Top 100 Countdown – WRESTLERS – Part 1 – #100-76

Good evening, wrestling fans. Welcome to the

GCRN Podcast Arena for the Geek Cast Radio Top

100 Wrestlers Countdown. Coming to the ring are

your hosts, representing the GCRN, Kevin of the

Solo Thompson. Money isn't everything, it's the

only thing. And representing BravingHipster .com,

TV's Mr. Neal. The whole wrestling world is going

to stand up and take notice. And from the Great

White North, representing This Week in Geek,

Alex, White Heat, Ricky. On board! And finally,

from Hearts Unknown, representing Simplistic

Reviews, Matthew. No nickname needed. Let's find

out. Let's get ready to podcast. Hello, everybody,

to another special episode of the Geekcast Radio

Network. Today, we are starting another one of

our top 100 countdowns. I am your host, Optimus

Solo. And joining me today, I have assembled

the best Survivor Series team I could come up

with. Joining me is Matthew Stewart from Simplistic

Reviews. Hello. Hello. And the first thing you

want to do is get you piece of crap out of my

ring. TV is Mr. Neal. Hello. I'm here to kick

ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of kick

ass. No! Shit. And from This Week in Geek and

various GeekCastRadio things, Alex, how are we

doing? Pretty good, and I didn't prepare anything

funny, so we'll just go with hi. Yeah, you gotta

rely on the other two for the comedy. So basically,

if you guys did not see this or you haven't been

keeping track of what we've been promoting here

recently, we are going to be doing a Top 100

Wrestlers list. So a bit... We did our wars tournament

with our tag teams. We've also been posting some

individual matchups this last week on Facebook

for, you know, kind of spawn the discussion about

which wrestlers deserve a spot in the top 100

or who should be higher than who. So that's the

kind of stuff we're going to be getting into

today. We're going to be revealing our 100 through

76, and then there will be three additional episodes

as we reveal 25 wrestlers each time as we make

our way to the number one spot. If you guys have

never listened to a top 100 episode before, we've

done a few of these. We've done a top 100 animated

series. We did top 100 animated films, top 100

television series. and a few other ones along

the way that you guys can go back into the archives

and check up if you like what we do today. Before

we kind of get into the nuts and bolts, I want

to give each of you guys a quick opportunity

to just kind of give a very small synopsis of

kind of what your background is with wrestling,

kind of maybe the eras or the time periods you

watched, the companies you watched, just so people

kind of have an idea of where you're coming from.

So Alex, why don't we start with you? What's

your quick background in wrestling? Okay, so

as a little kid, like before school age, I would

watch with my grandfather and it would be stuff

like, I think it would have been reruns because

I think Andre the Giant was already out of it

by then. But I would just watch with my grandfather.

He'd be laughing his head off as Andre the Giant

would fight midgets or whatever gimmicky thing

they had at him. And that's what I thought wrestling

was and Hulk Hogan and all that junk. I was out

of it for many years, even though some of my

friends were watching it in like... seventh eighth

grade high school when the attitude era was on

but it wasn't my thing I just knew the people

from mostly the movies they did afterwards uh

and then I came back into it when I went back

to college in my mid -20s and in the summertime

I was so incredibly bored I had a summer semester

I was doing and it was right around the time

um CM Punk and Daniel Bryan were getting big

And so I watched then and then I sort of started

absorbing everything. And I mean everything all

around the world. I watch everything now. So

if I have a preference, it's I don't necessarily

like I don't hate a lot of the flippy dippy stuff

that's out there now, but I don't necessarily

like the flippy dippy stuff. I kind of like the

wrestling to be as realistic as possible while

still having a flair for the entertainment. OK,

fair enough. Matthew, what is your background

with wrestling as a form of entertainment? I

think I remember. I used to watch it a lot with

my dad, and I was always a big fan of the early

90s gimmick wrestling. I loved occupational gimmicks.

I thought they were the most hilarious things.

The theme songs, like Repo Man is probably still

one of my favorite characters ever created. Between

his theme song, very synthy, and you have that

little cool piano breakdown on it. It's fantastic

stuff. And then when the Monday Night Wars came

around, that was in middle school for me, seventh,

eighth grade. I was totally in on it because

it had that, like Alex was saying, it still had

the realistic quality of wrestling to it with

a dynamic storyline, if you want to call it dynamic,

of course. And then after kind of everything

consolidated into each other, into one entity,

WWE, just kind of lost interest. I didn't watch

any of the ruthless aggression era. Just wasn't

a big fan of that stuff. And then I don't know

how I really got back into it. I think it was

out of sheer boredom. And, you know, you started

having a lot of the, you know, New Japan stuff

started rising up where it was like actual real

wrestling seemed to come back in the forefront.

Not minimal storylines, but just straight -up

wrestling. And I don't know. It's funny how my

relationship with wrestling is because I remember

my best memory is probably going to the old Miami

Arena back in, I think, probably 1993 or 1994

and watching Big Boss Man fighting IRS. And I

don't know. It's always been in my mind, and

I've gone in and out of it. But now with AEW

coming out and other just... different forms

of, I don't want to say different forms, but

different options. It's great that we're getting

a bigger pool of wrestlers to go from and not

just have WWE be the one conglomerate you have

to go to now. So it's exciting time for wrestling

fans. Absolutely. And that's another reason why

it's a good reason for us to kind of talk about

this now as we kind of enter a new phase, maybe

in the history of wrestling. Mr. Neal, what was

your background in wrestling real quick? I think

I jumped in around WrestleMania 3, Hulk Hogan

versus Andre the Giant. And I stayed through,

you know, the Macho Man, the Warrior, Undertaker.

And even after Hulk left, I was a big fan of

Bret Hart. I stayed through pretty much all of

the New Generation era until he finally lost

at WrestleMania 12. And I said, that's it. I'm

done. I'm done with wrestling. This is really

embarrassing. So I stopped. And then I think

later that summer, I saw a heel Hulk Hogan. cutting

a mean promo on WCW and I just got sucked back

in. And there I stayed until the original brand

split and I kind of phased out after, I think,

2005 or so. Okay. My background, I started watching

as a kid, probably 1987, 88, somewhere in that

range. So kind of watched the whole Hogan, Macho

Man, et cetera, like you guys were just talking

about. Watched it all the way through probably

the early 90s. My friends and I were big into

it. We would perform all the moves in the backyard

pool and stuff like that because then you could

throw people and it wouldn't hurt. I think when

I lost interest the first time was after, if

I'm trying to pinpoint like a specific time,

right around the time where Tatanka got beat

from his undefeated streak by some douchebag

named Ludwig Borga I was done after that because

he was my favorite wrestler at the time and that

guy was a piece of garbage so I stopped watching

a few years later I just randomly started watching

WCW just because I was like hey I know all these

guys and then of course very shortly after that

NWO happened I watched NWO until it went off

the rails and once kind of WCW Started tanking.

I abandoned ship with them. I did not want to

see something that was just WWE. And I was upset

that they lost the war kind of. And then just

randomly, probably in the last, I don't know,

three, four years, I've just. vicariously watched

stuff here and there a little bit uh mainly the

pay -per -view since i got the wwe network i

just watch those i don't watch raw i don't watch

smackdown and then of course with the aew and

the emergence there i stoked my interest once

again so i'm all aboard so um one thing i want

to kind of tell you guys as far as how this top

100 is created for the listeners here is we basically

compile a bunch of different people's lists.

We ask everybody to rank 100 wrestlers, and we

just kind of compile the data and whoever gets

the most votes and the most points, because if

you rank someone one, it counts more than if

you rank someone 100. And I do all the math and

figure out how it all stacks up. So what we're

not doing here is we're not necessarily saying

that these are the top 100 wrestlers of all time.

just to get that out there. This is just a way

for us to discuss wrestlers, discuss wrestling.

And in a way, though... as I guess in a wrestling

way, kind of kayfabe or whatever you want to

call it, we are going to take it seriously and

we are going to be acting like it is a top 100

and we're going to be arguing and debating who's

worthy, who's not, who should be higher and who

shouldn't be because it's fun and that's what

we like to do in these top 100s. And then you

guys can also leave comments on the website page,

the Facebook page, Twitter, whatever, on what

your opinions are, if you think we got something

right, wrong, or whatever. It's just a fun interaction

and discussion the whole way through. Another

thing that I want to kind of get out before we

get into the actual appearances of wrestlers

on this countdown is there will be some biases

or biases, I guess is the proper pronunciation

of that. I'm interested to see what you guys

think those might be. So some things that I'm

thinking off the top of my head that we might

be looking out for throughout this countdown.

We always have different biases that we look

at in all these different countdowns and they

end up being different things, of course, because

they're different content. But one thing I thought

of was the appearances of women on the list.

If we would see a bias against that or if we

would see a few of those crack the top 100 different

regional things, whether we are obviously we're

going to be somewhat biased towards stuff that

we were able to watch. in america so how how

many you know mexican or uh stars from japan

are we going to see is there going to be any

leaning towards certain companies you know wcw

ecw wwe new japan etc um or just eras you know

is the 80s of the 90s the 2000s is there the

classic wrestlers are they going to be slighted

against because we didn't grow up with them or

things of that nature just give you guys a real

quick chance to kind of sound off on what you're

interested in what you're looking for, what you're

fearful of as we get into the countdown. And

another thing that you might comment on is how

will this type of ranking treat tag teams? And

we're not talking about, you know, when they

put random single wrestler together with random

single wrestler, we're talking about. teams that

were notoriously known as a tag team, how will

that hurt or help them or will individual members

of tag teams be able to outshine their tag team

partners, things of that nature. So starting

with Matthew, just kind of what kind of things

do you think we might reveal about ourselves,

I guess, as we go through this countdown? I mean,

I think us all coming in from maybe the same

generation of watching wrestling that could probably

skew. our opinion perhaps on the wrestlers that

are coming, because I assume we're all between

the ages of 30 and 40 at this point. So we probably

all grew up with the late 80s, mid 80s, all the

way up until current wrestlers now. But I also

think with the advent of the internet, of course,

the wonderful, glorious, horrible internet that

we have, we have been able to at least rediscover

things or find things that we haven't been able

to see before. such as stuff from maybe stuff

that's in Lucha Underground or Lucha Libre Wrestling

or New Japan Pro Wrestling, things like that.

And, of course, with the WWE Network, that has

helped out just rediscovering stuff from the

60s, 70s, 80s, and all these other regional promotions

that a lot of us probably didn't grow up with.

I mean, I grew up in Florida, so I didn't get

to see a lot of stuff that... maybe in the territories

up in the north, like the WWE or WWF or things

like that. So, or Smoky Mountain Wrestling, things

like that. So it will be interesting to see how

our takes on the top 100 are. And, you know,

hopefully women, I want women to get their due

because there are some fantastic female wrestlers

that did a lot for the industry, as well as minority

wrestlers, you know, from all walks of life.

So I'm interested to see. how the list shakes

out and what our opinions are in the matter too.

Neil, what do you think? What are going to be

some of our biases and how do we treat tag teams

when it comes to this? Are they all going to

be left behind? Hard to say. See, I come from

an era in which the tag teams are very much separate

from the big main eventers. So I think there

was a little bias on my part to not maybe include

as many tag team wrestlers in my list as I probably

should have. I don't really know. I am interested

to get into some of the other, since I'm such

a classic wrestling fan, I'm kind of interested

in hearing about a lot of the other wrestlers

that were around in the 80s that I wasn't aware

of because they were either in AWA or NWA or

USWA or whatever the Jerry Lawler one was because

I really didn't get to watch those back in the

day. I should actually get the network and actually

watch some of that old footage, but I'm not,

I'm not as familiar with that stuff as like I

should be because I was very much into a lot

of those guys later on when they showed up in

WWF and WCW for the Monday night wars. And that's

really, that's really my only, my that's really

the thought that I have at the moment. Absolutely.

Alex, what do you think? Well, I come from bizarro

land, aka north of the border, right? So there's

going to be, our country traditionally was divided

into anything west of Ontario was Stampede that

people watched. Anything east of Ontario, like

Quebec, would have been whatever French programming

they were watching. And then Ontario was sort

of like lumped in with New York. uh maple leaf

gardens in toronto would uh had maple leaf wrestling

and that was basically wwf so if it wasn't wwf

or local promotions we didn't really see anything

until the advent of cable and once cable came

out if you wanted to get uh like wcw you had

to have like the 60 or 70 cable package it was

on channel like 70 something So it wasn't like

a basic cable package could get it. So it wasn't

until the late nineties that we would really

see anything other than WWF. Now, because of

that, there might be a bias for, you know, anybody

that was traditionally a heel, but Canadian might

still just be higher ranked by us. It's like

the whole home country thing. As far as tag teams

go, I think there will be a bias for. Some tag

team people will do better if they also had a

career as a singles wrestler at some point. If

they were just purely tag team their entire career,

that might not get ranked as high. Yeah, I can

definitely see that happening as well. Also,

just a quick disclaimer for the rest of the record.

I'm going to do my best in the editing booth

to try to make this as clean as it can be. But

just bear with me. I am going to be going back

and forth between about 25 different pages of

wrestler information, as well as our main spreadsheet

and other things. So I will try to keep the clicking

to a minimum and I will try to edit everything

out. But if you do hear that, just. take that

into consideration, I guess. What I like to do

real quick before we get into our number 100

is just give you guys a tease as to the... five

that didn't make the list but came the closest.

And before we do that, just a heads up on point

totals because I might reference them here and

there. Basically, if you ranked someone 100,

that got them one point. So 10 people could rank

someone 100. That only gives them 10 points.

In order to make the list, you had to be over

100 points. Just to give you a little bit of

a reference in that, I won't say exactly where,

but basically 130 is an up would get you. a spot

on the list we had 200 over 270 wrestlers that

got ranked so from 270 we go down to 100 but

before we get to there the five that came closest

would be with 126 points we had Roman Reigns

with 129 points we had Bobby Roode 130 a more

classic guy there Greg the Hammer Valentine 133

sergeant slaughter and the person that came the

closest that didn't make the cut at 101 aj lee

so uh alex just hearing those five names any

thoughts before we reveal number 100 no love

for bobby uh uh i think with bobby's issue being

that he was with TNA for, what, like 12 years?

So nobody saw him. Like, really, even though

the work he did there was great. Slaughter, it's

a little surprising at first until you realize,

have any of us actually seen him wrestle a match?

One time. I was going to say, his career was

basically over before most of us were born, and

he was mostly just there for the military shtick.

commission and stuff like that. Even though he

probably did decent work. I know that he's credited

as one of the first guys to use music with the

whole entrance and everything. He's got that

going for him. AJ, kind of surprising, but again,

I think some of this has to do with how long

people's careers were. Not a significantly long

enough career and also being the best wrestler

in your group. during a time when wrestling was

terrible isn't really saying much. How would

this have gone if, let's say, you moved the time

frame instead of five years in the business then

to five years leading into current times? I don't

know how the ranking would have changed there.

Matthew, Roman Reigns does not make the list.

How many Sam Owens do you think will? Every other

cousin he probably has will probably make the

list. I'm sure at this point, especially one

cousin in particular, which I'm sure we'll be

getting to that much later on the list. The correct

answer is just say Haku gets the number one spot

so he doesn't squeeze our head and have our eyes

pop out or whatever. Haku, one of the meanest

guys you'll ever meet. I've never met him, thank

God. I probably wouldn't be talking to you guys

on this podcast right now. It's interesting to

see. Bobby Roode, I think he's just been buried

by WWE. He had a hot start with NXT. Everybody

thought he was going to rise up. He has probably

one of the best entrances, and everybody's really

into it. So that's fun. But he just kind of got

buried. in the roster of not being able to really

showcase anything he did from TNA. I'm happy

to see that AJ Lee is like at least skirting

the edge at the top 100. But yeah, to your point,

Alex, I mean, being the best female wrestler

in an era of horrible female wrestlers, that

probably doesn't help. However, her pipe bomb,

quote unquote, I'm sure everybody remembers that

as well as her husband's pipe bomb, which I'm

sure we'll talk about him later too. So it's

interesting and break the hammer Valentine. I

mean, I always liked Greg the Hammer Valentine.

He had that super awesome 80s look with the mullet.

He was so rad. And, you know, he's on the outside

looking in. But it's still good to hear his name

in at least a conversation that we're having

right now. Absolutely. And those are the only

five that you're going to know did not make the

countdown. For the rest, you're going to have

to wait until we reveal all the members. to know

who did and who didn't. And it'll be interesting

to see as we get closer and closer to the end,

if people are getting nervous about their favorite

wrestlers that have not been named yet, that

they're wondering if they're going to be left

off entirely. So today we're going from 100 to

76. That takes us from the 137 point total all

the way up to the 200 point total. So that's

what we will be revealing today. And we are starting

today off with a tie. So there is actually a

tie for the number 100 spot between two individuals.

I'm just randomly going to pick which one we're

going to talk about first, but they both tied

with 137 points. You also throughout this thing

might hear some entrance musics or some sound

bites or different things, depending on how creative

we want to get again in the editing booth. But

let's start off with. William Regal at the 100

spots. And I will go through some of the different

names they had and some of their accomplishments,

and then I will be asking the guys on their opinion.

So, obviously, mainly known as either Steven

Regal or William Regal, although in early days

he was Darren Matthews and Hellraiser, spent

a good part of the 90s in WCW and a good part

of the 2000s in WWE. He did win a variety of

titles, including WCW World Television Champion

four times. WWF Hardcore Champion five times,

WWF European Champion four times, Intercontinental

Champion twice, four tag team titles with the

likes of Lance Storm on two occasions, Eugene

once, and Tajiri once, King of the Ring in 2008,

and Dave Meltzer and his Wrestling Observer voted

him the best television announcer in both 2013

and in 2014. Let's start with TV's Mr. Neal.

What do you think of Lord Steven Regal starting

off our countdown? I love Steven Regal. Also

William Regal. Can't make up his mind what name

he has. I love that he's this stuffy English

guy, especially in WWF where they had him kind

of over -pronounced Triple H's name. I always

called him Triple H, which is how the English

people pronounce that. Very much over -pronouncing

it. It's crazy. Really solid in WCW. Kind of

had this infamous match with Goldberg. where

allegedly he got let go because he was a little

stiff with Goldberg or something. Or no, he didn't.

I forget. He wasn't really going by the script.

He was making it work for the win, basically.

Yeah, basically, yeah. But really, solid Russer.

Really funny. Style all his own. Yeah, definitely.

And Matthew, let's ask for the first time here.

We're going to ask a thousand times for the rest

of these records, but is William Regal deserving

of being in the top 100? I think so. He had that

crossover appeal with both WCW and WWF. And even

before that, I don't know his career before the

two majors, what his career was maybe in the

British wrestling scene. But I always liked his

style. I mean, great tag team wrestler as well.

So we had that crossover appeal with the Blue

Bloods and then being a single wrestler in and

of himself. And then, of course, being when he

moved. And I love the Goldberg thing because

hearing the stories, you know, about Goldberg,

how he was the golden child. And he was the one

guy that said. Well, bloody hell, I'm not going

to let him make a mockery of me. I'm going to

make him work for this win. So I love stuff like

that. And, of course, was he the first member

of the Vince McMahon Kiss My Eyes Club? If anything,

you need to add that to his list of accomplishments.

Lord Steven Regal, the man's man, whatever you

want to call him. That gimmick, a man's man,

is great, too. The theme song for that was great.

I'm big on entrance themes, and if it works,

by golly, I'm going to go with that, too. I'm

glad he made the top 100. I like these early

picks because you get the kind of random wrestlers

that just crack in the top 100. My earliest memories

of him are when he was really into that whole

Blue Bloods thing with Earl Robert Eaton and

Squire Dave Taylor in WCV. That was crazy talk.

Put their noses up like, you disgusting Americans.

I love that. Yeah, he debuted in 1983, retired

in 2013. Alex, is it more of just how long he

has been around and some of the stuff he's been

able to accomplish that gets him a deserving

spot here? He's probably one of the best promos

in the business as a heel, period. His most recent

theme entrance is probably one of the best evil

sounding things I've ever heard. The only thing

that really held him back probably from going

higher on the list is his substance issues that

he's had. He plateaued too many times because

he was holding himself back. And then by the

time he got... by the time he got perfect at

that gimmick, like he was, he already had back

problems. He had all this other stuff and he

should have probably had another five years or

so in the business. It's just, he hit that point.

Now he's perfect as like a mentor, trainer, GM,

whatever they want to call him down there at

the performance center. Alright, so William Regal

starts off with number 100, tied with William

Regal at number 99. It's interesting because

we had already talked about him, at least name

-dropped him a little bit earlier. He went by

a couple different names, but most of you would

recognize him as the aforementioned Haku. Meng,

King Tonga, King Haku, Tama Tonga, whatever you

want to call him. Most people will probably know

him as either Meng or Haku. Trained by the giant

Baba. Debuted in 1978. Spent time in the World

Wrestling Federation from 1986 to around 92 as

part of the Islanders, the Colossal Connection,

etc. Spent a couple years in Japan and Mexico.

Then he went into WCW where we saw him in the

Faces of Fear slash Dungeon of Doom. came back

to the WWF for a year or so, and then since then

has been either independent or New Japan Wrestling.

He has a lot of accomplishments. I'm not going

to list them all, but he was a WCW Hardcore Champion

one time and WWF Tag Team Champion one time with

Andre the Giant, as well as a whole bunch of

other things. But I'll start with MTV's Mr. Neal

again. What do you think of Ming or Haku coming

in, and is he deserving of this spot here? 99

or 100, however you want to judge it. That's

about where I'd put him. He does deserve to be

on the list. I have two distinct memories of

Haku, both being the King Haku, as they would

refer to him as on WrestleCrap, does not come

with crown as illustrated. And people know that

joke. And also Ming in WCW, where he had the

dreaded Tongan death grip. That was basically

like the killer move. Like nobody got up. from

that except for, of course, Goldberg. That was

the big deadly move. They never did anything

with him, though. He never really won anything

except for the Hardcore Championship. Then he

left with it. He was a great wrestler. Alex,

what do you think of Ming or Haku? Which one

do you know him better as? It's interchangeable.

I think with him, the legends of him behind the

scenes are probably what even puts him on the

list because he was a serviceable wrestler if

you want to say that but he was somebody that

you'd always want there because he looked menacing

and like he's in his i think he's in his 60s

now and when he does show up to wrestle with

his sons in new japan he's still scary yeah absolutely

yeah he's 60 right now um and he has three sons

he has four children but i believe three sons

that are wrestling in uh new japan um and i'm

gonna let's see tanga loa tama tanga and I'm

going to say the last one wrong, but Hikuleo.

Well, I know Tonga is the island they're from

too. And it's like, it means, I guess, the people

or something, one of those sorts of, so it can

be a name and it can be a place and it can be

a whole bunch of stuff. I think what held him

back is the language barrier. He never really

mastered the English language. Right, so a lot

of times you did see managers or mouthpieces

put with him to help him out because he wasn't

going to speak a lot. But they did use that in

a way to his advantage as making him seem like

a more intimidating person to face because they

almost portrayed him as this animal or this beast

or something like that. So it was kind of an

interesting way. I don't remember all of the

different people that they put with him as far

as, I want to say Bobby Heenan at one point.

but they did stick a lot of different managers

with him. He was basically the prototype for

what they did with Umaga later on. Yeah. Anybody

else? Thoughts on Haku at number 99? It's good

to see him still out there as an ambassador,

I guess. It's cool that the legend of the Tonga

lives on with Bullet Club and stuff like that,

too. That stuff's interesting. Another thing

we should be doing is we should be promoting

this as a drinking game. So far we've had two

people that are both living. Maybe every time

we talk about somebody that's not with us anymore,

somebody should have to do a shot or drink or

something. I don't know. Be creative on your

own, guys, because that's where we're going next.

We won't make it through. That's where we're

going next. With our number 98 person, we are

going to be talking about someone who unfortunately

is not with us anymore. He debuted in 1979, retired

in 2013. I don't think many people knew him as

a character named Who. but you probably did know

him as a character named the Anvil. Jim, the

Anvil night heart comes in at number 98. He was

with the WWF from around 1985 to 92, spent some

time in ECW, new Japan, WCW came back to WWF,

went back to WCW. So he was jumping all around,

even spent a little, I had a coffee break at

a TNA, I believe. So Jim, the Anvil night heart,

most people are going to remember him for the

heart foundation and for his tag team with Brett,

the hit man heart. He had a lot of accomplishments.

Most of them are going to be tag related. He

was a two -time WWF tag champion. He was also

inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year,

2019. He had a feud of the year in 1997 with

the Hart Foundation versus Stone Cold Steve Austin.

He's also in the Canadian Wrestling Hall of Fame.

So a lot of accolades here. Legends Pro Wrestling

Hall of Fame. New England Pro Wrestling Hall

of Fame. I don't know how many Hall of Fames

are for wrestlers, but apparently. quite a few

um matthew what do you think of the anvil is

he deserving and is 98 a good spot for him i'm

sure alex can probably wax more poetic on the

animal in terms of his accomplishments north

of the border um i know him as part of the heart

foundation and the new heart foundation um later

on especially with the stone stone cold feud

and everything i know him as a and it's great

to see i mean I feel like he was probably a great

singles wrestler when he did wrestle single,

but you always remember him from the Hart Foundation.

And it's going to be interesting to see who else

gets on the list, maybe just based on tag team

accomplishments, because that's really what you

know him for. You know him for the goatee, you

know him for the glasses, and you know him for

the ha -ha -ha -ha. Yeah, absolutely. That's

great. I don't want to leave out he was also

in the Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame. Interesting

looking at all of his different tag championships

along the way because he basically was a tag

wrestler for most of his career, but not all

with Bret Hart. He had tag team championship

gold with the likes of Crusher Khrushchev, The

Blue Meanie, Butch Reed, Greg Valentine, Hercules

Ayala, and Mr. Hito. So he had a lot of different

tag belts with different people. Alex, what do

you think of Jim the Anvil Knight Hart? he it's

blasphemous but i don't remember ever seeing

him wrestle once so it's like one of the canadians

is like oh yeah or is he canadian even or did

he marry into i think i think it might be a transplant

i don't think he's He is born in California.

For the medical insurance. See, I knew my spidey

sense was tingling, and I was like, he's not

really Canadian, so I don't have to care. Bill

from Reno, Nevada, or who knows where, when he

was the who. But from actually California, obviously

has a famous daughter in the wrestling business.

TV's Mr. Neal, what do you think? I know you

probably saw a little bit of him in the Hart

Foundation growing up. Oh, I love the Anvil.

Yeah, I do remember him because he was teamed

with Brett. But he did stick around for a little

while after the Hart Foundation split up. He

initially teamed with Owen. If you remember,

he was the one who brought in the taxi cab parachute

pants that Owen was known for later on. And even

Coco Beware went after Anvil. reason yeah he

was the he was the originator of that style thank

you anvil for that uh but uh yeah funny guy always

tugging on the beard always cackling and oh he

he was the talker before brett really got well

brett never did get good at talking but while

brett just stand stood there looking cool i was

up to anvil to say say funny things so yeah i

really loved him um anybody else any other thoughts

on jim the anvil night heart All right, let's

move on then to our number 97 spot. We're going

to have a first. Jim Neidhart might not have

technically been from Canada, but our next person

is. She debuted in 2000 and retired in 2019 and

is also our first female wrestler on the list.

We're going with a Patricia Ann Strategius. I

don't know if that's how you say her last name

or not, but most people know her as Trish Stratus.

And she spent some time in TNA in 2000. And then

obviously made her way to the WWE. Quite a few

accomplishments as well. WWE Hardcore Champion

one time. Women's Champion seven times. Inducted

into the Hall of Fame in 2013. Diva of the Decade

in 2003. We won't talk about what the Wrestling

Observer said, but she was also part of the Worst

Worked Match of the Year. Bradshaw, Christopher

Nowinski, and Jackie Gata. PWI, Pro Wrestling

Illustrated, Woman of the Year in 2002, 2003,

2005, and 2006. Trish Stratus, our first female.

TV's Mr. Neal, what do you think? Trish Stratus,

I remember she started out with... I believe

she was the manager of Tess and Albert and was

not very good on the mic, but she got really

good later on. She was, I actually remember very

vividly, she was in one of the very first female

main events that I remember actually being good,

her versus Lita in the main event of Raw. God,

I don't remember what year that was, but that

was outstanding. Wasn't around all that long,

if I remember correctly. Her initial run was

maybe like what? In 2001 is when she was doing

the thing with Test and Albert and Val Venus.

She was a manager for Val Venus. That was the

beginning part. I don't remember her being around

that long wrestling. I think she retired. She

semi -retired in 2005, 2006. That's what I remember.

She wasn't around that long, but she was pretty

good. Alex, what do you think? Is she deserving

to be one of the females that makes the list?

She should probably be higher because She found

a way to mix herself in right at the tail end

of that attitude era when everything was going

a mile a minute. And I don't know, found a way

to sort of blend the really crappy women's stuff

that they were doing with actual wrestling. When

she came back now, she was okay. Like when she

came back, this is not my comment. My brother

was watching with me and he's like, who's the

ghoul? Oh yeah. She's had a little too much work

done, but let's put that aside. Like, I think,

I think the work speaks for itself because if

you think of, if somebody says, Hey, you know,

name other than this new women's revolution,

name a woman wrestler. That was good. You're

probably going to have her in the top three or

four names set, right? So pretty much of any

time. So she probably should have been a little

higher. Okay, I can see that. Matthew, what do

you think? Do you agree or disagree that she

should be higher? It's weird. I'm going to be

interested to see what other female wrestlers

make it above her because out of that whole decade,

2000 to 2010, yeah, she was a very important

piece of at least giving women wrestling some

sort of reputable... like you know thing in in

the industry because then you have the whole

like the diva thing which was just kind of laughable

where yeah it was a bunch of just women on reality

shows and everything whereas she wrestled lita

wrestled very well too and i mean i'm sure we'll

be talking about lita later on down the line

we should be i hope i hope that we will be um

but we'll see what happens with that you know

everybody likes to have sex in public too so

we'll get to that as well But I think her going

from valet, because you don't always see valets

go into wrestling. I mean, yeah, you saw Sable

kind of do it a little bit, but I think she was

the one that fully crossed over and was made

such a huge part of that tail end of the Attitude

Era into the new era, whatever was after that.

So I like her right around here. Could she have

been a little bit higher? Maybe, but I mean,

I'm glad she's at least in the discussion of

the top 100, 100 of all time, or at least. based

on other people's lists so that's pretty right

yeah and say what you will about her uh talking

about ghoul look at sable she looks like the

cryptic pulled the skin too tight yeah there's

some there's some rough looking and i don't know

it's like there's there's a point where it's

like it's not even being mean it's just like

you should not be on tv because you will scare

children yeah that's the new attitude error right

there Oh, my. Alex, I mentioned that this was

the first Canadian on our list. What's the over

and under on how many Canadians we're going to

get? Well, it depends. There's been a fair amount

of influx into the major companies over the past

20 years or so. I don't know if you've tabulated

the numbers on that. I sure haven't. It could

be about a quarter of them. It could be anywhere

from 20 % to 40%. there may not be as as nearly

as many of them like in general in the business

but a lot of the ones that make it in end up

becoming memorable yeah All right. And there's

one big family that produced a lot of them, too,

as well up there. So we'll have to see if that

comes close. Twenty twenty five percent might

be might be up there. Let's go to our first asterisk

on our list. I'm saying that because I'm not

convinced that everybody voted for the same person,

but they all we have two different people that

have been in the wrestling business that shared

the same name. So that kind of throws a wrench

in the mix. But I'm assuming that we're voting

on. the male version of this name. So next up

is going to be someone who debuted in 1932 and

retired in 1962, spent 30 years in the wrestling

business, was an AWA World Heavyweight Champion,

was an NWA Southern Heavyweight Champion, was

in the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in

2002, Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame, and in

the WWE Hall of Fame 2009. 10. I can't help but

feel that his numbers might be inflated because

there might have been a few votes thrown in to

the female version of Gorgeous George. But Gorgeous

George is coming in next. I guess our first classic

wrestler. Alex, what do you think? Was everybody

voting for the man from the 30s through the 60s?

There's not a single vote for Gorgeous George

the female. Really? Gorgeous George the female

do anything? She was with Macho Man. With Macho

Man, did she do anything in the ring? I don't

know. Exactly. Does anybody remember who that

person is other than having that name? I will

admit that I had a photo of her that was on a

wall. That's okay. Sure. Was this Macho Man WCW?

Probably. That proves that I know nothing about

wrestling. The Gorgeous George one, and again,

it's another thing where none of us would have

ever seen Gorgeous George wrestle. The male,

like ever. In fact, most of our parents probably

never did either. Notably though, he was the

first one that had pomp and circumstance as his

theme. I think we're probably, it's more hearsay

of what we heard, because I don't even know if

there's that many matches that exist, and if

we did watch matches from back then. matches

from back then wouldn't look good and not not

just the visual quality just they they were just

a bunch of holes and stuff it was it was meant

to simulate like a what you'd see at a college

wrestling meet only this person brought out the

pretty much the first wrestling character other

than just like the freak show i'm a strong man

sort of thing this was the first person to have

an actual gimmick Apparently had a long feud

with somebody named Whipper Billy Watson. That's

Canadian. Also had a battle with Luth Vez in

Chicago that was publicized. Bruno Sammartino.

So a lot of the classics he probably came into

contact with at some point along the way. Matthew,

what do you think of somebody from back in the

way back day making our list? I mean, yeah, considering

none of us have. probably we've probably never

seen not even replays of him wrestling but did

he also come out with the mirror was he also

he would come out with a mirror and look at the

mirror the mirror the robe had makeup on everything

yes so um that to me i mean i'm glad the old

the old i guess you can call it the golden age

wrestling is kind of making its you know or classic

age of wrestling is making its presence known

now too and you think of what he did to you know

um make way for all the other wrestlers down

the line too i mean pomp and circumstance macho

man's theme you know when he was wrestling too

so um i'm glad that we're getting a little love

i'm glad that we're getting a little diverse

crowd with people hopefully not thinking this

was the female escort for macho man at some point

but you know who knows at this point and i also

like i've always been intrigued by the old wrestling

where it was very very important to keep your

you know face and heel and keep your gimmick

as realistic as possible you know you think of

people like you know classy freddie blassie where

people would try and stab him in public i don't

think they were trying to stab gorgeous george

and stuff like that but i'm sure the moves are

real yeah i wouldn't be surprised because i think

gorgeous george was the first wrestler to be

on televised uh anything really like in the days

when it was only live tv Basically, for anybody

that's listening that has never seen Gorgeous

George, Gorgeous George was basically like Liberace

as a wrestler. Yeah. I think another thing that

just based on reading and whatnot, obviously,

like you guys said, we haven't seen a lot of

his matches or anything like that, but it is

more of the cultural impact too. Just in his

quick synopsis here online, talking about how

Muhammad Ali and James Brown said that they got

their flamboyant self -promotion approach from

George, or at least was influenced by that. Bob

Dylan said meeting George changed his life. People

were talking about how he was kind of the, the

bad guy, but the outrageous, flamboyant talker.

So it might have been one of the first that was

really a mic star, I guess you could say, as

it has been good on the mic and kind of where

that all originated from. There also apparently

is a 1978 film called The One and Only starring

Henry Winkler that is somewhat based on his career.

So a lot of cultural reaches as well. Anybody

else, any comments on whether he's deserving

or not deserving of top 100? Just for that. We're

good with him being there. Yeah. All right. So

let's move from way back in the day to modern

day. We're going to have somebody that is currently

wrestling show up right now. Well, currently,

as far as I believe, she's still on the roster.

I don't know when the last time I saw her wrestle,

though. Next up on our list is none other than

cousin of Dwayne Johnson, Nia Jax. Coming in

here, NXT is where she began her career. Obviously,

it's been called up since then. Also had the

ring names of Lena and Zada. Zada? Billed from

San Diego, California. And I don't need to say

too much. Everybody that's listening should at

least be familiar with Nia Jax, I guess. So,

TV's Mr. Neal, what do you think of another female

reaching this and Nia Jax being higher than Trish

Stratus? Don't have much to say. I'm not terribly

familiar with her, but great to see another female

wrestler on the list. Okay. Alex, what do you

think? She's kind of not good. Oh, you're being

very nice, Alex. But I mean, not better than

Trish. Hurts people left and right and kind of

just doesn't have any charisma. So I'm just kind

of surprised. It's like she's there because they

need a monster. Yeah, she is a one -time Raw

Women's Champion, also was named the PWI Rookie

of the Year in 2016. Matthew, is this a sign

of bias maybe more in favor of people who are

wrestling today, or is this more of an exception?

Yeah, I mean, if I'm going to be honest, I feel

like this is a little bit more of a recency bias

type thing. People know Nia Jax. She is a monster,

a monstrous, you know. woman in the ring you

know but to alex's point if we're going on the

technique aspect yeah she has been known to either

break people's faces notably uh the man at this

point uh becky lynch and just overall like you

hear the stories about her just being sloppy

but i mean if we're not judging it on technique

and we're just judging on people who know know

who that is and she's become like the monster

heel or the monster face, whatever you want to

call her at this point. So I feel like this may

be a little bit more of a recency bias, even

though, yeah, I haven't really seen her on TV

or heard about her a lot on TV lately. So I think

she's hurt again. I might have made, or do we

have the wrong bias? Is it not a recency bias?

Is it a Sam Owen bias? Oh, maybe. I mean, this

is what the second Samoan on the list out of

what we've gone through, what, about seven wrestlers

so far? Yeah, I think one thing to think about

with her, though, is when I'm thinking, when

I was putting together my list, I was thinking,

what draws people? And she's not somebody that

draws a viewer in. You don't pay to watch her.

People paid to watch Trish. I don't know. I think

that'd be the one we would have the most grief

or hear the most grief about so far that we've

revealed. I think everybody else, you can make

a pretty good argument that they belong in the

top 100. I'm not sure if you can with Nia Jax.

What was the point difference between her and

Stratus, just for reference? Three points. Okay,

yeah, that makes sense. Then it's probably that

more people, there are going to be a lot of people

on the list that people didn't know or didn't

remember that much, so they didn't rank them

as high. Right, right. Interesting with where

we're going to next, because we've talked about

if there would be more people from WWF or more

people from WCW or whatever company you're going

to go with, New Japan, etc. This guy that's coming

up next is literally like the poster child for

every company, because I swear there is not a

company that this guy has not wrestled for. He

made his debut in 1988. Some people may have

remembered him from back in the day as somebody

called Johnny Polo or maybe Scotty Flamingo or

Scotty the body or Scott Anthony, or maybe mostly

just Raven. So WCW at the beginning of his career

after, you know, so obviously some early independent

stuff, WWF, ECW, back to WCW, back to WWF, back

to ECW. Over to TNA, Independence. He has been

everywhere. He's been different characters along

the way. I think we can all agree that Raven

is probably the one that he is most known for,

but he spent time as a manager or valet, I guess

you could say, wrestler, tag team, hardcore stuff.

So a lot of different accomplishments, obviously.

what people might know the most. He's spent some

time as the WWF Hardcore Champion 27 times, to

be exact. And then WCW Light Heavyweight Champion

once, United States Heavyweight Champion once,

and then one tag team reign with Perry Saturn.

Let's start with TV's Mr. Neal. What do you think

of Raven making our top 100? Good spot for him.

I got to know him pretty much in WCW when he

came in after dropping the belt to Oh, my God.

I can't remember who it was. But yeah, he dropped

the ECW belt and came to WCW. And I didn't realize

that he was Johnny Polo. It took me a while because

Raven's kind of a chameleon. He changes his look.

And sometimes you can't tell it's the same guy.

He was very different as Johnny Polo. He didn't

even wrestle. He was a manager. Right. So it

was like, what? I didn't realize it was him.

a raven's flock that's when i first was introduced

to him and i had a friend that was absolutely

obsessed with raven and raven's flock so he was

huge on him um but yeah and then i it was funny

going back and being like wait he was that guy

um alex what do you think of raven is he deserving

of being in our top 100 uh he deserves to be

there because i guess he was the wrestling manifestation

of the grunge movement if that yeah pretty much

yeah like really um now interesting little story

uh close friend of mine was uh like an underneath

wrestler across canada and wrestled a bunch of

times with raven and uh they became friends because

raven wanted him to show him how to rip anime

dvds on his laptop so he could watch them on

the go this is like 2003 2004 So yeah, my friend

has been sort of buddies with him because he

showed him how to rip Ninja Scroll and a bunch

of other stuff. He was a tag team champion with

the likes of people like Stevie Richards, Tommy

Dreamer, Mike Awesome, Hugh Morris. I'll say

it with a space in between there. Somebody named

Sexy Slim Goody. Three guys named Top Gun, The

Grappler, and Steve Dahl. And then Brian Christopher

and Perry Saturn, like I mentioned before. Who

else has thoughts? Matthew, did I give you a

chance to sound off on Raven? I mean, what I'll

say is, like, I knew – like Neil said, I knew

him from WCW and The Flock. I didn't really watch

a lot of ECW until – I think this was probably

about seventh or eighth grade where – a camp

counselor when I was at camp, he brought in like

a, uh, ECW videotape. I don't know if it was

like November to remember or something like that.

And they had all types of crazy matches. And

I remember seeing Raven there for the first time.

And yeah, he was like Alex said, like the embodiment

of the grunge movement and just kind of like

angsty and whiny and like, ah, what about me?

What about Raven? And I was like, yeah, what

about Raven? Yeah. After this guy over all the

time and everything like that. Yeah. What about

Raven? So, um, it was just, a different you know

he wasn't he looks he looks sloppy but he wrestled

well he was he was a great wrestler but he was

unlike any other wrestler you had at the time

it wasn't the shaved body or wearing tights and

trunks or anything a very film boy he would come

out to essentially like a really awful version

of pearl james even flow and everything which

was always funny to me too so that was one of

my most that him and ddp's uh entrance scene

to wcw always just gave me a laugh because i

loved grunt music so those two guys were awesome

i remember way too often that my group of friends

and i would uh have to quote the quote the raven

nevermore over and over again um so that was

something um all right let's move from raven

into someone from a few decades before that um

he is still living he was trained by the likes

of jack briscoe and Bob Backlund and Eddie Graham

and Hiro Matsuda, debuted in 1976, almost had

a career in football instead, was actually drafted

by the New Orleans Saints, but failed to pass

the physical for both the Saints and the Chiefs.

So he went to wrestling instead, spent some time

in the 80s at WWF. That's where probably most

of us saw him, but did spend other time in NWA,

WCW, Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and a few other

independents. We are talking about... Mr. Wonderful,

Paul Orndorff. So he is coming in next on our

list. Obviously a huge, long career. He's in

the University of Tampa Football Hall of Fame.

So there we go. A different hall of fame. He

was a Georgia championship wrestling, a heavyweight

champion, a lot of different independent ones.

And then he had a feud of the year in 1986, according

to PWI with Hulk Hogan, a match of the year,

the year before with Roddy Piper versus Hulk

Hogan and Mr. T from WrestleMania. He was voted

the most hated wrestler of the year in 1986.

and is inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in

2005. TV's Mr. Neal, do you have any recollection

of Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff? He was in the

first ever main event of WrestleMania. It was

him and Piper versus Hogan and Mr. T. I just

remember him as being... sort of the same archetype

of what rick flair was or uh or like greg the

hammer valentine you know the same archetype

that came from gorgeous george which we already

talked about um don't have a lot of memories

of him unfortunately i don't remember him being

around all that long he was in wcw uh before

i started watching i think he had some sort of

injury that caused one of his arms to atrophy

and uh he he basically retired about the time

i started watching so i don't remember a whole

lot of him They have a brief run in Mid -South,

a tag team with Ted DiBiase. That would have

been interesting to see back in the day. So also

an NWA slash WCW World Tag Team Champion three

different times with the likes of Jimmy Snuka

and Paul Roma twice. He was also WCW World Television

Champion one time. Alex, what do you think of

Mr. Wonderful and where he sits on the countdown?

I only ever saw a couple matches like the aforementioned

Mania ones. He's on this list. for me simply

because of that sweet sweet mustache he's he's

donning these days you see that when he came

back what was it uh uh 2014 or 2015 was that

when he got was he in the hall of fame that year

or something um 2005 was the wwe come back was

it hogan's birthday or something well he came

back and he was sporting that gigantic mustache

that that would put like sam elliott the shame

oh yes it was it was hogan's birthday okay so

that's really all i've ever seen of him so i'm

I have no comment. I'm not doing him justice

with all the different Hall of Fames that he's

been in either. Professional Wrestling Hall of

Fame and Museum. There's NWA Hall of Fame. So

there's a lot of Hall of Fames that he's in.

So I want to take everybody's word for him because

I didn't really have a chance to watch him too

much, but I knew of him. And I knew that he was

kind of of the era right before I started watching.

So it was kind of more on reputation that I put

him on my rankings. Matthew, any last comment

on Mr. Wonderful? I didn't really grow up watching

him. Don't know a ton about him. I know him and

Hogan feuded, but even at that point, I don't

think I was really watching wrestling all that

much. Um, I guess to your point, if he was supposed

to be like the Ric Flair, he was too much more

in shape. So I'll give them that much, I guess.

I mean, aside from an attribute arm, I think

everything was wonderful about him. So yeah,

he, he seemed to be like, like if Ric Flair was

more of a hillbilly. More of Hillbilly? Just

the way he talks. Dude. Dude. But he had a good

look, and I mean, not overrated or anything,

just unremarkable. He didn't really excel at

any one thing. He was just well -rounded. Well,

let's move on to somebody that I know all of

you are going to be able to comment on, because

I know most of you have seen his matches, whether

they be in the UFC. or in the WWF. I know that

doesn't give it away yet, though. There could

be multiple people that I'm talking about, but

I am talking about the original Ken Shamrock

coming in here as the next entrant on our top

100. It's hard to go through all of his accomplishments

because he had two different careers, a UFC career

and a wrestling career. Wrestling Observer Feud

of the Year 2002 and 2006. It says Tito Ortiz,

though, so I'm assuming that's talking about

the UFC type. Most Improved Wrestler of the Year

1997, according to PWI. In the WWE, he spent

time as Intercontinental Champion one time, a

Tag Team Champion one time with Big Boss Man,

King of the Ring in 1998, and he was involved

in the Intercontinental Championship Tournament

in 1998. Ken Shamrock. Alex, what do you think?

The king of testosterone replacement, steroids,

and before USD was tested. Oh, he's great. Like,

even when he, like, he would not be as memorable

if he didn't go back to, he flip -flopped between

fighting and wrestling and fighting and wrestling,

and he's coming back to TNA Impact, I think.

He's been there this year, I think. No, like

for their Bound for Glory, their big pay -per

-view this year, he's going to be on it at like

53 or whatever age he is. He's 55. The last time

he fought a guy, the guy died. Oh, right. Yeah.

A lot to live up to. But he, I mean, he was one

of the few guys that in the 90s blurred the lines,

like that made you go, you know, everybody's

like, oh, wrestling's fake. yeah but shamrock's

real like legit real so it made you wonder how

much of it is fake and how much of it is real

so he was good for that and that's probably why

they hired him because they were having a you

know a crisis of image and hiring somebody who

was being all over the news for being the world's

most dangerous man for beating basically every

martial art style you could imagine in the tournament

multiple times it was a smart move to have him

yeah It was an interesting thing because it was

obviously before UFC really got super popular

and things of that nature. So I remember just

being interested in the late 90s, seeing this

guy come along and he was a real fighter and

seeing how that kind of, and then we obviously

got the likes of people like, who was it, Dan

Severn and Steve Blackman and a couple other

people that came in around that same time. But

Shamrock was the one that seemed to have the

most success out of all of that. Matthew, is

he deserving of being in our top 100? I think

so, because I feel like he was one of the first

big crossover stars that you had. You had the

guy adding an air of legitimacy to wrestling,

or rassling, whatever you want to put it. So

it was cool to see this guy that was like, get

out of my way! He was kind of like, you never

knew. He snapped the way they would talk him

up during the matches. And he also had one of

the... I mean, people... Either love this match

or don't. Either people love the match or hate

the match. Like the Lion's Den match that he

did with Owen Hart, where it was one of those

weird matches during the pay -per -view where

you had them going back and they were wrestling

in a basement and basically just throwing themselves

around the Stu Hart dungeon. Was it a dungeon

match? Is that what it was? Something like that.

And it was interesting to have that match because

nobody had ever done that. And again, nobody's

ever done that again. ever again. So it could

have been one of those, this weird, like the,

the one of those stupid matches that they do

now, the, the death, the bamboo death match or

something, whatever, just those stupid matches.

But it was cool to see this guy who, yeah, he

was, he was really actually a bad man who could

kill you. If you did something wrong. So it was

cool in that era where they were looking for

some legitimacy or like, hey, how can we make

this more real? Let's bring Ken Shamrock in to

be weird. And unfortunately, he never really

knew how to talk on the mic. If he knew how to

talk on the mic and do his fighting, he could

have been one of the way higher on the list,

in my opinion. He does now. And he got better

as he went back into the pro fighting scene the

last 10 years or so. I guess that just comes

with age. One thing to consider too, like for

the legitimacy factor, his finishing moves, like

his ankle locks and toe holds and all that, those

are moves that he used to become champion at

UFC. So they were smart. They just poured it

over everything that worked in real life. So

if they really wanted to, anybody go up by a

tape and watch him use those moves on somebody

for real and how painful it really is. And then

just they transferred it to wrestling. And he

predates, like you said, crossover. He predates

Kurt Angle. He predates anybody that wasn't a

crossover star from football or basketball or

something. Right. And he wasn't just a UFC fighter.

He was a highly successful UFC fighter. I mean,

at one point he was, I think, 22 -4. It did go

downhill very quickly after that. We're talking

about once he started doing more UFC fighting

in the 2000s because he went from a 22 -4 record

to a... 28 and 17. Um, so it was not very good

towards the end, but, uh, definitely a brave

new ground when the WWE was searching for other

ways to kind of entice people to watch their

products. So, um, let's move on from Ken Shamrock

into our next person on the list. We're up into

the, about the getting real close to 150 point

Mark. Um, this person beat Ken Shamrock by only

one point though. So I guess votes matter here.

And we're talking about, uh, Somebody who enjoys

the game of softball. I don't know if that gives

it away to anybody, but debuted in 1987. I guess

he retired in 2017, but that's... being very

generous. World Championship Wrestling at the

beginning, World Wrestling in WWF in 91, 92,

went back to WCW, then went to USWA, then went

back to WWF, then went to ECW, then went back

to WCW as it was dying. We're talking about,

oh, what name do we want to use? Psycho Sid,

Sid Vicious, Sid Justice, Sid Lord Humongous

at one point. That was early on. It's interesting.

listening to the podcast with the various podcasts

that Conrad Thompson does with either Eric Bischoff

or Bruce Pritchard. They talk about how he was

this part of the skyscrapers back in WCW, which

was interesting because when they debuted, a

lot of people were talking about which skyscraper

was the better one and which one you wanted.

Apparently it was Sid because he was with a guy

named Dan Spivey at the beginning. But it was

eventually Mean Mark Callis was a part of that,

which a lot of people know as Undertaker. So

interesting beginnings, some time with the Four

Horsemen, obviously some very famous moments

with the WWF. And I guess this goes into the

discussion that I want to have with you guys

right now is. He had the size, he had the physique,

he had the tenure as far as how long he was around.

He had some championships, and we're talking

about WCW US Champion once, World Heavyweight

twice, WWF World Heavyweight twice. But is this

a situation where even though he had all that

success in the body and everything else, where...

When we're making our list, we're also ranking

other things like, I don't know, mic skills or

the ability to talk or charisma or things of

that nature, which he might have come up short

in that department. I don't know. Matthew, what

do you think about Sid? And is the 90s the right

spot for him? I mean, he's such a memorable character

because he did switch names so much. And the

Psycho Sid game and the entrance theme to me

is like, it's seared in my brain whenever you

would hear the... literal psycho music ripoff

for it and him come out twitching and being weird

and you know his time with like you know sean

michaels and feuds with you know hulk hogan and

things like so we had great feuds he was set

up in such a great way and of course you know

we we know that vince mcmahon loves a tall sweaty

greasy blonde man so that's why you're pushed

to the moon most of the time i feel um but yeah

the mics the mics his mic skills were not good

but they're memorable Because I think of things

like, you know, Boccia Mania, where he's literally

a big part of things like that, where it's like,

oh, we're live, pal. He's like, let me do that

again. It's like, no, you can't. So maybe people

are just remembering things like that. But he

also was, he was a pretty agile seven footer

in a time where you had your Andre the Giants,

but then you didn't really have anybody who was

like agile, who could move around the ring and

things like that. So it was good to see him.

And I mean, I don't want to bring up the whole.

leg injury thing but that was also probably top

one gruesome thing i've seen in the ring outside

of some other things you know outside of people

actually dying in the ring of course too right

so there's that that was like ah that was horrible

and that other mike moment though with nash and

hall yeah oh yeah it's so it's it's fantastic

stuff and he's a memorable big man And he did

have some good accolades aside from Mike skills.

He was, he was a cool wrestler with good gimmicks

and good things about him. So I remember. I remember

going to, we used to go to all the wrestling

events whenever they would come to our arena,

which they did quite often, actually. I got to

see quite a bit of WCW and WWF. I remember when

he was doing the Psycho Sid persona that it was

one of the first times that instead of, you know,

in just random seats in the arena that we actually

had aisle seats and we were literally on the

aisle as they were going down the walkway. And

he would do this thing where he would stop and

just stare like a crazy madman into nothingness.

This dude, though, he stopped in front of us.

It was our row. It was our seat. And he's just

staring. And we're all just like, what the fuck?

What's wrong with this guy? This guy is crazy.

And it's also one of those things where, hey,

these guys look big on TV. They look real big

in person. And he is one of the biggest guys

I've ever seen in my life. And he was staring

right at us, right through us. I don't even know.

I don't think his eyes were working or his brain

was working. I don't know. But definitely memorable.

It seems like somebody that, though, just never

quite lived up to the potential that he should

have had, at least according to what I think

based on the eye test and things of that nature.

But is a 90s a good spot for him, Neil? I think

so. He's one of those guys, yeah, it just seems

like lost potential is the story of Sid Vicious.

He always seemed to be taking time off for softball

or getting over injuries or whatever. Anytime

he started to gain momentum, he was gone. It

was like twice in his initial WWF run. He was

not around all that long in that early 90s spot

when he was Sid Justice. He was around for a

couple months. did something with his arm and

he was around for a couple of other months that

he was suspended or something. Right. And I remember,

actually, I remember something about that, that,

that Royal Rumble pay -per -view where he throws

Hogan out of the ring perfectly within the rules

to do so. And Hogan threw a big kissy fit. I

thought Hogan was turning heel. I honestly did.

I was like, well, clearly Hogan's the one being

the big baby here, but no, they remember like

later on, on TV, when they replayed it, they

changed the audio so that the audience was actually

cheering Hogan, which they definitely were not.

I, I, I so wanted that, that feud to go the other

way, the other way where a vicious was the, uh,

Sid vicious was the good guy. Right. But, uh,

yeah, that, that leg injury is the reason now

that like, if anyone falls, like, A half a foot

I flinched. Just because I'm like... It scarred

me for life. He had everything going for him

but loyalty and bone density. Yeah, basically.

He also represented a time where the WWF was

trying to find that replacement for the Hogans

and the Macho Mans or someone to join them, and

they just weren't having luck with anybody because

they tried Warrior, and it was somewhat successful,

I guess, for a little bit. But they were trying

all these different people, Sid being one of

them, and it just never was working out. It kind

of led to a little bit of a lull before we kind

of got into those Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels,

Steve Austin type era. But Alex, any last thoughts

on Sid? I remember getting like a multi -generation

VHS tape that was taped from tape to tape to

tape of like wrestling injuries. And I remember

playing that and going, hey, mom, take a look

at this. And then being screamed at for like

30 minutes because I left it on the screen. And

then I remember taking a screenshot in the early

days of the Internet and a screenshot of like.

where it's like you can see it right the whole

like the worst shot ever and i made that the

background of my parents computer and then locked

it oh nice Oh, Lord. All right, so Sid is our,

I believe that's 91 if I'm keeping track right

here. So we have one more member in the 90s,

and we are going to go to someone who is probably

more known, or at least most known early on for

his time in ECW. He was known at one point as

somebody named Kid Crush. Does anybody know who

that is? How about the Tasmanian Devil? The Tasmaniac?

We're talking about Taz. He debuted in 1987,

retired in 2002, spent a lot of time in ECW,

some time in the WWF, and then a little bit of

time in TNA. Most of his accomplishments are

going to be ECW World Heavyweight Champion twice,

World Television Champion twice. He's had three

different tag championships with the likes of

Kevin Sullivan and Sabu. He was the third ECW

Triple Crown Champion. PWI actually ranked him

number 10 of the 500 Best Single Wrestlers in

1999. And then in the WWF, he had a Hardcore

Champion three times and a Tag Team Champion

one time with Spike Dudley. Some other, I guess,

maybe not so nice accolades, Wrestling Observer

Newsletter, Worst Gimmick in 2013 for Aces and

Eights, Worst Television Announcer in 2013. So

that's a little harsh, I think. But TV's Mr.

Neal, do you remember seeing anything about Taz

when you were watching wrestling? Set the pigeons

loose. I know him mostly from WWF when he joined

because I never really watched WCW. Although

I do know that he's part of a really interesting

piece of trivia that he represents one of the

very few times that he legit WWF wrestler. a

WCW wrestler in an ECW ring when he took on Mike

Awesome to win the ECW title. That was an interesting

thing that happened. I know him a lot, probably

mostly for his announcing work, which is not

really that spectacular. He's no Jerry Lawler,

I'll say that. I just remember him as being the

man with no neck. Alex, what do you think about

Taz? He's the last person here in our 90s. Never

saw him wrestle, never heard him announce. I've

only heard of him as a radio personality. Matthew

Stewart, what do you think? Don't really have.

He was pretty awful when he came to announce.

He just came up as this, like, obnoxious, like,

New Yorker guy. Like, I can't believe it. What

the hell is this guy doing here? You know, that

type of thing. But looking back at his, like,

old stuff from ECW, which I love the old mid-'90s

to late-'90s ECW. I think it's awesome. And he

had a look about him, like everybody else in

ECW, just like a scary. a scary dude like this

guy will kill you and choke you out basically

and he kind of became that first wrestler that

was like he like almost like a shoot wrestler

in a lot of ways where he'll come out he'll wrestle

you um and a kind of great wrestling thing but

he could also have the ability to literally kill

you if you wanted to so i always liked that but

then when he became like a goofball announcer

and then the aces innate thing was just not working

but i i don't think a lot of stuff worked on

tna anyway so that's that's all i'll say about

that I think another interesting thing to think

about right now might be a good time to ask.

I don't know which one of you guys watched the

most ECW back in the day, but we've already had

Raven and we have already now had Taz. What does

that say for the likelihood of, you know, is

there anybody else from ECW that was mainly ECW?

We're not talking about people that also spent

a crap ton of time in WWF. But, you know, we

had the likes of people that you've mentioned

already. Tommy Dreamer, Mike Awesome. I'm thinking

even... I guess he'd be very Saturn. Rob Van

Dam might be a good one that we would probably

hope to see, but how many more ECW guys will

we see in this countdown, or are we almost to

the end? I'd be surprised if Sandman shows up,

but it's an interesting gimmick. It will be.

Douglas might be there. Okay, I can see that.

I can see Shane Douglas. Well, I guess we can't

count like Mick Foley or Jericho where they got

their starts there, right? Or something like

that, maybe. Yeah, and Funk will probably be

more known for everything else. I'm just thinking

people from that era, you know. Yeah, and we're

talking original ECW, so no, like CM Punk will

be there, but he's from the new ECW, right? Does

a Mike Awesome or Tommy Dreamer? Dreamer will

be there. Yeah, he'll be there. Anybody else?

New Jack. New Jack will come and kill us if he's

not on this list. He'll tase us and throw us

off a 50 -foot scaffold if we don't put him up

on the list somewhere. A lot of them died from

drugs really young before we were able to actually

watch them. There won't be a whole ton of them.

I don't think any women or any of the valets

really. I don't think Was Candido and Sonny there

at the very beginning or are they already? No,

they were at Smoky Muffy. Yeah, I don't know.

As far as like Rhino, probably. Maybe. I think

so. Yeah. All right. We'll have to wait and see

how many ECW stars we still see in the rest of

the countdown. But now we're heading into our

80s with our 89th person on the list. We just

talked about ECW. Let's talk about another company.

Let's see how many homegrown TNA people we're

going to see. We got one of them right now. I'm

talking about the bias continues for people that

have anything to do with Samoa. He's from California,

but it's Samoa Joe. And he made his debut in

1999, also known as King Joe. Um, spent a ton

of time in TNA before obviously making the transition

over to the WWF. Uh, as some of you may know,

um, a lot of accolades there, uh, most outstanding

wrestlers of according to the wrestling observer

newsletter in 2005 NXT championship twice. Um,

he had a dusty roads tag team classic win with

Finn Balor. Um, us champion two times has not

got any of the main gold yet in WWF, but, uh,

had a ton of it in TNA. Um, a lot of, I think

he held almost every belt you could get in TNA

at some point. He was the only person to headline

a pay -per -view at TNA that did over 100 ,000

buys. There you go. So Samoa Joe at 89. Alex,

what do you think? It should probably be a little

higher. Again, it's a case of people not having

eyes on him, I think, for so long, because Ring

of Honor was really nothing until the last four

or five years, and it's kind of nothing nowadays,

too, now that all the talent's been mined. There

was that period from 2004 to maybe 2013, 2014,

where TNA was basically him, AJ, and a couple

other homegrown people that were tearing it up.

There was about a five -year period where matches

at TNA were significantly better than anything

else in the States, and nobody was watching it.

He was voted PWI's most popular wrestler of the

year in 2006. He was ranked number four on their

top 500 wrestlers list in both 2006 and 2008.

And I got to read this one. CBS Sports Smack

Talker of the Year in 2018. I didn't know that

was a thing, but apparently it is. Matthew, what

do you think of Samoa Joe here at number 89?

Okay, and I will strike from the record that...

Sorry, this is like the... that they've done

right, like just impact wrestling and TNA in

general. AJ Styles and Samoa Joe's feud was always

compelling and two guys that just would do anything

in the ring. And the wrestling was compelling.

The storytelling was compelling. And just Joe

just being an intense guy, it sucks now because

I really feel like they've really cut his nuts

off wrestling -wise, I feel, with the WWF. He

can still talk. And this guy... You wouldn't

take him for a big talker or like great on the

mic, but I feel like when you hear him talk now

or cutting promos, it's scary to hear him talk.

And I mean that in a good way where I feel like,

oh my God, this guy's going to come to my house

or come to AJ Styles house and kill his family.

And to do something like that and make it feel

real in a landscape of just like, you know, people

saying weird things and not really making good

on threats. I love the way he. His performance,

I think, has just been hampered by, you know,

when you put somebody, you know, almost kill

them in a ring. I guess you have to kind of take

some of their weapons away from them, too. But

overall, I mean, I love Samoa Joe. And again,

his thing, everybody's like, Joe, Joe, Joe, that's

awesome. And I mean, I'm a big rap fan, so I

love Pharoah Monch. It sounds like, you know,

a Pharaoh Monk song too. Or just people cheering,

Joe's gonna kill you. Yes, because he could.

That goes back to like Ring of Honor, like 03,

04. And, you know, surprising as much as people

really didn't watch a ton of his work beforehand,

when he showed up, everybody, it was smart to

put him at NXT first because everybody watching

NXT was watching all the other stuff too. Yeah,

they were the wrestling fan. They were watching

the indie stuff. They wanted the guy, probably

the biggest indie guy they could have gotten,

go to NXT right away. Also had a big feud with

Kurt Angle. Mr. Neal, did you have any exposure

to Samoa Joe? Not a whole lot. I do like his

look. He's got this really big, mean, tough guy

look to him. Really awesome. He does one of my

favorite things ever in the ring. Whenever somebody

flips off the top rope, like does a moonsault

or something, instead of just standing there

and taking it, he'll just casually walk to the

side and let them land on the ground. I love

it. Every time he does it. Nice. Yeah, I love

that. He moves like a cannonball. Yeah. That's

a good description. I like that. Going from someone

that's in the game currently to another one from

the past that we're not going to probably be

able to speak too much about his matches. But

for 88, we're going to someone who debuted in

1949 and retired the year I was born in 1981.

We are talking about someone that probably is

on this list, not just for his wrestling career,

but maybe also as a promoter. And we're going

to Vern Gagne here at number 88. Minnesota guy

who had a football career, got drafted by the

Chicago Bears at one point, and then obviously

he had his company there. His son Greg did some

wrestling, so a lot of NWA, AWA, et cetera. He

was inducted into the kind of an odd moment where

he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, even

though Vince was the one that put him out of

business. 2006. He was also WCW Hall of Fame

in 1993. So we have an old guy here. We had gorgeous

George earlier. Now we have Vern Gagne. Alex,

what do you think? Well, he ran one of maybe

two or three promotions that were surviving against

WWF when they were doing their big expansion

of, hey, here's some money because we're going

to take your stuff anyway. expansion in the 80s

like he like had he had a little more business

savvy and held on to some of the people like

if you look the entire like Wrestlemania rock

and roll rock and wrestling like that whole push

it's just he poached Vince McMahon poached like

50 % of his roster and they were all like Hogan

and or Whoa, geez, why am I drawing a blank?

With Mean Gene and other people. They were all

his crew. Even some of the television behind

the scenes, the cameramen, he poached so many

people because their product was, at the time,

if you look at it now, it doesn't hold up, but

if you look at WWF from like 84 to 87, the entire

production is a copy of what they were doing

at AWA in the late 70s. Yeah, in AWA he had a

feud with Gene Koniski, Fritz von Erich, Dr.

X, The Crusher, Ray Stevens, Mad Dog of a Sean,

Larry Henning, Nick Bockwinkle, etc. Here's something

I didn't know about the guy. When he was like

83, he killed a guy. Yeah. There's a story here

about him. He was like 80 in his mid -80s and

he killed a 97 -year -old. I didn't know about

that. With his bare hands or with a gun? Yes.

No, with his bare hands. Body slam some guy at

an old folks home or something. Yeah, he basically

hurled some guy to the floor. I'm laughing. It's

horrible, but I'm still going to laugh. It says

it wasn't a body slam, but it might as well have

been because I guess he broke the guy's hips

and stuff. I don't know. He wanted that yogurt.

I think he was probably one of the most notable.

owner slash promoters, I guess, or whatever you

want to call it, that Vince was going up against.

I mean, you could probably about a half dozen

of them that he was, uh, that Vince was doing

battle with. And he's one of the main ones. So

he was the only independent one that held out

like, uh, cause, cause like Jim Crockett promotions

merged with a few, like you had a few mergers

and then what turned into WCW to compete against

them. But he was the only singular territory

that was able to hold out. Right. But then also,

like we said, had a pretty extensive wrestling

career as well. So obviously, I think deserving

of a spot somewhere in this top 100. I don't

have a problem with the 80s being where he falls.

Let's go to the next one, a little bit more recent,

but definitely not modern. We're going to go

to somebody who hopefully a few of us got to

see towards the end of his career. He debuted

in 1977 and retired in 1993. Some of his names

included Stagger Lee, Big Daddy Ritter. Leroy

Rochester, but probably most known for the name

Junkyard Dog. Sylvester Ritter, Junkyard Dog,

J -Y -D. Obviously spent most of the time that

we would know him in the WWF. That was in the

mid to late 80s, but also had some time in the

WCW, the NWA. NWA Mid -South with Bill Watts,

another promoter that we could have talked about,

I guess, a little bit ago. So accolades as far

as WCW, he was the world six -man tag team champion

with Ricky Morton and Tommy Rich. WWF just basically

never had a belt, but it was inducted into the

Hall of Fame in 2004. He was named as the Feud

of the Year in 1982 with Ted DiBiase, also the

worst feud of the year in 1990 with Ric Flair,

and the worst tag team in 1986 with George Steele.

so that's a whole bunch of worse stuff. PWI named

him the Inspirational Wrestler of the Year in

1980. I don't know what the criteria for that

is. And the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame inducted

him in 2012. So some good, some bad there. Junkyard

Dog, TV's Mr. Neal, do you remember watching

him at all, or do you think he's where the top

100? Vaguely. I'm not sure if he walks in the

top 100. I don't remember being that great of

a wrestler. I do know that he was very popular

at the time. a big time baby face just way over

with the crowd they just saw him was like the

ultimate underdog or something i don't know he's

he kind of uh he kind of had like the uh the

working man sort of gimmick similar to like a

dusty roads or something like that but uh i don't

remember a whole lot about him that was he was

not around very long uh when i started watching

back in the late 80s and died of a car accident

in 1998 um here's a quick note he uh actually

He beat Mean Mark Callis, a .k .a. The Undertaker,

once in 39 seconds in 1990. So I guess that's

a claim to fame. Alex, what do you think of Junkyard

Dog? I only know him from the cartoon. Like seriously,

but I know reading about him and listening about

him. The big deal, he was more of a territory

thing. Like the WWF made him big because he was

already sort of known. Uh, he was known as one

of the first guys that sort of broke down, um,

uh, like racial barriers and that he was, you

know, from, I forget which territory he was in,

but he was the most popular baby face in the

territory at a time when, uh, racial tensions

were still fairly high, but it didn't matter

what color you were, you loved him. So I think

that's what Vince saw and was like, Hey, he's

super huge down there. You know, in what it was

some Southern state. And then they're like, well,

we can capitalize on that because everybody likes

him. So he was pushed to the moon. I don't remember

ever seeing a match of his. I remember his entrance.

He would come into another one bites the dust.

And it was like back when nobody had music. Right.

He had a big feud with Ted DiBiase in the Mid

-South as well as a few other people. Matthew,

what do you think of Junkyard Dog and is he top

100 worthy? I mean, If you're going to say top

100, mainly for breaking down some barriers of,

because the only African -American wrestlers

I saw were probably him, probably Tony Atlas.

It was like the only two guys I remember even

maybe seeing a little bit in that late 70s, mid

70s to the 80s. And he would come out, he'd come

out with the white trunks and the big chain around

his neck and everything like that. So he was

like a junkyard dog off the chain. And yeah,

he had that Dusty Rhodes kind of swagger to him,

like kind of dance in the ring a little bit,

kind of spastic. But yeah, he was like the work

and he was kind of the, you know, I don't want

to say he was kind of like the Black Dusty Rhodes

in a lot of ways. You know, he was an underdog

and, you know, no pun intended, of course, underdog.

But, you know, it was, I don't remember seeing

him wrestle a lot. I remember his white trunk,

his chain around his neck. That's really all

I remember about the Junkyard Dog, to be honest

with you. All right. Well, let's move on then

to the next person on our list, which is going

to be interesting because it's kind of going

back into that conversation where we have to

talk about if tag teams are worthy, if they had

a big enough singles career that they're going

to be mentioned, or is their tag team partner

going to be mentioned or just them? You guys

all know this one, though, that I'm going to

be talking about. He went under a couple of different

names, mainly stuff like Brian Armstrong, The

Dark Secret. a roadie, but most of us know him

as a road dog, Jesse James. Oh, you didn't know?

Your ass better call somebody! It's me, it's

me, it's that D -O -double -G! Ladies and gentlemen,

boys and girls, children of all ages, D -Generation

X proudly brings to you one half of its WWF Tag

Team Champions of the World, the Road Dogg, Jesse

James! Debut in actually 1986. I don't think

most of us knew he was around for that long because

most of us know him more for his mid to late

90s run with D -Generation X. Obviously had a

huge tag career with Badass Billy Gunn, but also

had Hardcore Champion one time, Intercontinental

Champion one time, five -time tag with Billy

Gunn. And then, well... Sixth time, I guess,

if you count one of them. In the WWE Hall of

Fame as a member of Degeneration X this most

recent year here in 2019. But also, the Wrestling

Observer gave him the worst gimmick in 1996 when

he was the real Double J. When he was the real

singer, not Jeff Jarrett. So that was a great

time. Until Jeff Jarrett left and they couldn't

follow through with that storyline, which was

bogus. also spent some time in uswa tna and a

bunch of other independents uh matthew stewart

road dog jesse james here in the in the upper

80s what do you think of him is he deserving

and will we see badass billy gunn or just jesse

james that's gonna be the thing i feel like badass

billy gunn had the better wrestling acumen if

he was better in the ring i feel but he was not

as good on the mic i mean uh The mic skills that

Road Dogg had were pretty unsurpassed. He was

the mouthpiece in a lot of ways for Degeneration

X. If you had everybody else just shut up and

just had him run the show, it would be perfectly

fine. But it's funny you bring up the real Double

J thing. I remember watching that gimmick play

out in that storyline. It was laughable, but

it was also hilarious. And then, of course, Double

J held. Vince kind of hostage for money, a la

Ultimate Warrior in a lot of ways, too. I like

Road Dogg. His wrestling is more tied to Billy

Gunn and D -Generation X. I hope we see Billy

Gunn, because if we don't, I'll have a problem

with his placement on the list, to be honest

with you. All right. What do you think, Alex,

about Jesse James coming in here? He probably

shouldn't be on the list at all, honestly. He's

just sort of very good mic skills are good mic

skills, but like Paul Heyman has good mic skills.

Is he going to make our list of top wrestlers?

You know, like, I mean, he's going for this whole

Alfred Hitchcock gimmick now, right? Isn't that

what it seems like? But I mean, no, he. He's

probably most known now for just being the only

person on the roster or shows up on TV that's

allowed to talk about AEW. He seems to be the

only one that makes reference to it and doesn't

get in trouble. Unless, did he leave already?

I can't remember. I think he's gone. Oh yeah,

so he said a bunch of stuff and then got fired.

I don't know for sure. Don't quote me on that

one. TV's Mr. Neal, what do you think? Yeah,

I'm not sure if he belongs on this list either.

Although, I don't want to like... crap on every

wrestler who doesn't have a very good in -ring

acumen because uh well you know andre's got to

be in here somewhere and uh plus you got guys

like bobby the brain heenan who uh did some wrestling

and maybe wasn't the best but like god he's so

important to the business he should be at least

acknowledged in some way um so yeah i think it

just comes down to the fact that uh he and uh

jeff jared kind of peaced out that one time and

uh doesn't really have a great uh as far as sticking

around. Yeah, he's not one of my favorites, really.

I would say really good mic skills, though, if

we're going to do that. It was one of the matchups

we put up on Facebook. We actually did put him

against Billy Gunn to see who people thought

was more worthy of being in the top 100, or at

least who was better than the other person. It

was interesting to see how that played out and

what people were judging. As far as Mike versus

in -ring skills, like you guys kind of mentioned

a couple different times there. I don't know.

I go back and forth on those guys and who's more

deserving. I don't know if either of them is

deserving to necessarily be in the top 100. But

on that poll, we had Billy Gunn out, got more

votes by about... About a third. So that was

how that turned out. So we'll have to see if

that translates to our list or not. Billy Gunn,

he still wrestles. Looks like he can wrestle.

Whereas he looks like he works at Arby's. You

have to call the manager because there wasn't

enough. And then he comes out of the back looking

all greasy with his balding hair still somehow

has it in braids. And it's just like, okay, I'll

give you more cheese. That's what he looks like.

He doesn't look like he's in wrestling. Oh, my.

We're ripping. We're shots fired at Jesse James

on this one. Yeah, let's go to our number 85,

which is a little bit older here, but somebody

who had the distinct pleasure of being a fan

favorite for his entire career. I do remember

seeing him a little bit towards the end, and

I do remember that the fans always reacted very

well to him. I didn't have necessarily a connection

to him one way or the other. Debuted in 1976,

spent some time in the WWF early on, then went

to the AWA, and then came back. He was an intercontinental

heavyweight champion when that was a thing. He

was part of Strikeforce. When I knew him, he

was El Matador. We're talking about Tito Santana.

Basically, Tito Santana or El Matador is what

I remember him as. And then later on, he did

do some other AWA and NWA and different regional

and independent stuff. So very popular in the

70s and in the 80s. He was tag team of the year,

according to PWI, in 1979 with Ivan Putzke. He

got ranked the top 100 best singles wrestlers

in 95 and in. Oh, in the PWI years, which came

out in 2003. I was like, he wasn't wrestling

in 2003, I don't think. He probably was, but

not to be watched. He was ranked the best tag

team with Ivan Plutsky and the best tag team

with Rick Martel. I believe that was the Strikeforce

part. But WWF Intercontinental Champion twice,

Tag Team Champion twice, King of the Ring participant

in 1989, WWE Hall of Fame in 2004. Matt, what

do you think about Tito Santana? Did you ever

see him? I saw him during the Strikeforce. I

loved him in Rick Martel, and especially Martel

turned on Tito Santana. That was almost like

the prototype to... Did the Rockers break up

before or after Strikeforce? After. Was it after?

Okay, so I guess they were just kind of riding

the coattails of the Rockers' breakup and things

like that. But I liked how... He continued to

be the baby face. He was a great worker, I think,

and that's kind of what I remember him as. He

was kind of almost like a Ricky Steamboat. Of

course, Ricky Steamboat, to me, is the far superior

wrestler, but great worker, had consistency in

the ring, and I think he got more of a pop probably

because Rick Martell turned on him, sprayed the

arrogance in his face, and people love that.

I love that. I mean, I love... rick martell so

uh but i'm also a heel guy so uh but tito santana

he fine i'm glad he's above jesse james tell

you that much he's currently a spanish teacher

and a basketball coach at a middle school in

new jersey um alex did you ever see tito santana

and do you think he deserves to be on the top

100 no idea only from the cartoon i don't even

know what he looks like um tv's mr neil I remember

him being around for a long time. I think he

wrestled the first nine WrestleManias back to

back to back. A little bit of trivia, he was

the first guy to pin The Undertaker. In an untelevised

match in Barcelona for some random reason. I

don't remember why. How does Undertaker keep

making the trivia on all these guys? I don't

know. Kind of a vanilla baby face. I wasn't really

that excited to ever see him. Watched his matches.

I just wasn't a big Tito fan. Yeah, apparently

the fans loved him though. And I do remember

like even when I went back recently and watched

some of the old WWE's pay -per -views, every

time he was there, he'd get a pretty decent pop

on sometimes. So I never quite got it, but Tito

Santana comes in here at number, I believe we're

at 85 here. So let's go to number 84 and let's

get a little international flavor on this one.

We're going to go to somebody who debuted in

1984, did some work with WCCW. NWA, New Japan,

All Japan, Wrestle 1. He has a thousand ring

names. I'm just going to go through them real

quick and see when you figure out who I'm talking

about. We have the Space Lone Wolf, the Viet

Cong Ming, the White Ninja, the Super Black Ninja,

Kokushi. The Black Ninja, again, his real name

is Keji Muto, but we probably know him as the

Great Muda. So the great Muda here is one of

the wrestlers to hold the NWA World Heavyweight

Championship, the AGPW Triple Crown Heavyweight

Championship, and the IWGP, I can't even say

all these things, Heavyweight Championship. He's

got a lot of accolades internationally, as well

as some time here spent in the States. He was

ranked number three of the best singles wrestlers

in 2002. Um, and he's had lots of matches of

the year, according to Tokyo sports, um, wrestling

observer newsletter. Obviously Dave Meltzer is

a huge Japanese fan. So he had the best wrestling

maneuver in 2001, the match of the year in 2001,

most improved wrestler in 2001 wrestler of the

year in 2001 readers, favorite wrestler in 2001.

So apparently 2001 was a good year for him. Um,

the great mood, Alex, what do you think? Uh,

I heard a lot about him and I only ever saw him

wrestle. I think this year he was at, uh, Was

it the G1 Supercard or something for New Japan?

And he's got to be, what, in his 60s? He is 56.

Okay. Well, he was still able to go for a few

minutes. He's not the originator of the green

mist. He's somebody else. The Muda Lock. He's

the innovator of the Muda Lock, whatever that

is. But he was one of the guys that would spit.

Venom. There was somebody before him that did

it in the 70s, but he's the one that's known

for it. Now, people will think of Tajiri when

they think of that. Might have been the Great

Kabuki? I don't remember who. Probably. Something

great. The Great Something. The Great Green Mistspitter.

Matthew or Neil, any experience seeing the Great

Muta, or what are your thoughts on somebody that's

mainly known for his work in Japan showing up

here at ADE4? Just very slight memories of accidentally

landing on NWA in the 80s, occasionally seeing

him wrestle Ric Flair, basically seeing him more

in just seeing old matches more recently. I haven't

really experienced him all that much, not back

in the day anyway. Do you remember he popped

up as a member of the NWO in the late 90s at

one point for some reason? I remember taking

quizzes online of like name all the members of

the NWO and I was like why am I missing so many

and then I forgot there was like 300 of them

yeah from Japan Just the international branch

at the NWO. It was. I think we might get some

flack here for what happens next because we're

going to go from one international star to another.

And I want to say that a lot of maybe people

would think that Great Muta should outrank this

guy, but this is probably somebody who we are

more well aware of. So we're going to go to somebody

who debuted in 1987, born in Japan as well. He

was known as the Tiger, Tiger Dragon. Yoshihiro

Asai and the Ultimo Dragon. The Ultimo Dragon

comes in here at number 83. We probably know

him most for his work in WCW, but obviously did

spend a lot of time in Japan and had a brief

stint in WWE in 2003 -2004. As far as some of

his accomplishments that we would know about,

he was WCW Cruiserweight Champion twice, WCW

World Television Champion. twice. He also voted

the best wrestling maneuver in 1996 for his running

Liger Bomb, most underrated in 2003. I don't

think he ever got anything with WWF as far as

accolades. He was not there very long. Ultimo

Dragon, what do you think, Alex, of this pick

here? I've never seen him. I don't even know

what he looks like. Oh my goodness. Do you have

the network? Remember, I'm probably one of the

younger people here. I would very much say that

you should go search out some of his WCW matches

that he had with Chris Jericho or Chris Benoit.

To me, that name sounds Lucha and not Japanese.

Yeah, old people. Yeah, he was kind of one of

the ones that was in there with like Juventud

Guerrero and La Parca and a couple other guys,

but he always stood out because he had some great

matches in WCW. I don't know if I could point

to a specific match, but I know his great Mysterio.

Is this the guy that his gimmick was he would

tell people that he was Bruce Lee's last student

or something stupid like that? I don't know if

I ever heard that. I remember you talk a lot.

No, that was like the backstory or something

they were trying to sell. Oh. And I was like,

that doesn't make any sense because they're talking

about this guy debuting in the 80s and Bruce

Lee died like 15 years earlier. Yeah, I never

heard that, but he had some great matches with

Rey Mysterio as well. I also remember that he

was a part of one of the video games. I don't

know if it was NWO or WCW World Tour or WCW versus

NWO, but his character was really good in that

game. And if you picked him, you had a good shot.

Not as good a shot as you had if you picked Glacier

because that kick knocked everybody out. Ultima

Dragon was a fun character to have and you could

change his ring. Please don't tell me that Glacier's

higher on the list than this. If we were talking

about best people to be in a wrestling video

game, Glacier would be in my top 100 because

that kick literally knocked everybody out. I

don't know why. Now he looks like a fat Duke

Nukem in a Sub -Zero suit. Matt, any other thoughts

on Ultima Dragon showing up on our list? So I'm

glad we're – this is our first – I don't want

to call him a looter, but, I mean, in a lot of

ways he had the thing to him a little bit, and

he fought a lot of looters anyway. So I'm glad

we're starting to get, like, the cruiserweight

kind of element into the list. One of the best

parts of WCW in the cruiserweight division. Exactly,

yeah. All right. Not better than 205 Live, though.

I mean, come on. There is one little interesting

bit of trivia. I love this guy, by the way, but

he – for, like, six days in, like, 1996, He held

the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship and the

WCW Cruiserweight Championship simultaneously.

Somebody pulled a major sneaky and got him in

because that WWF title was exclusive to Japan

for a while. So somehow they brought him in.

Please tell me they're taking both. I don't think

so. I don't think they allowed him to do that.

But apparently Vince was not very happy, and

then they brought the Light Cruiserweight Championship

back to WWF. All right, so let's move on from

Ultimo Dragon to our number 82 on the list. And

you guys will definitely all know who this gentleman

is, at least at various points in his career.

I like doing this. I like reading the ring names

and seeing when you guys are going to have the

light bulb go off. He debuted in 1992, retired

in 2009, had the ring names of Bad Santa, Death

Mask. The rest are going to give it away, maybe

not. Vampiro Americano is not going to give it

away. Johnny Hawk. Justin Hawk. Oh, my God. Black

Jack Bradshaw. Or maybe just JBL. John Bradshaw

Layfield is our number 82 on the list. He spent

some time with Global Wrestling Federation in

the early 90s, some international time, NWA,

94, 95, and then the WWF, WWE. From there on

out, we had the new Black Jacks. We had the Acolytes,

the APA, I'll just say, and a lot of other stuff.

So let's see here. He was voted Best Gimmick

in 2004. Worst television announcer in 2014 and

in 2015. Most disgusting promotional tactic in

2014. I guess he insulted people that bought

the pay -per -view. Maybe there was also a point

where he was very against. uh like mexicans and

stuff so okay he got a slammy in his uh trophy

case he was the 20th triple crown champion the

10th grand slam champion one -time wwe champion

one -time intercontinental one -time us 18 -time

hardcore one -time european and three -time tag

team champion with farouk that's a whole lot

of championships alex is jbl worthy of being

on our list and how do you feel about him slotting

here at 82 one of I think he might be WWE's last

real heel that like was unredeemable. What was

happy with that was seemed to gleefully, uh,

take pride in what he did. I may be wrong, but

did he not go to the, like, did they not film

a promo of him defending the border from people

coming over? I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it because

that, if that's what that might be. the whole

most shameful thing that might be it um he still

believes in kayfabe that's why yeah and i mean

i mean he's known as a bully behind the scenes

and ultimately you know what it's it's bad but

at the same time if it fires people up to have

better matches like there is they don't really

have good guys and bad guys anymore and the product

suffers because of it he like Del Rio and all

these other people that have been heels since

him are not really heels. Even The Miz isn't

really a heel. JBL is the last headlining champion

heel. Anybody else? Thoughts on JBL? Probably

not the best person in the world, but really

funny. I have to give it to him. And to be fair,

Eddie Guerrero was the champion who dropped the

belt to him, and Eddie did want to work with

him. That was Eddie's choice. Take of that what

you may. Apparently very good with money, too.

Yeah, definitely. Didn't he write a book or something?

Yeah, wrote a book about it. He's been in the

Fox business and everything, too. He's been on

TV. I know he lost the deal with the financial

shows because of what he was doing on WWE, though.

He had to go on MSNBC or whatever the financial

channel he was on. He had to basically explain

on air that He had to expose the wrestling business

20 years after it was exposed by saying, who

I play on TV is not who I am as a person. And

it's like, I could just see Vince going, stop,

stop. So I think he lives in Barbados or the

Bahamas or something. And he'd be on there if

just for one thing, starting Tribute to the Troops

and running that every year. Yeah, that's for

sure. All right, so JBL here at number 82. We

already talked about one tag team that we got

one member of. We're going to have another tag

team that we're going to talk about at least

one member, and we'll have to see if the other

member shows up or not. For number 81, we're

going to go to somebody that was named the Terminator

at one point. also Mongo Vile, debuted in 1991,

but most people know him as either Bully, Bubba,

or Brother Ray Dudley. Yeah, we're coming now.

Get up, get up, get up. Talk about you. Get up,

get up. This is out of control. So he is coming

in next. Mark Lomonaco is his real name. So obviously

a good deal of his time in ECW in the late 90s

and then WWF and then TNA and some independents

and the like. So as far as accolades go, with

just mainly the WWF ones, he was Hardcore Champion

10 times, Tag Team 8 times with D -Von. Well,

that was World Tag Team. Then you had the WWE

Tag and then you had the WCW Tag. And he was

inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2018. A bunch

of stuff in TNA that I'm not going to read because

it would take too much time. Obviously had match

of the year in the TLC match. Tag team of the

year once, according to PWI. An eight -time ECW

tag team with Devon Dudley. So TV's Mr. Neal,

one of the Dudleys, falling here at number 81.

Is he deserving, and will we see Devon, or is

it just Bubba Ray? Well, I can't imagine Devon

being higher than Bubba Ray. I think Bubba Ray

was definitely the standout of the two, so he

should be on the list higher if D -Von was going

to be on here at all. I actually kind of like

the bully Ray gimmick. One of the few unique

things that happened in TNA involving a former

WWF or ECW wrestler to kind of recreate someone

like that. Not really a whole lot else to say

about him, just because I think of him so much

as a tag team wrestler and don't really... I

don't really differentiate him away from the

Dudley boys as much as I do other standout performers

that came from tag teams, you know, like Bret

Hart. So that's pretty much all I can say. Okay,

Matthew Stewart, what do you think of Bo Reign?

Do you agree that if Devon was going to appear,

he would have already done it? Yeah, I have a

feeling. Devon did have, like, the preacher Devon

gimmick, which I thought was hilarious at the

same time. Yeah, if you didn't have D -Von, if

you had D -Von, I would expect Bubba Ray to follow

later on. But I think this is going to be one

of the two, I guess one of the three, however

many Dudley boys it were. Spike's not going to

come up here tomorrow. Spike's not showing up.

He's too busy being an elementary school teacher,

English teacher, whatever he was in that Beyond

the Ring documentary. I didn't really see a lot

of stuff from TNA with the Bully Ray gimmick,

so I'm not familiar with that. Anybody who's

willing to just powerbomb old women through tables,

you've got to be in the top 80 then at that point,

right? I mean, am I right or am I wrong? I mean,

you can make that argument. I'm absolutely incorrect.

Alex, what do you think of Bully or Bubba or

whichever way you want to go? Yeah, he's the

only one of the Dudleys that really should be

there, and I think he's one of the only people

keeping Ring of Honor together now. Cause he's

like, they have like one person signed there

that like, other than Jay lethal, it's like him

and everybody else is just whoever a W and impact

didn't want to buy. So, uh, and I think there's

like, yeah, there might be like one former other

veteran there, but like he, he does make his

mark pretty much wherever he goes. Uh, he became

much, much better on the mic at TNA than he would

have. You could have ever expected him to be.

Um, From what I hear, he's kind of a prick. No

kidding. 270 -plus wrestlers got votes. Spike

Dudley, not one of them. So take that for what

you will. He will not be showing up on the list.

So we have five spots left to go today. Next,

we're going to go to another person that had

a career in the 70s and 80s mostly, and maybe

just the early 90s that some people might remember.

He debuted in 1975. He had the rigging name of

The Midnight. Stallion and the Outlaw, but most

people probably know him as just his regular

old name, which is Tully Blanchard. No relation.

Tully Blanchard coming in here at 80. Southwest

Championship Wrestling, NWA Jim Crockett Promotions,

WWF. A lot of time in there. As far as accolades,

he was NWA Hall of Fame in 2009. He was a feud

of the year in PWI's 1987 for the Four Horsemen

versus the Superpowers and the Road Warriors.

Tag team of the year 1989 with Arn Anderson and

ranked 52 in the top 500 single wrestlers of

the PWI years. WWF World Tag Team Champion one

time with Arn Anderson and WWE Hall of Fame in

2012 as a member of the Four Horsemen. TV's Mr.

Neal, what do you think of Tully Blanchard showing

up here at number 80? Good place for him. I wish

I was more familiar with him. I know him mostly

from his run in WWF because that's what I was

watching at the time. I've seen a little bit

of his WCW stuff. He's basically a very talented

wrestler, one of the good technicians of the

time. Wish I had more to say about him. I think

he belongs on the list, definitely. Definitely.

His legacy is continuing as his daughter Tessa

is a female wrestler who's been making some strides.

Alex, what do you think of Tully Blanchard? I

know it's probably a little bit before your time,

but you might have heard of him with the Brain

Busters and the Four Horsemen. Yeah, I hear about

him all the time. He's still relevant. I mean,

he signed to AEW as a manager for the former

Ty Dillinger. Yep. He, from seeing his... promos

and what appearances he's made now um he looks

like he could still go which is pretty surprising

um because i know not everybody has seen the

new pay -per -view so i won't comment on that

but but i will say that he has a thing that's

missing now from a lot of even current like younger

wrestlers is that a calm intensity like he he's

He looks scary without having to make a face.

And you can see everything's in his eyes. And

he has that sort of Jake the Snake thing where

he can whisper what he's saying. And it's scarier

than if he was screaming in your face like Ric

Flair. Yeah, it's like one of those men, a few

words that when he does talk, you listen. He's

trained by Jose Lothario. I think some people

will remember that name. No relation to TFG1

Mike Blanchard. He's 65 years old, and I guess

if we were keeping track, he was born in Calgary,

Alberta, Canada. Matthew Stewart, any other thoughts

on Tully Blanchard? I'm not familiar with him.

I mean, knowing that he's from the forward, he's

been over to that really great pedigree. I think

he came up in our tag team, top 100 tag team

list too, with Art Anderson. But yeah, I mean,

seeing the way he still works, he can work a

crowd without having to say a lot. And to Alex's

point, yeah, it's something that's kind of lost

upon everybody trying to run down the ring or

get the crowd pumped. I want that old school

wrestling intensity, like a Jake the Snake or

something like that, where you just go out there,

you tell the story with... Kind of like your

simple actions as opposed to screaming into a

microphone. And, yeah, I mean, just kind of seeing

the promos for AEW. I mean, he still looks like

a badass who can still whoop the shit out of

you. So I do like that. So, yeah, I mean, I'm

all for him being above Jesse James, the Road

Dogg. I'm not going to give that up, man. It's

going to be the trend for the rest of the time.

I cannot forgive it. It'd be interesting to see.

I do believe it makes sense if we're looking

at the classics, or not classics, but the guys

from the late 70s, early 80s that he is above.

paul orndorff a little bit i would put him in

that order so that makes sense to me um i'm interested

to get your guys's take on our number 79 it has

been a while since we have had a female representative

of the list and we're going back there with this

one um how about a female that made her debut

well first off does anybody know somebody that

went by the ring name the spider lady Oh, yeah.

Made a debut in 1949. They have her retired listing

date as 2007. That's not accurate. I mean, let's

define retirement here. We're talking about Mary

Lillian Ellison, better known as the fabulous

Moolah. This is old school like we had with Gorgeous

George, I guess, and Vern Gagne, but definitely

had some accomplishments. WWF Women's Champion

four times Hall of Fame in 1995. Did get the

Wrestling Observer Worst Match of the Year in

1984 versus Wendy Richter, but let's come on.

She was past the prime at that point. Well, that

was not the screw job. It's when they stole the...

the belt right so yeah yeah i mean for anybody

that doesn't know what she looks like remember

that episode of the simpsons when marge uh used

a shotgun to blast her makeup on that's uh I

don't know what she looked like. She did pass

away 12 years ago at the age of 84, but obviously

had a huge role in early women's wrestling. So,

Alex, we'll start with you just real quickly.

Fabulous Moolah, our third female representative.

Deserving or not? She's one of those ones where...

She made her mark pivotally important, but not

necessarily for the right reasons. Depending

on who you ask, she either furthered women's

wrestling or held it back 20 years. So for the

longest time, you know, history is written by

the victors, right? And WWE loved her, so they

would praise her and build her up, but then ask...

any other promotion and they say she was a pariah

and a pimp and all this horrible stuff so and

that she was like the worst serial abuser of

of her her staff ever from compared to any promoter

so it really depends on who you ask it's probably

somewhere down the middle i i don't genuinely

think that she thought she was doing anything

wrong i just think that she wasn't necessarily

a very good person Yeah, I could see that argument

being made. Matthew or Neil, any thoughts on

Fabulous Moolah? I think, yeah, I think it's

become more of her being infamous, and especially

now when they were going to do the whole Fabulous

Moolah battle royal tattoo, and that basically

got shouted down by everybody saying, you can't

make this a thing because she was a pimp and

she did all these horrible, I mean, to Alex's

point, you know, depends who you ask to. uh depends

who you ask if you ask half these people they'll

say she helped my career she did this for me

the other part of it it's like she picked me

out she basically put me on the road used me

up and threw me away soon as i was done so it's

a very complicated legacy but i'm glad she's

not really any higher probably more for the recency

bias of what we know about her now or what we've

heard about her depending on what story you want

to kind of believe from her so yeah she's only

on this list high enough high because the length

of her reign like if you go by actual wrestling

she's a terrible wrestler always was she just

had power so yeah like trish 100 million times

better you know she she was i mean um basically

Any women wrestler that wasn't part of the bra

and panty matches is a better wrestler than her.

I guess that's where the line is. I guess we'll

get into this probably later with other maybe

people where it's like, how would you climb this

list based on acumen of wrestling knowledge of

being with a wrestler or having the everlasting

legacy of what she did? So it's going to be interesting

to see as we get later on. But yeah, it's complicated.

You kind of feel disgusting talking about her,

but you also, I don't know, there's a lot of

stories about her that you just don't really

know what to believe. Yeah, it's just a combination

of her not being a very good wrestler and also

being rather infamous. I don't really like her,

and I think I would rather watch Gorgeous George

versus Charles Robinson for eight hours than

watch a fabulous Moolah match. I agree. All right,

let's move on to our final three here, our number

78. Let's play this game again. How about Kip?

How about Cute Kip? How about Kip James? How

about Kip Montana? How about Kip Sop? How about

Kip Winchester? How about the G -Man? How about

the Outlaw? How about the Kipper? Rockabilly?

Billy G, Mr. Ass. We're talking about badass

Billy Gunn here at number 78. So we have Jesse

James at 86. We have Billy Gunn at 78. They both

did appear here. Obviously, a huge tag team with

Bark Gun in the 90s. Maybe not huge, but a tag

team that we're going to remember is the Smoking

Guns, but then obviously hooked up with the Road

Dogg and the D -Generation X, etc. And some other

stuff after that as a singles wrestler. King

of the Ring in 1999, WWE Hall of Fame this year

with D -Generation X. He was a two -time hardcore

champion, a one -time Intercontinental champion,

a one -time tag team champion with Road Dogg,

and a ten -time WWE -WWF tag team champion with

Bart Gunn, Road Dogg, and Chuck. So a lot of

interesting stuff here from badass Billy Gunn.

TV's Mr. Neal, what do you think? And did we

get this in the right order with Jesse James

at 86 and Billy Gunn at 78? Or are neither of

them deserving of being in the top 100? Billy

Gunn is definitely deserving of being on the

top 100 and definitely deserving of being higher

than his partner, Jesse James. Very good tag

team wrestler. I don't really like him as a singles

wrestler all that much. I didn't like Mr. Ass.

I just found that a little too obnoxious, being

named Mr. Ass. What about the Billy and Chuck

stuff? Oh, yeah. You know what? If you say the

climate's different, that would still be great

today if presented a certain way. Because that

was golden. It was a little too crass for the

time, but you could work with that now. It's

probably what more younger people are going to

remember him from. He wrestles, I think, with

his son occasionally now. Head of Talent Relations

or something at AEW. Oh, yeah. I got a confession

to make. In the early 90s or mid -90s when the

smoking guns were a thing, I actually liked Bart

Gunn better. Until he was in the boxing. Yes,

and then it all went downhill. I got to say,

my favorite smoking guns match is the rematch

between them and Yokozuna and Owen Hart from

Raw. I think it was sometime... Summer 95. Really,

really funny ending. You've got to find it and

watch it. He's had a lot of different personas

and a lot of different revivals and times. I

didn't mention, but he spent some time in the

TNA as well in the mid -2000s. Matthew, did I

get your opinion or anybody else that I missed

as far as Billy Gunn? I like him on the list.

I could have maybe put him down like Jesse James

was and put Jesse James completely off the list.

I mean, I think I liked him as a single wrestler.

I liked Generation X. I loved the Mr. Ask Him

It because it was just so over -the -top, stupid,

ridiculous. And you had the finishing move, the

Famouser. I mean, it's probably one of the more,

I don't know, I love that finisher. I thought

it was really cool looking. It made an impact,

kind of like Famouser out of nowhere. You know,

you can almost like scream it if you really wanted

to. And then the Billy and Duck stuff was crass,

but it was progressive at the time. And if you

did it a different way, like Alex said now, you

can make it kind of like the Golden Lovers type

thing with New Japan and stuff like that. If

you package it a certain way and make it more

progressive as opposed to regressive. Yeah, not

do that wedding. Yeah, exactly. That stupid wedding.

We're not gay. Just throwing out the whole gimmick.

Or you could have done it the same way and then

be like, have the manager say, well, yeah, you're

playing gay and then have them talk secretly.

Like, no, we actually did fall in love. Like

the manager still thinks it's fake, but they

secretly just actually fell in love. You could

work that into it and then have them turn on

the manager. The manager turned on them and then

it's a whole thing. All right, let's move on

to our number 77, second -to -last pick of the

day here. I'm going to do this one more time.

How about Stop Me When You've Heard of Him, The

Lone Wolf, The Widowmaker, Dirty Yellow Dog,

The Stalker, Black Jack Mulligan Jr., Black Jack

Wyndham, or like we most know him, Barry Wyndham.

So debuted in 1979, trained by Blackjack Mulligan

and Harley Race, spent time in all different

places, NWA, Jim Crockett, WWF, Turnbuckle Championship

Wrestling. He was WWE Hall of Fame in 2012 as

a member of the Four Horsemen, WWF Tag Team Champions

twice with Mike Rotunda slash IRS, if people

know him more like that. Voted Most Improved

Wrestler of the Year by PWI in 1982 and made

all kinds of their list as far as tag teams with

Mike Rotunda, with Lex Luger, and with Dustin

Rhodes, and Top 500 Singles Wrestlers a couple

different times there as well. So a lot of NWA

gold as well. TV's Mr. Neal, what do you think

of Barry Windham? Kind of another one of those

classic 70s, 80s, early 90s wrestlers that's

making the list. Yeah, I do like Barry Windham.

Oddly enough, another one of these guys, I know

him from his career when he was in WCW in the

late 90s. I do know that he and Rotundo had the

Real American theme song before Hulk Hogan did.

I'm going to mention this here because I don't

want to mention this during the Mr. Perfect because

I know Mr. Perfect is going to be way farther

down the list. The West Texas Rednecks. One of

my favorite gimmicks in wrestling ever, just

because it was WCW trying to be so hip and forgetting

that they were based out of Georgia. So they're

trying to make an evil stable of country singers.

And of course, the fans completely flipped on

it and cheered on the West Texas Rednecks and

booed the rappers. It was hysterical. That was

Kendall Windham, Kurt Henning, Bobby Duncombe

Jr., and Barry Windham as the West Texas Rednecks.

They played that song on country stations all

over the country. It was great. I like that song

a lot. Also was a part of the U .S. Express as

part of the tag team there. Man, interesting

though if you're stacking up the guys that we've

had from this era and kind of how you guys would

do it because we had Paul Orndorff come first,

then Junkyard Dog, then Tito Santana, then Tully

Blanchard, and now Barry Windham. I don't know

if that's the right order or not, but that's

the ones we've had. Matthew Stewart, what do

you think of all this and Barry Windham coming

in at 77? I don't know a lot about it. Was Barry

Windham in that match with Goldust when they

were in the truck during WCW and they weren't

supposed to bleed? Was that Barry Windham? Was

he one of the ones that got fired? When he was

a blackjack bully or something, like the blacktop

bully or something like that. Blacktop bully.

Yeah. That's the only thing I really remember

him for, if that was even him. I don't remember

if that's... I know that you're talking about...

I know the two people that got fired was Dustin

Rhodes and somebody else, but I don't know if

he was the one. Well, that goes to tell you,

I don't know much about Barry Windham. Except

for the West Texas Rednecks. This is one of those

cases where I've heard the name a bunch of times,

no idea what he looks like. All right, well,

let's move on then to number 76. We'll have to

have the fans weigh in on if we got those 80s

wrestlers in the right order or not. Somebody

that also started in 1985 but didn't retire until

2006, Crusher Yurkov. That's the only name that

you guys wouldn't know because everybody else

knows him as... Bam! Bam! Bigelow! Bam! Bam!

Bigelow. He died about 12 years ago at the age

of 45. I think the one thing that comes out loud

and clear, and you hear this a lot on the podcast

that I listen to as well, is that when he was

doing his early WWF stuff in 1987, 1988, he was

not very old. We're talking about early to mid

-20s. He was known for obviously being somebody

that was really... Big, large man that could

move and be agile. So he's coming in at number

76. Matthew, what do you think of his appearance

right here? I love Bam Bam Bigelow. He's almost

like a proto -Simone Joe. I mean, he doesn't

have the same wrestling acumen as Simone Joe,

but he can do moonsaults. He could be a high

flyer. He could do cartwheels. I remember him

doing a lot of cartwheels in the ring at one

point. I was like, what is this guy doing? But

I thought it was hilarious to me. Big, rotund

guy in a onesie with flames all over him. That

was one of his moves in the NES game, by the

way. The cartwheel. Was it the cartwheel? Yeah.

Of course it was. That's awesome. But I like

that. And then, of course, you can't forget about

the thing as well, too, with that WrestleMania.

Was that WrestleMania 13 or something like that?

I like Bam Bam Bigelow. He was part of Money,

Inc., and then he got kicked out because he wasn't

doing his job right. Jersey Triad and WCW? Yeah,

something like that. And I don't know. I mean,

I liked him because he was a guy that could move.

And he had, like, one missing front tooth that

always really stuck out to me a lot. He looked

like a beast from, like, New Jersey, the beast

from the East and everything, too. I liked him.

And 45, I didn't even realize he was that young

when he passed away. But that's kind of a shame,

man. Yeah. He was WCW Hardcore Champion one time,

WCW World Tag Team Champion twice with Diamond

Dallas Page and Chris Canyon as the Jersey Triad.

Got a Slammy Award in 1987 for Best Head. I don't

know what that criteria for that is. That can

be taken a lot of different ways. He was named...

Wrestling Observer named him as the Rookie of

the Year in 1986. And how about this? The worst

worked match of the year in 1993 with... This

is a Survivor Series match. If you remember it,

Bastion Booger, the Head Shrinkers, Bushwhackers,

and Men on a Mission. There was turkey legs and

food all over the ring. It was... It never held

a WWE belt that I know of. He also appeared in

the movies Major Pain, Joe's Apartment, Ready

to Rumble, Bam Bam Bigelow, TV's Mr. Neal. Any

thoughts on him? I remember the Lawrence Taylor

thing was the main event of WrestleMania 11.

Yeah, that's probably his biggest event. He main

evented WrestleMania 11 sort of. It was the last

match on the card anyway. Don't remember too

much about his earlier. I do remember that he

was the last man standing in the Survivor Series,

the original Survivor Series, where it was like

Hogan's team versus Andre's team. And it was

him and Andre at the end. And he was kind of

doing cartwheels trying to get out of the way

of Andre. He was doing like all sorts of like

really impressive stuff for a guy his size. And

ended up not being the victor in that. But it

was really a shame he didn't last very long.

He was gone by WrestleMania 4, I think. But yeah,

he was pretty good. Alex, either thoughts on

Bam Bam Bigelow or now that you've seen numbers

100 through 76, just thoughts on overall the

names that have been revealed today. It's an

interesting mix. As far as he's concerned, to

me, it's almost like he's the prototype ECW wrestler.

Yes. It's like they looked at him and went, how

could we make an entire roster of this craziness?

Yeah, basically. But, yeah, I just always knew

that people talked about him being, you know,

impressive for how much he could do for a big

man. That was the big thing about him. Interesting,

if we look at the list so far, we had a couple

international folks with Ultimo Dragon and Great

Muda. I guess those were about the only two we

got from there. We did have Taz and Raven for

ECW. We had females, Trish Stratus, Nia Jax,

and Fabulous Mula. I don't know if that's the

right trio. And then some interesting classic.

wrestlers, old school ones with Vern Gagne and

Gorgeous George. Not too many modern wrestlers

that I can think of that we talked about besides

maybe Samoa Joe. And that's about, and I guess

Nia Jax could put in that. group as well so uh

matthew what do you think of the ones that were

revealed so far i know you're not a fan of jesse

james being involved anybody else that should

be kicked out uh for the likes of some of the

people we talked about at the beginning sergeant

slaughter greg valentine ah i mean i'm surprised

that robin raines didn't crack the top one when

i'm when i'm seeing uh wrestlers it's like robin

raines is it just because people hate rope they

die robin die i mean The guy has cancer. Give

the guy a break. Come on. He's going to show

up, I can tell, because there's people like Blanchard

that probably put him at number two. Yeah, exactly.

But if it was me, again, he's got a look, but

he's nothing special. I don't know if I ranked

him at all. I don't think I did either. So I'm

not really upset about it. But just for recency,

I don't know who's voting in the list and who's

voting for this and everything. I'm upset. I'm

upset that we didn't get any occupational gimmick

wrestlers at the top. Oh, the goon's probably

coming up soon, right? The goon has to be there.

Duke the Dumpster Drozy, Repo. Yankum, who else?

Well, Yankum will be there, just not as Yankum.

He'll be there some way, yeah. Well, Repo, man,

that wrestler, oh my God, what's his name? Barry

Darso. Barry Darso had so many gimmicks. had

so many gimmicks does each gimmick count separately

or does he get to go do all of them count toward

one guy they'll count towards one guy okay so

he might actually still be on the list so is

that same thing for McFoley like you can't count

his separate characters as one person right I

think we included everybody together no one that's

surprising I wish would have been on. He's not

going to be any higher. I know that. But would

have been great for this last section. Would

have been like the Brooklyn Brawler. Somebody

that was with the company for 35 years or whatever.

Barry Horowitz, something like that. I mean,

I was hoping Tatanka would sneak in here, but

he didn't at this point. I would have figured

Tatanka would have been like 90 -something. brawler

it's one that the reason he's not here is everybody

forgets he exists and then he'll show up and

it'll be like oh shit he's been with the company

since like 83 and he's still there another guy

that i would have pegged for this part of the

list would have been um that was known for a

lot of different things would have been uh papa

shango slash common mustafa slash godfather um

i would have thought somebody like that that

maybe had a bunch of different time periods that

he represented might have shown up in this part

as well Terrible wrestler in all of them. Yeah,

that's true. So that is our 100 through 76. We

will tease you for a little while for another

week or so before we put out the next episode.

So you kind of have seven days to yell at us

and tell us what we got right and wrong and all

this other jazz. And then we'll come back with

numbers 75 through 51 in our next episode. So

might have the same people, might have some additional

guests. We'll never know what's going to hit

you in the wrestling ring. So we always try to

surprise you here. But just real quick, everybody.

go around and tell people what you do online

or if you have anything you want to pimp out

or Twitter handles or anything like that. Alex,

how can people get in contact with you or keep

in touch with what you do? Well, I basically

run all the backend stuff at ThisWeekInGeek.

So ThisWeekInGeek .net. I'm on Twitter, DeathFaceTwig,

or just at ThisWeekInGeek. A bit of stuff with

GCRN as well, but I'm sort of the, I'm the tech

guy at ThisWeekInGeek. I run the website and

everything for Birdman. Sounds good. Matthew

Stewart, how can people hear more of your voice?

All right. You can always go to simplisticreviews

.net. We did a complete overhaul of the entire

website, much more sleek, much more easier to

navigate. So that's really exciting. And DJ and

I and Justin, we're trifecta, so to speak, for

Simplistic Reviews. And we just started a new

video series. That's on YouTube. It is Simply

Storytelling, where we give each other movies

we have not ever seen before in our lives, and

we have a certain amount of time to explain this

movie the way we see this movie fit. So that's

the cool new fun stuff. But yeah, simplisticreviews

.net is where you can find all the good fun stuff,

podcast videos, yuck yucks, everything. TV's

Mr. Neal, Twitter handle, or how can people get

in touch with you? Well, I have I'm an illustrator,

so I have a website to see in dot com. I do silly

action cartoons and I do occasional commissions

for people. I also have written hipster dot com,

which I do podcasting stuff and I show up on

the network here occasionally. And you can get

in contact with me with on Twitter at P. Lynn

Bailey, which is associated with my webcomic.

So that's about it. Excellent. And you can obviously

follow all things network related by searching

out Geekcast Radio Network on either Facebook

or Twitter. My individual Twitter is at Optimist

Solo. If you have a question for me or anything

about the top 100, because I'm usually involved

some way, shape or form with those. And we will

have other content coming through the network.

I know Steve's got Altered Geek going out. Mike

has the pullback. We also have some He -Man reviews

for ToonCast and Powers of Grayskull. So you

can keep track of all that stuff by either following

us on Twitter or Facebook. So do that now and

catch us next week as we reveal numbers 75 through

51. We'll see you then. At ease, maggot. You

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