The IWF Top 80

[Axis]

Okay, so noumenon, Enzo Malenko, Peep Show, and myself made lists of who we thought were the overall best wrestlers of the decade. So, first of all, a huuuuuge thanks to them. We took into consideration kayfabe success, workrate, how much of the decade they worked, impact on the business, and our own personal biases, to an extent. We each made a list of 50, with the best wrestler receiving 50 points and the 50th best wrestler receiving 1 point. Thus, all scores are out of a possible 200. Since we obviously did not all have the same 50 guys, there ended up with 80 names all together.

Let's get started. Feel free to chime in with thoughts, opinions, or whatever.

 

[Axis]

To start off our list, we have a two way tie.

80. FIT FINLAY & ELIX SKIPPER (2 POINTS)

FIT FINLAY
He loves beating the shit out of people. And quality alcohol. He really only worked from 2006 on, but he came right in and made a decent impact simply by standing out among the rest of the roster, who never believed in hitting hard. Finlay has a really smash-mouth style, similar to Regal and Benoit (which, by the way, I recommend all the Finlay vs Benoit and Finlay vs Regal matches you can find). He sort of floundered near the end of the decade, as far as being pushed goes, but he's continued to be a very reliable guy to get a good-great TV match out of.

"PRIMETIME" ELIX SKIPPER
He got some attention in WCW, but I always found it hard to buy a black guy as part of a Canadian alliance. He partnered with Low Ki and Chris Daniels in TNA, but I think it was always pretty clear that he was the weakest of the three. Some fun matches, but pretty much just known for his awesome spot of a hurricanrana off the top of a cage.



Another tie!

78. COLT CABANA & RHYNO (4 POINTS)

COLT CABANA
Really hilarious on the indies, but he had trouble translating that over to mainstream wrestling. He's been in some really memorable programs in ROH with Punk and especially Homicide. He's a guy that I would have liked to see succeed in the WWE, but his failure can't really be blamed on the writers. They let him do his thing and it never really took off. Part of his problem may be that he's just too Jewish.

RHYNO
I spelt it like this because that's how he spelt in when he was good. Well, to be fair, I haven't seen much of his ECW stuff, but he has sucked in TNA. He had a really hot run for his first few years in the WWF/E, but then he got sidelined with an injury that kept him out for over a year, which hurt his momentum a lot. He still managed to be a solid midcard force, but the umph wasn't there. He was relegated to the tag team division, which was beginning to hold less importance, and eventually became a perennial jobber. Then he got too wasted at Wrestlemania 21 and was fired, and subsequently threw away his career by going to TNA.​

 

[Axis]

Three-way tie omg.

76. JAMES STORM & MICK FOLEY & RAVEN (5 POINTS)

JAMES STORM
BEER~! His only real success has come in tag team wrestling, but he's gone over and above there. When AMW was around, the huge debate was which guy would make it further in a singles career--Storm or Harris. Storm took the cake, but it wasn't long before they through him into another tag team with Robert Roode, this one just as epic. He's shown that he can be a great singles guy, and he can cut a great promo. Still, he doesn't have a very great set of singles matches to boast of, and I can only think of a handful of truly memorable tag matches.

MICK FOLEY
He had an outstanding "retirement" run in 2000, which does count toward this. I think that he could have had a better going away at Wrestlemania 2000, but Hunter fucked that up, but I digress. Anyway, he has frequently been on camera since then, playing various positions in various companies. It's also noteworthy that he's been very smart with the programs that he's agreed to come back for. In the second half of the decade, when he signed up for a storyline (at least in the WWE), it was money; the ones that stick out are vs Orton, vs Edge, and vs Flair.

Here's a guy that didn't make my list, but I'm glad he made other lists. If WCW hadn't been so hung up on washed up talent, I believe that he would have seen much more mainstream success. Irrelevant though, because by the turn of the decade he was in the WWF. And by the time he made it there, the midcard was stacked with guys like Guerrero, Benoit, Angle, Jericho, the Hardyz, E&C, Van Dam, etc. that he didn't stand out much. He tried to rekindle his "Flock"-like storyline, but it didn't gain much traction. He had a really good run in TNA when it was still good, but he's become largely a footnote over the past few years.



A four way tie!

73. ROBERT ROODE & TRISH STRATUS & JIMMY JACOBS & MARK BRISCOE (6 POINTS)

ROBERT ROODE
MONEY~! Awesome gimmick, awesome mic skills, awesome in-ring talent. I wish I could tell you why this guy hasn't seen more success. He was given some pretty shitty storylines (e.g. against Eric Young and Booker T), but made them work very well.

TRISH STRATUS
I mean, what's there to say? To her credit, she was in one of the only two good women's matches I've ever seen (vs Mickie James at Wrestlemania 22). More importantly though: tits.

JIMMY JACOBS
A lot of people don't know about this guy, or at least they haven't seen much of him. One of the best guys on the indies when it comes to personal, hate-based feuds. First against BJ Whitmer, then against Austin Aries, where he proved that he was far better than Aries in virtually every way.

MARK BRISCOE
MAN UP! I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of tag team wrestling post-1990, but I definitely admit that these guys are among the best at what everybody else tries to do. They've had some really great matches, but not too many memorable feuds, which imo is what makes wrestlers be remembered. Anyway, yeah I would agree with Enzo that this is the lesser of the brothers.​

 

[PeepShow]

I think you should post everyone's list in a separate thread and then have the overall results in a different thread like this I guess. I thought that's what we were getting in the first place, so I guess I'm a bit disappointed. Really wanted to see other's lists.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

Nevermind...

 

[Axis]

I'll post everybody's lists at the end, along with the final list of everybody's combined. I don't want the results to be ruined as it goes along though.

 

[PeepShow]

Ok cool.

 

[He who knows more than Nation]

Well, I'll be damned...lol

 

[Great One]

Awesome thus far.

 

[Moonlight Drive]

Surprising thus far, at least in my opinion. Nice to see it won't be the same lists that generally get regurgitated.

 

[LadyHotrod]

Good so far.

 

[Hometown Kid]

Jimmy Jacobs is definitely a little low i'd say, and absolutely too low if he's the same as Mark Briscoe of all people. I'm glad Finlay and Raven are on there. Raven could have been a tad higher I think, but pretty spot on overall so far.

But the fact that all of these guys are even on the list, i'm thinking some guys I initially thought would be ranked low, might be ranked higher. So i'll be interested to see where this goes and who lands where.

 

[seX-Power]

Great reading so far, and I'm definitely interested. Good to see Roode & Raven on there.

 

[PeepShow]

........

ASS

 

[Charismatic Edge]

Wow, I couldn't disagree any more with Rhyno. His first 2 years in TNA mattered. He won the title, (ok only for a week), had great matches and feuds with Abyss, Christian, James Storm, and AJ Styles. It's only in the last 2 that he's fallen. But to say that going to TNA at all was a mistake I don't agree with.