My Top 5:
Lous Thesz:
This is a legend. this is a real wrestler. Thesz won his first World title (The Midwest Wrestling Association version) in 1937, at the age of 21 (he debuted in 1932, at the age of 16). He then became the National Wrestling Association World Champion, in 1939. There was a war between promotions in St Louis, with the old NWA (the Association, which was affiliated with the National Boxing Association) being dominant and the upstart National Wrestling Alliance promotion, with Sam Muchnik. The war was settled, with the two factions merging and a unification bout was set up for Thesz to defeat NWA (Alliance) World Champion, Orville brown); but, Brown was injured in an auto accident, ending his career. Thesz was named champion and backed it up with a rep as a "hooker," someone who could "hook" you into holds and cripple you. he held the title until 1957, uniting it with the old American Wrestling Association title and the World Wrestling Association title, in Los Angeles, becoming the first real "undisputed" wrestling champion in America. He tired of the grind and handpicked his successor, Dick Hutton, over Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. However, in 1963, when Rogers was champion and making NWA promoters unhappy, they voted to take the belt off of him and convinced Thesz to come out of semi-retirement to do it, in Toronto. they threatened to give Roger's $25, 000 bond to charity, if he didn't show up for the match (the champion had to put $25,000 in escrow, against the belt, to ensure he didn't go off to a rival promotion with it, which had happened in the 20s). As Thesz told it in his book, he and Rogers met in the ring and he said to Rogers, "We can have a good match or we can wrestle; your choice." Rogers wasn't a hooker, or even a "shooter," (top amateur wrestler who became a pro), so he agreed to a good match. They match was limited to one fall and Thesz held the belt until 1966, when he had enough and dropped it to gene Kiniski. Thesz continued to wrestle, off and on in the 60s and into the 70s, and worked a few matches in the 80s. His last match was in 1990, in Japan, against Masahiro Chono, at the age of 74. At that point, Thesz had wrestled in 7 different decades.
He was the CHAMPION. He carried himself like a champion and gave the profession a legitimacy. He was treated as the real deal by sportswriters and radio and tv hosts. He was a staple of the national era of wrestling, on the Dumont network and the two people who sold more tvs than anyone were Lou Thesz and Gorgeous George.
Ric Flair
Flair was something special, wherever he went. He started in Minnesota, in verne gagne's training camp, with Ken Patera, Khosrow Vaziri (the future Iron Sheik), and Chris Taylor (former Olympic wrestler). He idolized Dusty Rhodes and had watched AWA wrestling since childhood. he played football at the Univ of Minnesota with Greg Gagne. He started out with a thick, powerlifter's body. he was sent to the Carolinas for seasoning, where he debuted as the nephew of veteran Rip Hawk, in a tag-team. He became a fixture in the Carolinas, moving up to winning the Mid-Atlantic title and the US Hwt title. he had off the chart matches with babyface Ricky Steamboat. he became the top draw in the Carolinas and toured the other NWA promotions. finally, it was decided to give him the belt. he defeated Dusty Rhodes, his idol, for the belt and never looked back. Through the 80s and 90s, Flair was the CHAMP. He proved a draw that could offset Hulkamania. With him on top, the WWF was a total failure when they tried to run shows in the South and were outdrawn in Chicago and San Francisco. Sabotage and jealousy couldn't derail Flair. he made everyone look good and no one ever questioned his talent (except outsider idiots, like Jim Herd, Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo). Flair survived a plane crash that should have killed him and came back better, and that was before he was champion. Flair has drawn massive crowds across the US, in Canada, the Caribbean, Japan, and New Zealand. He is a "Kiss stealin, wheelin'-dealin' limousine ridin', jet flyin' son of a gun!"
Ricky Steamboat
Richard Blood was an Army brat, whose father was of European descent and his mother of Japanese. he grew up in Florida, wrestled in high school. winning a state title. He watched Championship Wrestling from Florida (Eddie Graham's promotion) and wanted to be a pro. He went to Verne Gagne's training camp and learned the ropes. He debuted there as Rick Blood. he then went back home to Florida, to work for Eddie Graham, who thought the name was great, for a hell; but he was obviously a babyface, with his good looks, excellent physique and smooth work. he was rechristened Ricky Steamboat, said to be the son of area favorite Sammy Steamboat (a legit Hawaiian).
From Florida he went to the Carolinas and never looked back. he was the other side of the equation with Flair; where Flair was becoming the perfect heel, Steamboat was the perfect babyface. They had hundreds of matches in the Carolinas that were legendary. no one could touch them, as workers. Steamboat won the Mid-Atlantic and US Hwt titles and formed a massively popular tag-team with Jay Youngblood (son of Texas wrestler Ricky Romero, whose younger brothers Mark and Chris also wrestled). Steamboat & Youngblood were one of the best tag-teams in the country and held multiple NWA World Tag-Team titles. They were the dual main event at the first Starcade, as they faced the Brisco brothers, to regain the Tag belts, while ric Flair faced Harley Race, in a cage, for the NWA World Hwt title.
When Hulkamania came calling, the NWA, Memphis and AWA promoters joined forces to fight back, as Pro Wrestling USA. They put on a joint crowd in the WWF's back yard, at the New Jersey Meadowlands Arena. there, Ricky Steamboat faced Ric Flair, for the World Title. Flair retained the belt, but, the crowd saw something other than the WWF formula. Steamboat went into semi-retirement, to run his gym, in Charlotte. He was enticed to come out of retirement by the WWF, who repackaged him as a Bruce Lee copy. The called him the Dragon, gave him a monitor lizard and a crocodile, as a mascot; but, they couldn't change the fact that he was the smoothest wrestler in the ring and the best babyface in the business. At Wrestlemania 3 in front of a billed crowd of 93,000 (and a probable legit crowd of 78,000), he stole the show, with Randy "Macho Man" Savage, in a bout that is still talked about. Savage liked to rehearse his matches and they worked out the spots in advance, drilled them until they were perfect. Steamboat preferred to call it in the ring and he and Flair would always step into the ring, with nothing but a time limit and a finish, then improvise the whole thing, based on the crowd's reaction. That is what it means to "work."
Steamboat left the WWF and returned home, where he was brought in as a surprise, by Eddie Gilbert and defeated Ric Flair on tv, in a tag-team match. The then ran a program, where the clean cut babyface family man, Rickt Steamboat, faced the 'dirtiest player in the game," who wore $1000 suits, fur coats, Rolex watches, and was escorted to the ring by a crowd of hot models, while Steamboat came out with his beautiful (but demanding, behind the scenes) legit wife and toddler son. Steamboat defeated Flair for the NWA title and proceeded on a trilogy of matches, that led Flair to regain the belt, with each match off the charts, but both will tell you they paled compared to their house shows, in the 70s. Steamboat stayed on, in singles and tags, until injuring his back on a trap door, put in the ring for a gimmick. he was forced to retire, for good.
Years later, Steamboat came out of retirement to work a match against Chris Jericho (and work as an agent, for the WWF), where he mesmerized a modern crowd, with a match that ended in chants of "You Still got it!" and a standing ovation.
Tiger Mask
Satoru Sayama had two loves as a boy: karate and wrestling. he trained to be a wrestler; but weighed only 160 lbs. he was good, very good; but, size was an issue. he was sent abroad for seasoning, to England, where he worked as Sammy Lee (and was featured on World of Sport), where they had weight divisions and he worked against many top performers, learning the European catch wrestling style. he then went to Mexico and learned the lucha libre style, working under his own name and capturing the NWA World Middleweight title. he returned to new Japan much bigger and more experienced; but, something was still missing. That something was provided by a manga, by Ikki Kajiwara and Naoki Tsuji, called Tiger Mask. The manga told the story of Naoto Date, an orphan, who ran away from home to become a pro wrestler, trained by the evil Tiger Cave organization, which turned out the most vicious heels in the business and took 10 % of their earnings, for life. When another orphan says he wants to be a villain, like him, he has an awakening. he revisits the orphanage and us reunited with a childhood friend, who operates it now. he helps her with money and then decides to trun over a large portion of his winnings to support the orphanage. Tiger Cave doesn't take kindly to this and sends wrestlers to teach him a lesson and bring him back to the fold. The more they send, the more he defies them and faces a series of enemies, worse than the one before, before the ultimate showdown. the manga became a popular cartoon, with both featuring actual stars from the Japanese Wrestling Association and top foreigners, including Giant baba, Antonio Inoki, jack Brisco, Freddie Blassie, and the Destroyer.
In 1981, New Japan promoter Antonio Inoki licensed the character to create a living Tiger Mask and Sayama was picked to portray him. It was the missing ingredient. he debuted against the Dynamite Kid and they tore the house down. they then proceeded to revolutionize modern pro wrestling, mixing hard hitting action, mat wrestling and high flying, which set the standard for all who followed, including Jushin liger, Chris benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Ultimo Dragon, Rey Mysterio Jr, Great sasuke and so many more. He won the WWF World Jr Hwt title, which was defended in Japan ad even toured for the WWF in the US, with matches in madison Square Garden, against Dynamite and Jose Estrada. Then, in an unheard of move, he defeated Les Thornton, in Japan, for the nWA World Jr Hwt title, becoming the only person to hold titles simultaneously in two competing companies (though in reality, Vince Mcmahon Sr was an NWA member, having returned to the fold in the 70s). However, some NWA promoters didn't like it and demanded the NWA Board remove recognition of Tiger Mask. They refused and those promoters continued to recognize Thornton, who wrestled on their shows with a new belt (Sayama still had the original, in Japan). he gave up the belt and continued with the WWF belt, before splitting with New Japan. he, Akira Maeda, and several other young stars split off to form a new promotion, the Universal Wrestling federation (UWF), one of several promotions, over the years, to use that name. Sayama couldn't use the Tiger Mask name, so he became Super Tiger, top star of the promotion. however, he and Maeda didn't see eye to eye in the direction of the company and the rivalry got ugly, in the ring, when Maeda pulled a cheap shot (he had an infamous shoot, with Andre the Giant, in Japan, when Andre stopped cooperating with him and he started throwing kicks at Andre's legs, before the match was stopped) and kicked Sayama in the groin. Sayama soon left the company and it folded in financial scandal. maeda returned to New Japan; but, Sayama moved on.
Sayama turned his interest in wrestling and kickboxing into Shooto, a mixed martial art, with both an amateur and a pro league. It mixed legit submission wrestling and martial arts striking and kicking, though only with the open hand. While others created worked shoot fighting promotions, like the reborn UWF, Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi, and RINGS, Sayama stuck with the real thing. In the mid-90s, he organized the Japan Vale Tudo, to bring in fighters from all over the world, with winner Rickson Gracie. Meanwhile, Sayama made occasional returns to the ring as Tiger king and even worked a match with the wrestlers who succeeded him, including Koji Kanemoto (Tiger Mask 3) and Yoshihiro Yamazaki (Tiger Mask 4), though Tiger Mask 2 was portrayed by another wrestler, rather than Mitsuharu Misawa, who portrayed the second Tiger Mask, in All Japan (and a few matches in the US).
Sayama had legendary bouts with Dynamite Kid, Marc 'Rollerball" Rocco (as the masked villain, Black Tiger), Bret Hart, Villano 3, Pete Rockets (a British wrestler, who put on a mat display with Sayama) Kuniaki Kobayashi, Akira Maeda, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Antonio Inoki, Shinjiro Otani, Syd Cooper, Jim Breaks, and Mick McManus (the latter three on World of Sport, when he wrestled as Sammy Lee).
Jack Brisco
Freddie Jo Brisco grew up in Blackwell, OK, one of 5 children and a Native American. he loved wrestling and turned down a football scholarship to the Univ. of Oklahoma to wrestle for oklahoma State. In his junior year, in 1965, he won the NCAA Championship, at the 191 lb weight class, capping a season where he was never taken down a single time! he turned pro, working in Missouri and Oklahoma, before heading to Florida, where he became the top babyface draw. He became Eddie Graham's protege and Graham began pushing for him to become the NWA World Hwt Champion. he had amazing matches with champion Dory Funk Jr, in several of the nWA territories and, it was finally decided to put the belt on him. However, the Funks didn't want Dory to lose to brisco. Dory had an "accident" and couldn't make the scheduled match. problems persisted and it was decided to put the belt on Harley race, to transition it to Brisco (Dory Funk Sr was the Amarillo promoter and one of the political bigwigs in the NWA. It became a contest between his bloc and Graham's backers, in the NWA). Race did the honors and Brisco became Champion, defending it across the US, Canada, Australia and Japan. he grew tired of the grind of travelling and decided to give up the title and Terry Funk, Dory's younger brother, was tapped. Brisco then went back to wrestling in Florida, Georgia (where he owned a piece of the territory) and the Carolinas. he eventually helped bring about the deal where controlling shares of georgia Championship Wrestling were sold to Vince McMahon, ushering in Black Saturday, when the WWF replaced GCW, on the Saturday World Championship Wrestling program. Brisco and his brother Gerald, who were wrestling in the Carolinas, as heels, feuding with Steamboat and Youngblood for the tag titles (the first time Brisco worked heel), then left for the WWF, where brisco became the only wrestler acknowledged on air as having worked for another promotion, when he was billed as the former NWA World Champion (McMahon never mentioned the nWA, except for Brisco, Harley Race and in featuring the Von erichs and Kerry's win of the title, in 1984, in the inaugural issue of the WWF Magazine). Then, one day, after being on the road for weeks, the Briscos were in an airport in the Northeast, in a snowstorm, waiting to head to the next town, when Jack said he'd had enough, switched his ticket to a plane for Florida and went home and never looked back.
Brisco and Lou Thesz were regular presences on the Wrestling Classics Message Board, answering fan questions and sharing the history of the business with them, until their deaths. their images still grace the home page for the board.
Those are my top 5. I could add Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, Gorgeous George or Nature Boy Buddy rogers, as top draws; but, the above listed were trend setters, groundbreakers and legends their entire careers. They were amateur and professional champions when it meant something. They were taken seriously by people who poo-pooed pro wrestling. Most of all, they ut butts in seats.
