Who are the most influential Wrestlers of all-time?

[Guest John Hancock]

Eh, I mean, who did he really have much influence on outside of Japan?

[Guest Ciaran The King]

I'd say quite a few

[Maxximus 353]

How about Stan Hansen? Damn near everyone who put on a cowboy hat tried to emulate him in some way.

[Guest Ciaran The King]

The wrestling god emulated Hansen

[Omega 354]

Billy Graham? Sure he's got to have influenced a lot of heel champs.

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

Not to mention that Hogan fella.

[Guest Ciaran The King]

Never

[DC 536]

Billy Graham? Sure he's got to have influenced a lot of heel champs.

I'd say Billy Graham influenced a lot of the musclebound wrestlers (Hogan, Ventura and Steiner specifically), but then Gorgeous George influenced many in wrestling as well as influencing Muhammad Ali too.

[Omega 354]

Didn't Ali say on TV that Freddie Blassie was the guy who inspired his promo style?

[Guest Ciaran The King]

Gorgeous George was one of a kind

[Dead Crow 370]

Don't forget the black wrestlers too. Junkyard Dog and Ernie Ladd were a huge part of more black wrestlers getting into pro wrestling and being taken seriously.

[Guest Jimmy Redman]

You can even go back further, names like Beercat Wright, Bobo Brazil and Thunderbolt Patterson, who I think was the guy who worked against discrimination and tried to unionise.

[Guest John Hancock]

I have a feeeeeeling that Bobo Brazil vs. I think The Sheik is the feud that's often cited as America's first ever mega-successful feud between two non-white wrestlers.

[Omega 354]

Bobo Brazil definitely deserves credit for helping black wrestlers break into the top of the business.

[Guest Ciaran The King]

Going back to the early days of wrestling as in entertainment were blacks deterred from getting into the biz?

[Omega 354]

I'm no historian but prevailing trends would suggest a lot of white guys wouldn't want to be jobbing to a black probably up until the civil rights movement really kick started up in the 60's. There were probably guys before that but I'd be surprised if any had any real success.

[Guest John Hancock]

The white guys also always won partly to avoid violence. Country fair hicks had a habit of rioting whenever the black guys won. Bobo Brazil was really the first black wrestler to get over as a babyface with a white crowd, and that was late 50s / early 60s.

[Dead Crow 370]

There's another guy who can go on this list, by the way: The Original Sheik. Had a huge influence on hardcore wrestling and was a key figure for people like Sabu, RVD, Bobby Heenan and Jerry Lawler.

[Omega 354]

I think we already did?

 

EDIT: Could have sworn we did but I can;t find it now, so yes. The Original Sheik for definite makes the "list".

Edited September 4, 2013 by Omega

[Paul 584]

Surely the Sheik was influential

 

[video=youtube;E2GoQJip2lk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=E2GoQJip2lk

 

This post?