1989

[Grimmas]

Who is the greatest wrestler of the year?

[Tetsujin]

Flair. I mean c'mon.

[Boss Rock]

Flair is the obvious, boring answer. Jumbo and Tenryu come extremely close though.

[EnviousStupid]

Jumbo and Tenryu have more great tags with different partners spread across the year to build their cases. I would edge Tenryu just ahead if I had to pick between them though. Him teaming with Hansen may've been short-lived, but it lived up to the kind of quality you'd hope from a legitimate superteam at the time. 

EDIT: Just to clarify, Flair is still WOTY. It's just that 1989 was a highly competitive year with great wrestling across many different promotions.

[Microstatistics]

Majority will probably go Flair and that's a fair enough pick but this was an intensely competitive year. Fujiwara, Satanico, Tenryu had top-tier years as well.

[ohtani's jacket]

El Dandy is another guy who deserves consideration for '89. I'm pretty sure Fujiwara didn't jump to UWF until halfway through the year. 

[elliott]

Tenryu

Runner Up - Jumbo 

I go with these two but its one of the deepest years ever so if you stick with Flair or go with someone else,  everyone is right. 

[Mr JMML]

It's Ric Flair, there's many wrestlers with great years in 1989 but The Nature Boy was in another level.

[cad]

Mexico list:

1. Emilio Charles Jr.
2. El Dandy
3. Pirata Morgan
Honorable mention: Atlantis, Satanico

1989 is the first year that we have weekly(ish) TV for from Mexico. It's only CMLL, and it's not complete, but it's enough to try a top three. Charles and Dandy are hard to separate because so much of their best work this year came against each other. Dandy probably has the slight edge in top matches, but I just like Emilio's performances more. Pirata had memorable performances on his own, as captain of his own team and partnered with random rudos. 1989 might be the best year we have from him. You could maybe say the same about Atlantis, at least in terms of week to week output, but he just doesn't have a bigtime match to cement his spot. Satanico has the opposite problem, with the Chicana match and the match where he teamed with Dandy, and then not a whole lot beyond that. With him we are missing several televised big matches (vs Dandy, vs Lizmark, vs Blondy) so luck might have jobbed him a little bit. Or helped him.

I think if you were trying to make a case for any of these guys as best in the world, it would be easiest to do it with Dandy, as he has such a strong resume. I don't think that Flair or whoever was operating far beyond what Charles was doing from show to show, though.

For record's sake, these are my top ten matches for 1989 Mexico/CMLL:

Spoiler

1. MS-1, Emilio Charles Jr. and Tierra Viento y Fuego vs Dandy, Mascara Sagrada and Atlantis
2. Brazo de Oro, Brazo de Plata and El Brazo vs Pirata Morgan, Hombre Bala and Verdugo (November 10)
3. El Dandy vs Emilio Charles Jr. (July 28)
4. Satanico and Dandy vs MS-1 and Masakre
5. Atlantis, El Faraon and Super Astro vs Fuerza Guerrera, Blue Panther and Emilio Charles Jr.
6. Satanico vs Sangre Chicana
7. Pirata Morgan, Pierroth Jr. and Emilio Charles Jr. vs Atlantis, Blue Demon Jr. and Huracan Ramirez (Sevilla)
8. Jaque Mate, Hijo del Gladiador and Tierra Viento y Fuego vs Ulises, Pierroth Jr. and Supremo (April 21)
9. Javier Cruz vs Hombre Bala
10. Atlantis and Angel Azteca vs Dandy and Texano

[Mr JMML]

Emilio Charles Jr was the best worker in Mexico, I love his match against El Dandy 7/28.

[Control21]

Akira Maeda is in contention here. Ric Flair probably runs away with it but Maeda had a strong 1989.

[cad]

9 hours ago, Mr JMML said:

Emilio Charles Jr was the best worker in Mexico, I love his match against El Dandy 7/28.

One thing I've come to appreciate about that match. You see two great workers in a hair vs hair match, and you hate to see it bogged down with ref interference, but the Gran Davis spots in this one were excellent. For one, it seems like he just has a bug up his ass about the closed fist, and Charles is the one exploiting it (you can see him working Davis like a basketball player at one point), before Dandy finds a way to come back without punching. It's about the wrestlers as much as it is about the ref. And a draw would normally be a flat finish, but here they actually have the fans riled up about it (one fan tries to hold Dandy back from getting his hair cut, and another one is shouting, "Eres un pendejo, Davis," over and over). To get the feel of it as an injustice brought on by an officious referee, you need to establish him as such beforehand, which they did in the first fall.