Tempest's 10 Favourite Wrestlers Of All Time | partsFUNknown
Tempest sure likes this whole wrestling thing, and while his knowledge is expansive, he's attempted to cut his favourites down to just his 10 favourite wrestlers of all time. It was not an easy task.
00:00 - Start
01:35 - Honourary Mention
02:36 - 10
03:56 - 9
05:11 - 8
06:28 - 7
07:41 - 6
08:50 - 5
10:12 - 4
11:26 - 3
13:02 - 2
14:27 - 1
10 Greatest SmackDown Stars Ever - https://youtu.be/bQqopIpS6pc
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Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
Tempest sure likes this whole wrestling thing, and while his knowledge is expansive, he's attempted to cut his favourites down to just his 10 favourite wrestlers of all time. It was not an easy task.
00:00 - Start
01:35 - Honourary Mention
02:36 - 10
03:56 - 9
05:11 - 8
06:28 - 7
07:41 - 6
08:50 - 5
10:12 - 4
11:26 - 3
13:02 - 2
14:27 - 1
10 Greatest SmackDown Stars Ever - https://youtu.be/bQqopIpS6pc
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
Buy wrestling merchandise here: https://www.wrestleshop.com/
Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/
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SportsTranscript
00:00Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to Tempest, happy birthday to me.
00:09I've been doing a few lists recently where I've had to be a real negative Nancy about things.
00:14AEW scandals, WWE censorship, they get them clicks.
00:18But you know what? On the day after my birthday, I'm giving a little gift to myself with today's list.
00:23In honor of Canadian Thanksgiving, aka proper Thanksgiving, because dinner goes before dessert, and Thanksgiving goes before Halloween,
00:32I would like to give thanks for the performers that have made me love this little thing called wrestling that we all dedicate so much time to.
00:39I've never done a list like this before, so this should be great fun for me, and hopefully you as well,
00:44as I attempt to give you a peek into my psyche and what I love most about professional wrestling.
00:49Of course, this is not a list of people who I consider to be the greatest wrestlers of all time.
00:53There may be some crossover there, but this is just my list of personal favorites, and thus this comes with a heavy opinion disclaimer.
01:01I don't expect people to agree with my picks, but feel free to provide your own fave fives in the comments below.
01:06This is the official Tempest Top 10, so let's get into what will undoubtedly be the lowest viewed PFK list to date.
01:12And if it's not, well then you've all given me a great birthday gift too, and I love you all.
01:17I'm Tempest, hailing from partsFUNknown, and these are my 10 favorite wrestlers of all time.
01:22And before we get on with this list, make sure of course that you subscribe and enable notifications so you don't miss any other fun lists just like this one.
01:29If you want to see Adam's updated list of his 10 favorite wrestlers, that's on the channel right now, and we will link to it at the end of the video.
01:35Honorable Mentions. This list could legitimately have 50 people on it, and I would not be able to cover every wrestler that I have a deep appreciation for,
01:43but alas, this is a list of only 10. Obviously I'm going to have personal bias towards the wrestlers that I've spent the most time watching,
01:51but I just wouldn't feel right putting out this list without mentioning these dudes and doodads.
01:55So just missing the cut are Ray Mysterio, Swerve Strickland, Brock Lesnar, CM Punk, Terry Funk, Ricky Steamboat, Lita, AJ Styles,
02:04Randy Savage, Monami Toyota, Walter, Kenny Omega, Hangman Page, Cody Rhodes, Jon Moxley, Christian, Trish Stratus, Miro, Asuka, The Rock,
02:14Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Minoru Suzuki, Jushin Thunderliger, and Shawn Michaels.
02:20Just missed it. They all just, just missed it. All of them could have been on this top 10 list.
02:25And maybe there will one day be a Tempest Top 50, at which point you can bet they'd all be on it.
02:30I'm also positive I've forgotten a bunch more, but I can't think too hard about it or I'll be here all day.
02:38There was a sizable chunk of my life in which I considered Stone Cold Steve Austin to be the best wrestler of all time.
02:44And even today, I would not at all consider that a hot take.
02:48My first exposure to the Texas Rattlesnake was honestly the preview of the Legacy of Steve Austin DVD in 2008.
02:54And instantly, my 11-year-old eyes got it. They got all of what Steve Austin was and why he was great, and I was immediately drawn to him because of it.
03:03I then bought that DVD and saw the glory that was Steve Austin vs. The Rock at WrestleMania X-7,
03:09which was the first time I remember thinking that I had seen a perfect wrestling match.
03:14Steve Austin was an easy wrestler to fall in love with, as any of his iconic Attitude Era moments could be watched out of context and appreciated just as much as when they aired.
03:23A man driving a Zamboni into the ring appealed to my specifically Canadian tastes, of course,
03:27and as I got older and my tastes in wrestling became more defined, I came to appreciate more and more of Austin's game.
03:33From his incredible promos in ECW to his top-notch in-ring work that often gets overlooked because he became better known as a brawler than a technician,
03:41but whether it be a WrestleMania classic with someone who might feature on this list later, or a WCW match with Ricky Steamboat,
03:48Steve Austin was one of the best and smartest performers of his generation, and when you work smart, your work tends to stand the test of time.
03:59It would be hard to find any wrestling fan that isn't a fan of Eddie Guerrero, and I certainly would not be the exception to that rule.
04:04I didn't get the chance to watch Eddie Guerrero while he was with us, but I have no doubt that he would have been my favorite wrestler of the time.
04:11Having watched much of his career at this point, from AAA to ECW, WCW and WWE, it is truly incredible to see how much his career evolved while still remaining so incredibly great.
04:21Before his car wreck and other injuries slowed him down, Eddie was one of the most explosive and dynamic wrestlers ever.
04:27His matches with Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio were the type of matches that would have had me glued to the TV in the 90s had I been capable of watching,
04:36and they also hold up better than most matches of that era.
04:39That's going to be a common theme here for me. So much stuff from the 90s and earlier absolutely does not hold up, but the stuff that does is a true mark of greatness in my eyes.
04:50Even after his in-ring work changed, he was still one of the best in the world while developing the charisma and personality that made me and most other fans fall in love with him.
04:59Latino Heat, Lying, Cheating and Stealing, his WWE title run, his run with Chyna, these all made Eddie larger than life and one of the wrestlers I am the saddest to have never gotten to experience watching in person.
05:14There is probably no one man more responsible for me continuing to watch WWE in the 2010s than Bryan Danielson.
05:21I realize I could say anything in these videos and there wouldn't be anything I could do to make you all believe me,
05:26but I swear on New Japan itself that when Bryan returned at Summerslam 2010 and tapped out Darren Young in minutes, my 13-year-old self turned to my dad and said,
05:35That's the next guy.
05:37I certainly didn't have to be right considering WWE's efforts to the contrary, but I will gladly put this in the Tempest Was Right column because my love for Bryan Danielson and his work knows no bounds.
05:48One of my favorite things to experience with a wrestler is learning of them and then getting to watch an entire back catalogue of their work,
05:54and when Teenage Tempest was expanding his horizons to the rest of the wrestling world, there were two people who served as my gateway drugs.
06:01One of which will be talked about later and the other was Bryan Danielson for Ring of Honor.
06:06When done at its highest level, wrestling in my mind is the greatest form of performance art in the world,
06:12and by extension, when I watch Bryan work, I see an artist who has perfected his craft.
06:17His work in WWE and AEW continue to make me love him, but his run as ROH World Champion is truly his magnum opus in my eyes.
06:25Pure wrestling art.
06:297. Kazuchika Okada
06:31The way I feel having watched Bryan Danielson's ROH World Championship run after the fact is how I felt amplified by 10 while watching Kazuchika Okada's two-year run as IWGP Heavyweight Champion as it happened.
06:43When I started getting into Japanese pro wrestling in 2015, I was completely unfamiliar with Okada and his story.
06:49However, it took watching precisely one match of his to understand just how special a performer he was.
06:55He buys expensive cars and dresses fancy because he wants to represent what a wrestling champion should be, and I respect that level of dedication.
07:03Okada's title run is the quintessential example of the story of the champion taking on all comers, being worn down with each new challenge, but never quitting.
07:12This is the single best title reign of all time.
07:16Hands down, it had everything. Multiple long-term stories, a wide range of opponents, consistently excellent matches, a perfect ending, and the perfect wrestler to carry it out.
07:27If there was any doubt that Okada was the ace of New Japan after his career-defining rivalry with Hiroshi Tanahashi, which I also consider the best wrestling rivalry of all time, this reign put those reservations to bed with a swift reign maker.
07:416. Jeff Hardy
07:43When my best friend started introducing me to wrestling in January of 2008, her favorite wrestler in the world was Jeff Hardy.
07:50So when I watched my first wrestling show ever, I didn't see him because I watched SmackDown.
07:54But then I watched Raw three days later, and I was watching for one man.
07:58Jeff Hardy was the kind of charismatic wrestler that appealed to my 11-year-old self.
08:02At the time, I genuinely thought he was the coolest man on Earth.
08:06Had Jeff Hardy not had his year-long chase for the WWE Championship in 2008, I may not have gotten invested enough in wrestling to keep coming back.
08:14His WWE Championship win at Armageddon 2008 was the defining moment of my first year watching wrestling, and it remains my biggest feel-good wrestling match.
08:23If I'm down and need a boost, this is the match I watch.
08:26Everyone else on this list is included largely because of their incredible in-ring talent, among other things, of course.
08:32But Jeff Hardy is on this list because of the vibes.
08:35That's not to say I think he's a bad wrestler, because he's certainly had his good matches for sure.
08:40But for me, this one isn't about the matches.
08:43This is because Jeff was the man who made me a fan.
08:46I thank him for that, and I wish him nothing but the best.
08:505. Kurt Angle
08:52Last year when I was writing features for WrestleTalk.com, I made lists of the best WWE pay-per-view matches of each calendar year since the turn of the millennium.
09:00This was just meant to be a fun exercise to get some quick content, but what it became was the slow realization that Kurt Angle is in fact the goddamn f***ing best,
09:09with half of the entries on every list coming courtesy of the big red, white, and blue machine.
09:13I already knew he was great, don't get me wrong.
09:16But having not watched WWE week to week during Angle's time with the company, I didn't quite grasp just how wide the gap was between Kurt and basically everyone else.
09:26Watching every one of Kurt's best pay-per-view matches sounds like a perfect way to spend any Friday night,
09:31but getting to sit back and watch Kurt vs. Benoit, Kurt vs. Rock, Kurt vs. Austin, Kurt vs. Edge, Kurt vs. Rey, Kurt vs. Brock, Kurt vs. Shawn, Kurt vs. Eddie, Kurt vs. Undertaker,
09:43was a transcendent experience watching maybe the most natural pro wrestler of all time.
09:48How this man was able to become one of the best wrestlers on the planet in about 14 months is a mystery to me,
09:55but it is one of the most remarkable feats I have ever seen in pro wrestling.
09:59He's also f***ing hilarious and one of the best examples of a 5-2-a-player wrestling has ever seen.
10:04That picture of him in a cowboy hat is my favorite image in wrestling history.
10:08I laugh every time it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
10:14It is unfathomable that a man so nice could be so twisted in front of the camera.
10:19In a world where people's favorite Attitude Era stars were one of Steve Austin or The Rock usually, mine has always been Mick Foley.
10:26You wouldn't necessarily think that a man who became famous for working the death match, big bump style,
10:31would also be one of the greatest wrestling minds in the history of the business, but that is Mick Foley.
10:37From his legendary ECW promos that I still consider my favorite promos ever cut,
10:42to his extremely thoughtful matches that served to elevate all those who stepped in the ring with him,
10:47Foley is one of the greatest all-around performers I have ever seen.
10:51His match with Shawn Michaels at Mind Game stands as a shining example of the level of thoughtful storytelling that made Mick's matches so special.
10:58Mick obviously had to overcome a lot of hurdles in his career because of his size, but he did so by being undeniable.
11:04If you needed him to be a hardcore legend, he would do it better than anyone in the world.
11:08If you needed him to be a tormented soul, he could be one of the best character actors in WWE history.
11:14If you wanted him to do comedy, he was funny.
11:16If you wanted him to cut a money promo, he was one of the best talkers in the business.
11:20And if you wanted him to offer you some advice as a young wrestling media person, he was the best at that too.
11:28They didn't call him the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be for no reason.
11:32Aside from the fact that Bret Hart is a Canadian hero and genuinely seems like a swell fellow,
11:37I mean, have you seen that video of Bret hitting a beer pong shot at his son's party?
11:50That man has all the sauce.
11:52Bret Hart prided his matches on being extremely well thought out, and thoughtful is a word that I have already used in this list,
11:58but it really illustrates what I love most about pro wrestling.
12:02Watching matches and analyzing them.
12:04Being taken on a journey and not knowing where we're going to go next.
12:07Expecting a right, but being given a left.
12:10While reviewing Smackdown during the down years,
12:12a lot of people would try and tell me to just turn my brain off and enjoy the schlock I was watching,
12:17but that's just not what I like.
12:19I love being able to think about what I'm watching,
12:22and Bret Hart's matches were the best example of that for their day.
12:25Bret's work holds up better than any main event star of his era.
12:28At one point, I went back and watched every WWE pay-per-view from WrestleMania 1 to WrestleMania 10.
12:33Not something I would recommend, because hot damn do those shows not retain their magic,
12:37but the one constant on every show that featured him was a great Bret Hart performance.
12:42He stuck out like a sore thumb.
12:44A beacon of the next generation of wrestling among a sea of giants and cartoons.
12:48And while his character may not have been his greatest strength,
12:51despite being able to cut a hilarious promo or two,
12:53El Dandy and Bill Goldberg spring to mind,
12:56as Adam Cole said,
13:05Bryan Danielson was one gateway drug, now here's the other.
13:08If you asked me to name the actual best wrestler of all time,
13:11on any given day, I would probably tell you either Bret Hart or Hiroshi Tanahashi.
13:16Before I knew anything about Japanese pro wrestling,
13:19I knew about Hiroshi Tanahashi.
13:21The first Japanese match I ever saw was Tana's match with Minoru Suzuki
13:25at King of Pro Wrestling 2012, and I was mesmerized.
13:28New Japan wasn't the most accessible thing in the world at the time,
13:31so it would take a few more years for me to properly find my way to the utopia
13:35that was New Japan World in the 2010s.
13:37But from the jump, I knew what I was seeing from the man
13:40with the greatest hair in wrestling history was legendary.
13:43Truly a once-in-a-century talent,
13:46Hiroshi Tanahashi has the body of work and the track record
13:49to back up any claims of his greatness.
13:51He rescued New Japan from the jaws of bankruptcy,
13:53sacrificing his own body time and time again for the sake of the company,
13:57while putting on more great matches than anyone else in the world for his time.
14:01He is an infallible babyface, a beloved hero,
14:04one of the most charismatic showmen ever to step in a ring,
14:08and the greatest big match performer in wrestling history.
14:12There is nothing this man could not do in the ring,
14:14and while Kazuchika Okada's best matches may have been better than Tanahashi's best matches,
14:19although many of those were had together,
14:21Tanahashi has always formed a much greater and stronger connection with his audience,
14:26myself included.
14:28And number one, Edge.
14:30While the legs of Jeff Hardy and Rey Mysterio were the ones that got me hooked on wrestling in 2008,
14:35what I came to find is that the man that captivated me the most during my formative years
14:40was the hometown boy and Rated-R superstar himself, Edge.
14:44It wasn't until Edge tore his Achilles and was gone for months on end
14:47that I realized what a void his absence left in WWE and my fandom at the time.
14:52Edge is one of the best all-around performers WWE has ever had.
14:56He cuts great promos, he has highly thoughtful matches,
15:00he has been able to do angles better than almost anyone,
15:03but my god, could he be one of the most effective heels in the business
15:07when he was finally given a chance.
15:09The Ultimate Opportunist character infuriated me as a kid,
15:12but it's the kind of heat that I love going back and watching now.
15:15His Money in the Bank cash-ins, his Double Elimination Chamber performance in 2009,
15:20stealing wins in 2009 at the Royal Rumble, Backlash and Judgment Day,
15:24Edge is the heel wrestler I connected with the most during the peak of my fandom
15:28and maybe I just like him evil, but that was my guy.
15:31Some kids idolize a baseball player from their hometown growing up,
15:35I idolized a wrestler from my hometown.
15:37I cried when he retired, I cried when he came back.
15:40His return was what inspired me to try this wrestling thing myself,
15:43even if only briefly, and I owe my fandom to him.
15:46Cheers, my dude. Much appreciated.
15:49And that's my list. Thank you, of course, for sitting through it
15:52and if you'd like to continue this conversation,
15:54please go over to the new WrestleTalk Twitter and Facebook accounts
15:57that will be linked in the description below.
15:59You can follow us on Twitter, underscore WrestleTalk
16:02and it'll be our new Twitter to advance conversations
16:05and give a little bit more personality than just the news.
16:08Until then, I've been Tempest, yesterday was my birthday,
16:11and I'll be signing off, thanking you all and bidding you a good night.