Thrifty

Chris Pronger would’ve made an amazing wrestling prospect. 6’6” great handsome athlete who loved to be physical and could talk off the fly? He might’ve saved WCW if someone in Canada got to him early enough.

Surprised Hollywood never made a bigger effort to try and make Sycho Sid a movie star, he's still one of the most compelling screen presences I've ever seen.

RIP to him. Also should be recognized for his Metalicos run.

Music from every decade is good *cups ear to hear the boos*. But I never really liked Come Out and Play as a theme for Raven. Don't mind the song but Raven's theme was better in every other promotion he was in.

I would view it as Bret as the better "wrestler" but Cena having the better career and longer highlight reel. Don't begrudge anyone for preferring Bret even if his actual career feels more like a "could've been". It's like how, in hip-hop, Biggie is generally picked over Jay-Z by consensus even with a huge disparity in output between the two. Personally I tend to be more drawn to the wrestlers who peak really highly even if they burn out quickly or lose the spark than the "consistently very good but never outlier great" wrestlers (not that Cena counts as the latter, his peak is awesome and understandable if it was preferred to Bret's).

Someone was gonna likely mention Ishii within the first 5 posts so I decided to leave it to whoever will feel obliged

I'd nominate for consideration: - Toru Yano: perfect for injecting a tournament with a change of tone, pace, and potential spoiler energy; you know he will never win enough to actually win a tournament (at least on his own) but you also know he's perfectly capable of stealing a win from anyone and ruining expectations; also gets bonus for being able to work vs both faces and heels - WALTER: was great relatively in using 16 Carat to first establish himself as wXw's Guy and then subsequently establishing himself as the main tournament hurdle to overcome for up-and-comers; bonus for memorable Tag Team League showings and for doing well in the shoot-style AMBITION tournaments too - Eddie Kingston: most famous example being 12 Large but not the only one, Kingston's ability to work a "gravitas" match and also work a no frills slugfest at whim is perfect for tournament wrestling; also his perception of being someone who can lose regularly while still maintaining his aura and spectator interest helps a lot when booking tournaments - Nick Gage: hard to find wrestlers who have consistently gotten folks to root for them to win tournaments as often as Gage has in his career

I think the counter to the Jeff Hardy comparison is, at least more consistently, Jeff has been a wrestler that compels rooting for him in his matches and feuds while Darby usually feels like someone who you wonder if his controlled recklessness will eek him out a rare victory this time. Not necessarily a bad thing for Darby to not quite have Jeff's uniquely sympathetic aura but I do think that aura is a big reason why I wouldn't say Darby = Jeff upgraded.