the transition along with Cornette to full-fledged babyfaces. Their new status would carry into 1989 and an unexpected challenge from the returned Dennis Condrey, teamed with old partner Randy Rose and managed by Cornette rival Paul E. Dangerously as the Original Midnight Express. After a couple initial setbacks, the Lane/Eaton/Cornette combination proved the superior Midnight Express, running Condrey & Rose out of the NWA.

As 1989 wore on, the Midnight Express found themselves overlooked as far as title contention, but along the way picked up a pair of not necessarily desired protégés in the Dynamic Dudes. The enthusiastic young babyface team of Shane Douglas and Johnny Ace latched onto Lane and Eaton, claiming they were their idols, and asked Cornette to manage them as well, a request he complied with, annoying the Midnight Express in the process. In November, the Lane and Eaton challenged the Dudes to a match with Cornette in a neutral corner and ended up cheating to win with the aid of their manager, who had been in cahoots with them from the start—the Midnight Express was back on the dark side where they belonged (of course the crowd hated the Dudes and thus cheered the turn, but that's another issue).

However, despite the heel turn, the Midnight Express was on its last legs as 1990 pulled around. Lane and Eaton claimed another run with the NWA U.S. Tag Team titles from the team of Brian Pillman & Tom Zenk, but dropped the straps to the Steiner Brothers three months later. This would prove the team's last taste of gold as Lane and Cornette departed the company during its transition into the Ted Turner-owned World Championship Wrestling leaving Eaton as a single performer and the Midnight Express buried.

After a short-lived Fabulous Ones reunion with Keirn in Memphis, Lane joined Cornette's new Smoky Mountain Wrestling promotion and teamed with Tom Pritchard as the Heavenly Bodies, a team very much in the same vein as the Midnight Express. The Bodies won the SMW Tag Team titles five times over the next two years and renewed Lane and Cornette's old feud with the Rock & Roll Express, even journeying back to WCW for a one-shot deal losing to their rivals at Superbrawl III in 1993.

Shortly after the Superbrawl match, Lane retired from active competition and took a job as a commentator for the World Wrestling Federation for a couple years. In the late 90's, Lane returned to the ring and reunited with Keirn as the Fabulous Ones in the NWA Wildside promotion. Since then, Lane has remained semi-active on the independent circuit, often teaming with both Eaton and Condrey as the Midnight Express.

When you think about great wrestlers from the past 20 years, Stan Lane might not be a name that instantly leaps to mind. However, when you think of great tag teams, the Midnight Express will be at the top of the list with the Fabulous Ones not far behind and the Heavenly Bodies likely figuring in as well. Considering the common denominator of those three teams, "Sweet" Stan definitely deserves his props.

79. MATT HARDY

Aliases - Version 1.0; Angelic Diablo
Debuted - 15th October 1993
Titles Held - WWE World Tag Team; WWE European;
WWE Cruiserweight; WWE Hardcore
Other Accomplishments - six year relationship with Amy
'Lita' Dumas ended publicly in 2005; created and ran OMEGA
Wrestling with brother Jeff in 1997

A darling of the Internet Wrestling Community, and a perennial midcard wrestler, Matt Hardy gets billed as underrated so often that eventually the powers that be in WWE will have to come around and give him the high level push that many feel he deserves. He has been with WWE since 1998, which means he has one of the longest tenures with the company, and is one of a dozen or so stars that have been with the company since the peak that was the "Attitude Era." His employment was almost entirely consecutive too except for several months in 2005 when he was fired, but more on that later.

The man that many figured would turn out to be "Hardy Janetty" got his start as a self taught wrestler and founder of the North Carolina based OMEGA promotion (OMEGA standing for Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Art) that also gave rise to the likes of Gregory Helms, Shannon Moore, Joey Abs, Joey Mercury, Christian York, and of course his brother Jeff. After working in another promotion and being made fun of for not working properly Matt and Jeff sought training in the capable hands of Dory Funk Jr.

It was not long after, that Matt and Jeff made their way to the then WWF making their debut as the Jinx Brothers typically getting squashed on programs like Jakked and Metal. The eventually started wrestling as the Hardy Boys, the z would come later, wearing awful plaid gear and still putting over more prominent superstars. Eventually, they would don equally ridiculous looking mesh shirts and cargo points, add a Z and a tag team phenomenon was born.

The Hardyz first became a force to be reckoned with during the Terri Invitational tournament which was a best of five series in which the winner would gain the managerial services of Terri Runnels, and a bunch of cash. The series culminated in the ladder match that made the stars of Matt, Jeff, and Edge and Christian. In fact the two Canadian brothers would be one third of the best three way tag team feud possibly ever. The Hardyz, Edge and Christian, and the Dudley Boyz feuded in a series of table, ladder, and TLC matches that were the hottest thing going in WWE in 2001 and 2002.


Matt and Jeff had eventually went there separate ways after having a short feud at the end of 2002. During the brand extension Matt went to Smackdown and Jeff went to RAW. It was on Smackdown that Matt had some of his greatest success. He was reborn as Matt Hardy Version 1.0. His entrance now featured a Windows Media Player style graphic and featured Matt Facts including, "Matt usually exceeds the speed limit," and "Matt strongly dislikes mustard." He was incredibly over with the fans which he called his MFers (Mattitude Followers). His biggest success as Version 1.0 was winning the cruiserweight title and feuding with Rey Mysterio.

All through this period he was in a serious relationship with Lita who had played his valet when they were part of Team Extreme with his brother Jeff. He got a switch from Smackdown to RAW in order to spend more time with Lita, but while he was recuperating from knee surgery, he discovered that Lita was having an affair with Edge. He publicly acknowledged this and was fired from WWE for his behavior. He used that opportunity to wrestle for Ring of Honor and had decent if not outstanding matches with Christopher Daniels, Homicide, and Roderick Strong. During this period he also "invaded" RAW and tried to attack Edge. Eventually he was resigned and had a feud with Edge that turned the Rated R Superstar into the top heel on the roster, and made Matt into…another midcarder.

Matt spent the next year or so in purgatory until his brother cleaned up his act and became a member of the WWE roster once again. It was not long before the Hardy Boyz were reunited. They even won the tag titles again despite being on separate brands. It seems now that they are going their own way as Matt is contending for the United States title on Smackdown while Jeff feuds with Umaga on RAW.

Matt definitely deserves to be considered among the top 100 wrestlers of the modern era. In a time when almost everything seems lifted from somewhere else, Matt created a very unique gimmick with Version 1.0. He is also one half of one of the most successful tag teams of all time and has been a part of some of the riskiest matches in WWE history. I personally would have put Matt a bit higher on the list, but number 79 still is a good place for the Sensei of Mattitude.

78. LEX LUGER

Real Name - Lawrence Wendell Pfhol
Aliases - The Narcissist; The Total Package
Debuted - September 1985
Titles Held - WCW World Heavyweight; WCW United
States; WCW World Tag Team; WCW Television
Other Accomplishments - co-winner of 1994 Royal Rumble with
Bret Hart; Jim Crockett Sr Memorial Cup winner in 1988 with
Sting; former member of the Four Horsemen

A messy personal life, bad attitude and generally unpleasant air surrounding just about everything he has done since entering professional wrestling have more or less forever tarnished whatever legacy Lex Luger had a shot at and have made him the favorite pariah/punching bag for every documentary style DVD or WWE 24/7 program that Vince McMahon will ever produce. A bit of a shame given that, love him or hate him, Luger is unquestionably one of the bigger names to come out of wrestling in the 80s and 90s and was actually not a bad worker at one point in his career. Certainly regardless of how you might feel about the guy as a human being, you must concede he's one of the top 100 wrestlers of the modern era.

If he had his druthers, the man born Larry Pfohl would be remembered today as a great football player, but despite brief stings in the CFL, USFL and as a member of the NFL's Green Bay Packers in the early 80's, injuries put an early halt to hopes of a lengthy career on the gridiron. At a loose end as far as how to utilize his impressive physical assets to put food on his table, Pfohl hooked up with veteran professional wrestler and trainer Hiro Matsuda, the intensely disciplined man who had prepared Hulk Hogan for a career in the mat game, and decided to try his hand in the squared circle.

Pfohl, rechristened "Lex Luger" in a play on the name of Superman's archnemesis Lex Luthor, debuted in the National Wrestling Alliance's Florida territory in 1985 and, despite a lack of pure wrestling skills, became a top star based almost entirely on his incredibly toned physique. Within months of his first match, Luger defeated the legendary Wahoo McDaniel for the Southern title and not long after that was facing NWA World champion Ric Flair when he toured Florida. Despite drawing money for the promotion, Luger quickly became unpopular backstage, reportedly lacking enthusiasm or respect for wrestling given his football background and generally displaying arrogance and disdain for his fellow performers. In one infamous steel cage match, noted legitimate tough guy Bruiser Brody broke from the script and began to attack Luger for real, leading the younger star to flee the ring in genuine fear.

In 1987, Luger migrated north to Jim Crockett's mid-Atlantic territory, the hub of the NWA, where he joined Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard and manager J.J. Dillon as the first non-charter member of premiere heel stable the Four Horsemen, replacing founder Ole Anderson. While the still green Luger and his straightforward power wrestling stood out as a stark contrast to veteran ring technicians Flair, Anderson and Blanchard, he provided the Horsemen with a youthful energy and intimidating look. Luger gained valuable experience and began to mature as an in-ring competitor paired with his new stablemates, capturing his first of four NWA U.S. titles from Nikita Koloff in a solid match at the Great American Bash. It was also around this time that Luger adopted the nickname "The Total Package" and began using the Human Torture Rack backbreaker as his pet finisher.

Luger's tenure as a Horseman lasted less than a year before he broke away from the group desiring individual glory beyond being another henchman for Flair and blaming Dillon's interference for various losses, including dropping the U.S. title to Dusty Rhodes. Luger became one of the most popular wrestlers in the NWA and the top contender to Flair's World title throughout 1988. He was briefly joined on his crusade against the Horsemen by fellow Florida alumni Barry Windham, with whom he teamed to defeat Anderson and Blanchard for the NWA World Tag Team titles, but the duo split violently after Windham turned against Luger in the rematch and became a Horseman. Luger rebounded to find a new ally in Sting and they won the prestigious Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup tag team tournament. Unfortunately for Luger, he wouldn't find the same luck against Flair, having one World title match at the Great American Bash stopped controversially due to a cut on his forehead and then dropping a rematch at Starrcade. While Luger may have come up short against Flair, he was gaining a reputation for being more than just a cocky musclehead and as a guy who could actually work a match.

His World title aspirations dashed for the time being, Luger decided to kill two birds with one stone in early 1989, gaining revenge on Windham and reclaiming the U.S. title in one fell swoop. However the year took a different kind of turn for the newly re-crowned champ when he turned heel, quite probably to fill the void left by Flair turning face. For the remainder of '89, Luger had one of his best stints as an in-ring competitor, putting together hot matches with Ricky Steamboat and Brian Pillman and actually hearing cheers from the crowd despite his underhanded tactics.

For the NWA, Luger's resurgence in popularity couldn't have come at a better time as their top babyface, Sting, had just gone down to injury, and once again they required Luger to step into his familiar role as virtuous challenger to the once again villainous Flair. Luger again unsuccessfully chased Flair for the World title until Sting was ready to return and claim it for himself, then went back to the undercard, defending the U.S. title against the likes of Mark Callous (the future Undertaker) and engaging in a brief but violent feud with veteran Stan Hansen (ironically an old partner of Luger's one-time real life tormentor Bruiser Brody).

In 1991, the remnants of Jim Crockett's NWA promotion officially changed its name to WCW to signal the official transition of ownership to media mogul Ted Turner and kick off probably the most tumultuous year of Lex Luger's career. New WCW head Jim Herd wanted Ric Flair to at last drop the World title to Luger and ride off into wrestling's sunset, but Flair disagreed with his new boss on this and many other matters of import. As a result, Flair departed WCW in the spring, leaving the organization without a champion and depriving Luger of the big win he'd waited three years for. Instead, Luger defeated Windham for the vacant title at the Great American Bash then nonsensically turned heel once more after the match amidst a chorus of boos and chants of "We Want Flair!"

Many say Luger never truly recovered from his big first World title win not coming against the legend he had chased for years and instead against a last minute replacement. To a lot of the average fans, it seemed Luger was a guy who could never really get the job done unless it was on a fluke, and that image haunted him the rest of his career.

Luger carried the World title from 1991 into 1992 racking up a string of forgettable defenses against Ron Simmons and others, but the Flair situation and several years of feeling like he was spinning his wheels deflated the little enthusiasm for the business the wannabe football star had built since his auspicious debut. At Superbrawl II, Luger dropped the World title to Sting and then left WCW to ponder his next move.

That next move proved an unexpected one to wrestling fans, but one that allowed Luger to finally make a run at breaking the tether to an industry he had little true passion for. Luger signed a contract with World Wrestling Federation head honcho Vince McMahon not to wrestle, but instead to be a cornerstone of the fledgling World Bodybuilding Federation. Luger's tremendous fitness combined with his existing notoriety among the wrestling fans McMahon hoped to draw over to the WBF made him an irresistible draw to the promoter. Luger appeared on the WWF's Wrestlemania VIII—the same event where old rival Flair would defend the WWF World title ironically enough—in a satellite interview to promote his impending debut in the WBF, however that would be the last fans would see of the former "Total Package" for nearly a year as he injured his arm in a motorcycle accident short after, putting him out of action.

When Luger was ready to return at the dawn of 1993, he found the WBF long since gone out of business but contracted expectations to Vince McMahon still hanging over his head, meaning he had no choice but to return to wrestling via the WWF. At the Royal Rumble, Bobby Heenan introduced the world to Luger's new gimmick "The Narcissist," a self-obsessed "modern day Adonis" who spent a lot of him posing in front of mirrors and wasn't much different from Luger's typical heel persona save for new tights with fringe on them. As "The Narcissist," Luger put together a decent feud with WWF veteran Mr. Perfect and was set to move onto bigger fish in the form of former World champion Bret Hart, but as had been the case so often in his career, the departure of another star led to a change of plans.

After nearly a decade as the WWF's top star, Hulk Hogan departed for Hollywood and beyond seemingly for good in the spring of '93, leaving McMahon scrambling for something familiar and rather than promoting the popular Hart as Hogan's heir apparent, he latched on to the closest tanned, blond muscleman: Luger. McMahon abruptly yanked Luger from the "Narcissist" gimmick—which had slowly been gaining traction—and shoehorned him into the role of All-American challenger to devious World champion Yokozuna, having his new top babyface show up to bodyslam the 500 pound monster onboard the U.S.S. Intrepid on the 4th of July (just in case folks didn't get the point).

Luger toured America in a star-spangled bus called the "Lex Express," but while some fans cheered, most recognized him as a second rate Hogan at best, and an uncertain McMahon allowed his super patriot a countout win over Yokozuna at Summerslam, but not the World title. As 1993 turned to 1994, the fans made it clear they preferred Hart and Undertaker to Luger and thus he was transitioned out of the main event picture—though rumor had it he was scheduled to win the World title early in the night at Wrestlemania X only to drop it to Hart later and plans were scuttled after a drunk Luger spilled them to a reporter the night before—and into a mid-card feud with Tatanka and the Million Dollar Corporation.

By the middle of 1995, Luger was losing tag team matches partnered with Davey Boy Smith and clearly not loving life. No longer enthused about his role in the WWF and with his contract set to expire, Luger sent feelers out to Eric Bischoff over at WCW, who was handing out big contracts seemingly like candy to former WWF stars like Hogan and Randy Savage in order to bulk up the talent roster for the debut of Monday Nitro, WCW's prime time television answer to the WWF's Monday Night Raw. Initially, Bischoff wanted nothing to do with Luger, but Sting stood up for his old friend and convinced the WCW boss to offer him a contract, albeit one offering less money than his existing WWF deal. Luger signed on the dotted line literally at the 11th hour of his WWF tenure, wrestling at a house show for the company over the weekend and then flying to Minneapolis as a major surprise for the live debut of Nitro without giving McMahon any notice and making a powerful enemy for life with his unprofessional actions.

Back in WCW, the powers that be seemingly had little idea what to do with Luger following his explosive debut. Throughout the rest of 1995 and into 1996, one week Luger would be a heel allied with Jimmy Hart and feuding with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, the next he would be a babyface teamed with Sting with the duo even holding the World Tag Team titles for several months. It wasn't until the historic New World Order invasion began in the summer of '96 that Luger found a stable role as just about all of WCW became de facto good guys and "The Total Package" settled into being the fallback number two babyface behind Savage, Roddy Piper, The Giant, Sting or whoever was hot at the time. Luger actually won the World title for less than a week in 1997, going over the now evil Hogan in what once upon a time would have been considered a dream match, but quickly dropped the belt back and spent most of his time taking on secondary NWO members like Buff Bagwell and Brian Adams.

Luger experienced a slightly renewed babyface push when he joined Sting, Kevin Nash and other in the Wolfpac faction—the "good" NWO—and got another title reign of under a week, winning the U.S. title from Bret Hart, but his role was quickly reduced to background player as somebody at WCW realized that Luger couldn't be more of the antithesis to the cool, hip hop image the Wolfpac was trying to project. When the Wolfpac regrouped with the rest of the NWO as a rejuvenated heel group at the start of 1999, Luger became a bad guy again, but a bicep injury put him out of action for most of the year.

When Luger returned in the fall, the NWO was gone and WCW was once again in a state of flux, with Bischoff being transitioned out of power and former WWF writer Vince Russo being ushered in as his successor. In the midst of the chaos, Luger was given one last run as a top heel, going under the moniker The Total Package full-time and taking on real-life girlfriend Miss Elizabeth as his valet. Luger picked up wins over Hart and Sting, but never got within sniffing distance of the World title and saw his push stall out after being steamrolled by Hogan in the 2000 edition of Superbrawl.

Creative differences pitting Luger and Liz against Russo behind the scenes led to the duo being banished from television for much of 2000 and the old "attitude problem" stigma began to swirl again. When the erstwhile Total Package returned in the fall, his hair was short for the first time in his over 15 years in the business and his age was beginning to clearly show. Luger and Bagwell formed a tag team which they rode through 2001, but became evident to anybody paying attention that the Package's best day were behind him.

In March of 2001, the ailing WCW closed its doors and its assets were sold off to none other than Vince McMahon, more or less guaranteeing that Lex Luger's career as a major player in professional wrestling had come to an end.

Luger made a brief return from semi-retirement in 2002 wrestling several dates in Europe with the touring World Wrestling All-Stars promotion. Sadly it would not be wrestling that kept Luger's names in the headline as in May of 2003, Elizabeth was found dead in his home from a drug overdose. Police searched the house and found a plethora of illegal drugs, leading Luger to be charged with possession. The incident put a permanent black eye on the one-time star as many to this day blame him for Elizabeth's death—an opinion supported by an unflattering story chronicling the event on WWE's Confidential program.

Trying to put the Elizabeth incident behind him, Luger made a pair of appearances on Total Non-Stop Action pay-per-views later in the year, but didn't stick around beyond that. He returned to TNA at Sting's side in 2005, but looked every bit of his 47 years and clearly not happy to be standing in a wrestling ring. In 2006, Luger claimed he had found religion in large part thanks to Sting, a noted born again Christian. Today, Luger makes ends meet wrestling on the independent circuit, an ironic fate for a man who never wanted to be a wrestler to begin with.

Regardless of all the negativity surrounding his life and career, Lex Luger was a top performer during wrestling's two biggest boom periods, and thus earns a place on our Top 100.

77. DAVE FINLAY

Aliases - Fit Finlay; Belfast Bruiser; Finlay; "Fit" Finley
Debuted - October 1978
Titles Held - WWE United States; WCW Television
Other Accomplishments - WCW Hardcore Junkyard Invitational
Trophy winner; awarded LL Cool J Award by Fighting Spirit Magazine

The guidelines for IP's top 100 Wrestlers feature center on each wrestler's achievements since 1980 in North America. Given these constraints, # 77 is a decent showing for second generation wrestler, Mr. David Edward Finlay. For, even though "Fit" was wrestling as early as 1978, he didn't appear before American audiences regularly prior to 1995.

This means that one must discount his reign as the British Heavyweight Champion for All Star Promotions, his four reigns as Joint Promotions' British Heavy Middleweight Champion, as well as around 15 other title reigns throughout Europe. Also not taken into consideration are his feuds and classic matches with the likes of Alan Kilby, Johnny Saint, Ringo Rigby, Dave Taylor, and Marty Jones.

The Finlay who makes the Inside Pulse top 100 is not the slender young Irishman who would come to the ring with Native American Princess Paula. (I'm not quite sure why those gimmicks went together.) No, the Finlay to make our top 100 is the mean old bastard you see today on SmackDown.

Finlay debuted in WCW around 1995, languishing in the mid-card/lower mid-card. He was given a feud with Lord Steven Regal based solely on the traditional hatred between the English and the Northern Irish. Though this feud produced some memorably stiff encounters (Finlay broke Regal's nose at Uncensored '96), it didn't exactly set the world on fire, or lead to much of anything. Finlay's career in World Championship Wrestling reached its zenith in 1998 during his reign as TV champion. But even then, he was merely a supporting character in the famed Benoit/Booker T best of seven series.

At a house show in July 1999, Finlay was severely injured in a Hardcore match against "Nasty Boy" Knobbs. He took a seemingly routine bump through a table. Sadly neither the table nor his landing were routine. The table shattered like jagged glass, lacerating a nerve in Finlay's knee.

Amputation was considered, and there was a 50/50 shot of Finlay ever walking again.

Fit Finlay was wrestling again by the end of the year.

He hung around the hardcore division for a bit, managed some wrestler known as "the Dog" and quietly retired in 2000.

Like so many others in WCW, Fit Finlay was misused. It's easy to see why. Finlay was a "wrestler" in the era of "sports entertainment." He wasn't funny on the microphone. He didn't have cool hand signals or a bunch of over-used catchphrases for the crowd to parrot. He was the antithesis of the "Attitude/NWO" era. Finlay went out to the ring, and wrestled.

His brutal and deliberate style was "boring" to the bandwagon fans of the wrestling boom. ("Why can't he do a move like THE WORM?") Freshly-minted smarks were at a stage wherein they thought good matches consisted of a series of unrelated highspots, and didn't appreciate his old-school approach.

When WCW folded, Finlay took a job as a Road Agent for the WWF. He was given the task of teaching the "Divas" how to wrestle.

This should be the end of the story.

But in 2004, Finlay started training to wrestle again. He even defeated Jamie Noble that year at a show in Glasgow. In 2005, vignettes started to appear on WWE (nee WWF) programming hyping Finlay, an Irishman who loved to fight. In January 2006, and the tender age of 47, Finlay made his debut as a WWE wrestler.

And it worked.

It worked well, despite all logic saying that it shouldn't.

Finlay lost his return/debut match against Matt Hardy by means of disqualification for excessive brutality. (Though, through these actions, he gained Eric S. as a lifelong fan.) The nest week, Finlay's post victory beatdown of Funaki caused the referee to retroactively disqualify him and award Funaki the match.

Finlay then started feuding with Bobby Lashley. With this series of matches, Finlay was able to reinforced his "tough as nails" image, make Bobby Lashley look like a million bucks, and improve Lashley's wrestling ability by no less than 200 percent.

Pushing 50, Finlay was not only one of the top workers on Smackdown, but in the entire WWE: able to work a stiff and brutal style, without taking liberties or injuring anybody (as opposed to, say, Bob Holly); able to keep up with guys half his age, and avoid injuries in a WWE plagued with them; able to put on an entertaining match with just about anybody.

When saddled with ridiculous Irish gimmicks like a shillelagh and a leprechaun, Finlay made it work. Perhaps it was these things which supplied the level of Sports Entertainment Finlay needed to get over with the casual fans all along.

I call BS.

Andre is a legend.

I call BS.

Andre is a legend.

I think the BS flag avatar would have made sense here...

76. DAVEY BOY SMITH

Aliases - British Bulldog
Debuted - 1978
Titles Held - WWE Intercontinental; WWE European;
WWE World Tag Team; Stampede North American Heavyweight
Other Accomplishments - in the Stampede Wrestling Hall of
Fame; headlined sold-out Wembley Stadium for match with Bret
Hart in 1992; died from a heart attack in 2002, aged 39

Probably the most well-known British wrestler to break into America, Davey Boy Smith has pretty much done it all in his 24 year career. Starting out at just 16 years of age on the renowned British wrestling TV show "World of Sport" (along with Tom Billington / Dynamite Kid) he was spotted by Bruce Hart, who offered them a chance to compete for Canadian wrestling organisation Stampede Wrestling and to be trained by Stu Hart in the famous "Dungeon".

Not long after winning the Stampede title in a lengthy feud with the Dynamite Kid, they took their feud to Japan, debuting for New Japan Pro Wrestling in early 1983. During the time he spent over there, Kid and Smith settled their differences and formed a little tag team called "The British Bulldogs", which some of you may have heard of.

After competing in New Japan Pro Wrestling for a few months, the Bulldogs made a shocking jump to NJPW rivals All Japan Pro Wrestling to compete in All Japans' Tag Team Tournament, where they made an impressive showing. So impressive, that it drew the interest of the World Wrestling Federation.

The British Bulldogs began a long-running feud with The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart), after Vince McMahon brought them in after buying Stampede Wrestling back in the mid-80's. Known for their hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners attitude, the Bulldogs were soon seen as tough opponents, and they are known to have used a very stiff style of wrestling. So stiff, that when Mick Foley had an "enhancement" match (read: jobber) with the WWF, the Bulldogs hit him so hard that he broke his jaw.

A short while after the Hard Foundation feud had run its course, the Bulldogs captured their first WWF Championship gold by defeating The Dream Team (Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine) at WrestleMania 2 for the WWF World Tag Team Titles. After holding the titles for nearly 9 months, they dropped them to the Hart Foundation due to a severe back injury to Dynamite Kid.

After adopting a mascot Bulldog called Matilda, and feuding with Demolition, The Islanders and the Rougeau Brothers, they left the WWF in protest of no disciplinary action being taken against Jacques Rougeau after he apparently knocked out four of Dynamites teeth with a fist loaded with a roll of coins, during a confrontation over a prank the Bulldogs had played.

Heading back to Stampede Wrestling and Japan, the British Bulldogs teamed together for a year or so before personal problems between the two got in the way, which eventually saw Davey Boy head back to and re-sign with the WWF.

During 1990 and 1992, the British Bulldog was pushed as a singles star in the mid-card feuding with the likes of The Warlord and Curt Hennig, to name a few. However, during the U.K. tours he was featured heavily and was a huge attraction in the United Kingdom, thanks to Sky TV airing the WWF which was a huge ratings hit. So much so, that the WWF decided to hold its annual SummerSlam PPV at Wembley Stadium, London in 1992, which saw Smith in the main event against Bret Hart for the Intercontinental Championship. In front of 80,000+ people, Smith won. It is regarded by many as the finest match of his career.

Smith was later released by the WWF in 1993, so he headed to rivals World Championship Wrestling, challenging Vader for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Although he didn't win the title, his short run was successful. Unfortunately, due to an apparent bar fight (a man apparently made advances on his wife) he was released from WCW in late 1993.

After doing the rounds in the United Kingdom for various independent companies, Smith returned to the WWF at SummerSlam 1994, where he became involved in the family feud between Hart brothers Bret and Owen. He teamed up with Bret to face Owen and Jim Neidhart, and also formed a short alliance with Lex Luger (which I thought rocked at the time) called the "Allied Powers". However, Luger returned to WCW, leaving Smith without a partner, or direction.

So he turned heel, and joined up with Jim Cornette and headlined string of "In Your Houses" against Diesel, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels respectively. After his short lived main event run, he formed a successful tag team with Owen Hart, who defeated The Smoking Gunns for the World Tag Team Titles.

Bulldog was also the first to win the newly created WWF European Championship in a tournament, by defeating his own tag team partner, Owen Hart. Smith went on to hold the title for 7 months, before dropping it to Shawn Michaels at "One Night Only", a British Pay Per View. The fan's promptly shat on the outcome and littered the ring with rubbish, and it marks the only time Smith has lost in a WWF ring in Britain.

Davey Boy and Owen joined forces with Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart and Brian Pillman when the formed the stable version of the Hart Foundation. This version of the Hart Foundation was "heel" as such, as they celebrated their Canadian roots and as such were seen as heels in the US, but were cheered in Canada. Remembering that right now, it felt really strange at the time, and I don't think we saw anything like that before or haven't seen anything like that since.

After the events on Survivor Series 1997 (you know.. the whole Bret Hart / Vince McMahon work) Smith left WWF and joined up with Bret and Jim in WCW, feuding with Steve McMichael and then forming a tag team with Jim Niedhart. The tag team wasn't much of a success, although they challenged for the WCW World Tag Team Titles many times. During April 1998, Smith suffered a knee injury that kept him out of action for a month. Then, during Fall Brawl 1998, he landed awkwardly on a trap door in the ring (which was used for the amazingly bad Warrior Warrior's "spooky" entrance) and the injury resulted in a Spinal Infection, which kept him out for over 6 months. During this time, he famously received his marching orders via FedEx.

Davey Boy Smith returned to the WWF for the final time in September 1999, this time wrestling in Jeans instead of his trademark union jack tights and attire. Ahh... the "Attitude Era".

During his last run, he won the WWF Hardcore title twice (defeating the Big Bossman and Crash Holly) and the European title once (defeating D'Lo Brown). He also chased the WWE Championship, and had a notable feud with The Rock.

Smith was then taken off TV and sent to a drug rehab centre, all at the expense of Vince McMahon. He was apparently addicted to painkillers, amongst other things. He was released from the WWF sometime after.

Smith died on May 18th, 2002 while on holiday in Invermere, British Columbia of a Heart attack. Slightly freaky, when you think about it.

He is survived by his son, Harry Smith, who has recently been signed to a development deal with the WWE.

I think the BS flag avatar would have made sense here...

Polite way of saying BS.