Most Outstanding Wrestler

[Loss]

There are probably two dozen wrestlers that have a case here. I'll chime in, but let me throw this out to everyone for discussion.

 

Who was the most outstanding wrestler of 1996? Keep in mind that this is just focused on in-ring work with no other factors.

 

Rey Misterio Jr won in the WON poll. He definitely has a case, but he's not who I would pick.

[El-P]

In US only because I can't really judge Japan or Mexico, 2 Cold Scorpio or Chris Benoit, easily.

[Phil Austin]

Clearly Benoit was amazing, but to me the guy I really 'discovered' in the 1996 set was Genichiro Tenryu. I thought he was good before, but his matches with Takada really opened my eyes to just how awesome he was! Maybe not the MVP of the set, but to me he was the MAN on this set.

 

Also, another guy who made an impression was Yakushiji. Such an enjoyable guy to watch.

[MJH]

If we're talking the US then I'd have to go with Benoit. But on a worldwide scale the AJ Big Three were still on their own level. If we're talking who of the three had the best average match quality, I'd say Misawa. 3/31 with Kobashi is the best men's heavyweight singles match. RWTL Final is, obviously, the MOTY. The 6/7 tag is my #2 tag and then the other various Misawa/Akiyama vs. Kawada/Taue matches are all up there too.

[Loss]

I could have looked at this list and moved people around forever, but at some point, I decided to post it. A few months from now, I may look at this and cringe, or I may look at this and think I nailed it, but here are my top 50 wrestlers of 1996, as it see it at this moment and after pondering this for a little while.

 

Ranking wrestlers is waaay harder (and something I honestly prefer way less) than ranking matches, because you're looking less at the sum of the parts and more at the whole.

 

Honorable mentions (in order) are W*ING Kanemura (#51), Yoshihiro Takayama (#52), Masato Tanaka (#53), Bret Hart (#54) and Masa Chono (#55).

 

#50 - Great Sasuke

#49 - Aja Kong

#48 - Combat Toyoda

#47 - Johnny Ace

#46 - Yuki Ishikawa

#45 - Steven Regal

#44 - Yoji Anjo

#43 - Steve Austin

#42 - Manami Toyota

#41 - Takeshi Ono

#40 - Riki Choshu

#39 - Keiji Muto

#38 - Dynamite Kansai

#37 - Mankind

#36 - Masahito Kakihara

#35 - Dick Togo

#34 - Kazuo Yamazaki

#33 - Daisuke Ikeda

#32 - Felino

#31 - Shawn Michaels

#30 - Kyoko Inoue

#29 - Masato Yakushiji

#28 - Juventud Guerrera

#27 - El Samurai

#26 - Owen Hart

#25 - Mayumi Ozaki

#24 - Dean Malenko

#23 - Shiro Koshinaka

#22 - Nobuhiko Takada

#21 - Steve Williams

#20 - Rey Misterio Jr.

#19 - Taka Michinoku

#18 - Shinya Hashimoto

#17 - Volk Han

#16 - Eddy Guerrero

#15 - 2 Cold Scorpio

#14 - Ultimo Dragon

#13 - Negro Casas

#12 - Genichiro Tenryu

#11 - Akira Taue

#10 - El Hijo del Santo

#9 - Psicosis

#8 - Kenta Kobashi

#7 - Jushin Liger

#6 - Chris Benoit

#5 - Jun Akiyama

#4 - Mitsuharu Misawa

#3 - Shinjiro Otani

#2 - El Dandy

#1 - Toshiaki Kawada