Top 100 Countdown – WRESTLERS – Part 3 – #50-26

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, up

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, Richie. On board!

And now, here is our main event. 100 wrestlers

enter. Who will be number one? Let's find out.

Let's get ready to podcast. Hello and welcome

back to Geekcast Radio Network's Top 100 Wrestler

Countdown. I am your host, Optimus Solo. And

joining me for today's portion of the countdown,

it's a triple threat, so to speak, for this episode.

We have TV's Mr. Neal. Hello. What? I like it.

Short and to the point. And returning from episode

one, Alex, how are we doing? Good. I don't have

anything. And I didn't want to, and I just didn't,

couldn't do it on the fly. Yeah. I'm returning

from the rival company, I guess. We don't want

to give you too much fanfare. We have booted

out the simplistic review tag team. So we will

see if they make a return appearance for the

final chapter in this countdown. But today we're

going to be covering numbers 50. through 26 but

before we do that i want to just take a couple

minutes to get some pre -talk out of the way

alex i don't want to start with you you were

not present on the record last time but you have

had a chance to catch up and listen to entrance

uh 75 through 51 as well as all the corrections

what do you think of the first half of the countdown

so far i think it makes a little more sense um

from it It was a little odd, some of the way

the thing stacked up. But then again, it all

depends on how many. Did you see how many people

actually submitted their lists for this? No,

there was more than a dozen. Okay, so yeah, wildly

different backgrounds, wildly different voting.

So I'm assuming that's where some of these people

stacked up. I'm going to say whether I might

have had a personal... you know uh thought like

some people should have been on should have been

off i think that the way it now is settled is

more in line with how i would have predicted

it probably would have gone so that makes sense

i when i think of these countdowns it always

kind of breaks down as weird as it is because

we used to do these in five episodes we would

do 20 entrance at a time when we first started

doing the top 100s then we broke it down to 25

at a time but it really seems to over the different

countdowns we've done really separate into four

distinct groups so in your like 100 through 76

All it takes really to land in that group is

somebody who a couple people feel really strongly

about. So, I mean, you know, they're probably

only showing up on maybe 10 % up to like maybe

like 30 % of the list. But, you know, if a couple

people rank them real high, so it's kind of like

that wild card section. Anything can go in that

first 25, and that's where you usually get the

most surprises. When you get to the episode we

did last time, that 75 through 51, it's more

so people that... Most likely, you're not going

to get too many arguments about them, whether

they belong in the top 100. But, you know, they

just are wild cards in the fact that they belong,

but you don't know where they're going to hit.

So, you know, I don't think many people would

argue against Terry Funk showing up or Bam Bam

Bigelow or, you know, the British bulldog Rob

Van Dam, those types of people that we saw in

last week's episode. So this one's kind of like

they belong, but nobody's quite sure where they

belong. And if it follows suit, what we usually

get then the rest of the way is from 50 on, you

usually can't get any arguments about whether

they belong or not. They're all usually like

for sure top 100 people or characters or shows

or whatever we've gone over in the past. The

difference usually between 50 through 26 and

then 25 through 1. is the number of boxes they

check off. So in 25 through 1, you're going to

have people that are more unanimous or people

that are checking off all the boxes, whereas

50 through 26, they either have one or two small

shortcomings that kind of makes them in this

section. We'll have to see if that stays true.

Before I get your guys' thoughts, before we start

the countdown, I wanted to... do this because

we haven't done it yet but when we were sending

out these lists and having people vote on the

wrestlers i haven't gone over kind of the criteria

i sent out to you guys um that i was trying to

hopefully inform the way you guys ranked people

and kind of what you felt like was important

so these were the criteria that we kind of set

out for people and it might make some things

make more sense as we kind of go forward um but

one was um just Overall success. So that could

be titles held. It could be major accomplishments

or, you know, some type of big wins along the

way. So success in the ring as far as, you know,

obviously someone like the Brooklyn Brawler who

loses all his matches would not be someone that

would probably show up here. Another one would

be just general charisma. That's pretty self

-explanatory, but it goes hand -in -hand with

another one, which would be mic skills. So charisma

and mic skills, being able to shoot promos, interviews,

do your build -up to matches, your in -ring impromptu

talks and stuff like that. So that might be someone...

The example I gave you guys was like why The

Rock would probably trump someone like Bill Goldberg.

You know, there might be more reasons than that,

but that's just one thing that kind of flies

off the top of my head. The Rock is really good

at promo, so he's going to beat somebody like

Goldberg, even though Goldberg did have some

success in the ring. Another thing that we threw

out there was longevity. Someone who was able

to stay in the business for an extended period

of time versus somebody that was just kind of

a flash in the pan. Now, obviously, we've talked

already that some people stay too long and it

maybe hurts their legacy. So that might be discussions

that we have ongoing as well. Impact or importance

to the sport or the business. You know, someone

who revolutionized an aspect of the business,

maybe getting extra points here. We talked about

when we were mentioning like Superstar Billy

Graham and some of those early on people, you

know, they definitely had an impact and kind

of shaped what other people modeled their characters

off of. um just memorable uh how memorable they

are you know maybe they had memorable storylines

memorable matches uh memorable moments within

the history of wrestling and then just miscellaneous

anything that you guys wanted to throw out there

you know the best outfits the best gimmicks the

best entrance music best you know finishing moves

stuff like that could be something that you kind

of played into a part as well um so neil what

kind of things are you looking forward to as

we kind of get through this next set of 25 and

Last week, we saw a lot of tag team halves and

things of that nature. Do you think there's going

to be something that we see more of in this next

section? I think we're going to see a lot more

singles wrestlers going forward. People who are

more known for being singles wrestlers, like

your Bret Hart. People who may have started as

a tag team but graduated, like Shawn Michaels,

Bret Hart. I'm trying to think of other examples.

I kind of blanked on it, but we're also going

to see a lot of mid carters, like a mid mid to

upper carters, like, you know, Dean Malenko,

Chris Jericho, Owen, a lot of those guys. I think

we're going to see maybe, maybe some remnants

of the tag teams, but I can't really think of

too many who would show up. Makes sense. Alex,

if. it kind of fits what I was kind of prefacing

it with some of the criteria. If we see people

in this countdown that are checking a lot of

the boxes, but maybe missing some, are we looking

to see like those that maybe had a shorter lifespan

or those that were successful, but maybe lacked

in Mike skills or what kind of stuff do you think

might define this section of the countdown? It's

probably going to be a bit of everything you

said there. Plus people maybe that were super

hot in the eighties or nineties. but then completely

disappeared from the landscape. I'm drawing a

blank, but has Mr. Perfect popped up yet? No.

It's like a Mr. Perfect. Somebody who died before

the current generation really got to know the

person, maybe only knows them from memories,

but they weren't so huge like a macho man. You

know what I mean? Didn't have that crossover

super appeal. That makes sense. That's why in

my list where you're like, oh, I listed... el

santo so high i've only seen a couple matches

but i knew right basically the cultural impact

like you you've got your different styles of

wrestling from around the world but if you really

want to boil it down you've got basically four

you've got american style and it can be broken

down from there into you know southern style

wrestling and everything but there's american

style pro wrestling japanese pro wrestling the

british slash european and mexican wrestling

right and you know he is arguably bigger than

anybody in wrestling's ever been to Latin America

and you know in movies and everything he was

basically if you rolled like Hulk Hogan and The

Rock together into one he might have even been

bigger than that to those cultures so that's

why I rated him so high because it was more important

that like he was more important to the business

and like without him you probably wouldn't have

lucha wrestling really be popular at all right

No, I agree. And it kind of goes along with some

of the other people that were mentioned last

week that did crack people's top tens. We had,

I'm going to throw Blanchard's out because I'm

not going to mention it. one that he had in the

top 10 from last week. But three of them that

mentioned that did, no, it was Batista. But the

three that did make the other people's top 10

that have already been mentioned were the Nature

Boy Buddy Rogers, El Santo, and Antonio Inoki.

So I think that's, you know, those are all three

people that do kind of represent what impact

they had on their regions and things of that

nature during their time. So I think that kind

of backs up what you're saying with El Santo

as well. Another thing that might be interesting

that we've kind of been looking at as we've been

going through you know how many women we have

or have had will we have any more some of the

classic you know era wrestlers if we'll see more

of them if there's gonna be any type of recency

bias or any more modern day because we haven't

seen a lot of modern day wrestlers if we went

through last week's there was hardly any honestly

we had Miz and Charlotte Flair And I guess if

you wanted to count the Matt and Jeff Hardy,

but they're not necessarily as current as they're

not doing a whole lot these days, I don't believe,

unless I'm just missing out on. I mean, I know

they appear, but they don't seem to have the

impact that they did, like, let's say, 10, 15

years ago. Um, whereas the first episode we had

Nia Jax, um, and, uh, Samoa Joe. So we haven't

seen a lot of current people. So that'll be something

interesting to kind of keep forward, uh, looking

at going forward as well. Neil, any other last

thoughts before we get into number 50 for today?

Uh, not really. I, yeah, I wasn't even thinking

about modern day wrestlers. Uh, I think we're

going to start seeing, seeing them show up. All

right, we'll have to see if that holds true or

not. Like I said at the beginning, that first

25, you're probably getting about anywhere from

10 % to 30 % of the people's list that these

wrestlers are being voted on. During today's

section, we're talking about closer probably

to 50 % to 80 % of the people's list that these

wrestlers would have shown up on. So it definitely

took a lot more people to know them and have

some universal appeal as we get through this.

All right, we're going to start the countdown

here with number 50. His name has actually already

been thrown out by one of you. I'm not going

to say which one. Let's see. What kind of names

did he go off of? Ring name of Ciclope? Dean

Sarkoff? I think TV's Mr. Neal mentioned him

already. We're talking about Dean Malenko. Obviously

spent some time in ECW, NWA Eastern Region, and

then WCW for a long time before his last little

bit in WWE and has made an appearance this year

in AEW. So that's kind of interesting as well.

As far as... belts and things of that nature

wcw cruiserweight champion four times united

states heavyweight champion one time a wcw world

tag team once with chris benoit wwf light heavyweight

champion two times he was the wrestling observer

newsletter feud of the year 1995 with eddie guerrero

and the wrestling observer newsletter best technical

wrestler in 1996 and 1997 so one of those things

that we i didn't mention in the uh the criteria

that we had added later on was actual ring in

ring abilities and kind of your technical ability.

And I think this is someone that would definitely

fall into that category. Alex, what do you think

of Dean Malenko? And is he worthy of being in

the top 50? He is. I've actually not seen a whole

ton of his work because it was sort of during

that period where I wasn't watching, but I've

gone back and seen a lot of it. And yeah, you

can see it. He was not the most charismatic guy,

very similar to like a Lance storm. But just,

He has a look that you're like, I don't believe

you can do everything that you're doing, but

you magically can do it. If you look at him now,

like you see him, he's working as an agent. I

think he just left the WWE to work for AEW. If

he had a gimmick now, it would be the angry Greyhound

bus driver. That's sort of what he looks like.

He just looks a little old and tired, but he

could still kick your ass. I remember him most

for his semi -feud with Chris Jericho in WCW

because it allowed – it was like when Chris Jericho

was really showing what he had kind of – what

he was capable of, and I believe he was making

fun of Dean Malenko. He had a list of all the

different holds or whatever and all of that stuff.

I think that was directly related to his feud

with Chris Jericho. I could be misremembering

that. But he had some great cruiserweight matches

with the likes of Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio,

Eddie Guerrero, you know, and that type of ilk.

So I definitely think he is deserving. I actually

had him ranked on my list at 51. So obviously

I can't be too upset that he comes in here at

50. Neil, what do you think of Dean Malenko here?

He's like a mini Bret Hart. I remember him in

the cruiserweight division of WCW, just being

this all business, no nonsense guy. He didn't,

yeah, like, like what you said is that he didn't

really have much of a personality, but to me,

it wasn't like he was bad on the mic. He was

just, he was just, he just didn't really like.

He just really wasn't very expressive. So he

just seemed like he was all business. So I kind

of bought what he was doing. And I love the gimmick.

Again, his gimmick is that he's a wrestler. He's

very serious, has a ton of moves, great sort

of like ring psychology. And pairing him with

Chris Jericho. one of the legendary feuds of

the Monday Night Wars and that awesome promo

that Jericho did with the list. By the way, they

went to commercial. This is my favorite part.

They went to commercial, and while they're at

commercial, Jericho's, I'm talking about Jericho,

but he's working the crowd. Then they come back,

and he's still reading, and then they go back

to commercial. That's great. But that whole feud,

it just brought out the best of Malenko. And,

you know, them going back and forth with the

Cruiserweight Championship. I think Jericho even

like went to the Library of Congress to figure

out some sort of rematch clause. It made no sense,

but it was hilarious. Yeah, he was a horseman

for a little while. Came to WWF, WWE, same thing.

It was part of the Radicals and sadly kind of

disappeared after that. He was a great wrestler.

I loved him. Right. Trained by Boris Malenko.

Yeah, I think it fits that criteria that we're

talking about, where he's going to be no doubt

top 100, but he's going to have some boxes that

aren't checked. And, you know, it might be that.

interview you know mike skills charisma box that's

not checked but i can think you could also make

the argument that he didn't need it um because

it added to kind of his uh intimidation factor

kind of his mystique there so dean malenko starts

us off at number 50 we're going to go old school

here next with number 49 we're talking about

somebody that debuted in 1932 trained by Warren

Bockwinkle, Ed Lewis, and a handful of other

people. He only had one ring name, but how many

people know his real name? Alocious Martin Fez.

We're talking about Lou Fez, and that is who

is coming in at number 49. Obviously very impactful

in the early days, a lot of independent work,

regional work, NWA work. He's in the Professional

Wrestling Hall of Fame Pioneer Era, class of

2002. He is in the Stampede Wrestling Hall of

Fame. He is in the St. Louis Wrestling Hall of

Fame. He's in the WCW Hall of Fame in 93, the

WWF Hall of Fame in 2016, the Wrestling Observer

Newsletter Hall of Fame. You get the picture.

He's a lot of Hall of Fames. So Luthez coming

in at number 49 was ranked all the way up at

number four on one of our individual lists. Alex,

what do you think of Luthez? He's one of those

ones where you can't go anywhere without hearing

about how great he was, even if. none of us probably

ever saw him work um he was everybody seems to

talk about he's one of the guys where it's like

oh so and so isn't doing what the promoter says

he's supposed to do all right put him in with

lou and have lou you know turn him into a pretzel

and it would be like people would like you know

actually quit they'd be like oh i'm not having

a match here's your belt back because they wouldn't

even want to bother with him because they just

knew that he was somebody who would, if he wants

to break your arm, he's going to break your arm.

Right. But at the same time, wasn't he like NWA

champ like a bazillion times? Yeah, he was. Prior

to Flair, I think he was like the most. Or either

longest run or the most runs before him? The

longest run. Yeah, because I think he was three

times. The problem back then is that NWA was

split so many different times that it's hard

to say which ones were under which regions and

which ones were recognized by what different

individuals. But yeah, he was a long time. He

also spent some time as a referee later on in

just special matches, it seemed like. He refed

Ric Flair versus Dusty Rhodes. um, for the belt

in 1981. Um, he, uh, big man Bader versus Hashimoto,

um, in the IWGP heavyweight championship in the

Tokyo dome in 89, um, as well as a few others.

So, and I only mentioned like half of the hall

of fames he's in, cause I didn't want to go too

long, but, uh, go ahead. Keep going out. Sorry.

He's, he's basically what you, when you like,

not even the shooters, he's one of those guys

that if you wanted to say wrestling's fake, he's

not fake. Right. Um, Neil, what do you think

of Lutha's showing up right here? I think it's

a great addition. Again, he's one of these guys

where I know the name and I know the face, and

I'm not necessarily familiar with his work, but

I definitely think he belongs here. I was actually

trying to covertly look up stats on him. He was

the NWA World Champion three times, and one time

AWA Champion and a bunch of other things. I'm

just like, what even is this? He's got a lot

of accomplishments. He was in the WCW Hall of

Fame. He was all over the place, recognized great

wrestler everywhere. Yeah, for sure. And I think,

again, one of those, I think, you know, when

you go to the classic ones that we have had shown

up on our list, I don't think a lot of people

are going to be complaining about which names

we've had appear so far. So let's move on to

number 48 and maybe a wrestling family legacy

here that we're going to get to talk about. And

we'll see how many people from this family do

appear on the list. I'm trying to rack my brain

if any have shown up so far, but debuted in 1988.

Trained by a couple people I'm not going to mention.

Ring name of The Black Rain. Seven. The rest

are going to give it away. Goldust. Dustin Runnels.

Dusty Rhodes Jr. Dustin Rhodes, artist formerly

known as Goldust. However you want to go at it

there. That is who is appearing here at number

48. Did some work in Florida early on, then WCW

for a very brief time in the late 80s. Spent

some time in Japan and Memphis. WWF, back to

WCW, back to WWF, back to WCW, back to WWF. You

get the point. TNA a couple times, back to Japan,

back to WWE two or three more times, and now

obviously all elite wrestling. So the well -traveled

Dustin Rhodes. I'll go over his accomplishments

in a minute, but TV's Mr. Neal, what do you think

of Dustin Rhodes, and is he top 50 worthy? Oh,

yeah. Funny thing is that I figured it out when

you said seven, which is maybe the shortest -lived

gimmicks of all time. Just because he came in,

he was like, this gimmick sucks, and he stopped

being seven immediately. It was, of course, Goldust.

I remember him coming into WWF, I believe in

the, I believe it was like 1990, he came in to

sword his dad against the Million Dollar Man,

who... had a valet named Virgil, and Virgil was

named after Dusty's real name, who was actually

Virgil Ronalds. And I kind of thought that was

funny that Dustin and Dusty Rhodes, their last

match was basically putting over Virgil because

that was the match where Virgil turned face.

But beyond that, wasn't he in that WCW? King

of the Road match where he got fired because

somebody belated or something. Yeah. And, of

course, Goldust. Black Rain, I believe that was

in TNA. Very weird gimmick. Yeah, most of what

I know him for is Goldust just because of just

how iconic that character was. Probably his most

iconic character. other than just himself. Right.

He was WCW US Heavyweight Champion twice, World

Six -Man Tag Team Champion once, when that was

a thing, WCW World Tag Team twice, once with

Ricky the Dragon Steamboat and once with Barry

Windham, WWF Hardcore Champion nine times, Intercontinental

III, WWE Tag Team twice with Cody Rhodes slash

Stardust, one -time tag team with Booker T got

a belt. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter, apparently

Dave Meltzer does not like... Goldust because,

get this, worst gimmick of the year 1995 as Goldust,

worst gimmick of the year 1997 as the artist

formerly known as Goldust, most embarrassing

wrestler 1997, worst gimmick 2007 as Black Rain.

He must not like Dustin Rhodes for some reason.

If you asked him now, he probably forgot he even

said those things. Right? Alex, what do you think

of Dustin Rhodes and the Rhodes family being

represented here at number 48? I'll bet you if

you asked him, he'd say he shouldn't be higher

than Luthez. I do think that's a good spot for

him because he's one of the more iconic characters

in that instantly recognizable, very memorable,

but didn't really accomplish as much as he should

have in the mainstream spotlight when it comes

to WWF slash E. I've only been to one house show

when they came here about three or four years

ago. Actually, two years ago. And it was actually

the last run of house shows that he did. And

so there's about four or five thousand of us

at our local hockey arena. And when his music

hits, I had never experienced it live. His music

acoustically. was the best sounding. Like you

have all these newer people and even some people

from the Attitude Era that popped up. Rhino's

music sounded good when he came out. But just

the way his Shattered Dreams music hits, it just

reverberates and echoes off of the building.

And the whole crowd went crazy when he showed

up. He was the most over person at the show here.

Now, again, we're in Canada, so it's bizarro

land. So maybe he wasn't supposed to be. But

I was happy because like within two or three

months, he... basically disappeared from tv and

didn't show up again till aw so i got to see

him during his last run um now his that seven

character wasn't that like the like black metal

goth undertaker that he did with like a leather

hat or something stupid it was really weird i

didn't watch during that time yes it was uh late

wcw's like basically painted all white yeah he

kind of looked like the undertaker like if the

undertaker joined marilyn manson or something

like that yeah something like that yeah so yeah

we almost thought it was the undertaker just

because they didn't show his face a whole lot

we're just like is what the hell's going on here

now he's also i think the first person to show

up on the list that um is a current wrestler

that has wrestled in four decades that's still

considered an active wrestler That's true. Do

you think he's more or less worthy than Cody

Rhodes of being on the list? Oh, way, way more.

Cody, as good as his matches have been and how

good he's been as Stardust or on AEW, he's nowhere

near. He has charisma, but he hasn't built enough

of a legacy because he was such a low to mid

-carder forever. He's only really been on top

for a year. I don't know what it is. I can't

take him serious with his lisp. It sounds bad,

but I'll never be able to take him serious because

he never sounds authoritative, if that makes

any sense. It's funny because his father would

make fake accents and talk differently because

that's not really how we talked. It's funny because

his son actually has a lisp, and then people

don't buy into it. I don't know. Goldust has

a better, I guess, stage presence. When Cody

comes out, he all smiles and plays to the crowd

and everything, but he looks like a person playing

a wrestler, even though he has good matches now.

Whereas Dustin and Goldust always came out...

Very serious. You believe that's who he was,

whatever he was doing. Right. I was thoroughly

impressed with Dustin Rhodes' appearance so far

in AEW with his match. I did not expect him to

be able to pull off the things that he did at

his age. I was expecting to see something like

we see on WWE when we get The Undertaker versus

Goldberg or Shawn Michaels for the 700th time

or something like that, where Dustin Rhodes held

his own in that match. So that was impressive,

to say the least. Next up for number 47, we're

going to go to another wrestling family royalty,

I guess you could say. This man debuted in 1983,

was trained by Stu Hart. If anybody's keeping

tallies at home on how many people have been

trained by Stu Hart, please let me know because

I'm not keeping track. He is only known by one

other name than his real name. It was either

the Blue Blazer or just Owen Hart. Owen Hart

comes in here at number 47. Spent most of his

time in WWF besides a very, very brief cup of

coffee in WCW and then obviously some time in

Japan and Mexico. But most of his time staying

loyal to the WWF and had a lot of championship

gold to go around. as well as just memorable

moments and matches. He was WWF European champion

one time, Intercontinental twice, tag team four

times, twice with Yokozuna, once with the British

Bulldog, and once with Jeff Jarrett. World tag

team champion, British Bulldog, Feud of the Year.

This was when the whole Hart clan was against

Stone Cold Steve Austin. He got the best flying

wrestler, according to the Wrestling Observer

Newsletter, in both 1987 and in 1988. TV's Mr.

Neal, what do you think of Owen Hart being here

at number 47? And is it interesting that it's

right after Dustin Rhodes? Very interesting.

Owen definitely belongs in the top 50. He's one

of the... One of the greatest, maybe one of the

greatest underrated wrestlers of all time, just

because, you know, it took them so long to do

anything with him. He was in the, he was in WWF

for a good portion of the eighties and they,

they didn't like really do anything with him

until he turned heel, which was like 94, I think.

And, uh, they really, he was one of those cases

where they really needed to turn him a lot sooner

than what they did. Uh, just cause he was ready

like a long time for that to really, uh, hit

the, hit the high, uh, hit the heights of, uh,

you know, being a great wrestler in WWF. Uh,

and just the character of the, the King of Hearts,

you know, that, that was a, that was a great

gimmick and him, uh, you know, dominating that,

that main event at, at SummerSlam 94. I don't

even care that they took time away from the Undertaker

versus Undertaker match. That was going to suck

anyway. So I love that match. That is a great

match. Anyone, you really need to go watch it.

And sad that he died when he did. He really should

have been given the belt at some point. I think

he was on his way to becoming champion at some

point. He's in the Canadian Wrestling Hall of

Fame. He's in the Professional Wrestling Hall

of Fame, just inducted this year. Also in the

Luthez Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame last

year, so that's interesting. Pro Wrestling Illustrated

gave him the Feud of the Year in 1994 with his

brother Bret Hart, gave him the Rookie of the

Year in 1987. Alex, what do you think of Owen

Hart showing up here, and is it in the right

spot? Eh. You know what? uh hot take here i don't

think he should be in the top 50 uh i think a

lot of people are putting him in here based on

nostalgia and and maybe potential that he wasn't

able to achieve i don't think he did enough to

be even in the top 100 it's more the name is

attached to him and it's like oh he was so great

for the couple matches he did in the one run

he had it's like okay almost killed Steve Austin.

You hear everybody liked him, that worked with

him? Great. But what did he actually achieve?

King of the Ring? That's it? He had a European

Intercontinental Tag Team Champion four times.

Well, European doesn't even exist anymore as

a belt, right? Neither does the NWA World Heavyweight

Championship. He's going to be an award winner.

Charlotte Flair should be higher than him. I

just, it's nothing against him. I just don't

think like, I think he significantly weaker than

people let him up to be because he just didn't

get to achieve. Like, I feel like he was, this

is like the Heath Ledger thing. Like Heath Ledger

won the Oscar. Why? Because he died and everybody

talked about him and put in good performances.

But what would he have been as fantastic? Would

we still be talking about him in this echelon?

Well, maybe. If he had lived and done more, but

he could have easily phased like fizzled out.

So, you know, I, I think he probably deserved

to be somewhere in the 75 to 50 mark. I had him

ranked 74. I was never a fan of his growing up.

I didn't care for him. But, I mean, granted,

most of the time he was playing a heel, so maybe

that was intentional. I do recognize that he

did have some good single feuds, you know, with

his brother and some other things. And then he

also had the tag stuff with Yokozuna and British

Bulldog that was kind of memorable. But I was

never a big fan of his individually. Like, I

just didn't care for the – he played a heel in

a way that is not for me. I don't like my heels

to be – as like whiny or like babyish, I guess,

is what the vibe I used to get of him. And then

this is me interpreting it as a teenager or like

a 10, you know, whatever year old. So I liked

my heels more of like. The rule -breaking, conniving,

clever, which he did have some of that, and we'll

talk about some of them probably as they show

up here later on the countdown, but he wasn't

my type of heel, so that's why I kind of had

him down closer to the 75 range. He was a bigger

version of the Miz, basically. I just thought

he was kind of funny. Whenever he was on screen,

I was always smiling. Karen is slamming a ward

around or beating up Jason Sensation for doing

an impersonation of him. I always remember seeing

matches of him where, like, this is going to

be the most petty thing I've ever said on this

countdown, probably. But the amount of spit that

he would get in, like, the sides of his mouth

and, like, in general. Like, there was times

where he just had, like, spit. chilling on his

face on his mouth or whatever and i was just

like oh god like somebody tell this guy to like

not have so much cotton mouth um i don't know

but again those are all valid right like it's

he's a i honestly think had he lived he would

have had an even bigger career he might not have

been like a sean michaels but his career had

he lived would have been longer than brett's

um so like he would be somebody that had he not

been injured or hurt He might be somebody that

you would have seen way past the Attitude Era

because he was fairly young. It's hard to predict

how he would have fit in as the era changed.

He would have been somebody probably that ended

up going to TNA. It's kind of hard to figure

out after the Attitude Era is done, after the

Hearts and everybody else is out, does he survive

into that next era? I don't know if he would

have, or if he would have had to go somewhere

else. He would have probably come back in like

the nostalgia era, the last five, 10 years. And

he would have been the guy like Goldberg doing,

you know, weird matches or because he would only

be in his fifties now. Right. I know according

to a lot of people you talk to in the business

that he's very, you know, well -respected and

in ring technician and stuff like that. But you

can also say, well, yeah, but he also did, like

you mentioned, almost killed Stone Cold Austin,

Steve Austin and stuff like that. well of a technician

was he but i know a lot of people in general

have a lot of respect for him but again it's

hard to say not to be cheap or you know whatever

but is that because of his death or was it beforehand

as well um i'm not inside enough to know um but

going from a heel that i didn't like to a heel

that i did like let's move on to number 46 here

um this man debuted in 1982 At one point was

known as the WCW Phantom. We're talking about

the ravishing one, Rick Rude. He's simply ravishing.

Obviously spent some time in Florida in the early

days and then WCCW, Jim Crockett, WWF, back to

WCW, back to WWF, and then back to WCW with a

brief moment in ECW as well mixed in there. So

Rick Rude, most hated wrestler of the year according

to PWI in 1992. He was WCW International World

Heavyweight Championship three times. I know

that belt doesn't exist, but it still happened.

WCW United States Heavyweight Champion one time.

um wwf intercontinental champion one time inducted

in the wwe hall of fame in 2017 wrestling observer

newsletter gave him the best heel in 1992 most

unimproved in 1993 i don't understand that being

an award whatsoever um but anyways the ravishing

one rick rude neil what do you think of rick

rude coming in here at 46 i love ravishing recruit

maybe maybe could have been a little uh higher

up the list but uh i First of all, I got to bring

up the Phantom just because WCW has such a weird

thing about masked mystery wrestlers. They seem

to do that a lot, like the Black Scorpion. They

were doing that well into the late Monday Night

Wars. It's such a silly gimmick. But I remember

him for a few specific things. His rivalry with

the Ultimate Warrior. Where he sprayed Ultimate

Warrior right in the face with whatever the hell

that was. And Warrior didn't do anything. He

had to start beating the hell out of Warrior

to get him to react. The Big Boss Man, he had

the beginning of a feud with the Big Boss Man.

Where he left and Bobby Heenan had to finish

all of his matches. At some point, we're going

to have to do a good long rant about the WCW

international title, just how silly that was

and why that existed. I don't know. It's too

long to really get into at this point. Probably

more known or maybe more revered for his NWA

WCW stuff just because he was more of a main

eventer there versus WWF where all the top carters

everywhere else were just mid -carters. WWF is

just the way it was. Great. Great wrestler. I

just love the fact that he was such an asshole.

And that was just his gimmick is that he was

just mean. That's the type of heel I prefer,

though. I prefer that asshole heel, I guess.

I don't know. You could say, too, that he has

one of the most memorable moments in our generation

as far as showing up on, obviously, Raw's War

and Monday Night Show on the same night. And

ECW also that week, he appeared on TV there as

well. But, you know, obviously one of them, he

has the mustache. One of them, he has the beard.

One of them's live. One of them's taped. But

that was a classic moment as far as kind of the

ramping up of the NWO in the early days. He and

Flyin' Brian pulled sort of the same stunt of

being in two different companies in the same

week. And Flyin' Brian, I forgot to mention this

when we had him up, is that he's probably the

only guy who got a paycheck from ECW, WCW, and

WWF in the same week. Could be. Alex, what do

you think of Ravishing Rick Root here? Those

tights. Yes! Just, oh my God. If nothing else,

for pushing, I guess, ring attire to new levels,

there's also hilarious stories about him that

are probably too blue for us to talk about. If

you've ever seen Jake the Snake live when he

does his in -person sort of stand -up storytelling

things, he has some stories that I will speak

off air but not speak on air. Right. But yeah,

I think just for his, the type of heel he was

and the type, you know, he had that body, he

had the tights, he had all the heel antics, a

great feud with ultimate warrior, very memorable

moment with NWO. So obviously it was in degeneration

X as well. So him and what, just him and Sean

Waltman, are those the only two people that were

in the NWO and the degeneration X? Sean Michaels.

He was never in the NWO. No. Yeah. Very, very

briefly in WWE. Oh, sorry. I forgot that even

existed. All right. So Rick rude at 46, let's

see where we go for 45 here. We talked that we

might see some modern day guys and we are going

to see one here with our number 45. One time

known as, I don't know if it was. Gix or Jix.

It's G -I -X -X. One time known as Tyler Black.

Trained by Danny Daniels. Real name. No, he doesn't

deserve to be here. Real name of Colby Lopez.

Most people know him as Seth Rollins. So Seth

Rollins, a modern day, maybe some bias here for

recency bias. We'll see. But he showed up in

independent circuit in the mid 2000s and ring

of honor. Then WWE from about 2010 to now. I

mean, according to him, he is the best wrestler

going today. But that's just according to him,

obviously most known for his work with the shield,

et cetera. I was not watching for the most of

this gentleman's career. I had stopped watching

wrestling. when he kind of became a thing. So

I only have been able to pick up with him in

the last few years, I would say. Um, and he did

not rank this high for me. That's for sure. But

Alex, you had mentioned something, so I'll let

you go first. Uh, talent. Yes. Uh, doesn't know

how or when to apply it. Uh, he's very, very

athletic. Great. Can't sell for shit. Um, whether

he's told her not also. Should never be allowed

to have social media because he will say stupid

shit that will make him lose fans, whether he's

heel or face. Also, his voice is so grating.

It's so nasally. I can't stand him. And not can't

stand him like he's a heel. I don't like him.

Get boo that heel. I just don't like hearing

him. He has go away heat with me. 29th Triple

Crown Champion, 11th Grand Slam Champion in its

current format. Obviously has a lot of accolades

going from NXT and then WWE and Ring of Honor.

Pro Wrestling Illustrated Feud of the Year 2014

with Dean Ambrose. Most Hated Wrestler of the

Year in 2015. Tag Team of the Year 2013 with

Roman Reigns. Wrestler of the Year in 2000. Ranked

number one of the top 500 single wrestlers in

2015 and in 2019. TV's Mr. Neal, what do you

think of Seth Rollins showing up here? Well,

I'm not too familiar with the modern day product.

I only remember him from a few... few specific

moments one of which being uh him cashing in

money at the bank at wrestlemania which i thought

was brilliant uh if it was maybe if it was anyone

else uh maybe more people would appreciate that

because i i kind of like cowardly heels heels

that kind of take advantage of the moment so

i thought that was great and plus uh i'm not

a huge roman reigns fan so i so when that happened

i like immediately keyed up blanchard i was like

ah You know, just because Roman Reigns was his

guy. So maybe not the best wrestler, but I'm

not familiar with him enough to say one way or

the other. I just thought that there were a few

different moments that I thought were brilliant.

Maybe he should have a slightly different moveset.

I understand he's injured a few people, ended

Sting's career, unfortunately. Most of the people

that ranked him ranked him on the other side

of the 50 mark. We had a 68, a 68, a 71. Let's

see, an 85, a 98. Blanchard ranked him in the

top 20. And one other people had him in the top

10. I think Seth Rollins is unfortunately the

victim of timing. And I think if he was around

at a different era, he would be utilized in a

better way and he would be maybe higher for me

but he kind of is the victim of being the guy

right now in wwe when that's not necessarily

wwe's best moments are happening right now you

know i mean they're they're terrible and because

he's the top guy like that to me it hurts him

in a way like i could picture him like maybe

back when um oh let's see like with when randy

orton and and batista and you know all those

guys were kind of at the top of their game. Like

if he had been at the top of his game during

that time, I could even see him, you know, if

he was around, like in the attitude era, like

early on that he could have fit in there, but

I don't. Much better as a cruiserweight. He's

not. Here's, here's the weird thing. You either

have to be like Ray Mysterio, tiny, but like

the superhero, like mighty mouse. Right. To be,

you know, in like WWE, or you have to be big.

or large or some form of you know be fat or fit

he's super fit but he his frame looks like a

205 guy yet he's put in there with people that

are way bigger and he'll get kicked down and

like he'll be all hurt he'll wear like something

covering his ribs but then not sell it at all

Right. He either oversells or doesn't sell sometimes

is what I've seen. To the point where he screams

and then we'll go cross -eyed and all those memes.

I'm sorry. That's so stupid. But can you picture

him back in the intercontinental ranks of people

like we just talked about? Rick Rude and Razor

Ramon and some of those guys. I think he might

have fit in. A USA title type guy. Yeah, in that

kind of grouping. But I just don't think they

know how to use him. And unfortunately that...

makes him not rank quite as high for me i would

not have put him in the top 50 either um not

trying to say he doesn't have potential and doesn't

have skills um i just don't think they've been

utilized in the right way to learn to speak uh

you know without using his nasal cavity to Let's

go right on to number 44, someone else that might

not have had the best mic skills. And I guess

this will start the controversy and we can see

what people think of this one. But trained by

Bruce Hart, not Stu Hart, at one point known

as the Wild Pegasus or the Pegasus Kid. We're

talking about Chris Benoit here coming in at

number 44. I'm just laughing because I'm thinking,

ooh, some people really don't like Seth if they

voted him lower than. And Benoit. Benoit started

in Stampede Wrestling in the mid to late 80s,

then New Japan, then WCW in the early 90s, spent

a year or so in ECW before he came back to WCW,

and then obviously was part of the Radicals and

whatnot going to WWE around the year 2000. A

lot of accomplishments, obviously, over the years.

that's not what this discussion probably will

be like, because if you're going just on some

of the other criteria we put about, like in -ring

ability, technical ability, success, even longevity,

even though he didn't live as long as he could

have, he still was around for a couple decades

there. PWI Feud of the Year 2004 with Triple

H, Match of the Year versus Shawn Michaels and

Triple H, Wrestler of the Year 2004, ranked number

one on the top 500 singles in 2004, WCW World

Heavyweight Champ, tag team champ with Dean Malenko,

and once with Perry Saturn, television champ,

U .S. champ, Triple Crown winner in WCW, a lot

of other stuff in WWF that I'm not even going

to list right now. Best technical wrestler, according

to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, in 1994,

1995, 2000, 2003, and 2004. But people are either

going to be supportive of him for his accomplishments

or hating on us for even listing him in the top

100. Alex, where do you fall? I fall under everything

that happened to him and what's caused by him.

I would say if you look at it in hindsight, it

was from years of traumatic brain injuries. So

I don't believe he was a malicious person. So

in that sense, I think once we get the farther

we get away from, you know, from the whole murder

suicide stuff, you probably can look at it from

a perspective of. okay this was a sick man so

in that case he deserves to be there based on

and you mean sick man medical sick man yes yes

sick as in like he was not a well person right

um like i i remember years after when they finally

did more studies they said that his was his brain

he had the brain of an 85 year old alzheimer's

patient um so like he he had like he is the poster

child for cte um what what ended up ultimately

doing him in and his family is his dedication

uh and just stubbornness to the craft you know

unprotected headshots years and years of being

you know bashed around batted around and being

a smaller guy that had to do a whole bunch of

steroids to keep up with everybody else uh could

you know run circles around people in the ring

probably the best performer uh in his generation

especially at his size uh but had he come let's

say come up 10 years later this might not have

happened because the industry had already changed

a fair bit but the question is um did he is he

the cause of the why the industry has changed

so i don't you just looked at it in a 10 -year

period he was voted the best technical wrestler

five of them exactly and i mean it's If your

criteria are intensity, like believability, in

-ring performance isn't great on the mic, never

was. He basically punched everything except for

mic abilities. And the legacy from him will be

like WWE tried to basically erase him from existence,

and that doesn't help. I think that's very bogus,

by the way. I get that people think... certain

things because of what happened etc but i think

to eliminate him as like ever existing or being

someone like that you can't search for him his

matches for the longest time were actually edited

out of their videos he's not listed as a what

a royal rumble winner when they list that yeah

uh they they have gone and put the like put the

matches and stuff back into the the website but

like for a while they were editing every video

they put up every like pay -per -view match was

taken out no references and it's like that doesn't

help at all. That actually makes people more

curious as to why you're doing that. Because

there have been rumors for years that they covered

up the fact that he had had concussions and they

just basically brushed him off and didn't actually

get him treatment. So there's probably more to

it that they tried to cover up for legal purposes.

But at the same time, because of the mainstream

attention he got, this is right when the NFL

shit was going on. It's almost like without...

Not that it was a good thing that would happen,

but out of this tragedy, you found that there

are now very strict concussion protocols in basically

all sports. It's interesting, you know, and it

might have been a conflicting thing for people

to vote on, because honestly, if you look at

the way that he was voted on for this top 100,

you have people, most of the people that voted

on him voted him very high, 46, 26, 15, 14, 59,

and everybody else almost left him off the list

completely. So it was kind of an all or nothing

thing. It seemed like with Chris Benoit, I remember

most for his. Um, WCW days with the four horsemen,

um, and that type of stuff. I didn't watch as

much when he was on his glorious reign to the

WWF championship. So I kind of missed the pinnacle

of his career, I guess, but I remember seeing

him in WCW and everything about WCW cruiserweight

division was awesome to me when you have the

likes of him. And like, we talked about Dean

Malenko and Eddie Guerrero and Ray Mysterio and

Chris Jericho. Like it didn't get much better

than that for me, uh, growing up on wrestling,

um, than that era and that stable of people.

So I, that's what I remember. remember him from.

And if you're a conspiracy theorist, go search

out YouTube and search out different internet

conspiracy theories about that death. Cause it

is some crazy stuff. Some of the theories that

people have put out there. The most interesting

thing though, is that he was where he was found.

There was a bunch of cans of beer or bottle cans

of beer, bottles of beer or something around

him, like six or a dozen or different things

like on the ground near his body. But his body

tested for a 0 % alcohol content. So I don't

know what that has to do with anything, but that's

the crux of one of the people's conspiracy theories

about him. Neither his wife nor his son had anything

in their system as far as alcohol -wise either.

But the weird thing is that they thought it was

so open and shut that they didn't really investigate

or do any type of legwork. It was kind of an

open and shut case. And that's the thing, because

like I said before, I have friends in the industry

that have people that work there, and even they

were getting conflicting messages back and forth.

Was there somebody else with them? I feel like

somebody would have had to drink that beer. Yeah,

and the fact that it appeared before the police

got there, but clearly couldn't have been there

beforehand before the event happened because

of where they were placed. So did somebody discover

the bodies? Did somebody move anything? Everybody

seemed to focus on... what he did and not the

why or how. It seemed like it was so horrific

that they wanted to sweep it under the rug as

fast as possible. I'm not saying that he didn't

do it. I'm just saying that it's an interesting

rabbit hole to go down if you want to start searching

for some of the information out there. Oh, of

course. And it really has changed the way people

view progress and people view head injuries.

Neil, we didn't give you a chance yet to weigh

in on Chris Benoit here. I don't remember where

I placed him or if I even placed him. There's

a reason why I have kind of a blind spot after

2007. It was just like after that happened, it

was really hard to watch the product anymore.

I come back to it every now and then, but that

was kind of a rough time. And I remember that

day because I was hanging out on a wrestling

forum and we were already talking about it. And

when Raw went live with the tribute show, I was

like, oh! Oh, no, this isn't going to be good

because I knew what was coming. I knew that the

police were going to say what they suspect. And

it's only natural because the first the first

person you suspect is always the one closest

to the victim. So I knew that was coming already.

And I was just like, this is the biggest mistake

they could make. This is not going to end well.

And I don't think Rob was even off the air. And

the police were already starting to say that

they thought Chris was the perpetrator. But not

to just go all down on it because Chris did have

a great career. I mean, I remember him mostly

from WCW. He had some good spots in WWF, of course,

but I just think his best stuff was in WCW where

he was wrestling like DDP and Raven and had that

best of seven with Booker T. That was awesome.

Just lots of great. mid -card matches didn't

really do anything with them as far as moving

them up the card like they they did like a last

minute thing where they put the belt on him and

then they had to take it right back off because

he was just out of there after that and uh my

cat is being a big pain in the ass uh you probably

heard her but uh yeah i it's it it's been really

hard to watch any sort of wrestling uh just in

the wake of that whole thing i try to come back

to it every so often it's just hard All right,

well, let's try to move on to somebody that is

still alive that we can talk about next here

in number 43. Made his debut in the year 2000,

so a little bit more of a current wrestler here.

Been around for the last 20 years. Trained by

Dave Finley and Bob Orton Jr. He's only going

by one name, and he's really only wrestled for

one company. We're talking about Randy Orton.

Brief stint in Ohio Valley Wrestling, obviously

the Developmental League, and then the rest of

the time up at the big show there, feuding with

The Undertaker, doing his Evolution thing, becoming

the youngest world champion, and a lot of stuff

in between that we can kind of talk about. Obviously,

another family that has been in wrestling for

a long time, the Ortons, and a lot of stuff to

go off of as far as... Hardware, I won't go into

all of them, but 17th Triple Crown Champion,

10th Grand Slam Champion. Wrestling Observer

Newsletter, most improved in 2004, most overrated

in 2013. Worst Feud of the Year, 2017 versus

Bray Wyatt. I don't know about that. I didn't

watch it. PWI Feud of the Year with Triple H

in 2009. Most Hated Wrestler in 2007 -2009. Most

Improved 2004. Most Popular 2010. Rookie of the

Year 2001. Wrestler of the Year 2009 and 2010.

And in 2008 was ranked number one out of the

top 500 singles wrestlers. Randy Orton coming

in here at number 43. Alex, what do you think?

Sure. When he wants to wrestle, he wrestles.

And when he doesn't, he puts on a pouty face.

How do you really feel? Or he slams his arms

against the ground and blows his shoulder out.

Talk about, though, another person that has been

a victim of the WWE not knowing what to do with

him from time to time. There was that time that

he was cast in the Marine and then they had to

change it because it turns out he went AWOL and

ran away from the military in real life. That's

true. So maybe not the greatest. things in his

personal life or whatever you want to call it.

But he has been around for 20 years. He's been

a multi -time champion and all kinds of different

championships in the WWF WWE. Is that enough

is, I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily say

that he's great on the mic. I've never been impressed

by him on the microphone. He was youngest champion

though. Wasn't he for a while? Youngest champion.

Is that enough to get him in Neil? What do you

think? You know what? Randy Orton, I, Every time

I've seen him, I've just been like, I don't get

it. He's a good wrestler. I've enjoyed his matches.

I think he definitely belongs. He deserves to

be somewhere on this list, maybe not this high.

I don't get what was he called? The Viper? Him

pounding his fists or whatever he did. Doing

the... the RKO, which is the diamond cutter.

And every time I see that, I'm like, okay, that's

like, that's like somebody doing like the leg

drop or doing the spear. It's the only one guy

who could do that. I don't, I don't buy him doing

that move. He's been trying to get creative with

it lately though. Yeah. I mean, he's not, he's

not a few good spots with it. I remember somebody

did a shooting star press and he got, he got

them with it and I was like, okay, that's pretty

good. But I don't know, like you can't top DDP,

but you know, gonna have to save my ddp praise

for when he shows up because i know he's coming

nine -time wwe champion and four -time world

heavyweight champion alex you're not a big fan

of rko what's his character it's the sniveling

heel no but he's not and he doesn't really talk

wwe can't decide if he's good or bad well not

just that like like he's not even like his character

isn't even he's a wrestler What is his character?

He doesn't have any personality other than, Ooh,

I can do a sneaky smile. And then I will give

you the diamond cutter out of nowhere. Like he

doesn't do anything. He was someone that it's

kind of unfortunate because in, if he had been

around in the eighties and early nineties, the

powers that be would have given him a manager.

They would have put him, if it was the late 90s,

and if it was mid to late 90s, and he was sober,

they would have put him with Jake the Snake to

be his, like, disciple. Right. But I mean, or

anybody like they could have put him with Bobby

the Brain. They could have put him with Jim Cornette.

They could have put him with somebody to be his

mouthpiece to give him a little bit of personality.

But because they're so anti -managers in the

last 20 years, they just let these guys go out

there and make asses of themselves because they

don't have personality and they don't have mic

skills. I feel like he's only famous now for

the YouTube video memes of like where they just

chop up pictures of him making funny faces and

then RKOing people. really really what has he

done like what has he he done that was impressive

or memorable right and it's almost like he wants

to be this character that doesn't speak and doesn't

emote and doesn't do stuff so he's like this

psychotic guy but then it it never seems to come

together for me and then like he's been this

heavyweight champion but then he loses like ridiculous

matches to nobody and I'm just like, are you

trying to make a joke of him? Why is he still

around? What purpose is he serving in the company?

His purpose is to have Brock Lesnar cut his head

open. That's about it. So I get the physique.

I get the body. I get that there should be some

potential there maybe. And I get that he's been

around for a long time. So, I mean, I guess you

could make an argument that he does deserve to

be in the top 100. I think this is. too high

probably his character is basically that he doesn't

age in 20 years because he looks almost the same

that's true that's very true all right well let's

see if we can get on to somebody that we have

more agreement on in our number 42 selection

he debuted in 1988 he was trained by jake roberts

we just mentioned jake roberts um he was also

trained in wcw power plant um let's see ring

names They only list one. I swear he had something

else. But it's interesting because he did make

an appearance in WWE originally before WCW, but

nobody knows him except for WCW probably. We're

talking about Paige Joseph Falkenberg, also known

as Diamond Dallas Paige. Neil just mentioned

him, so that's kind of crazy that he came up

next on the list. Let's see. He was in the WCW

World Heavyweight Champion three times, Television

Champ once, US Champ twice, Tag Team Champ four

times, with Bam Bam Bigelow and Chris Canyon

twice, and with Kevin Nash twice, WCW Triple

Crown Champion. This says Lord of the Ring Tournament

1996. What the fuck was that? WWF European Champion

one time. WWF Tag Team Champion once with Chris

Canyon. WWE Hall of Fame. Class of 2017. Best

Wrestling Maneuver 1997. Diamond Cutter. Most

Improved 1996. Most Hated Wrestler 99. Alex,

what do you think of DDP? Deserving. Probably

the ultimate salesman of all time. not in the

ring just of like he'll sell anything and rebrand

it as something else um didn't he have a run

in wwe when i i don't think i was watching what

was he like the rapist or like a stalker or something

weird oh yeah like undertaker's wife or something

yeah undertaker's wife he was gonna like stalk

her and have his way with her or something stupid

like that like really against his character type

right again right at the beginning of the invasion

Cause like, even when he started and he was a

manager, he was a bit of a heel manager, but

he's always been a baby face. Like he is just

a likable guy. Right. So it was so against character.

That's when he cut his hair and he was like,

no, stop. How about the, how about that? How

about the AWA when he was a part of the, what

was it called? The diamond exchange. Yeah. Yeah.

With Kurt Henning, I believe. If anybody gets

a chance, watch his. his interview with um joe

rogan it's a fantastic podcast um where and he

goes over his history and everything um he he's

deserving if not for being like the oldest guy

to ever get into wrestling full -time and like

make something of himself right Yeah, because

at first he was just more of a manager, more

of a behind -the -scenes type person. Obviously,

the famous WrestleMania moment in 1990 when he

drove Hockey Talk and Greg Valentine to the ring

in his pink Cadillac before he ever got to the

WCW and before he was part of the different factions,

I guess you could call it, in WCW. Vegas Connection,

how about that, when he was teaming with Vinny

Vegas? You know what? He's in better shape. when

it comes to being like flexible then you know

at like 65 then any of us are ever going to be

ever right yeah yeah um interesting guy great

move like i said it could be in some of those

extra criteria was it somebody's move or something

like that that you kind of give a little bit

more credence to um he was definitely you know

for a while known as that loyal wcw guy during

that wcv versus nwo you know he was one of the

ones that was true and wcw true and through and

uh Kind of had that brief stint back in WWF after

everything, but I think most people remember

him for WCW. Wasn't he the first guy that would

leave through the crowd, at least on TV? I think

I do remember that. He would win, and he was

the people's champ, and he would go out in the

crowd, and they would all cheer him, and he would

leave through a regular exit. Yeah. yeah i do

remember him always going through the crowd and

then obviously he had the whole thing with um

carl malone and jay leno and things of that nature

that he got to work with so um definitely some

memorable moments from ddp and obviously everybody

knows him now for his ddp yoga so you know whatever

um but he was on most people's lists so that's

why he's finding a spot here in number 42 yeah

he kind of became the face of wcw during that

like year and a half where sting was hanging

out up in the rafters and he had maybe the best

face turn I think I've ever seen when it was

just like a regular match, and Scott Hall and

Kevin Nash come to the ring, and they're going

to induct him into the NWO. They hand him the

shirt, and you think he's in, and then he hits

Hall with the diamond cutter, and he sends Nash

flying out of the ring, and Nash almost kills

some kid by flipping the table over. That's one

of the scariest things I've ever seen if you

watch that clip, but that was... that was like

big when that happened. I remember like instantly

he was a superstar. Yeah. Wasn't he like the

first person to turn them down? Yeah, he was.

I mean, there was always the whole sting thing

at the beginning when they had the fake sting.

But yeah, one of the rare ones that did turn

him down in the beginning. Let's move on to number

41. This is the last one that doesn't make the

top 40 here. This man debuted on my birthday

in 1985. Didn't know that. November 23rd, 1985.

Trained by Bill Anderson, Red Bastion, and Rick

Bassman. Had a ring name of Blade Runner Rock.

The Dingo Warrior, or Jim Justice, or Jim Hellwig,

or just the Ultimate Warrior. Very brief time

in WCW in the mid 80s before he went to WWF.

Semi -retired, came back to WWF and WCW and all

that jazz. Obviously, there's all kinds of controversy

surrounding this gentleman who, let's just face

it, if we were only grading off of in -ring ability,

he would not be in the top 100 because all he

did was make other wrestlers angry and hurt them.

But basically did have a huge run in the WWF

as far as trying to be the successor to Hulk

Hogan. He was Intercontinental Champion twice,

WWF Champion once. WWE Hall of Fame in 2014.

Match of the year 1990, according to PWI versus

Hulk Hogan. Feud of the year 1991 versus The

Undertaker. Comeback of the year in 1992. Also

got a whole bunch of, this is another person

that must not have been liked very much by Dave

Meltzer because the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

I'm just going to go through these real quick.

Most embarrassing wrestler, 1998. Most overrated,

1989 through 1991. Reader's least favorite wrestler,

1989 through 1990. Worst feud of the year, 1989

versus Andre. Worst feud of the year, 92 versus

Papa Shango. Worst feud of the year, 98 versus

Hulk Hogan. Worst on interviews, 1989, 1990,

1991, 1992, 1998. Worst worked match of the year,

1989 versus Andre. Worst worked match of the

year, 1998 versus Hulk Hogan. And worst wrestler,

1988 and 1990. 1988 and 1998. So that is like

17 things that the wrestling observer newsletter

gave him. And none of them are positive. Wow.

But he appears here in number 41 of our countdown.

He was in two people's top 10. Obviously, like

I said, a lot of people didn't have a lot of

joy working with him, but he was over big time

with the fans for at least a brief moment in

the sun. Alex, what do you think of the ultimate

warrior? As a kid, he was my favorite. I was

also five. As an adult, he's the walking, talking

personification of like Nazi propaganda, superhero

eugenics. He's like a super soldier, racist ball

of muscle. he's there based on how his meteoric

rise was and how immensely huge he was for like

three years yeah that entrance music and that

entrance and the way that people would get up

off their feet for him tired by the time he got

to the ring because like you could his he was

not a tall man and to be like 320 pounds of like

pure muscle and be like five nine or five ten

maybe um The amount of steroids that man took,

he hardened every artery in his body. He was

a comic book character. Oh, yeah. Destrucity.

That word. Look that up. Everybody that's ever

worked with him, everybody that's even talked

to him, especially now, he was put in the Hall

of Fame. They did all that stuff. Listen to JR

or anybody talk about him. He was a colossal

prick and apparently horrific to women. So I

have no idea how his wife stayed married to him

except for money. She's got a job at the WWE

now, for whatever reason, as one of the writers,

really. It's funny, though, because you interview

people. A lot of times when you're interviewing

celebrities or singers or actors or wrestlers

or athletes or whatever, a lot of them will not

openly talk about people they have problems with.

You know what I mean? They think it's unprofessional

to slam on people. No, but I'm just saying, even

back in the day, people, if you say like, who

is the worst person to work with or who is the,

who is your least favorite person to wrestle

or different stuff to a man, every single person

that worked in his era says him. Well, and that's

the thing. And they, they said it, they said

it to his face. They said it to everybody, but

Vince loved him because Vince always had hard

ons for giant muscly dudes. And he's a pure,

he is the number one example for, obviously we

were talking about Crispin Y and how concussions

and head trauma and everything can cause that

type of stuff, but it can also cause what it

caused with him, which is he's just, flipping

insane like nothing he says makes sense and when

you saw him come back like when he came back

in 2014 that's when i started watching around

2013 2014 like he was out of breath talking and

it's like he wasn't even pumped up he was still

muscular but he wasn't what he was it's like

he did so many steroids and so much hgh and so

much of this that he permanently damaged his

body and yet he would still work out i will admit

though as a child i was one of the thousands

and thousands of people who was super convinced

when he made his comeback to wwf that that was

a different person like i was 100 on board with

the fact that there was two different ultimate

warriors when i was a child and that's the thing

because his body changed so many times because

he just started taking it was diana ball for

this and then that became illegal so now it's

something else i'm taking um that last match

that he had for an independent company in like

2010 or 2009 2010 whatever it was there's a video

him He's blown up, like, walking out of the back.

I could not believe somebody that muscular could

have zero cardio. And then you compare him to

his partner, Sting, who was big. He wasn't quite

as big. Like, he was actually at the beginning,

they were about the same size. And Sting has

some of the best cardio in, like, wrestling history.

And even in his mid -50s was... wrestling better

matches his match where he got injured with seth

uh seth rollins was a better match than uh than

warrior ever had even in his 20s the only time

sting was ever out of shape was after he was

relegated to the rafters for like two years yeah

actually the last year or two at tna he was and

he got back into shape for that last run at wwe

Probably about two years ago, I binge -watched

all the Hall of Fames for WWE because I liked

listening to all the speeches and whatnot. Ultimate

Warrior is probably at the top of the list for

worst Hall of Fame speech. And I don't understand

why he thinks that nasal thing that he did was

something. That just bugs me. Oh, my God. Please

don't ever do that again. And if you read it

in the comic book, it's skronk. Oh, my God. Neil,

thoughts on Ultimate Warrior before we move on?

Oh, well, I can think of two and a half good

matches that he had. I liked the one he had with

Hulk. I thought that was maybe one of his better

matches. The only one that really topped it was

him and Randy Savage the next year. I thought

just tore the house down. And, of course, that

was the match with the Honky Tonk Man where he

took the IC belt off. Yeah, his debut was amazing.

But talk about hitting people too hard. Like

Honky Tonk Man himself. said that when he took

that flying shoulder tackle, that was the hardest

he'd ever been hit. I've heard lots of people

say when they get big, when they get muscly,

that's not really good aerobically. You don't

have much... You don't really have a lot of longevity.

You run out of breath really quickly. I've heard

Ric Flair say that. Ric Flair used to be huge,

and he slimmed down because he didn't have the

ability to go very long. If he was going to do

anything in the ring, you were going to feel

it because he didn't know how to pull it back.

Benoit got big, but he was big. Nobody was ever

really that big, but even when Benoit and some

of these other guys, you hear about them getting

big. Hogan, they could still move fairly well.

Batista is the closest I can think of to somebody

that was that ripped. But even Batista didn't

hurt people. He tried his best not to. He hurt

himself because when you're that lean, you can

snap every muscle from tearing it the wrong way.

I think Ultimate Warrior really doesn't check

that many boxes except for memorable. I have

7 -Eleven. you know cups from slushies that i've

got i've got a cup of him that i found at a thrift

store for 10 cents from 1991 like a wwf cup and

i was like so that's my cup like right as a nostalgia

character he's great but yeah he's got the nostalgia

he's got the memorable moments but he doesn't

have the mic skills he doesn't have the in -ring

ability put the rocket fuel in the rocket ship

it's more more like uh put the dynaball in my

butt and that's about all you can say about him

is like you know fill me up and no you're full

buddy you don't need anymore All right, it's

on to the top 40 then, and we are going to start

with the gentleman that made his debut in 1986,

trained by Hiro Matsuda. At one point, he was

known by the ring name Doom, number one. Also,

at one point, was known as Farouk, but most people

know him as Ron Simmons. Obviously a professional

wrestler, a football player. I don't have the

list going, but as far as people that played

in the NFL or professional football, he would

be on that list as well. Along with, I think

that's where he met Lex Luger, actually. But

spent a lot of time in both WCW and in WWF. He

was the inspirational wrestler of the year in

1992, according to PWI. WCW World Heavyweight

Champion once. WCW World Tag Team Championship

once with Butch Reed, obviously, as Doom. U .S.

Tag Team Championship once with Big Josh. I don't

know who that is. WWF Tag Team Champion three

times with JBL. WWE Hall of Fame in 2009. TV's

Mr. Neal, what do you think of Ron Simmons being

our first one in the top 40? Interesting. I like

him, but it seemed like he grew to be a good

wrestler much later. I remember his WCW run,

but it was really nothing to it. I know they

put the belt on him so he could be the first

African -American wrestler. That's fine. He was

a good wrestler at the time, but he wasn't maybe

a little... Maybe a little too soon for him because,

I don't know, he just seemed kind of like the

– he just seemed like a white hat good guy. He

just didn't seem to really have much charisma.

He didn't get that charisma, you know, the damn

that he used to do. He didn't get that until

WWF. I think the one thing for me that's most

memorable or most – not most memorable. The one

thing that gets him on the list for me is, obviously,

at number one, you do have the whole first African

-American WCW World Heavyweight Champion. But

to me, more important than that is – The way

that he was able to reinvent himself over and

over to have this impressive longevity, because

you had his tag team run with Doom. You had his

World Heavyweight in WCW. You had the Nation

of Domination as Farouk. You had the APA and

et cetera, et cetera. So, I mean, it's something

about how long he's been able to make himself

relevant. where a lot of other people that were

around in his early days didn't have the ability

to keep reinventing themselves. One thing that

is clear based on how people ranked him is that

everybody was in agreement because the range

that people ranked him is not very big. We have

one person in the 60, 61, but otherwise it's,

listen to how close these numbers are, 54, 41,

39, 35, 35, 34. I mean, I could keep going, but

everybody had him in the 30s, 40s, 50s. Alex,

is he deserving to be here in the top 50? uh

probably um he probably got in a lot based on

being he wasn't the first african -american champion

first wcw yeah the first on on like national

television like on cable because you had um sunny

king and some of these guys in the 50s that that

were but that would be regionally like in small

towns um but yeah he was probably high profile

that way see as a kid little kid I thought, even

though it's completely wrong, but again, little

kid brain, I thought he was the guy from The

Friend on Magnum P .I. Legitimately. As a little

kid, I was like, Magnum P .I. guy's wrestling,

so I liked him. That's awesome. I couldn't stand

him in Nation of Domination because I was not

a fan of that faction. I would say he's 61 and

he still looks like he can wrestle. Yeah. And

he can still say damn. Yeah. So he got that going

for him. So that is our number 40, um, 39. And

we're going to have a more recent wrestler again.

And I, I'm going to say like upfront that the

modern day wrestlers that we're talking about

today are the only ones I have a problem with.

Um, and maybe you guys will disagree, but he

debuted in 1999 trained by Sean Michaels in the

Texas wrestling Academy. Um, relative of John

Laurinaitis and Nikki Bella ring name of. The

Dynamic Dragon, The American Dragon, Brian Danielson,

Daniel Wyatt, or just Daniel Bryan. So he is

who is coming in at number 39, obviously has

had a lot of success in WWE recently, a world

heavyweight champion, WWE champion, four times

intercontinental tag time, you know, with SmackDown

and on raw with Kane and Rowan us champion, 26

triple crown, six grand slam. I'm not going to

keep going. Alex, what do you think? Is he more

deserving than say Seth Rollins? We talked about

earlier. Uh, then Seth. Yes. Uh, but he's here

for. Two reasons. Both named Mike. One Blanchard

and one Dodd. That's the reason. I bet you he

was probably listed in the top three or maybe

even number one from Dodd. And Blanchard probably

put him in his top ten. He hasn't been able to

do... He does a lot of stuff, but he was a better

wrestler before he hit WWE. Yeah, you think,

but, you know, with the, like, do you have a

specific time frame that he was there? His stuff

in Ring of Honor, even though the production

value on those shows, you know, they were a small

indie group back then, really small. But his

stuff that he was doing with, like, CM Punk back

in, like, 2005, 2004, he is, he looks like one

of Snow White's Seven Dwarves if they grew. But

what's undeniable is he has a way of connecting

with people on the everyman level. So he looks

like, hey, my neighbor George is wrestling. And

he's also a really good guy, so we should cheer

for him. I'm getting this right. The Wrestling

Observer newsletter named him the best technical

wrestler 2005 through 2013. Every year from 2005

to 2013. That would sound about probably right.

I didn't watch during his first half of his career.

I think my problem, I've only watched him again

in the last three to four years. And it just

seems like, again, another one of those people

that they can't fucking decide what they want

to do with him. That's because he wasn't ever

supposed to wrestle again after his head injuries.

And WWE was all too happy to not have him there

because it took the focus off of him and put

it on Roman where they wanted it. He's here because...

his run where he organically got the crowd behind

him was the biggest thing to happen since Steve

Austin. Bigger than Becky Lynch, bigger than

anybody else since Steve and The Rock. As far

as like, we're talking everybody loving him to

the point where it's one of the only times in

history Vince had to change the main event at

WrestleMania. A lot of people are in agreement.

I mean, he's got rank. 26, 28, 28, 28, 38, 41.

I mean, a lot of people had him in this range.

I just didn't because I wasn't as exposed to

him. He is similar to AJ Styles, where AJ's best

work really was from 2002 to 2009 in TNA. Neil,

what do you think of Daniel Bryan being here?

Not really that exposed to him. Every time I've

seen him wrestle, he was fine. I thought he was...

He does check a lot of the boxes. He is technical.

He is good on the mics. He does have that ability

to get the fans behind him, so I see how he checks

a lot of boxes. I just haven't seen him long

enough to know if he deserves a top 100 or not.

How high did the two mics rank him? Actually,

Mike Blanchard did not rank him. Whoa, upset.

Oh, no, wait. Sorry, Roman's this guy. Yeah,

so we'll have to wait and see on some other guys

that he ranked. So Daniel Bryan, number 39. Let's

move on to number 38, which is another modern

-day guy. So we'll see how you guys think he

compares to both Daniel Bryan and Seth Rollins.

He debuted in 1998, trained by Rick Michaels,

and went by the ring name Mr. Olympia at one

point. But other than that, it was basically

the aforementioned AJ Styles. AJ Styles, one

spot higher than Daniel Bryant. Obviously a lot

of time in TNA. Alex, I think you're probably

most familiar with him, so I'll let you go first.

I remember seeing him in that era of 2012, 2013

when I started watching again. I was like, okay,

what's TNA doing? Because they were basically

copying. like week to week what wwe is doing

like daniel bryan was on the huge meteoric rise

with his um with his beard and hair and everything

and uh they basically cast eric young at tna

to be the exact same character fighting the authority

it was the exact same storyline like if you were

to go watch it week to week i was like how are

they doing this it's the same story um but at

the same time you also had aj styles doing crazy

flippy stuff um and when i say crazy like you

see a lot of the the like mexican wrestlers and

they do the flips and everybody catches them

and it seemed very perfectly timed and they're

the flips are executed basically the same every

time where it's very precise and they land in

a very specific way if you look up some of aj's

early stuff if you look up like a titantron compilation

from like the early 2000s with him he would do

these things where like he would run um you know

and jump over the top rope but he would jump

and do a somersault and land like he's riding

a bicycle on somebody like it was weird like

he just he looked like he was flying through

the air with like total disregard for how he

lands even though he would still land perfect

um a lot of like stuff that people his size shouldn't

be able to do he was doing uh and like people

forget he debuted like he's the last wrestler

from the Attitude Era that WWE signed, not Sting,

because he came over, he was on WCW Thunder in

like the last month or two before, and he was

part of what was like Air Raid or something.

He was supposed to be like a fighter pilot, like

a top gun sort of thing. And, you know, they

were in a tournament and they lost. So he was

signed to a contract, you know, the last signee

basically, him and his partner to WCW before

they folded. And then he's gone for years. People

compared him to being like the John Cena of,

of WCW. If John Cena could wrestle, John Cena

can't really wrestle. Okay. Sorry. John Cena

is going to be, that's going to be in your top

two for Blanchard. Um, but, uh, but basically

he was, you're not wrong by the way. Yeah. That's

what I figured. Okay. So it's going to be, it's

Roman and him, Hogan and him. It's one of those

two. Um, Basically, what was going against him

was he was bad on the mic until he left TNA to

go to New Japan for two years. And when he was

in New Japan, what miraculously happened was

New Japan has... Basically, zero input on what

you want to say in your promos. And I mean zero.

On national broadcast television, they will call

somebody and they'll say, I'm going to beat the

fuck out of you, blah, blah, blah. I'm going

to have your wife. They'll say horrible shit

that you could never get away with on American

TV. like full rated r nc17 level stuff i want

to watch this now like they they like and they

all i can find you some clips and show you it's

not just him like they'll say stuff like i'm

you know uh watch out i'm gonna bend your wife

over and have my way with her they'll say stuff

like that because the audience there half them

don't speak english and they'll subtitle them

with whatever they want to put and only and like

they'll say stuff and so you can mess up you

can flub your lines you can make things up on

the fly that don't necessarily make sense and

as long as you get your point across they don't

care so he basically had a national stage where

he was wrestling in front of you know regularly

10 to 20 ,000 people 50 ,000 at Tokyo Dome and

could do whatever he wanted without any scrutiny

no scripts and then he magically shows up the

WWE and he's talking like he had been a good

talker for 10 years Yeah, very loved by the PWI

and the Wrestling Observer newsletter. He was

match of the year 2016 versus John Cena at SummerSlam.

Tag team of the year 2006 with Christopher Daniels.

Wrestler of the year 2016 through 2018 for PWI.

Best flying wrestler in 2005. Best wrestling

maneuver for the Styles Clash a couple times.

Most outstanding wrestler three times. Wrestling

match of the year versus Minoru Suzuki. So a

lot of stuff as far as that goes. Neil, any last

thoughts about AJ Styles? Not a lot of experience

watching him, but from what I've seen, as with

Daniel Bryan, from what I've seen, top -notch

stuff. Whenever I see him in TNA, I was just

like, wow, he really needs to be in a better

company. All right, let's move on to number 36,

a little more old school. This man debuted in

1982. He was once known as Super Olympia. also

known as Marty Lundy, but most of us know him

as Arne Anderson. Four Horsemen getting talked

about here at number 36. Everybody knows who

Arne Anderson is, so I don't need to go into

a ton of it, but WWF Tag Team Champion one time

with Tully Blanchard, WWE Hall of Fame in 2012

as a member of the Four Horsemen, and then, of

course, a lot of WCW stuff, including World Television

four times, Tag Team with Ole Anderson, Tag Team

with Tully Blanchard, Larry Zbysko, Bobby Eaton,

Paul Roma. Mostly known for his Four Horsemen

and Ric Flair Association. TV's Mr. Neal. What

do you think of Arne Anderson being number 36?

Just a really good, tough guy. One of these wrestlers

that shows that you really don't have to be a

high flyer. You don't need to be doing all the

goofy gimmicks, the goofy moves or anything.

You could just be like a solid, good wrestler

and be one of the best out there. I thought he

was great. Didn't really... get a whole lot of

time watching him just because i came into wcw

around like 96 i think he uh suffered a career

-ending injury somewhere around there saw a few

of his matches i i saw like some of the matches

he had before that he wrestled he actually wrestled

rick flair um saw him wrestle uh saw him wrestle

on a bunch of his tag team matches in wwf uh

I really loved him at the Survivor Series. Him

looking for a tag team partner. He doesn't know

where to turn. He's going one direction or the

other. It was highlighted in an OSW review. They

call it the Aloha Arn, which is a really funny

spot. I wish I could talk more about him. I just

haven't seen him wrestle a whole lot. Really

famous promo he did, passing the torch to...

Kurt Henning. Kurt Henning, yeah. Even at my

spot. Yeah, the whole my spot thing. On a dog

spot. Very emotional moment on Monday Nitro.

Emotional one week, comical the next. A lot of

people in agreement, though. People ranked him

33, 26, 42, 38, 55, 59. So he comes in here at

36. Is that a good spot for him, Alex? uh i i'd

say so um i'm also pretty sure that from like

1995 1997 he drove my school bus because he looked

like 90 like him and i always i always wondered

i was i would watch him like i would go okay

well he's whenever he wasn't whenever my driver

was a different driver on monday i'm like it's

because he's down in like north carolina wrestling

and he'll be back tomorrow to drive us to school

it's neat seeing him sort of come out of semi

-ish retirement to do stuff on AEW he's been

behind the scenes for like 20 years there was

something said that he was employed for 18 years

straight at WCW and then 18 years straight at

WWE right after so he might have been like a

wrestler with the longest employment at the two

largest companies Yeah, I think definitely very

deserving of being in the top 100. I think 36

is a good spot for him. Basically, from here

on out, you had to be on almost all the lists

to be mentioned. I mean, most lists that someone's

left off, I think the rest of the way is like

two to three. So you definitely get into the

universal appeal here from number 35 on. So for

number 35, we're talking about a man that debuted

in 1974, trained by both Dory Funk Jr. and Terry

Funk. Didn't really have too many ring names,

even though he did wrestle for Mid -South and

for NWA and for All Japan and mainly WWF, although

he did spend a tiny bit of time in WCW. We are

talking about maybe one of the best heels in

the history of the business. I'm surprised he's

not a tiny bit higher. Number 35 is the Million

Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase. Money, money, money,

money. Everybody's going to pay. There's the

million -dollar man. Oh, for a second there,

I thought you were going to scare me by saying

Rowdy, Rowdy Piper. No, no, no, no, no. People

were all over the board, though, on Ted DiBiase.

I said that he was ranked almost on everybody's

list, but he goes from being ranked 2 to being

ranked 93. Has anybody ever seen him wrestle?

I don't mean that sarcastically. Has anybody

actually ever seen him wrestle? I've only ever

seen him as a manager. Watch the early Royal

Rumbles because there's quite a few of them where

he was setting records for the most time in the

Royal Rumble originally. I think it just went

over my head because I honestly thought he was

a manager his entire career. That wasn't really

until about 92, 93, somewhere in there. But if

you watch his late 80s stuff, it was... he was

one of the workhorses. He could go for days and

not get tired. He had crazy good stamina. Obviously,

he's good on the mic and he's got the charisma

going. This is the type of heel, like I said,

with Rick Rude or with Million Dollar Man, these

are the types of heels that I prefer a little

bit more, like the heel of Owen Hart. I was a

big fan. Every wrestler on the roster makes more

money than a million dollars a year now. His

gimmick should have been the Billion Dollar Man.

That was billionaire Ted later on. Great, great

vignettes. That's something that is lost on,

I think, a lot of companies these days is how

much work was put in by people like Bruce Prichard

or other people that were really doing the vignettes

to set up characters before they actually debuted.

And Ted DiBiase had a ton of great stuff. They

did great stuff for Mr. Perfect, for Razor Ramon,

but Ted DiBiase was another one where they did

not just great vignettes, but great little things

inside the ring. to kind of show that everybody

had a price and kind of what he was made of.

So I am a big fan, but Neil, I know you're probably

even a bigger fan, so I'll let you go right now.

His vignettes were awesome. The way they came

about with that is he was basically supposed

to be Vince. That was basically the Vince gimmick

as a heel. I think he was the heel of the late

80s. He was the guy who was most... Most in the

face of Hulk Hogan for the bulk of the late 80s.

And I'm even putting him over like Andre just

because of how charismatic he was. And he was

a great wrestler. He was one of those guys that

was like a really technical wrestler at a time

when like WWF was much more like big muscle guy

pounding you in the face and throwing you on

the ground. He was a technical wrestler. And

I really miss having a heel like that just because

he was, like I said, he had such charisma. He

had that cackle that he would do. Greatest laugh.

Put him way over Jim Neidhart. Greatest laugh

of all time. He also was someone that lived the

gimmick everywhere. When he was out and about,

they gave him thousands or whatever of dollars

to carry around with him at all times. just because

they didn't want him to break that gimmick and

not be able to act like he had a lot of money

or pay for whatever he needed to pay for. So

it must have been a nice gimmick to have. Hey,

I need this gimmick where you guys give me a

lot of money at all times. If only they could

have given him a decent suit to wear at that

Raw reunion, because it looked like somebody

used a glue stick to put on some felt for the

dollar sign on the one lapel, and then everything

else was like, ugh. They didn't spend as much

time as they did with the Million Dollar Belt

back in the day. But yeah, one of the greatest

heels of all time. If we were having like a top

50 heel list, he would be towards the top in

my book at least. So number 35 here. We're going

to go to number 34. I would say that this man

has some things in common with some of the, at

least one person we've mentioned before. I'll

let you guys decide who that is. But yeah, I

guess he's memorable. He debuted in 1997, trained

in the WCW power plant. In a long, undefeated

streak, and we're not talking about Tatanka,

we're talking about Bill Goldberg. Number 34.

I had him actually ranked at number 35 and he

came in here at number 34. For me, he's very

memorable. He's got the physique, but I don't

see the mic skills and I don't see the technical

ability in the ring to make him ranked higher

than what I did with 30, 35. Behind the scenes

are a big factor too. I don't think we've talked

about that much. Going to children's hospitals,

doing charity work and all that. He was like

one of the prototypes to do all that before pretty

much anybody was doing it. Yeah. At first I thought

you were going to say behind the scenes, like

in the locker room. Cause I was like, nobody

liked him in the locker room. He was like somebody

who they're like, one of the reasons he would

give for, you know, you can't make me a bad guy

is I have to go to every hospital in every town

I go to, to talk to kids and he would go to schools

and he would do it. So from trying to be a role

model, like just a big bad -ass role model. Cool.

had a little crossover appeal did some movies

um he's probably more liked in the last two years

than he's almost ever been yeah i could see that

um i don't think that it's about being necessarily

not being liked i think a lot of people do like

him and especially when you put him up against

like lesnar back in the day i think but there

was just that one time where both of them were

going out and that was just a travesty of a match

between those two that people were just like

booing and just hating both of them yeah yeah

and but then they did the good one when he came

back right right and also being in bizarre land

toronto made a big difference too I mean, I think

he's had definitely some very memorable moments,

obviously, with WCW and his battle with Hogan

and NWO, et cetera, his undefeated streak. So

I think he's got a lot of that going. Does not

have a lot of love from other wrestlers as far

as how he acted in the locker room or how he

would refuse to do stuff in the ring, which a

lot of them do do charitable work, but they still

also know that they have to lose and do stuff

on TV, except for Hogan. People still like him

more than Warrior, though. He was basically WCW's

Warrior, only not a complete horrible person.

Right. Except a good person instead of a terrible

person. I get that. But I can't rank him above

some of the other people that we haven't mentioned

yet. I was joking saying he should be higher.

I think as far as iconic, I think people might

rank him higher because not only has he done

stuff more recent, but... If you think of a lot

of the old timers that have come back, even though

that match he had way overseas was not the best,

but that's also concussion, not ideal situations,

everything. If you keep him down to a three or

four minute match, he can be that guy that really

pops the crowd still, even though he's in his

50s. Interesting. Nobody had him in their top

10. A lot of the people we've talked about today,

at least one person has had in their top 10.

So like Luthez, Owen Hart, Rick Rude, Seth Rollins,

DDP, Ultimate Warrior, Ted DiBiase, all have

been in someone's top 10. Bill Goldberg, the

highest he got was 11. So Neil, what do you think

of Bill Goldberg? I think it just comes down

to how limited his arsenal was. He wasn't like

a really – well, he was a solid wrestler. He

just wasn't a very technical one. He basically

had two big moves, and then the rest of it was

just him pounding on you. He did do those moves

well, though. Yeah, I can mainly speak to what

it was like to watch him in WCW because that's

where I've seen the bulk of his matches. Just

amazing how he steamrolled everyone and just

became this phenomenal – He just got the crowd

behind him and became the second coming of Hulk

Hogan, basically. And basically, maybe the two

biggest mistakes WCW did with him was A, putting

him on the mic, and two, B, having him lose.

I think they should have done something like

what they did with the Million Dollar Man, where

somebody tries to buy the belt or just screw

him in some way where he doesn't have to take

a pinfall. because that just basically killed

him, and it basically killed the company as well.

Big highlight in WCW, him versus DDP at Halloween

Havoc 98, one of the last great main events they

ever did. All right, Bill Goldberg, number 34.

For number 33, we're not going to be able to

talk much about this guy's matches, because I

don't think any of us have seen them. Going back

old school once again for somebody that debuted

in 1959. His real name, Bruno Leopoldo Francesco

Sammartino. Bruno Sammartino here at number 33.

Two people had him in their top 10. Obviously

had the belt for like a couple decades at one

point, it seems like. So, I mean, that was a

thing back in the day where people actually got

to hold on to their belts. Two -time WWF World

Heavyweight Champion, WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.

He has a damn bronze statue of him. So, I mean.

There's that. Feud of the Year 1980 against Larry

Zbysko. He's in 1 ,000 Hall of Fames and has

1 ,000 matches of the year, including the likes

of matches against Dan Hanson, Superstar Billy

Graham, Larry Zbysko, etc., etc. Bruno Sammartino,

Alex, number 33. Maybe even more so than Lawler,

probably the biggest territory star in his own

territory ever. like i guess lawler is more because

i think isn't lawler still champion and like

that champion for like 50 years straight now

basically um and i think his company still technically

runs whenever he feels like it um but as far

as when you consider how big and how how much

money the new york territory made like because

he wasn't just there like people forget that

that the new york territory also extended up

into canada um so like he would regularly be

in toronto for weeks on end wrestling at like

maple leaf gardens and like he was not just like

new york or pittsburgh's champ he was toronto's

champ for years and years and years and like

for us i only knew of him in the periphery i

only knew of him more so as like a announcer

interviewer kind of guy when he had already retired

ethnic hero ever, um, from basically anywhere.

Would he have been the right guy to go national

with? No. And had they tried to, it wouldn't

have worked. Um, because he, he was very ingrained

into, it had to be a very, um, like metropolitan,

very melting pot, you know, mixed culture of,

of, of immigrants. And that's what worked best

in New York and Toronto, because those two cities

are basically the same when it comes to that.

So very important to without him, basically WWF

wouldn't exist. Like they would have gone bankrupt

years beforehand. He, I mean, he wasn't really

a good worker. Hulk Hogan was probably a better

worker than him. Certainly better on the mic.

He was just the best you had in the Northeast

in that time period from like the sixties to

like 75, like superstar Billy Graham was a better.

probably persona than him like his his like persona

was i am just a guy big dude um neil what do

you think bruno san martino deserving uh sure

uh unfortunately like a lot of the one of the

old wrestlers he's like he's a name that i recognize

i i've heard his name mentioned many many times

on the air um not familiar with his work i do

know that he's like the longest reigning champion

ever um Obviously a big name. I think he belongs

on the list, but I'm just not that familiar with

him. All right. I think most people would agree

that he belongs here, but most of us can't attest

to his actual matches. So we will move on. Number

32 on our list debuted in 1999. He was trained

by basically the Blue Bloods, Dave Finley, Dave

Taylor, and William Regal. A lot of people will

know him more than Bruno Sammartino probably.

Phillip Jack Brooks. Anybody? That is the real

name of none other than CM Pop. So CM Punk here

at number 32 obviously knows how to get people's

attention, I guess you could say. ECW Championship

one time, Ring of Honor World Championship, a

lot of stuff in WWF, World Heavyweight Champion

three times, Tag Team once with Kofi Kingston,

WWE Championship twice, Intercontinental once,

19th Triple Crown Champion. According to the

Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Best Gimmick in

2009 and 2011, Best on Interviews 2011 and 2012,

Feud of the Year 2009 against Jeff Hardy, Feud

of the Year 2011 against John Cena, Match of

the Year, John Cena at Money in the Bank in 2011,

Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic, another one

of those, 2012, Exploiting Jerry Lawler's Legitimate

Heart Attack, PWI Feud of the Year, John Cena,

Most Popular Wrestler 2011, Most Hated Wrestler

2012. Ranked number one out of the top 500 in

2012 as well. CM Punk, obviously the pipe bomb

is what a lot of people will probably reference.

But Neil, what do you think of CM Punk being

number 32? Great wrestler. Not as familiar with

him as I am with guys from the 80s and 90s. I

do remember a couple of things. Didn't he also

take a shot at Paul Bearer after Paul Bearer

died? Because it was like the same year that

he faced Undertaker at WrestleMania. believe

yeah that wasn't his choice though that was like

it was it was they were trying to find a way

to make people hate him against undertaker uh

writers back then don't have too much more to

say about him i like i i've seen his matches

i like what i've seen just not uh his era i'm

just not as familiar with Those who ranked him

were definitely in agreement. 25, 31, 33, 37,

44, 42, 52, 61. So, I mean, a lot of people in

this like 40 to 60 range or 35 to 60 range. Alex,

what do you think of CM Punk? He's one of those

ultimate cases of he has like stamina on that,

but he's really not a good wrestler. Like he

is a guy who's made his entire career based on

persona, intensity, and charisma. Yeah, he definitely

knows how to get the fans behind him. Yeah, like

his confidence is probably the biggest factor

because compare him to like a Daniel Bryan who

came up at the same time to the same places.

Daniel Bryan can wrestle circles around, but

he just had that it factor that really connected

with people. And then he's like, I'm going to

go be, you know, a UFC fighter and was terrible.

I mean, he was only 0 -2. not only that like

there are people that are saying like he he's

had two years of training and he was worse than

somebody training on their first day like he

has no aptitude for real fighting or real wrestling

he's just he just thought he could do it and

i think he's tarnished his career like his legacy

entirely because had he never done it had he

just quit and walked away great but he quit went

to another company and basically showed the world

that he was a phony But if he came, showed back

up on WWE or AEW. Oh, he'd be huge. He'd be huge.

But at the same time, it's not the effect it

would have had. Had he gone and won. Jack Swagger

left and has now won, I think, one or two fights

at Bellator. And definitively, because he was

a legit wrestler. He was terrible on the mic

and had a terrible We The People gimmick. But

he was a legit wrestler. Brock Lesnar, CM Punk

is not. He's not a physical specimen. What he

is is super charismatic, and he got people hyped

for that first fight. What he should have done

is won that fight and then quit. Right. Absolutely.

But he, I think, would have ranked higher in

most people's minds had it not come out afterwards

that he's basically useless when it comes to

being an actual fighter. He's an athlete as far

as having stamina and everything, but he was

one of those guys where he doesn't have really

a good body for wrestling. He doesn't really

have a lot of this. He just oozes charisma. Yeah,

he needs the pomp and circumstance and all the

other stuff that goes with it to kind of mask

that a little bit and push him over the edge.

So I agree with that. I do think he is top 100

worthy. I had him at 52, a little higher than

I had him, but I still think he's worthy. So

let's move on to number 32. We did talk about

some tag team members in last week's episode.

We haven't got a lot of their tag team partners

yet, but we're going to get one of them right

here. He debuted in 1986. We're talking about

Big Papa Pawpaw, Scott Steiner. Nobody had him

in the top 10. The highest he got ranked was

17. Was that me? I believe so, yes. Probably,

yes. 17, 22, 23, then 35, then some people in

the 50s and 60s. Obviously, what separates him

from his brother that we mentioned last week

was that he did have the more successful singles

run afterwards, as well as all the TNA and et

cetera, et cetera. So Alex, you had him in the

highest rank, so I'll let you go. Scott Steiner,

31 here. Uh, about four years ago at work, I

came dressed as him for Halloween. There are

pictures on Facebook. You can find them. I even

bought, I even bought chain mail and made it

look like his, like seriously. So, um, most over

the top, like talk about being unrestricted.

Like if you haven't seen the Steiner math, look

it up. That promo is one of the best things ever.

He did a followup to it this year when he showed

up on TNA back in like March. um following up

that or his just it's like feeding with samoa

joe most of his work as far like his promo work

in late 90s wcw fantastic um his persona the

way he looked fantastic horrible wrestler since

1996 um as far as a little too big for himself

he got too big and then he got a little better

like he like if you look at his stuff in the

80s he was one of the few guys and he's actually

probably the first guy we've seen in this list

so far that was inventing moves. He was like

the British Bulldog to me. He was like that tag

team partner that was strong enough to do crazy

stuff but still technical until he got crazy

big. 210 pounds and somebody would run at him.

He would jump up in the air, flip onto his back,

grab your neck between his ankles and flip you

over his head. stuff that like luchadors do and

luchadors usually would run and jump onto you

he would jump straight up in the air from a standing

position and do it and make it look like you

landed on your head sometimes he would land you

on your head if he didn't like you um and then

when he got to be like 260 70 pounds couldn't

do it anymore uh but then he started doing it

from the like like this past year was this year

the year before he was at the tna pay -per -view

and he was doing them from the top rope where

he would jump up and flip you over his head and

he's in his 50s right um his promo work second

to none from the ridiculousness like it's like

he's feuding with samoa joe and it's like what

do you not like about him he's fat he's fat don't

ask him to do math he's fat um or or when he

had pd williams as his little papa pump who was

like a miniature version of him. Um, just over

the top or his, his calling Ric Flair, like fat,

old and lazy. Um, well, what was it? Uh, his,

his speech on live TV where he got in trouble

a few times for swearing at people. Yeah. Um,

or was it, uh, who was it? Was it DDP? He was

talking about, um, so many bad interviews. Well,

like in the ring talking about what's he going

to do to DDP's wife. Uh, Just every promo being

so over the top and ridiculous. I met him at

a local show here. He came with Kevin Nash about

three years ago. And nicest guy ever. Talked

to him for a fair bit. I was upgraded to VIP

tickets because they didn't actually check my

ticket. They just let me in with the VIP people.

That's one way to get upgraded. Yeah. And I just

was talking to him for a few minutes and he's,

he's like, Oh, you're a big guy. He goes, you

know, there's so much money we could have made

with people like your size. Like he goes, now

everybody has to be, he goes, everybody has to

be a twig to be in, in wrestling. And he was

talking to all this stuff and he's super nice.

He goes, excuse me for a second. And he goes

over to see the promoter and he goes, Hey, fuckhead.

I said I was, and he was blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah. And he was arguing about money. And then

he comes right back. So where was I? And he keeps

talking like super. Oh my goodness. And then

he wrestled Joey Janela there before Joey Janela

was anybody, you know, three or four years ago.

Well, he's still a nobody. Let's be real. But

Joey Janela, you can see I'm sitting because

we're in the VIP section. I'm sitting next to

Kevin Nash. Like he's just sitting there because

he's like, we're too, like he's tall. I'm big.

We needed to have more room. So we got a bench

seat. So we're sitting there and he goes, Oh,

and I go, what? And he goes, take a look. Doesn't

like what that guy's doing. And Joey Janela wasn't

listening to him. Like he was. Basically, you're

supposed to follow what the elder does in the

ring. And Joey Janela wasn't doing that. So he

goes, watch this. He goes, five, four, three.

The way Kevin Nash is talking, very droll. Two,

one. And he points and looks at him. And Scott

Steiner then kicks Joey Janela in the chest as

hard as he can and throws him over the ropes

and into the brick wall behind him. and he just

goes listen to me stupid and then they're just

brawling around the ring and he goes yeah he's

not too happy and Chris Masters was sitting next

to Nash and he goes should we go in and like

you know help me he goes no I'm not doing that

I think what hurt Steiner was the fact that as

he was becoming the singles wrestler and as he

was kind of having his ascension to the top is

when WCW kind of fell off the cliff and I think

that would have been different if WCW had not

you know at that exact time because by the time

he gets to wwe it was not good well had wcw lasted

a couple years longer like the work he did in

tna sporadically like in you know 0407 all the

steiner if the steiner math stuff had shown up

on regular tv like when it was in the like heat

of the monday night wars it would have been everywhere

neil any last second thoughts about scott steiner

He's like Jekyll and Hyde. He sounds like a really

sweet guy, but you put a mic in his hand, he

just turns into this genius on the mic. He owns

a Shoney's. Just randomly, I saw some news. Something

happened at a Shoney's, and he just happened

to be the owner of it. Yeah, he stopped a murder

or something. Yeah, something like that. It was

really weird. Really funny guy. I don't think

I can really add anything more to what Alex just

said. He is much smaller now, and he attributes

it to, I don't work out quite as much. No, he's

not taking the juice anymore. Right, right, right.

Wrestles with a shirt on, if you know what I'm

saying. Oh, yeah. So next up here is a guy that

debuted in 1985. One time his ring name was Baby

Bull, but most of us know him as either Big Van

or just regular old Vader. So Leon White, Big

Van Vader coming in here at 31. Spent some time

in AWA, CWA, New Japan, IWGP, heavyweight champion

there, UWA, WCW, WWF, a lot of different stops

in between, TNA, back to WWE. It gets confusing,

but Vader is our next entrant. A lot of people

had him ranked, but it went anywhere from 18

to 83. Neil, what do you think of Vader, and

is he worthy of being in the top 50? Maybe a

little too high. I do like Vader. He was one

of these giant guys. They really should have

had him in the golden age of the WWF back when

Hogan was in there. By the time they threw him

in Hogan and WCW, it was just a little too late

for Hogan because Hogan was kind of getting hokey.

He was really the big giant heel that would have

really been... Would have really been good to

throw at Hogan like after the Andre stuff. Yeah.

Really iconic looking wrestler, though. He had

a great look. He had that, whatever that mask

thing was. It wasn't really a mask. It was like,

what was that? He had the whole thing that he

had to take off as he was getting to the ring.

The Japan inspired. I don't know if it was a

samurai type thing because it was way bigger.

Like a mastodon mask. He had a mastodon hat.

I wasn't even talking about that. It was a strap

thing he had on his face. I remember seeing a

match where that came off accidentally. I was

like, oh, shit. It was like the luchador mask,

but it was see -through in multiple parts. I

don't get it. Very, very sad when I heard he

was dying. something about that when when somebody

knows that they're on their way out and it's

just nothing you could do about it was just kind

of really really depressing to see that happen

he was someone that was very agile for someone

who was as big as he was for a long time not

through his whole career but through the first

probably half of it think about being 410 pounds

and doing like backflips And stuff off the ropes.

Was he doing moonsaults and shit like that? Yeah.

He was doing the Vader bomb. And not hurting

a single person doing it. Right. If it wasn't

for his little hiccup with Shawn Michaels, he

might have been doing some more things because

he had some big matches planned and then Shawn

Michaels kind of threw a temper tantrum and got

him removed from those matches. And probably...

probably the only 400 and some odd pound ginger

white dude to ever become a pro wrestler and

be from compton it's like it's like what it's

like he is the enigma right there is a hilarious

match that you can watch of him oh and also another

person that uh had uh drafted by an NFL team.

But a hilarious match between him and Shawn Michaels

where you can see that he kind of is fucking

up because he's supposed to be in a certain part

of the ring and he's not. And Shawn Michaels

gets to the top rope to try to do his thing and

he realizes that Vader's too far away. So he

has to just jump off the rope and down to his

feet. And then you can see him, like he just

literally is berating Vader for the rest of the

match. Like, you need to fucking move and all

this other stuff and like throw in a temper tantrum.

But you can still see them mouthing those things

and it's like, oh God. Shawn Michaels at his

worst and Vader apparently also at his worst.

Shawn not thinking because if Vader wanted to

snap, he could have broken him in half. Right.

But Vader comes in at number 31. Interesting

that we go to another person that was kind of

very big in WCW, maybe a little bit before Vader,

but I think at one point they were connected

at some point. I think he was his manager. Debuted

in 1960, trained by a couple of the Zabiscos,

not Larry, but some of the older Zabiscos. At

one point he was known by the ring name The Great

Mortimer. Another time it was Jack Long. Another

tournament. That's a great wrestling name, right?

Jake Jack Long, the King handsome or King Harley

race, um, is our number 30, um, spent a good

deal of time in AWA NWA and some three years

in WWF before he went back to WCW, um, wrestler

slash manager, um, slash Jack of all trades,

uh, Harley race. At number 30, Neil, what do

you think? Iconic wrestler. I don't remember

him being that great in the ring. I know him

mainly from his WWF run when he was King Harley

Race. And I never really got the King gimmick

because I was like, is it a title? Because it

could change hands, but it was also his gimmick.

So I was like, what's going on here? What does

it mean to be the King? Is this like being the

champion? I don't know. But his gimmick of being

the King Harley Race is how he got King Haku,

then King Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and then finally

the Macho King. That's where that all came from

is the Harley Race gimmick. That's mainly what

I know him for. I don't remember a lot of great

matches. He had some legendary matches with Ric

Flair. Obviously, he just recently passed away.

And a lot of people were kind of attesting to

how much of a strong, you know, how much of a

badass he was, I guess, in general. Like they

said, he had the biggest, strongest hands in

the business. And if he punched you, you were

definitely going to feel it if he wanted you

to. But in the ring, he had the softest hands

because you never did feel it. But if he was

to get in a fight with you in real life, nobody

wanted that. Match of the year against Dory Funk.

Match of the year against Dusty Rhodes. Match

of the year against Ric Flair. Three different

times there between 1973 and 1983. So a lot of

Hall of Fames that he's been in. Alex, what do

you think of Harley Race being here? It's almost

blasphemy, but I don't see it. I don't see him

even being in the top 100, if that makes any

sense. He was the last of the old guard. like

he was young when he joined like but i feel like

he rick flair came along and was like this is

what pro wrestling is and you don't need to exist

anymore and that's sort of what happened and

he was relegated to nothing he had a like his

like some of his finishing moves were like a

head butt from the top rope and it's like and

it gave him spinal problems when he got older

and it's like yeah he's super tough but it's

like He also didn't like that they were going

to try to take his job away, so he went with

a gun to kill Hulk Hogan one time for real. He

brought a gun into where Hulk Hogan was to threaten

him. He was the last of the carnies that were

champions. Also, had he been a little younger,

I guarantee you Vince McMahon would have made

him his gimmick. He looks like a sailor or like

a fisherman from like the East coast. Yes. Um,

you know what I mean? Like he even has like a

little Popeye tattoo on his arm. Like he, he

just looks like he should be catching crabs.

And, and then like, he just happens to wrestle

on the side. Uh, Luthas hall of fame, Missouri

sports hall of fame, NWA hall of fame, professional

wrestling hall of fame. um let's see what other

stampede wrestling hall of fame st louis wrestling

hall of fame wcw hall of fame wwf hall of fame

i think you can make the argument that he does

deserve the top 100 yeah i was exactly he doesn't

deserve to be in the top 50 though he's only

there because of the titles like that's real

anybody praising him is are his peers or if you

were like i don't i don't even know how many

people submitted lists that are from the south

like the real south but like That's really it

because he didn't accomplish anything in our

generation of note. He looked uncomfortable as

the king. Yeah, he did. He was one of those guys

where he's like, what's happening to my wrestling?

And then didn't change. Yeah, I can see that.

I can see that argument for sure. I was never

a big fan of his, but obviously with all the

NWA stuff with Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes and

stuff, I think that's kind of where it kind of

carries, maybe rides their coattails a little

bit into this part of the countdown, so to speak.

Let's go to number 29. This man has appeared

in things like Star Trek Enterprise, Waterboy,

Jingle All The Way, Royal Pains, Psych, Burn

Notice. A lot of things there. Made his debut

in 1994. In WCW, we knew him as the Giant. In

WWE, we knew him as the Big Show. We're talking

about Paul White here at number... 39. Started

basically in WCW, went to WWF, and that has been

all she wrote for the big show. Obviously, he's

had a whole bunch of belts, including tag belts,

heavyweight belts, hardcore belts, US belts,

intercontinental belts, every kind that you can

get. 12th Grand Slam, 24th Triple Crown. Rated

2002 Most Embarrassing Wrestler. Rookie of the

Year in 96. Worst Feud of the Year. Is that when

he went up to like 600 pounds? I think so. Worst

feud of the year, 99 versus Big Boss Man. Worst

feud of the year, 2013 versus The Authority.

Worst wrestler in 2001 and in 2002, apparently,

according to the Wrestling Observer. PWI Rookie

of the Year in 96 and Wrestler of the Year in

96. Neil, what do you think of The Big Show?

He's a spectacle, I'll say that. It's hard not

to compare him to Andre just because they gave

him Andre's gimmick right off the bat. Probably

a better wrestler than Andre, but doesn't really

have the presence. I think he just got thrusted

into the spotlight too soon. Wasn't it like his

first match he won the title? Something ridiculous

like that. Didn't he get thrown from a rooftop,

though? Yes, I was going to bring that. That

was ridiculous. And then he wrestled later that

night. The only way they could explain it was

like, he must be superhuman. You just topped

Robocop being in WCW. His WWF stuff, there's

some good points in there, but a lot of bad stuff

too. I don't know if he belongs this high. Alex,

agree or disagree? Top 75 maybe. Longevity is

great, but he is one of those guys where it's

unpredictable like he would go like remember

how he was really thin in like 96 and then by

like 2002 he had gained like 200 pounds and he

had like the sumo match with uh yeah he became

he became the gimmick guy for a while and uh

money mayweather broke his nose um like he seems

like a fun guy and all that it's just he it's

like oh you blinked now he's heel oh you blinked

now he's face Too many switches and too much

not taking advantage of the big size and being

intimidated. How many episodes in the last three

years have been an authority figure telling him

to do something and him crying on camera? It's

like, really? His finishing move is a slow punch

to the face or he holds his fist out and somebody

runs into it and they get knocked out. Basically.

At least with Ox Baker, it was a heart punch

where he would say he punched a man. This heart

punch has killed two men in wrestling. And all

it was was a punch to the chest. But at least

it looked like you were punching somebody in

the chest. You're going to run into my giant,

admittedly gigantic fist. But you're going to

get knocked out. The most protected move in wrestling

is not even a wrestling move. It's a move that's

illegal. He did get a Slammy Award for Holy Shit

Move of the Year in 2011 for imploding the ring

after being superplexed by Mark Henry. And then

they did it again with Brock. And it's like,

why did you do it again? Right. They pretend

like it's never happened before. Right. Or when

they would build his weight and I'm like, no,

I'm sorry, you're 7 '1". He said on TV, he's

like, I got up to 510 pounds. You got up to like

700 pounds. It's like, cause take it from somebody

who's been 600 pounds, uh, at six foot four,

you are seven foot one. And you looked my, like

my body type, you were like 700 pounds, but you

don't want to say that because then you can't

get insurance. He was all over the board for

people's ranking anywhere from sixth to 97th.

So nobody could decide. Nobody could decide.

Best wrestler of all time. Yeah. Nobody could

decide. Was that Blanchard too? No. Next up,

the big men are going to continue because 28

on our list is also a big man. This guy debuted

in 1992. Let's do some ring names, guys. How

about Angus King? How about Bruiser Mastino?

How about Unabom? How about Christmas Creature?

How about Doomsday? How about Mikey Unabom? How

about Diesel? How about Isaac Yankum DDS? Or

most people know him as Kane. Glenn Jacobs, number

28. So we go from the big show to Kane. Alex,

is he more deserving of this high spot? Hell

yes. He's just more like this is somebody if

he wasn't mayor would still be wrestling. He

was full time wrestling for like 20 years at

like almost seven feet tall and not gassing out.

I mean, say what you will about like it became

the trope of let's send Kane in to finish the

match because we don't have a finish. At the

same time, how many people can maintain that

work rate for 20 some odd years? Yeah, a lot

of belts, a lot of accomplishments. He was a

third Grand Slam, the eighth Triple Crown champion,

Feud of the Year by PWI against Daniel Bryan

as a member of the Authority in 2013, Tag Team

of the Year 1999 with Xbox or X -Pac. Do you

know who didn't like him? Apparently Dave Meltzer.

He was a three -time most disgusting promotional

tactic for a 1996 fake diesel gimmick for the

2002 being accused of murder and necrophilia

by Triple H. And in 2004, impregnating Lita.

Oh, man, I love 1998 to 2001. Three -time Wrestling

Observer Newsletter most overrated wrestler.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven -time

worst feud of the year. 2002 with Triple H. 2003

with Shane McMahon. 2004 with Matt Hardy and

Lita. 2007 with Big Daddy V. 2008 with Rey Mysterio.

2010 with Edge. And 2012 with John Cena. Worst

gimmick 1996 is fake diesel. Worst worked match

of the year in 2001 with The Undertaker versus

Chronic. And worst worked match of the year 2018

versus The Undertaker, Triple H, and Shawn Michaels

at Crown Jewel. That is not a single positive

thing. And yet when he retires, all Dave's going

to say is how great his career was. Right. So

obviously much better than the rest of the Observer

Newsletter would have you believe. A lot of belts,

a lot of crazy memorable moments, whether it

be with Undertaker or others. Neil, what do you

think of Kane? I like Kane. Obviously a lot of

low points, that necrophilia thing. One of the

few times that I just turned Raw off, like right

in the middle of that, I was like, no, I'm not

watching this. There was an episode of Raw, a

Christmas episode, where they're hanging ornaments

on Kane. And Jerry Lawler says he looks like

some kind of Christmas creature. And all the

smarks were like, oh, God. That was great. I

like Kane. It was kind of like a reboot of the

clone Undertaker from 1994. If you watch the

Undertaker versus Kane from WrestleMania, it's

basically like that match, only done right. I'm

sure Alex has got a... I'm kind of blanking,

but I know there's a lot of high points for Kane.

In recent memory, anything he did with Daniel

Bryan, where they turned the yes chant to the

no chant and all that. He could be perfect as

the straight man in a comedy duo, but then still

be menacing. Amazing entrance. With all the flames

and all that stuff. Stuff they don't want to

spend money on anymore. His costume. The reveal

of who he was. He had some of the worst feuds.

But then his introduction storyline. Probably

the best WWE ever did. In the suspension of disbelief.

fantasy booking. They've done that a lot, like

the Boogeyman. The Boogeyman's bullshit. But

let's be real. The Undertaker, nobody thinks

he's dead, but the storyline they did with him

and Kane and all this and he was burnt and blah,

blah, blah. That was probably the best fantasy

storytelling they've ever done. I love how they

followed that up with eventually having him take

the mask off and there was nothing wrong with

his face. My favorite aspect of Kane. He had

soot on his face and that was it. My favorite

aspect of Kane is that his story is so convoluted.

He's got the most convoluted backstory of any

wrestler ever because he was burnt, but he really

wasn't. Then there was the whole thing with Katie

Vick. WWE wrote a book to explain the whole thing,

to explain how it all fits together. It's ridiculous.

It's like my favorite thing ever. Five people

had him ranked in the 30s. Two people had him

ranked in the 60s. So a little all over the place,

but he comes in here at 28. Only two people left

today to talk about. Let's get to one of them.

The big men trend continues because at 27, we're

going to another fairly tall individual who made

his debut in 1990, trained in the WCW power plant,

went by the name of Chet Lemon, Master Blaster

Steel, Oz, Vinny Vegas. diesel or just plain

old kevin nash comes in at 27 so we will go from

big show to kane to kevin nash Obviously had

the early WCW run with the Master Blasters, Oz

and Vinny Vegas, maybe not his most memorable

moments. Obviously then went to WWF and was the

bodyguard to Shawn Michaels. Big Daddy Cool Diesel

goes back to start the NWO and the rest you could

say is history as far as his impact on the business.

Super. Good with charisma and on the mic, maybe

lacking a little bit of engineering skills, but

definitely has the memorable moments and the

impact on the business. Alex, what do you think

of Kevin Nash coming in here at 27? It makes

sense. I guess as far as influential or important

people of the last 30 years, probably one of

the top five most important people since like

1992. From when I met him. like one of the driest

sense of humor you'll ever have like on anybody

very smart like like when you honestly when you

think of wrestlers you don't always think of

the smartest people you think of meatheads and

this is a meathead who can think and you and

it's like he's not the smartest person on the

planet but you can tell it's like oh the people

like oh he was always there politicking people

yeah because he's smarter than half the other

people in the roster so he like just simple shit

that we would think up you know other people

might not and he would take that and use it to

his advantage uh in talking to him i said you

know what's the best part you know of doing these

you know indie shows when he came out and he

goes he's honestly meeting the fans and and still

you know having fun he goes you get some extra

pocket change and because like they get they

get paid decent they usually get their travel

covered but they make more of their money off

of like merch and everything still from like

wwe and residuals and that uh and i said what's

the worst part he's like he goes how 90 of the

fans haven't figured out how deodorant works

and it was funny because like i was there first

talking to him and because he wanted to sit down

so he signed my poster and all that word and

he's like here come on sit down big man let's

talk so while they were waiting for everybody

else to come in and he's talking you know shaking

his hand getting the picture taken all that stuff

and then he's just like he goes I said, how can

I tell? I go, how can I tell if you don't like

a fan? He's like, you'll know. And I'm standing

there, you know, and I moved to sit down after

I got my stuff. And he's shaking people's hands

and all this. But then he's not shaking everybody's

hand. And I'm looking and it's like, you can

see on his face, he's like holding his breath.

He's like, this person is stinky. I can't touch

them. Because you don't realize like how the

amount of people they touch, how sick they could

get. And it could ruin like, like they have to

be very careful about getting sick, especially

guys in their 60s now. he doesn't want to come

here for five grand and then plus whatever he

makes off merch and then not be able to work

for the next two months because he's like got

the flu or some sort of weird like um con flu

or something and you can just see he's just like

he's like blank face like hi nice to meet you

shake and he'll shake some people's hands then

he won't but at the same time like just hearing

him talk and and like when he's like with with

steiner he's like oh he doesn't like him he might

be in the top five for wrestlers uh that had

a movie career as well he'd be in the discussion

for it with his uh magic mike stuff john wick

and of course my first exposure to him as super

shredder oh yeah like i mean he genuinely like

a cool guy but i guess the vibe he might people

might get from him is that like he doesn't care

it's not that he doesn't care he's just very

chill and then very dry almost british sense

of humor And I think that doesn't resonate with

everybody. I don't know if he should be this

high based on his wrestling. Decent on the mic.

Good body. Kind of terrible at drawing money

before the NWO. But other than that, he's great.

wcw world heavyweight champion five times world

tag team champion nine times with scott hall

six times sting once and diamond dallas page

twice wwf champion once intercontinental once

tag team twice with sean michaels wwe hall of

fame in 2015 neil other thoughts on kevin nash

before we move on to our last name today well

i've been known to dunk on some of the big guys

in wrestling and i think of i think kevin nash

is like the quintessential big guy that i don't

really like he's he's a funny guy i like him

personally but uh As far as in -ring, he's the

guy I always think of as standing in the middle

of the ring while the other guy is doing all

the work, bouncing off the ropes and everything.

He just kind of stands there and occasionally

lifts his leg to kick him in the face. Him and

Sid. Yeah, basically that's his whole move. What

sets him higher than Sid, though, is the brain

versus... Yeah, that's... Great talker, very

funny guy. Okay in the ring, I guess. Got a presence.

He's just very big. I think, too, what gets lost

is people... that are on the good on the mic

in the last, say like 15 years are good on the

mic because they're handed material. That's good.

Um, most of the time, very few of them are just

good improv people. And I feel like Kevin Nash,

Scott Hall, some of those people back in that

time period, don't get enough credit for how

good they were on the mic with nothing being

scripted for them. Oh yeah. Like, sorry. One

last thing at the show that the local one here,

um, uh, he was standing there and the one guy

was, whenever the local, I was bad mouthing him

and, you know, they're making up their, their

stuff on the spot. And the, the, you know, the

heel goes, Oh, what? You don't have any comeback.

And he goes, he goes, if you, if you wanted my

comeback, you'd have to ask your mother. Oh,

Jesus. Nice. I mean, it's a local show, but like,

and the place just erupts. And to the point where

like the local or like the, the talent there,

the younger guy, he's trying his best not to

break. And you can just see everybody like even,

uh, Jimmy Hart was there and he's Turning away,

laughing so hard, he had to turn off his megaphone.

Nice, nice. Yeah, I couldn't necessarily, I wasn't

a big fan of him as Diesel, but in the WCW and

NWO before it kind of went crazy, I was a huge

Kevin Nash fan. I like him better than probably

Kane and Big Show. So I am a bigger fan, but

it's interesting how people might think those

three big guys and what order they should be

in. But we have time for one more today. So this

is number 26. Everybody else will be top 25 material.

Our number 26 made his debut in 1980, trained

by Vern Gagne. Only two names that he ever went

by, and those would both give it away. It's either

Kurt Hennin or just Mr. Perfect. That is our

number 26 left off of a couple lists, but everybody

that ranked him ranked him fairly high, except

for one person had him at 80, 46, 39, 27, 18,

18, 14, 12. So a lot of people had him in the

top 20. He just misses out on the top 25 coming

in at number 26. Neil, what do you think of Mr.

Perfect coming in here? The technical wrestler,

other than like, you know, your Bret Hart. Just

one of these guys that looked like there was

a logic to the whole thing, how he would just

go from move to move to move. And great personality

to go along with it. I mean, again, comparing

him to Bret Hart. Bret Hart, not very good on

the mic. Kurt Henning, excellent on the mic.

And aside from that, sorry, great manager, Rick

Flair. That was the best pairing they could have.

they could have had putting those two guys together

uh just how well they work together like doing

interviews together uh uh i just think of like

him and uh him and rick flair freaking out at

wrestlemania 8 after they lost the title to uh

to macho man um just lots of great memories uh

i know i'm like i'm like glossing over feuds

here that he's had so many great matches Started

in the AWA in the early 80s, then the WWF, returned

to AWA, returned to WWF. Had the undefeated streak

before Tatanka and before Goldberg. He was undefeated

for like two years from 1988 to 1990 until the

damn... rudis the barber beefcake beat him i

think in something so uh intercontinental heavyweight

champion then obviously was part of the four

horsemen part of the new world order part of

the west texas road rednecks um and then came

back to wwf and brief time in tna before he died

um he was always growing up he was always one

of my favorite he wasn't my favorite but he was

always probably if i would make a list of like

my top five at any given point in my childhood

he probably would have been in there I always

enjoyed him, whether he was a heel or a baby

face. I kind of liked him as both. Inducted into

the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007. Alex, what do you

think of Kurt Hennig being number 26? I didn't

see a whole lot of him, but I do remember him

being very charismatic and just sort of having

a sort of swagger to the way he did everything.

Now, I think it's one of those cases where had

he lived, he would have come back to the WWE

in some form, probably as a manager. Maybe. Maybe.

Some of his talent could have rubbed off on his

son. Who seems to only have a job because Vince

feels bad that his dad died. He's horrible at

everything. He's so horrible he can't even grow

hair. I just feel like that's probably what would

have happened. He would have become the manager

for his son who can't talk or wrestle. He he's

always talked about as being like one of the

most like guys behind the stage, like behind

the scenes and like doing some of the best pranks.

And you could just see like the best people,

the people that we're going to see in the top

10, maybe top 15 have unique charisma, like a

unique air personality. It's too many wrestlers

today either walk the same, sound the same, feel

the same, you know, energy. He's one of these

guys that emitted an energy that was only his.

A lot of that comes down to the fact that everything's

scripted now. Kurt Hennig could think on his

feet and just come up with these great lines.

Even if he was talking fast or with Ric Flair,

you could say, oh, their characters might be

similar. It's like, no. Look at the way Ric Flair,

his thing is he'll stand still, maybe move a

little bit with a little bit of swag. Hennig

was always ready to pop, almost like he was nodding

his head, and it was just the way he would turn

his body. He would smile in a certain way that

was like, I'm going to say something that you're

going to either love or hate. He's another one

of those Iron Men, too, that could go like the

whole Royal Rumble or something and not be any

worse at the end. And you're right. It's like,

what if Bret Hart could also talk? The thing

about Kurt Hennig is, think of what he pulled

off. His persona is arrogance, is perfection,

is I'm the best at everything. And he did that.

Even though he was a heel, he was still loved

by fans. People still loved him. He was another

one of those guys that had the little vignettes

at the beginning that were great, showing him

playing basketball perfectly and making half

-court or full -court shots, whatever it was.

Everything he was doing was right. Right. It

was just great stuff. And my memory, I probably

told this before on some podcast here, there,

whatever. But my, my memory is standing next

to my friend as he walked down the aisle at some

house show, or it might've been an actual raw

or whatever. I think it actually might've been

a nitro. And he did the thing where he hits the

gum, spits it out and hits it away. And it landed

in my friend's lap. And wow. Took it home and

put it in. And your friend never washed his crotch

ever again. No, he actually took the gum, put

it in a plastic baggie and put it in his freezer.

Oh, I thought you were going to say he took it

and started chewing it and went. No, no, he put

it in his freezer. And I guess it stayed in his

freezer for like, I don't know, a year or something

like that until somebody was like, we need to

throw this out. He don't need to keep his gum.

I always love Kurt Henning, so I'm glad that

he's coming in here. I think you could make a

case that he's top 25 material, but 26 isn't

too far away. So that's it for today. Dean Malenko,

Luthez, Dustin Rhodes, Owen Hart, Rick Rude,

Seth Rollins, Chris Benoit, Randy Orton, DDP,

Ultimate Warrior, Ron Simmons, Daniel Bryan,

AJ Styles, Arn Anderson, Ted DiBiase, Bill Goldberg,

Bruno Sammartino, CM Punk, Scott Steiner, Vader,

Harley Race, Big Show, Kane, Kevin Nash. and

Mr. Perfect. Alex, what did you think of this

section of 25? You have no idea how happy it

is to me that Scott Steiner beat CM Punk. But

I think there's some surprise. The order things

are in are a little surprising in some, and I

think some of it is down to... uh maybe some

of the wrestlers people just not knowing who

they are so they voted for people they do know

i don't necessarily think that like like some

people might say oh mr perfect should be in the

top 25 um but he again i think he either died

too soon had some they wasted some of his potential

uh like from like 96 onward If he had had a career,

he didn't even have to be champ, but if he'd

had a career like he had from 85 to 95, from

like 95 to 2005, when he, around the time he

passed, he would probably be in the top 20. Yeah,

I can see that. Some interesting trends, though,

you see here, too. Some classics falling off

the board, maybe some of the bigger classic names

like Bruno Sammartino, Lou Thez. Do we have anybody

else besides? Those are like the two. Oh, Harley

Race, I guess you could kind of throw in that

package. Another thing that I noticed here as

we were going through was some of the just like

individual like technical wrestlers or like kind

of workhorses you have. listen to the, if I'm

putting this group together, Dean Malenko, a

lot of people say it about own heart, but Chris

Benoit, Arne Anderson, Kurt Henning, like you

got some people that were really known for just

being a Rick rude. You maybe even can throw in

there just like studs as far as working, you

know, being able to go and technical ability.

So they might not have been all of them having

the. check boxes in every box but some some big

workhorses there any other trends that you guys

picked up on or any surprises no women today

are we are we going to see any women or are we

done with them we might get one wait did we have

did we already have lita yes okay so we're gonna

have okay if predictions we're gonna have trish

We have Trish. We had Trish, we had Chyna, Charlotte,

and Lita amongst a couple of them. See, depending

on when we made this list, I don't see Becky

being up there. If she is, I'll be surprised.

What about the classic wrestlers? Are we done

with most of those? Well, if we're going with

classic women, we're not having Wendy Richter

or anybody else showing up there. No, I mean

like Bruno Sammartino and Luthez is at the top

of the mountain. Classic as in before the 80s?

Yeah. we had buddy Rogers, right? Yep. And we

have Billy Graham, Billy Graham. Um, did we have,

uh, did we have, uh, what's his name? We had

the, we had the original guy from the original

TV stuff. Oh, why am I drawing a blank? The one

that came out to pomp and circumstance way back.

Oh yeah. Gorgeous George. Um, we had Vern Gagne.

We, uh, probably we're not going to have Stu

Hart. Um, he won't be in because i mean nobody

saw he's basically retired wrestling in the 50s

um we're not gonna see pretty much probably any

other promoter that was running it um so if we're

gonna go that far back before like before the

80s i don't see anybody that i can think of and

we had terry funk yeah um so yeah like i'm trying

to think of anybody that would be still relevant

like i know that Slaughter and them came from

that time, but they weren't really famous from

that time period. Piper started in the 70s, so

Piper will be there. We've seen some people's

top 10 members fall, but we have seen nobody's

number one pick fall yet. Everybody's number

one is still alive, so that's kind of interesting.

For the record, though, that is including 1,

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, there's at least almost 10

wrestlers that got voted number one. Did we have

Eddie in there yet? No, we haven't had any Guerreros.

Maybe in the top 25, obviously. And I don't want

to give all the names away necessarily. You can

probably guess most of them. Well, that's what's

going to be interesting because I think a lot

of people could probably try to jot down the

10, 20, 25 names that are going to appear, but

it's going to be real interesting to see the

order and what people think of that because this

is where we really start getting into the order

because I've seen the top 25 and you cannot make

an argument against any of them not being in

the top 100. There could be one or two surprises

that sneak in. You won't see anybody from Japan

anymore. Maybe one if it's really low. Somebody

who's primarily a Japanese wrestler, you probably

won't see any of them. And then the rest are

going to be probably from the heyday of 84 to

like 1990 as the predominant people. And then

you're going to see a few people like Scott Hall

probably, and that's it. All right, Neil, any

last second thoughts as you're anticipating the

final 25? I'm just looking ahead and I'm thinking

we got just thinking all the names off the top

of my head who must be up there. We got a packed

house. You know, every time we talk about like,

oh, this guy should be higher. That guy should

be higher. It's like, no, somebody's got to fall.

Some of these guys do have to fall into the.

into the 26 -50 range just because of how many

people are actually up there. That's what some

people don't appreciate when they're talking

about so -and -so should obviously be here, but

then you have to take one of these guys out.

When we go through 25 -1, we're going to see

if there's anybody that you guys would feel like

should be taken out, and it's going to be interesting

if there is. The oldest wrestlers that are left

are probably Dusty and Flair that wrestled in

the mid -second. That's probably it. um now the

question is are we going to see uh terrible ted

the wrestling bear uh because i was really hoping

a wrestling bear would show up even in like 90

like have the wrestling bear be like better than

whoever is in like 99 or 100 because then it

would be like if this if this podcast ever got

their way to like i don't know let's say it went

to let's say we voted like number 100 being um

i don't know bow dallas bow dallas could see

it and be like wait the fucking bear was better

than me right right well this is also the time

where people start getting nervous of people

that they were expecting to hear that they haven't

because they are either in the top 25 or they

didn't make the list at all so that's kind of

another interesting dynamic so we're gonna have

to take i'll go ahead you know i was just about

to say i think i may have uh i think my my impression

of uh becky lynch might have been a little overblown

because i'm not sure she's gonna make it now

she's had a really really good year but but like

our depends on how people waited it are they

waiting like who's popular right now because

like let's be honest has her has her year really

been that good or has everybody else been that

bad yeah that's true and the other thing that's

gonna be interesting is what your guys reactions

are to some of the people that were not ranked

on people's list because 17 out of these 25 wrestlers

We're omitted at least by one person. Wow. So

that's going to be an interesting. dynamic as

well. So we're going to let you guys sound off

on the website, go to geekcastradio .com, find

the episode posts, give us your feedback because

we will try to mention some of that as we prepare

for this countdown. And when we do our wrap up

episode, kind of taking the whole list as a whole

after we do the top 25. So definitely go there,

give us your comments and we will interact with

you there. You can also interact with us on social

media. My Twitter is at Optimist Solo. Alex,

how can people get in touch with you? Uh, you

can hit me up, uh, either send me feedback, uh,

Alex at the speaking geek .net, uh, death face

twig, uh, at the speaking geek on Twitter, uh,

basically lurk around everywhere like that and

Facebook. So, uh, you can find me pretty much

anytime. Um, Neil, what's your Twitter handle?

Uh, I generally go by P Lynn Bailey. You know,

if you go to my website and .com, uh, basically

all my social media stuff is there. You can find

me on Facebook and Twitter and everywhere. And

hopefully we'll have at least one of the simplistic

review guys back to talk the top 25 next time.

But until then, go to the website and follow

Geekcast Radio. Join us on Facebook, Twitter

and get involved in the discussions. But otherwise,

we will see you next time when we count down

numbers 25 through number one. You know what?

You just made the list.