Greatest Rookie Year Ever

[joeg]

The discussion a week back in the Observer HOF about Kobashi's rookie year inspired me to start this thread. What wrestler had the greatest rookie year ever? Who are some wrestlers that were just a natural from the get go? Who had a bad rookie year but eventually ended up being a decent worker? What wrestlers looked awful in their first year but ended up having great careers later?

I'll start off with a few names that I think are no brainers-  

Jerry Lawler, won his first title 16 months in and by the end of his third year was the top heel in the territory. 

Jun Akiyama, more crisp and smooth that most 10 year vets in his debut match and only got better from there.

Daniel Bryan same as Akiyama. A natural from his first recorded matches in TWA in the late summer of 99. A year and a half later he looked like one of the best workers in the world. 

 

[El-P]

Mika Akino (then AKINO) in ARSION.  Very first match, she already looked like a legit very good worker. 

The usual suspects : Owen Hart, Kurt Angle.

Also obviously, Ronda Rousey. Yes, she worked in a super controlled environment, but you can't hold that against her.

[Dale Wolfe]

In terms of impact in a competitive environment it has to be Kurt Angle, very little like him in that regard. Probably a case of right place & right time but had everything there seemingly straight away. 

Hard to judge in relative terms but if you look at this Regal match from 86 and consider he's 18 at the time? That's pretty crazy to me. I know it's hard to look bad against/alongside Marty but two years in the ring and working like this? Pretty special I think. 

Probably more ability than "impact" though 

 

[Dale Wolfe]

Akiyama is a great shout 

[Robert S]

The Rock one year in was in the WWF midcard, two years in on the verge of becoming a main eventer, three years in the number two guy in the business and a year later the man. Brock Lesnar's ascend was comparable (though with a lower peak).

Regarding Rousey: there are a bunch of people coming from MMA (or similar combat sports), that were great from the get-go, Volk Han the first name that comes to mind. Apparently Kevin Randleman also was a natural (though I have never seen him in ZERO-ONE or Hustle later on). Bas Rutten did a 30 minute-long mat wrestling match in his 8th pro wrestling match.

[The Thread Killer]

Good question and a great idea for a thread to stimulate discussion.

Question for those who would know...

Was Jumbo Tsuruta considered a star and a good worker as soon as he debuted? I know Baba sent him to train with the Funks in the States before making him a star in AJPW, but I don’t know if he was considered a rookie phenom or if he slowly worked his way up?

[NintendoLogic]

19 minutes ago, The Thread Killer said:

Good question and a great idea for a thread to stimulate discussion.

Question for those who would know...

Was Jumbo Tsuruta considered a star and a good worker as soon as he debuted? I know Baba sent him to train with the Funks in the States before making him a star in AJPW, but I don’t know if he was considered a rookie phenom or if he slowly worked his way up?

He was a main event-level star pretty much from day one. He challenged Dory Jr. for the NWA heavyweight championship less than two months after his in-ring debut. Less than five months later, in his third match after returning to Japan, he and Baba held the Funks to a time-limit draw in a tag title match.

[Ricky Jackson]

Yeah, Jumbo was hyped like a first overall stud draft pick, to use a modern North American analogy. He was an Olympian and I think his debut got mainstream hype.

Bruno Sammartino was working 2nd from the top at MSG underneath only megastar Argentina Rocca less than 3 months after his debut in Oct 59, and then main events tagging with Rocca by the summer of 1960

[joeg]

Jumbo is a good answer. Wrestled in the 72 Olympics, made his debut in the winter of 72, went on excursion to the Amarillo territory in spring of 73 came back fall of 73 and was tagging with Baba immediately upon his return and was regularly working broadways against the Funks and Briscoes in tags and singles by January/February of 74. 

[The Thread Killer]

2 hours ago, joeg said:

Jumbo is a good answer.

As soon as I saw this topic, Jumbo was the first name that came to my mind, pretty much instantly.  But after thinking about it for a moment, I realized that I didn’t have anywhere near enough knowledge to make that statement definitively.

I am a huge fan of his, and I think I have seen pretty much every match he had from 1990 onward, but I am woefully under read when it comes to his early career. I still need to see the match with he and Baba vs. The Funks from 73, (and 75 for that matter) his shot at Brisco and the Title in 74, or his match with Dory in 74. Plus didn’t he have a couple of highly regarded matches with Billy Robinson at some point early in his career? I seem to remember hearing something about that but if so I’ve not seen them.

I’ve seen his World Title shot against Terry in 76, but I have a huge gap in my Jumbo viewing up until the late 80’s when he was regularly teaming with and then going against Tenryu. I also remember a match with Kerry Von Erich I really loved when I saw it. Later career Jumbo has always been my favourite Jumbo, so as much as I suspected he was a good answer to this question, I didn’t feel confident giving it.

 

 

[ohtani's jacket]

I was really impressed with Takehiro Murahama when I went through the 2000 footage. 

[Rah]

I always think of Tamura as someone great out the gate but I might be out of sync with others on that.

 

As for the inverse, Cesaro was someone who was so frustratingly middling when he debuted in the US/rose through the indies. He only really started putting things together in about 2009 and hit his stride in 2011. That's 6 years of meandering.

[ButchReedMark]

If it Greatest as being relative to their development, or lack of it, Bam Bam Bigelow has to be up there doesn't he? I don't think he ever came near that first year stuff, especially in Mempho, and coasted on it for an entire career. 

[joeg]

12 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

As soon as I saw this topic, Jumbo was the first name that came to my mind, pretty much instantly.  But after thinking about it for a moment, I realized that I didn’t have anywhere near enough knowledge to make that statement definitively.

I am a huge fan of his, and I think I have seen pretty much every match he had from 1990 onward, but I am woefully under read when it comes to his early career. I still need to see the match with he and Baba vs. The Funks from 73, (and 75 for that matter) his shot at Brisco and the Title in 74, or his match with Dory in 74. Plus didn’t he have a couple of highly regarded matches with Billy Robinson at some point early in his career? I seem to remember hearing something about that but if so I’ve not seen them.

I’ve seen his World Title shot against Terry in 76, but I have a huge gap in my Jumbo viewing up until the late 80’s when he was regularly teaming with and then going against Tenryu. I also remember a match with Kerry Von Erich I really loved when I saw it. Later career Jumbo has always been my favourite Jumbo, so as much as I suspected he was a good answer to this question, I didn’t feel confident giving it.

 

 

Back like 10 years ago puroresu.tv did a Best of Japan in the 70s project I was lucky enough to participate in, I think either Gordi or Matt D was the one that hooked me up. Anyways through that I saw a lot of Jumbo's early work from 73 and 74 and it is nothing short of fucking awesome. 

[joeg]

1 hour ago, Rah said:

I always think of Tamura as someone great out the gate but I might be out of sync with others on that.

 

As for the inverse, Cesaro was someone who was so frustratingly middling when he debuted in the US/rose through the indies. He only really started putting things together in about 2009 and hit his stride in 2011. That's 6 years of meandering.

Agreed on both accounts... I saw Cesaro multiple times in person on the indies in the 2000s. You could see the potential because of the prototypical size and the look, but he was so clumsy and sloppy. And his timing was terrible. Plus his strikes (especially that European uppercut) looked like dogshit. 

[Rah]

2 hours ago, joeg said:

Back like 10 years ago puroresu.tv did a Best of Japan in the 70s project I was lucky enough to participate in, I think either Gordi or Matt D was the one that hooked me up. Anyways through that I saw a lot of Jumbo's early work from 73 and 74 and it is nothing short of fucking awesome. 

I wonder if that project is still available via Wayback Machine? It was a fantastic resource and pointed me to Funk/Jumbo  1976 which is my favourite match ever.

[Robert S]

11 hours ago, joeg said:

Agreed on both accounts... I saw Cesaro multiple times in person on the indies in the 2000s. You could see the potential because of the prototypical size and the look, but he was so clumsy and sloppy. And his timing was terrible. Plus his strikes (especially that European uppercut) looked like dogshit. 

I saw Cesaro about half a year after his debut, and you could see something in him already back then (considering the people on the same card as him), at least that he was serious about it and not just playing wrestler (like almost all of other guys of the Swiss scene back then). Considering who he had to work and train with until he left for the US (besides the occasional weekend camps with US guys visiting like Hero or Quack), it's not surprising at all, that it took him some time to get going. The German (and Swiss) scene in the early 2000s started out as a mix of backyarders and guys playing wrestler a couple of times a year. It took time for the scene to get to a level, to be able to produce talent who could hold up with the better US indy guys. People like Walter (who I guess benefited from quite early getting linked to the post-catch Austrian scene that had some more experienced and polished wrestlers to learn from) or Marcel Barthel are "2nd generation" Euro indy guys.

If you want to see something really funny, check out his debut match (which is out there, it's on the first ever wXw show). Ignoring that you can barely recognize him, if someone told you, that this guy 15 years later was one of the best workers in the biggest company in the world, you would laugh and laugh and laugh.

[Al]

Lex Luger is a topic of discussion in another thread. He was a top star in Florida literally weeks into his career. 

[NintendoLogic]

Tenryu has to be the ultimate example of a late bloomer. He was pretty actively bad for like the first decade of his career. Then he started working with Choshu and the light bulb seemingly just came on.

[Mad Dog]

Just tossing a different name in here. I have always thought Josh Barnett is really good considering how few matches he's actually had. And he was good right away. I remember that IWGP Title match with Nagata being really good at the time.

[joeg]

7 hours ago, Al said:

Lex Luger is a topic of discussion in another thread. He was a top star in Florida literally weeks into his career. 

Did Luger starting out on top in Florida have more to do with his work in the ring or more to do with his look and the fact that he was a local football star that played at the U then played for the local USFL and NFL teams? 

[Mad Dog]

I think being a local athlete with a good look and the talent pool being generally depleted is why he got pushed to the top so quickly.

[Phil Schneider]

There are a fair number of Shooter who were really good almost immediately, obviously Volk Han but Bas Rutten ruled in his handful of wrestling matches, Ronda and Shayna Bayzler were great pretty much out the gate, all the earliest footage we have of the BattlArts guys in PWFG was very good. U-Style guys, Kazunari Murakami etc.

[Tim Cooke]

Ronda would be my pick, especially since she did it in a horrible WWE environment and pulled good to great matches out of average to slightly above average wrestlers.

[The Thread Killer]

That’s not a bad pick. I can’t think of anybody else who can honestly claim that their very first professional match ended up being the best match on the show, never mind at Wrestlemania.