I want to cause a bit of controversy and start a discussion on overrated and overpushed wrestlers....

I thought of this topic after watching some Rey Mysterio matches from 1996 WCW. Mysterio is good, but I reckon part of the reason he was first pushed, was because of the novelty of having such a small, young wrestler competing with the big boys.

Goldberg:- Well I don't think he was so much overrated as he was overpushed. Great athlete, strong guy, good martial arts skill. But I think it was just really unfair to the rest of WCW to have him come in and dominate everyone. Has anyone ever considered how Goldberg making jabronis out of everyone, including the top names, might have contributed to WCW's decline?

The reason Rey-Rey was pushed because of how massively over he was with the Latino audience, who are a large slice of the wrestling market.

Goldberg's streak was moreso a big part of the reason why Nitro won the Monday night ratings for so long. It was what they did with Goldberg and the storylines once Goldberg's streak was broken that caused them to go downhill.

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^^^what an intelligent comment.

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Well my point about Rey is that I don't believe he is that great in the ring. I have to respect him for being so small and occasionally being able to LOOK equal to his opponents, but I think he really needed to look equal more frequently.

As for Goldberg, my problem with him was that he often looked VASTLY superior to his opponents in the ring. He didn't only outpower them, he was often permitted to outwrestle them too, so that he didn't just look like a 1-dimensional power wrestler. I feel he made WCW as a whole look weak. Basically a lot of good wrestlers sacrificed themselves in order to build up one man.

When Rey attempted to get big his wrestling suffered. But even his matches with Jericho a couple of years back showed how good he could be.

I think Orton is pretty overrated. He was good and then just seemed to not give a fuck anymore and it really showed.

Kennedy was totally overrated.

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Did you even watch Rey Mysterio in WCW? His matches, along with Malenko, Guerrero, Jericho, Juventud, Psychosis etc etc were more often than not the best on the card. He was never the same once he went to WWE/got older.

And on Goldberg, he looked superior to most of his opponents because he was facing jobbers, and then old slow geriatric wrestlers. WCW's decline was because of every old timer main eventer having creative control. WCW couldn't make new stars because they kept bringing back the old guard.

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Well I think Rey, in WCW, was inferior to many of the other cruiserweights. I think the commentators would often sell him based on how competitive he was for his size. I think there were kind of sympathy plays there.

I agree Goldberg was in better physical shape than a lot of the top WCW wrestlers in the late '90s. However I think they could have worked more at showing how these wrestlers still had an experience advantage and could outsmart him in the ring. I agree that WCW had become overly dependent on old guys who, in the ring, couldn't really convince anyone that they were still the best in wrestling. So Goldberg comes in and kills them all off. I guess part of my problem is, WCW had spent 1997 using the veteran wrestling stars in the WCW vs NWO angle and the angle was WCW's main money-maker. I think when Goldberg took off in '98 and began beating all the top wrestlers, he helped to trivialize the whole WCW vs NWO angle. (I say he HELPED to trivialize it, because the whole "fast count" and montreal screw job reference in the Sting-Hogan match in Dec. '97 was the first big blow against the WCW vs NWO angle)

I think he did that-see Goldberg v Diamond Dallas Page, Halloween Havoc 1998.

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^^^what an intelligent comment.

The Spoiler Club:
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That was a decent match, though I much preferred the DDP vs Goldberg match on Nitro in April '99 which was a title defense after DDP won the belt at Spring Stampede. I think DDP looked much more evenly matched here and it's probably my favorite ever Goldberg match.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEMcRiycikY

I totally agree with HG on Mr Anderson, he has to be the most over rated in the big companies today.

Disagree that Rey and Goldberg are. Rey may be an annoying fat little jerk now, but in his day that guy could go as good as the best, better than some. His work with Kidman remains some of my favourite wrestling to this very day.

The notion that Goldberg is over-rated to me is ridiculous. The reason Goldberg is such an iconic figure in wrestling history is because of the way he was booked. Which was perfect until they fucked it all up with his first loss and all the crap that happened after that. They had to have Goldberg obliterate all of his opponents, that's how you book the best wrestler in the world, which is what they believed he was and therefore he was booked accordingly. WCW built him into a legit superstar and the main part of his career is one of if not the best thing that company did.

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#1 Peep - I've been here too f**king long....

I have no interest in watching a wrestling promotion where one wrestler towers above all the others. I loved WCW when WCW Vs. NWO was the thing. To me that's the biggest thing that has EVER happened in wrestling. The Goldberg thing alienated me.

I'd even go so far as to say that maybe bringing Goldberg to WCW was a mistake. Maybe he should have started in an organisation where he had similar opponents. Young, fit and with legit athletic backgrounds.

Regarding the WCW Cruiserweight division......if you're partial to Rey Mysterio's style of wrestling fine, but I was a huge fan of Ultimo Dragon. The guy could do so much in the ring. I don't really recall his matches against larger opponents, but he had more of a mean streak than Rey. Rey had a bit a cuteness about him which I'm sure helped with his success. Also, I would take Dean Malenko's mat wrestling, combined with creative power-wrestling, over Mysterio's moonsaults and head-scissors' any day.

Rey was good at what he did. Notably MOOVS, being a trooper of a bump machine to put other guys over, and naturally being a perennial babyface. I was never really a huge fan, but I could never actually see anything too bad about his wrestling considering his style of just flying around like a faggot on babyface comebacks. It's not something which requires a great deal of depth other than involving a lot of good selling (which he did) and then saying "catch me!" Clearly he was never the wrestler that Ultimo Dragon or Malenko were, but if Ultimo Dragon had come up through America instead of Japan then his offense would've been much more similar to Rey's and involved a lot less throws and actual wrestling for pins and submissions. I guess that's just the way it goes.

But regardless, I consider Rey to be way more important than those other guys and pretty much everyone else. He's basically midget Hulk Hogan. He changed the business for little guys as much as anyone ever has or possibly more. If it wasn't for Rey's massive babyface popularity, Daniel Bryan and CM Punk would have never done anything in WWE but lay down for Rene Dupree and Smith McHoss. His overall importance and relevance is enormous, even if he's irrelevant now.


Kidman was super average though. If his finisher was a splash instead of a shooting star press he would've had no career. I liked his grungey look in the flock angle but that's kind of neither here nor there. I was actually a big fan of him when I was a kid, but objectively, he couldn't do anything even half as well as any of his peers, and totally failed when left to just tell a story. His heel run exposed him as a one trick pony, I think. Which is cool. Whatever. He was still better than lots of other guys, but totally unremarkable.


Orton is worse than AIDS. I hope he gets eaten by that couch in the Toffee Pops ad.

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Seeing as you bought up Hulk Hogan....
Obviously a lot of people think he was overrated or overpushed. I don't necessarily have any real resentment toward Hogan. Except that he never learned to work with the smaller wrestlers in the WWF and put them over before leaving for WCW in 1994. That and he ruined the climax to the WCW vs NWO battle with the "fast count" business.

I think Hogan played his role as the big hero who was tough on his opponents but gentle on the kids who loved him, pretty good. That kind of thing was big in the '80s. He was like He-Man from the Masters of the Universe cartoon.

I think WWF definitely made progress in the '90s though when they had Hart, Michaels, Hennig, Austin and others in leading roles. Less of the comic book wrestling, but still plenty of excitement. To me the '90s itself was wrestling in it's prime.

This. Ever since the end of Legacy and Orton's face turn at WM XXVI he's just been treading water. He seems disinterested, content to just sit there on the card knowing he'll be make main events no matter what he does.



And the same with Kennedy. While WWE eventually saw through him, TNA don't seem to realise how crap he is, and keep pushing him in front of their fans.

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F**k off, Brock, f**k off.

Lex Express - that was a road to nowhere.

Fuck off, Rey is one of the best wrestlers in the world

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I disagree with Rey and Goldberg as being labelled as overated.

I do think that Ken Kennedy is overated. And this comment wont go down well, but Dolph Ziggler, IMO, is overated too.

He's a splended wrestler and bumps and sells real well. He has a great body too, but I don't see him as main event material. He has a bland look, his promos sound forced. He just has a Lex Luger/Billy Gunn aura about him. I don't mind being proven wrong though if he matures into a true superstar main eventer.

Zach Ryder is another overated guy. His face sucks. There's no genuine emotion when he's in the ring. Just the same look, over and over again. Bleh!

Big E and Cesaro have the goods I reckon.

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I agree with Ziggler, although I have been coming around in the last few months. He did a promo on Raw a while back that started to change my mind and I think his little stable really helps.

To put another name into the mix.....

I often thought HHH was pretty below par when he was first placed in the main event in 1999. At the time they needed top heels and had to push someone, but I remember having a good laugh back when Rock and HHH were feuding in mid-2000 and turned HHH's lack of originality into a joke when he did an impersonation of him saying "Every weeeeeka...I stand out herrrrra....and talk but don't say anythinnnga!" and I'd be like "Tell it how it is Rock!". It's almost like HHH got heat because he wasn't all that good for a main eventer!
I loved the two Rock-HHH main events around that time, but I think even if HHH did improve, he was a bit of a glorified mid-carder.

The thing that gets me, when people slam HHH for being a below par maineventer during 99-01. WWF(E) was pulling in their best ever numbers during the McMahon-Helmsley Era... so it pretty much voids any claim that he was a sub standard main eventer during that time frame.
Sure, other factors were in play during that time, ( WCW sucking the life out of any Monday night war/ Rock/ Austin being in their prime... etc) so not all down to Steph & Hunter making kissy faces at each other... but it must of been a ratings winner none the less.

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12.51pm Feb 22 2011

Well he wasn't a credible main-eventer until Foley put him over strong at the Rumble in MSG, but his reign didn't exactly get off to the ideal start due to the whole SummerSlam fiasco (and then Vince pointlessly ending it weeks later). Although I never understood the complaints about HHH being pushed in mid to late '99. I thought they executed it well with him turning on DX to join the Corporation and then switching his image and becoming obsessed about wanting to be WWF Champion and being willing to do anything and everything he could to accomplish that. It was simple, but effective. I wish they'd do that storyline nowadays where someone's key goal is all about being the man!

I always thought he was awesome from the moment he married Stephanie till the Two Man Power Trip formed (and then when he tore his quad). He came back in 2002 ridiculously jacked up and just wasn't the same worker anymore. And that late 2002-2006 run where he dominated RAW as World Champion (and buried a whole bunch of babyfaces in the process) despite carrying multiple injuries was absolute torture.

So in conclusion, he was a solid headliner and top star for a number of years, but he'll never (other than in the mind of himself and his family) be considered at the level of Austin, Rock, Hogan etc.)

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