Al

Inspired by the WCW Discussion. Put together a quick and dirty ranking of the wrestlers who held the WWE Championship. Based solely on their overall body of work, not the reign itself. I haven't parsed this list closely so I'm certain there are a few rankings that wouldn't pass scrutiny. 1. Hogan 1a.Flair (Not going through and renumbering this entire list) 2. Guerrero 3. Savage 4. Hart 5. Austin 6. Michaels 7. Mysterio 8. Rogers 9. Andre 10. Sammartino 11. Slaughter 12. Foley 13. Backlund 14. Rock 15. Punk 16. Cena 17. Koloff 18. Undertaker 19. Inoki 20. Yokozuna 21. Hardy 22. Jericho 23. Angle 24. Morales 25. Edge 26. Big Show 27. Lesnar 28. Batista 29. Sheamus 30. Triple H 31. Iron Sheik 32. Van Dam 33. Orton 34. JBL 35. Kane 36. Del Rio 37. Graham 38. Warrior 39. Miz 40. Sid 41. Diesel 42. Stasiak 43. McMahon

Saying that Koloff wasn't a good worker is just ignorance. And bottom 10, well about 45 wrestlers have held the belt. To say he was a bad champion, I guess if you're saying championship REIGNS rather than just champions, I can see that.

Obviously a huge grain of salt here. WCW Title Matches getting ****+ from the Observer. I just wanted a comprehensive source as a starting point. Flair vs Pillman (4/3/91) Vader vs Sting (Great American Bash) Vader vs Cactus Jack (Halloween Havoc) Flair vs Vader (Starrcade) Flair vs Steamboat (Spring Stampede) Flair vs Steamboat (5/14/94) Hogan vs Flair (Halloween Havoc) Page vs Sting (4/26/99) I don't remember if the Vader/Foley match was a title match or not.

Yeah, Flair/Vader won out for me for lack of competition as much as anything. You've got Sting/Vader from the Bash. Beyond that, the strap match at Superbrawl 3 was non-title.

I haven't really seen a bad Ivan Koloff run. I'm surprised he has that bad champ rep. Stan Stasiak was clearly worse, but Stasiak wasn't meant to be anything special in that role anyway.

Some picks: WWE Championship: Austin/Rock (Wrestlemania 17) WWE Intercontinental Championship: Ramon/Michaels (Wrestlemania X) WWE Tag Team Championship: Adonis/Murdoch vs Briscos (MSG) WWE World Championship: Undertaker/Batista (Wrestlemania 23) NWA World Championship: Steamboat/Flair (Clash VI) WCW World Championship: Flair/Vader (Starrcade '93) NWA/WCW U.S. Championship: Magnum/Blanchard (Starrcade '85) NWA/WCW Television Championship: Blanchard/Steamboat (Starrcade '84) NWA/WCW World Tag Team Championship: Steamboat/Youngblood vs Slaughter/Kernodle (Cage Match) The U.S., Television, Tag titles I consider one lineage because they were established in the Mid-Atlantic promotions. AWA World Heavyweight Championship: Bockwinkel/Hennig (New Years Eve '86) ECW World Heavyweight Championship: Funk/Sabu (Barbed Wire Match)

I believe (and wikipedia says) this was actually a non-title match.

Mil Mascaras from the limited matches I've seen of his prime is an average/slightly above average worker. It's to his credit that he became the most over Mexican wrestler in wrestling history. (I kind of separate Mexican-Americans like Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero from that group.) I think Mascaras was hurt trying to hard to maintain his image well into his late 40s and beyond. He was hardly someone like Big Daddy in his workrate.

Been working my way though this, wanted to share some random thoughts. Sting vs Flair (Clash I) Flair vs Funk These matches have been written about ad nauseum. 4* or 5*, they hold up quite well. And Flair/Funk has this wonderful intensity about it even without the blood. Watching it again I felt like Flair was working a standard Flair match, while Funk was putting together a master performance. Both wrestling and verbally. Mil Mascaras vs Cactus Jack I feel like Alberto Del Rio misses a golden opportunity not channeling his uncle more. Mil Mascaras has this vibe about him similar to Alex Rodriguez. He's ridiculous concerned about his self image to the point where every aspect about him is fabricated. He comes off as a face, but he's really a heel. The sucking in the stomach bit is even more obvious than Matt Hardy was. As far as Foley, 22 subsequent years have lessened the impact of that bump to the point of wondering what the heck Ross and Cornette were so worked up about. They were trying to protect Foley, but I don't think it was working. Flair vs Luger Sting needed opponents as NWA Champion and I wonder why they didn't pair Hansen up against Sting instead of Luger. (Hansen interferes in this match to set up Havoc '90.) Hansen seems similar to Lesnar in terms of their situations. Impact wrestlers who didn't wrestle full time in the U.S., but have instant credibility when they appear due to their looks. Hansen is or was obviously a better wrestler. One thing wrestling really misses in the national expansion is the three month heel. The guy you could bring into your promotion to work a program against your top face. You get a money feud, and the heel even when he loses isn't hurt because he isn't over-exposed. Abdullah the Butcher, Ernie Ladd, even a guy like Ivan Koloff in the '70s. 15 Man Battle Royal Oh man, if you loved the Gimmick Battle Royal! It took me half the match to associate Kevin Nash with Oz. It's also as good an El Gigante match as you'll see. Flair/Anderson vs Hollywood Blonds Sting/Flair vs Rude/Vader These matches are the highlight of the set for me thus far. Not great matches, but good matches. Fun to watch and pairing that haven't been overexposed. Still have disc 3 to watch but I really like this set. Everything on discs 1/2 except for Mascaras/Foley is at least good.

A match that aired on Classics on Demand that I loved (and pimped here before) was Adonis/Murdoch/Albano vs the Samoans and Sgt. Slaughter.

JDW, ever see the full broadcast of the Bob Gibson 17 strikeout game? The last half is Harry Carey, and it's probably as good as prime Carey as you'll have an opportunity to hear. How important is simply sounding natural? You've all heard that excitable, high pitched announcer that's just a chore to listen to. The crew from OVW (at least the ones on the second ladder match dvd), they were brutal. At least Monsoon and Schiavone for their faults had good voices. Even if they were terrible, you could tune them out somewhat. The worst announcers (Mark Madden) have both terrible storytelling skills and voices to match. But if your voice sounds good, most fans will forgive a lot of other faults.

Ok, I looked it up on Wikipedia. The McMahons have 96% of the votes as you said. Their economic stake is around 70%.

There's "Class A" and "Class B" stock. If I remember correctly, the McMahons own something like 96% of the company. When Vince passes, his shares will go to whoever he dictates in his will. The only way it falls out of the McMahon family is if they make a conscious decision to sell the stock outside the family.

How about dividing this up between eras? Booking a live 2-3 hour television show every single week is a far different animal from booking a regional territory. I could see the former format eating up a good booker alive because there's a ton of stuff to worry about beyond the in-ring product. But who would be the worst booker of the regional days, or pre-1995 or so?

In all seriousness, when did wrestling ever have "one" World Champion? 1904-20ish, 1948-61 with some gaps in there, and 2001-02.

The worst of the name changes was El Matador.

I think Hawk and Animal threw Vince a curveball, as he was unaware that Legion of Doom was an alternate name/old stable for the Road Warriors. There are a couple re-brandings that worked beautifully. Demoltion Smash was better than Krusher Khruschev. The Big Boss Man was the best thing to happen to Ray Traylor's career. But of course there's also counter examples like the Red Rooster. Can't win them all.

I feel like Vince left a ton of the NWA guys alone. Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Warlord, the Barbarian, Ron Garvin, Rick Rude, Sam Houston all kept their names and roughly their same gimmicks.

Ideally, in return for uploading you enjoy the fruits of what other people uploaded. Anything else and the whole system just doesn't work.

Dusty Rhodes wrestled a bunch for Mid-South, WWE still has him employed. Michael Hayes was part of perhaps Mid South's biggest angle/match. Magnum T.A.? I wonder if WWE will push Ernie Ladd's legacy hard on the set.

I'm glad when WWE acquires a library because at this point, they're the only organization interested in preservation that has the resources to do it.

Even the NWA briefly attempted to run multiple world champions at one point (Thesz and Carpentier).

Husky Harris?

Vince Jr. would've been a fan of some of the older guys though. He was especially fond of Jerry Graham.

Vince was born in 1945. So he grew up largely in the 50s and early 60s. Watching WWF in the 1990s, it's obvious the gimmicks that would appeal to a kid of that era. The hillbillies, the Smoking Gunns, etc. There could be a whole category on Dusty Rhodes btw. The polka dots, Akeem, Reo Rogers, Virgil