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Who is more important for pro wrestling history?


Who is more important for pro wrestling history?  

28 members have voted

  1. 1. Who is more important for pro wrestling history?

  2. 2. Who is more important for pro wrestling history?

    • Hiroshi Tanahashi
    • Toshiaki Kawada
    • It's a draw
  3. 3. Who is more important for pro wrestling history?

  4. 4. Who is more important for pro wrestling history?

  5. 5. Who is more important for pro wrestling history?

  6. 6. Who is more important for pro wrestling history?



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Good morning.

This poll is about historical importance, obiouvsly not about who is a better worker.

Furthermore, in the case of HHH and Batista it's better if you consider exclusively their career as wrestlers, not promoting career in the case of HHH and post wrestling career for Batista. 

The comparisons are:

1) Rey Mysterio vs Kenta Kobashi

2) Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Toshiaki Kawada

3)AJ Styles vs Big Show

4)Triple H vs Shawn Michaels

5) Batista vs Shinsuke Nakamura

6) Daniel Bryan vs Kane

  

Thank you very much

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Well, Rey broke the size barrier for mainstream US Wrestling, which makes him very historically important indeed. Kobashi was always kind of behind Misawa... Kawada was too, and once he was the ace of AJ (after the NOAH split) suddenly they're bringing in Tenryu and giving the company to Muto. Whereas Tanahashi was the ace of NJ when it went from a slump to a boom, which makes him more important. Sorry Toshiaki.

Styles and Show, I'm not sure either is important. Show has had the more high profile career, Styles has had better matches. Show has been in and around main events without ever being top guy in his company, Styles has been the top star in a small promotion that lost money and was on it's deathbed for almost his whole time there. Tie.

Hundreds of people wanted to be the next Shawn Michaels, nobody ever dreamed of being a wrestler like Triple H. Arguably he's more of a negative influence than a positive one, but he is massively influential.

Batista vs Nakamura is apples to oranges. Arguably Nak winning his MMA matches at the height of Inokiism makes him the bigger deal, but ultimately in his NJ run he was an IC level guy, and in WWE he's lower than that. Batista was main event World title. Could be seen either way, but I voted Dave.

Bryan vs Kane, Bryan worked on top everywhere he went, became a top star even when he wasn't supposed to, became the living embodiment of 'Good Wrestling', then turned on the fans and got over as a heel. Kane was a reliable good hand for the upper midcard, who had two heat leech gimmicks and died on his arse in the first one. But Bryan us more important.

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3 hours ago, AxB said:

Well, Rey broke the size barrier for mainstream US Wrestling, which makes him very historically important indeed. Kobashi was always kind of behind Misawa... Kawada was too, and once he was the ace of AJ (after the NOAH split) suddenly they're bringing in Tenryu and giving the company to Muto. Whereas Tanahashi was the ace of NJ when it went from a slump to a boom, which makes him more important. Sorry Toshiaki.

Styles and Show, I'm not sure either is important. Show has had the more high profile career, Styles has had better matches. Show has been in and around main events without ever being top guy in his company, Styles has been the top star in a small promotion that lost money and was on it's deathbed for almost his whole time there. Tie.

Hundreds of people wanted to be the next Shawn Michaels, nobody ever dreamed of being a wrestler like Triple H. Arguably he's more of a negative influence than a positive one, but he is massively influential.

Batista vs Nakamura is apples to oranges. Arguably Nak winning his MMA matches at the height of Inokiism makes him the bigger deal, but ultimately in his NJ run he was an IC level guy, and in WWE he's lower than that. Batista was main event World title. Could be seen either way, but I voted Dave.

Bryan vs Kane, Bryan worked on top everywhere he went, became a top star even when he wasn't supposed to, became the living embodiment of 'Good Wrestling', then turned on the fans and got over as a heel. Kane was a reliable good hand for the upper midcard, who had two heat leech gimmicks and died on his arse in the first one. But Bryan us more important.

In your mind, how much important is "being more known and being a bigger star" in the criteria historical importance?

For example you stated that Bryan is more important than Kane , but for sure Kane is much more known both in US and worldwide https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F01t99n,%2Fm%2F06299b. Bryan unfortunately was never a star like Kane, when he was on top tv ratings and house shows attendances went down, although he was really over with live crowds.

Obiouvsly that depends also on the fact that Kane wrestled on top for longer and was an uppercarder/main eventer during the Attitude era, while Bryan was on top for a short period, less than a year.

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Would a Wrestlemania audience disrupt the whole show because they were upset that Kane didn't win his match? Has a top babyface ever been booed out of the building  for the crime of entering the Royal Rumble at number 30 whilst not being Kane? 

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22 minutes ago, AxB said:

Would a Wrestlemania audience disrupt the whole show because they were upset that Kane didn't win his match? Has a top babyface ever been booed out of the building  for the crime of entering the Royal Rumble at number 30 whilst not being Kane? 

Yes, like I said Bryan was more over than Kane at his peak with crowd,  but that does not mean that he is a bigger star or draw. Kane is objectively more known by people worldwide considering that was on top for longer.  In a sense a comparison can be made between Kofi Kingston and Reigns. Kingston is probably hotter with live crowds, but Reigns is a much bigger star.

 

In my opinion Bryan is more important than Kane, but not because he was a bigger star (he wasn't, although it was not his fault) but because he is much more influential? Do not agree with me? 

Edited by francescofuoco1998
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4 hours ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

In your mind, how much important is "being more known and being a bigger star" in the criteria historical importance?

Honestly, that ties to one problem with some of the cases: "being more known and being a bigger star" does,indeed,play into historical importance.

It's the same problem with the "Only consider HHH/Batista as workers" part of this- you can ignore Batista's movie career (a moot point for Batista anyway, as Shinsuke Nakamura being the first surefire ACE-level guy in Japan who managed to crack United States wrestling makes him incredibly historically important), but HHH's promoting work is one of the most historically important booking runs in wrestling history simply because of how he's overhauled what it meant to be a wrestler and allied the indy style with WWE wrestling. 

For the other ones...

1) Rey Mysterio vs Kenta Kobashi: Rey, and it's honestly possibly an insult to put Kobashi in his league. Kobashi was one of a few important wrestlers in puroresu in the 1990s/2000s.

Rey Mysterio only basically made lucha libre bankable in the United States, was a core guy in lucha libre style influencing the modern indy style. The fact that lucha libre has a big popularity in America is as attributable to Rey as possible. Screw "Kobashi" in the discussion, a better question is 'who's more historically important: Rey Mysterio or El Santo?"...and it might be closer than it sounds.

2) Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Toshiaki Kawada: Tough, but I'm going with Tanahashi since he was the Ace of NJPW, at a time NJPW was able to make inroads worldwide. Kawada being one of many good names to nearly take Japan is a little smaller.

3)AJ Styles vs Big Show: Draw. Big Show seems like he 'should' be important (but ultimately wasn't), and AJ is the same way. 

4)Triple H vs Shawn Michaels: Triple H. Again- HHH's promoting makes him more important historically than Shawn Michaels. Even without it, it'd still likely be HHH without it- Shawn was a very good worker, but the only thing he really brought to the table historically is the "the big PPV is where you go all-out and make it a mission to steal the show here', and even then Savage/Steamboat did it first.

6) Daniel Bryan vs Kane: Daniel Bryan. Kane is one of the best gimmick workers ever, but closer to Big Show than it seems. Daniel Bryan represents an era where the fans have enough power to riot and say to the bookers  "We reject your reality and substitute our own, and we WILL riot and protest your shows until you give us the reality we want if we have to"...in the process making a whole new storytelling nature for wrestling (and all of entertainment), for better or worse. 

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4 hours ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

In my opinion Bryan is more important than Kane, but not because he was a bigger star (he wasn't, although it was not his fault) but because he is much more influential? Do not agree with me? 

I agree Bryan was more influential. I don't agree that Kane was a bigger star. Look at any high profile Kane match, and (generally speaking) he's not the draw in the match. His main selling point is longevity.

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10 hours ago, AxB said:

I agree Bryan was more influential. I don't agree that Kane was a bigger star. Look at any high profile Kane match, and (generally speaking) he's not the draw in the match. His main selling point is longevity.

However do you agree that Kane is more known by people?

 In fact he wrestled for a long period in the biggest promotion worldwide and was on top during periods in which WWE was very popular. While Bryan wrestled on top for less than a year in a period in which wrestling's popularity went down. Anyway that was not Bryan's fault.

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By 'people' do you mean Wrestling fans, or non-Wrestling fans? Because amongst Wrestling Fans, Daniel Bryan is a much bigger deal. People who don't watch wrestling (or used to, but stopped years ago) are more likely to be aware of Kane, yes. But is that not similar to arguing that Miley Cyrus is a bigger deal than Justin Beiber, because people who hate modern pop music despise her less?

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19 minutes ago, AxB said:

By 'people' do you mean Wrestling fans, or non-Wrestling fans? Because amongst Wrestling Fans, Daniel Bryan is a much bigger deal. People who don't watch wrestling (or used to, but stopped years ago) are more likely to be aware of Kane, yes. But is that not similar to arguing that Miley Cyrus is a bigger deal than Justin Beiber, because people who hate modern pop music despise her less?

In particular casual fans. Analyzing google trends appears for example appears to confirm that https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F01t99n,%2Fm%2F06299b

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5 hours ago, francescofuoco1998 said:

In particular casual fans. Analyzing google trends appears for example appears to confirm that https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F01t99n,%2Fm%2F06299b

But that's also a problem. In most cases, how big a star they are matters...UNLESS there's something so important about the latter it makes them far more important. As I said- Batista vs. Nakamura is a good example: Batista may be the second-biggest star to come out of wrestling now...but Nakamura's being the first Ace-level puro star to hit in America makes him far more historically important than Batista.

That's the difference. Kane is the bigger star, but the YES! Movement made Daniel Bryan more historically important than Kane.

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