Ten of them? Look, there are plenty of talented wrestlers I enjoy and like to some extent but at this point I'm teetering at the edge of stopping watching for a variety reason so to name ten I care enough about to actual consider a favorite is going to be tough. Especially since this is in the WWE section so I'm going to restrict this to WWE competitors so no Chris Jericho. He was at the Greatest Royal Rumble yes, but I'm kinda over the List shtick at this point and he do much of interest so technically he would be but I'm not listing him.
Wrestlers That Keep me Watching. I'll Generally Check Out The Youtube Version of Their Segments Every Week.
I. Asuka. I love her. Asuka is absolutely one of the best wrestlers on the roster, and in my opinion, the most interesting. Everything about Asuka is amazing, take her entrance for example (which imo is the best entrance in WWE today outside of maybe Finn Balor), not only do I really like the song but I love how grandiose it feels. Featuring additional apparel during an entrance that is not featured in a match is a great way to help make the entrance more distinctive, and Asuka brings that will both her uchikake kimono (I think it's an open uchikake styled kimono anyway) and her mask. And not only that but the ending of her entrance, the taunt on the top turnbuckle where she removes her mask and brings it too her lips (example: my avatar) already feels like an iconic set-piece to me. It's a similar vein of Triple H's water spit, Taker's hat remove scary eyes, Kane's pyro turnbuckle, in terms of entrance construction anyway, in terms of iconic entrances pieces those aren't getting topped. But she's utilizes the same idea of giving a memorable conclusion utilizing a character motif/prop either introduced in their entrance or not. Asuka's mask is used in the same way as Taker's hat and supernatural traits, Kane's fire motif and supernatural traits, and Triple H's love/hate relationship with water.
I also love her mannerisms during the entrance, not only is the slow weird dance moves a pretty decent way of attracting attention to her but I love the contrast between that and the fast paced brutality of her in-ring style. But back to her mannerisms, I love them. They are a persistent quality throughout all her matches, she embodies her character extremely well and along with her wrestling ability on a technical level, she also presents a lot of personality in her matches. I was going to say almost nobody in WWE embodies their character as well as Asuka but it's more like most wrestlers in WWE don't have a character as lively as Asuka to portray. I also like how Asuka uses mannerisms to help set the tone for her matches. One of her spots features her rolling around an opponent avoiding their attack and then dancing her heart out, as a way to mock them. If you watch the Sasha Banks match from Raw back you'll see she does that exact set-up but doesn't follow it up with the dance, and that happens within the first few minutes. To the average consumer it probably didn't mean much but to someone who typically watches stuff from craft perspective as well and might be a little obsessed with one of the competitors, this really helped elevate the match, effectively setting the tone that this was a bigger deal. And Asuka stills shows her murderous glee for lack of a better phrase in this match, she doesn't remove that aspect of her character but she only does it in moments of dominance. When Sasha knocked outside and Asuka's still in or when Asuka has her in a rest-hold, she's clearly treating Sasha on a different level than Alicia Fox, Dana Brooke, hell even Alexa Bliss, and that managed to the match so much better, and in my opinion, made Sasha look better than she had in like all of 2017. Very few wrestlers are change their movesets and approach up like Asuka does in a way that helps better communicate to the audience the difference in severity of the competition.
Like I said, I think she's the most interesting wrestling on the roster because of stuff like this. And I could go on and talk about Asuka some more but I have nine more of these wrestlers to write about and no, I'm not spending the rest of my night doing this. I'll just say this, if Carmella pins Asuka clean, I will never forgive you. There's a lot of stuff I'll never forgive you for, but this might top everything except Zack Ryder.
II. AJ Styles. Everybody has AJ Styles on their list. Everyone who will post in this thread after me will have AJ Styles on their list. The only reason not to put AJ Styles on your list is because he's so frequent it's boring, or to try and invalidate my point. If Asuka's the most interesting wrestler, Styles is the best wrestler. And that kinda makes him boring to talk about, I don't know what to say about him. His hair is absolutely phenomenal? Point blank, Styles is every bit as talented as everyone on the internet says he is, and can get a good match out of everyone.
III. Daniel Bryan. I've said this before, or I thought about saying it but decided it wasn't worth it, but I'll say it again, Daniel Bryan is like inspiration in human form. I know it's been almost two months since he was clear but I can't tell you how happy I am that he's wrestling again. Yes, even after that Big Cass feud. Which to be frank, went exactly how I thought it should. Including Bryan absolutely murdering Cass on SDL. Daniel Bryan also hasn't missed a step, I only watched the Greatest Royal Rumble in hopes that he'd go the whole distance, and while he didn't he was great in what time he got, and that match with AJ Styles on Smackdown Live after Mania was better just about everything at Mania, in my opinion.
IV. Kairi Sane. Admittedly Kairi Sane is slipping a bit for me because most of the time I forgot NXT is on and thankfully she's not on every week or I couldn't count her for this. While I don't care for a Lacey Evans feud, I'm still a fan of Kairi Sane. I became a huge fan of Kairi Sane when I first saw her compete in the Mae Young Classic and no wrestler has ever made a better first impression on me. I feel like I marked for all her moves and had trouble sleeping afterwards because my heart was still pounding. She still has the best Elbow Drop of all-time as her finisher, and she carries a lot of charm to her matches. One of my favorite 'spots' of all-time is when during the Mae Young Classic Bianca blew a kiss to Kairi, and she caught it, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it.
Wrestlers I Really Enjoy at The Moment But Really Can't be Bothered to Keep up With All Their Segments Though When I do I'm Usually Sports-Entertained.
V. Seth Rollins. Dude's on absolute fire from what I can tell, everything I've seen from him in the last few months are career defining. All the matches I've seen from him are excellent, The Miz one at Backlash in particular (helped that the rest of the PPV was basically a dumpster fire), and his face promos have improved a great deal I think, he's developed a far stronger groove. Maybe it has to do with a better crowd reaction, cause every since the Gauntlet at least, crowd's been red hot for him to, again from what I seen. I think the whole Brock Lesnar/Roman Reigns thing makes it hard for me to care about the Raw division a bit. I hope Rollins is heading to the Universal Title picture, and I hope he wins it.
Wrestlers That Should've Been in the Category Above But Bad Booking Has Made it Difficult for me To Care. I Still Want to Though, and Have Hope Things Will Change.
VI. Shinsuke Nakamura. Also known as the reason Styles will only have four kids. Being someone who majorly avoids NXT, for no other reason then I don't want to keep up with another wrestling show, and hasn't really watched the indies, for the same reason really, Shinsuke Nakamura was never someone who worked for me. I found his run on the main roster the definition of lackluster and underwhelming, and when he won the Royal Rumble I was glad everyone was getting their dream match but also upset that AJ Styles was likely dropping the title to him. Of course, WrestleMania 34 was a Middle Finger to obvious outcomes so Styles retained, and Shinsuke turned heel in great fashion. And finally, Shinsuke clicked with me. From that sly wink in that promo with Renee, to his way of dodging explaining himself by blatantly lying, to the new entrance music and his borderline obsession with cracking Styles' nuts. I actually really liked this angle, there wasn't a ton of variation but just enough for me (the best being Shinsuke attacking Karl Anderson while Styles watched, to dick hurt to help), and I really like the idea of revolving the build around a singular spot since that means they can incorporate into the matches. The Greatest Royal Rumble's finish did mean the match wasn't going to be something I was interested in re-visiting but it did build to a logical conclusion for the story and made the low-blow an integral part of the story. Then Backlash happened and yeah, they kept the low-blows as integral story elements unfortunately, we got a double low-blow draw finish. Shinsuke needed to win there, and while the draw certainly alleviates the damage done personally to him (in comparison to Styles outright beating him), I've personally found it hard to care about the feud anymore, and Shinsuke's heel run has started to sour on me. He was my favorite thing going on for awhile there but WWE didn't pull the trigger and now I'm suffering from blue balls. Fitting in a way for Shinsuke.
VII. Charlotte Flair. I know she'll face Ronda at Mania. I know she'll be fine. I know the clean lost to Carmella was at least done in a manner that tried to present it as luck (like, Charlotte buckled on landing and Carmella took quick advantage of that, which is different than Carmella beat Charlotte on her own ability alone) but man, dude, dudettee, girlfriend, Charlotte went from ending Asuka's streak to feeling like an after-thought. Granted I know she's in the Women's Money in the Bank but honestly, I find it hard to care about the build to any of those matches. It's just been qualification matches with no interactions between the participants (on SDL, Raw's been better in this regard).
Wrestlers I Believe Are Probably Still Really Entertaining But my Consistent Loss of Passion Prevents me From Keeping Tabs With Them. Also, There's a lot of Wrestlers That Could Fit in This Category, I'm Just Going to Go Off the Top of my Head.
VIII. & IX. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn. I don't really pay attention to anything on Raw at the moment but last I did it was for these two (also Rollins & Ember Moon, whom just because I gave a shout-out here, will not be my tenth despite that originally being the plan, Ember Moon is great though). KO & Sami are two of the best talkers (along with Miz [who's also an honorable mention like Moon] and Bliss [who is not an honorable mention]) in the company, usually really entertaining and never feel like that constricted by the WWE writing team. They're also top notch wrestlers. From what I understand about what they're doing now, Kevin Owens is in the MITB match and Sami Zayn is feuding with Bobby Lashley because Lashley wore a similar hat to Zayn in an interview about his sisters?
X. Samoa Joe. Speaking of best talkers, Joe's been fantastic on the mic since returning, really liked that promo he did on Big Cass. He's one of the most believable bad-ass destroyers on the roster, the most believable on SDL unless I'm forgetting somebody, and the idea of a feud with Styles has me pretty excited.
Getting mixed signals from you, mate.
