Wrestlers out of time

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

Short and sweet: How much weight are you giving to professional wrestlers who wrestle a style out of touch with their era?

There are plenty of examples, but I'll use two specific ones:

1. FTR

Very clearly, Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler wrestle a throwback style, and owe an incredible debt to the 1980s JCP-era tag team wrestling. Although they are good wrestlers in their own right and have added various things to the formula, they essentially would not have an act without that foundation. It is buoyed by the fact that no one wrestles like this anymore. Does this hurt or harm their case? Would they have been as successful in a different era, and do you hold this against them?

2. Joshi

Just choose a name out of a hat. There are countless women who were doing things in AJW in 1985 that male wrestlers still wouldn't be able to do 20 years later. How much weight do you give wrestlers for pushing the boundaries of what professional wrestling was? Would those same wrestlers have been able to work that style and been A successful if they instead had to run shows in say Kansas City for Central States Wrestling?

There are wrestlers that seem like they stepped out of a time machine, whether forwards or backwards. Perhaps one day we will speak of Will Ospreay or Logan Paul the same way. Or perhaps in 2040 a wrestler will make it big by imitating Brock Lesnar. How does a wrestler's congruence or incongruence with the style of their peers affect how you see them?

[El McKell]

 

2 hours ago, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

How much weight are you giving to professional wrestlers who wrestle a style out of touch with their era?

I'm not consciously thinking about this question at all when ranking wrestlers and I don't think it's much of a real thing. Everybody is a product of their own surroundings and the wrestling from the past that they want to emulate.
 

2 hours ago, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

Cearly, Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler wrestle a throwback style, and owe an incredible debt to the 1980s JCP-era tag team wrestling. Although they are good wrestlers in their own right and have added various things to the formula, they essentially would not have an act without that foundation.

I think the degree to which FTR work a throwback style is being overstated here. They take many trappings and aesthetics from 80s Crockett tag wrestling while simultaneously structing matching in a way that is not very different from the PWG influenced AEW (or even NXT when they were there) house style. I do agree that their act couldn't exist as it is without the existence of 80s tag teams on TBS, but all wrestlers take their aesthetic from somewhere.
 

2 hours ago, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

 It is buoyed by the fact that no one wrestles like this anymore. Does this hurt or harm their case?

I think they are buoyed what they take from 80s tag wrestling, but only in the same way that any act is buoyed by the things that make them different from the baseline of what's around them, an act that has no aspects that make them stand out is never a good act. So it helps their case because it is an interesting gimmick that creates opportunities to do interesting stuff in matches playing off the gimmick.
 

 

2 hours ago, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

Would they have been as successful in a different era, and do you hold this against them?

It's all guesswork, because it all depends on how well they adapt their act to environments they'll never be in, which is why I don't like to think too much about this. But if I am guessing, in the right environment I think they could have been just as successful in another era. I think if promoters gave them a chance and they were worked at an era appropriate pace they could've got over well in JCP/WCW or AJPW from like 85-94.

 

 

2 hours ago, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

2. Joshi

Just choose a name out of a hat. There are countless women who were doing things in AJW in 1985 that male wrestlers still wouldn't be able to do 20 years later. How much weight do you give wrestlers for pushing the boundaries of what professional wrestling was? Would those same wrestlers have been able to work that style and been A successful if they instead had to run shows in say Kansas City for Central States Wrestling?

I do not think 80s Joshi wrestlers are an act out of time and it only seems that way because they were influential on 90s joshi wrestlers who has some influence on wrestling broadly, combined with the move towards athleticism as a selling point for wrestling more broadly. 80s Joshi wrestlers are clearly a product of their time and place, they are developing from their own predecessors in AJW and it seems so different from the other wrestling at the time because it they were not influenced by any contemporary wrestlers in other promotions. If 2000s wrestling looked more 80s lucha or world of sport then those would be the ones "out of time" instead.

And yeah, I think if The Jumping Bomb Angels could get over with WWF crowds without being hyped at all in advance they could've also got over in front of Kansas City crowds.

[donsem43]

The motivation for AJW wrestlers working the style that they did was that they didn't think that they would get noticed any other way.

Osamu Nishimura in the 00's was able to take a dated style and adapt it to the style of the time with the result being that he got really over by having some tremendous matches.

[TheBean]

On 9/1/2025 at 6:22 AM, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

Short and sweet: How much weight are you giving to professional wrestlers who wrestle a style out of touch with their era?

Looking back at past wrestlers, I think it's worth giving weight to folks that were wrestling a style out of touch with their era as long as it was innovative, influential or at least popular or drew heat.

In watching Regal in WCW 1994 recently, no one was really wrestling his style there. He had a really great list of older opponents like Flair, Arn, Larry Z that could gel with him but his style was definitely out of step with what everyone else was doing. It meshed well and it was his thing. And he was TV champion and got tons of heat. So he was doing something right for the audience, the office and the wrestling nerds 🙂 

I don't think he was innovative but was influential to guys like Bryan Danielson and I'm sure other grapples of the 2000's & 2010's. I think you're probably talking more about folks wrestling a throwback style so maybe innovation isn't as important in this context.

As far as golden era Joshi, I think this was influential and innovative to all of wrestling in Japan and eventually the US... At least in terms of work rate & move evolution.

That's a good example for innovative wrestlers so for those folks- we have to see who did those things the most. And then were those folks some kind of draw and not just wrestling in an empty gym. All that said, they still have to put on compelling, meaningful and/or exciting matches on a regular basis 🙂

And that's kinda how I'm formulating a lot of my list tbh. Hahaha long answer but I think I'm giving a lot of weight to folks who wrestle outside the norm. I think these folks are just more interesting. That doesn't mean they'll all be at the top of my list but it will definitely be a tie breaker or a difference maker when it comes to the top 50.

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

On 9/1/2025 at 11:33 PM, El McKell said:

I do not think 80s Joshi wrestlers are an act out of time and it only seems that way because they were influential on 90s joshi wrestlers who has some influence on wrestling broadly, combined with the move towards athleticism as a selling point for wrestling more broadly. 80s Joshi wrestlers are clearly a product of their time and place, they are developing from their own predecessors in AJW and it seems so different from the other wrestling at the time because it they were not influenced by any contemporary wrestlers in other promotions.

I'm really not sure I understand your point. 80s Joshi wrestlers only seem like they were ahead of their time, because they were incredibly influential on the acts that came after them? Isn't this definitionally saying they were ahead of their time? Obviously they were influenced by the systems and conditions around them at the time, but to say they weren't ahead of their time seems strange.

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If 2000s wrestling looked more 80s lucha or world of sport then those would be the ones "out of time" instead.

Sure, but we live on Earth-626 where this is not the case. So it stands to reason they were ahead of their time. 

 

On 9/16/2025 at 5:49 PM, TheBean said:

Looking back at past wrestlers, I think it's worth giving weight to folks that were wrestling a style out of touch with their era as long as it was innovative, influential or at least popular or drew heat.

In watching Regal in WCW 1994 recently, no one was really wrestling his style there. He had a really great list of older opponents like Flair, Arn, Larry Z that could gel with him but his style was definitely out of step with what everyone else was doing. It meshed well and it was his thing. And he was TV champion and got tons of heat. So he was doing something right for the audience, the office and the wrestling nerds 🙂 

 I don't think he was innovative but was influential to guys like Bryan Danielson and I'm sure other grapples of the 2000's & 2010's. I think you're probably talking more about folks wrestling a throwback style so maybe innovation isn't as important in this context.

This is particularly interesting because I often forget how YOUNG Regal was at the time. Being British and working that style always gave me the impression he was an old vet, when he was actually about 25 years old at the time. Your in-ring style can have that effect!

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As far as golden era Joshi, I think this was influential and innovative to all of wrestling in Japan and eventually the US... At least in terms of work rate & move evolution.

That's a good example for innovative wrestlers so for those folks- we have to see who did those things the most. And then were those folks some kind of draw and not just wrestling in an empty gym. All that said, they still have to put on compelling, meaningful and/or exciting matches on a regular basis 🙂

And that's kinda how I'm formulating a lot of my list tbh. Hahaha long answer but I think I'm giving a lot of weight to folks who wrestle outside the norm. I think these folks are just more interesting. That doesn't mean they'll all be at the top of my list but it will definitely be a tie breaker or a difference maker when it comes to the top 50.

"People wrestling outside the norm" is absolutely a valid way to look at it. There are probably two schools of great wrestler: those that are doing something that no one else is doing, and those that are doing what everyone else is doing, but doing it better than anyone. 

As social media and the internet makes the wrestling world even smaller and more cramped, I think it's harder to find these unique workers these days. If you watch an AEW show, then a New Japan show, then a RevPro show, then a AAA show, you're probably going to see a lot of similar spots. A little bit sad unfortunately.

On 9/2/2025 at 5:47 PM, donsem43 said:

The motivation for AJW wrestlers working the style that they did was that they didn't think that they would get noticed any other way.

Osamu Nishimura in the 00's was able to take a dated style and adapt it to the style of the time with the result being that he got really over by having some tremendous matches.

For better or for worse, I think this same mentality has driven the PWG-high-spot-arms-race that pervades a lot of wrestling these days. Accelerate the match non-stop so you get noticed, even if it burns out the crowd and has horrific diminishing returns.