The idea of a Wrestler of the Century is about as impossible a task as there is possible. What criteria? How can you possibly compare people from different eras against each other fairly? How much is work rate taken into account?
For that reason, before making a pick, that is sure to be controversial, we're going to break it down into categories:
Best in ring performer: This is a tough category because styles change and the business is always getting faster paced and higher impact. If you watch videotapes going back, even in the 70s, very little of it holds up and virtually nothing before that time holds up. Gene Kiniski, Ray Stevens and Dory Funk Jr. were awesome workers in the 60s and 70s, and even Harley Race later than that, but it's like comparing Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor or Rick Barry, who were awesome basketball players, with Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, if you try and stand their stuff next to Flair at his peak because of the increased charisma and energy level. Most of the 80s stuff looks better as far as believability and intensity, but it can't touch the current stuff for acrobatics and outstanding spots. Sometimes today's heat matches up with the past, and sometimes it doesn't, depending largely on how hot the promotion is at that moment and the way the fans have been trained to react. Anyway, this is an easy pick for me, Ric Flair. Flair isn't necessarily the best wrestler of all-time if you take everyone at their peak, but for someone who was a top five caliber worker in the business for more than 20 years, and at his peak did it 300 times per year, I can say without any reservation that nobody in the past 30 years in this business is close, and that nobody before that can hold up by today's standards. Kenta Kobashi as a peak performer was better, but it's hard to believe he at the age of 40 will be close to what Flair was at the same age, although maybe nobody will because the styles do more physical damage even wrestling shorter matches, but Kobashi never once wrestled 200 matches per year, let alone 300 just about every year.
Biggest box office draw: Overall, Hulk Hogan. Nobody consistently sold more tickets for a longer period of time. A lot can be knocked about Hogan and most of it is deserved, but this also can't be taken away from him. Even today, while the average crowd for WWF shows is much larger than it was in Hogan's prime, the fact is it's a group effort and nobody, not Austin at his prime nor Rock today, can match the effect on attendance that Hogan had (in fact, none of the wrestlers today can match the impact on attendance that Flair had in his core cities at his drawing power peak of the mid-80s either). As a perfect example, when Austin went down, there was no impact on attendance and only a slight impact on buy rates. Hogan walked in to WCW and attendance quadrupled and buy rates doubled. In his WWF peak, the same cities that drew 4,000 without Hogan would draw 10,000 with him. Hogan's name alone would nearly double the average attendance even before that in his AWA days. There were probably guys like Jim Londos or Gorgeous George at their drawing peak who for their major matches can say the same thing, but not consistently night after night all over the country.
Biggest pay-per-view draw: Hogan again, although that's a new phenomenon that nobody before 1985 and nobody outside of the American scene is a part of. When Austin or Rock draw a 3.5 buy rate, which Hogan did nine times, and nobody else in history ever did without him, let alone an 8.0 that he drew against Andre, argue the point. Granted PPV's are monthly and no longer the novelty they once were making higher figures far more difficult to achieve, but Hogan's PPV box office up until two years ago when Austin finally topped him was tops in the business for a period of more than a decade.
Biggest merchandise seller: Probably over the course of a career it would be Hogan, but even though it was really only a two-year window, more notable is Steve Austin. Hogan never touched Austin's merchandise numbers and just how many people walked around in the real world wearing his t-shirts at his best.
Biggest television star: Rikidozan. Several of the highest rated television shows in the history of Japanese television featured pro wrestling matches with Rikidozan in the main event. Nobody in any culture can even touch that statement. Even though standards are different and a direct comparison isn't exactly fair, Rikidozan drew several 60.0 ratings and today we freak out at 7.0's. When the WWF promotes a TV show that outdraws the Super Bowl in the same year, or New Japan promotes a TV show that outdraws the Japanese Baseball World Series, then we will have a wrestler who has the mainstream appeal that Rikidozan had. On October 6, 1957, a live match from the old Korakuen Baseball Stadium with Rikidozan vs. Lou Thesz for the NWA world heavyweight title drew an 87.0 rating. Hogan and Vince McMahon in their wildest fantasies were never even close to his level as far as being major parts of the culture of the country, as Hogan's peak rating was a 15.2 for the second Andre match on NBC. Granted, direct rating comparisons are misleading because in the early days of television there were fewer stations and numbers were higher (for all the talk about record cable ratings, WWF Raw for the year this year drew lower ratings than Georgia Championship Wrestling did in a non-prime time slot in 1981 but again Raw's 1999 numbers in comparison were more impressive due to a huge increase in the number of stations viewers had to choose from 18 years later). Still, an 87.0 under any circumstances is still the highest rating that we've ever heard for a pro wrestling event anywhere in the world and it's not like he was a one hit wonder. You didn't see McMahon, Hogan, Gorgeous George or Frank Gotch being ranked with John F. Kennedy and Albert Einstein in any Man of the Century awards in major U.S. newspapers, did you?
Biggest cultural icon: El Santo. Rikidozan died early and became a James Dean. El Santo died old, but seemingly will live forever in his campy movies. There is no wrestler who ever lived who is as much a part of entertainment culture as El Santo in Mexico, although Rikidozan was more influential to wrestling and the real world of Japan.
Greatest wrestling promoter: Vince McMahon Jr. While there were people who made wrestling bigger within the culture at certain times than McMahon did, his longevity and his ability to market not just nationally but internationally gives him the easy nod. McMahon at his peak never made wrestling as big in his culture as either Rikidozan or Antonio Inoki did in their culture, but he was able to export it successfully to a level no other promoter came close to, and did a better job of keeping his product hot even though he had his down spells as well.
Greatest historical legend: Frank Gotch in American culture is the only pro wrestler who has gained cultural acceptance for both his matches and his ability within the realm of real sports due to the idea that when he was performing, his matches were on the level. It appears some of them were and others weren't, but in the Sports Illustrated list of the greatest athletes of the century, while there were many pro wrestlers on the list, he was the only one named exclusively for pro wrestling. Rikidozan, Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki are the only other ones close, with Inoki being taken as a more serious athlete than Baba and no matter how much of a myth Inoki the shooter may have been, he did go 15 rounds with Muhammad Ali, and while there are pro wrestlers today who in a free fight situation could tear Ali in his prime up and the match itself was viewed as horrible at the time to where it did severe damage to the entire wrestling industry in Japan (history has been very kind to it, similar to Hogan vs. Andre at the 1987 Wrestlemania), none actually were in the ring with "the greatest." Inoki also had the longevity spanning generations. From a Vale Tudo standpoint, for better or for worse, Royce Gracie's influence in popularizing the sport world wide through the early UFC's can't be denied.
Best on Interviews: This is a tough category because there is no easy winner. No wrestler has ever on a national basis gotten the kind of reaction to his interviews as Rock, but that was really in the last year of the century. Just the other day I popped in a tape from 1987 and saw a Flair interview, and it blew away anything anyone does today. The fact is, he was doing great interviews when Gerald Ford was President. With the exception of Rock and perhaps Mick Foley, Flair still does that today. So Flair gets the nod.
Woman Wrestler of the Century: This is tough, but realistically comes down to what poison you pick. Mildred Burke was the pioneer of womens wrestling in the United States and its biggest star when it was at its peak. Chigusa Nagayo as a cultural figure and as a mainstream television star was far bigger, but it was really a very short period of time. Inside the ring, there is no way anyone can beat Manami Toyota at her peak, but she was not the "star" that either Burke or Nagayo were. Akira Hokuto was the most talented one and one of the gutsiest performer, man or women, in her prime that I may have ever seen, but wasn't quite the star Burke or Nagayo was and not the athlete that Toyota was although in many ways she was a better worker for psychology. Jaguar Yokota was a pioneer in that she was the first woman wrestler who was better than almost all the men, but actually Lioness Asuka, Toyota, etc. eventually outdid her in her same basic era. Jackie Sato was the first superstar in Japan, but she was nowhere near the best, nor the biggest. Moolah had the longevity, but at no point was she any kind of a hot draw or a great worker, but it is a name that everyone in wrestling knows. Choosing between Nagayo and Burke is impossible to do fairly because each is everything the other wasn't, but Nagayo was far more over in her short heyday.
Hope Meltz slaps him some respect at All In.
Eric keeps bringing up that Dave reported that MABEL would be the third man at BATB. Dave did say he was under consideration but the week before the PPV he wrote this in the Observer:
