RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Sports and Wrestling Pulse Wrestling's Top 100 of the Modern Era

"Starship Coyote?"

Maybe he liked that episode of the Simpsons that Johnny Cash was in...?

53. RICKY MORTON

Hometown - Nashville, Tennessee
Debuted - 1978
Titles Held - NWA World Tag Team; WCW Six Man Tag
Team; USWA Tag Team
Other Accomplishments - Rock N Roll Express voted #4 in PWI's
100 best tag teams list in 2003; has trained younger wrestlers,
including Kid Kash

There used to be a time when tag team wrestling was held in high regard. Good tag teams in the '80s could legitimately draw a house. And this man knew tag team wrestling. The man that redefined the concept of a pretty-boy babyface, perfected the traditional tag team match formula, wrote the book on getting crowd sympathy and was the master of "playing Ricky Morton."

Ricky Morton could draw the paying in the crowd into such an incredible frenzy just by essentially getting his ass kicked. He could take a convincing beating from heels probably better than other face in the '80s. Morton was so good at getting worked over in tag matches that when he finally made the "hot tag" to partner Robert Gibson the pop would rival Dusty or Hogan's. In fact he was good that the sympathetic face role in tag matches has now been unofficially named "the role of Ricky Morton" or "playing Ricky Morton," as mentioned above.

Ricky got his start in the late '70s, but it was in 1983 when Ricky met Robert Gibson and formed The Rock 'n' Roll Express. The rest, as they say, was wrestling history.

The pair made their first mark in Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling, where they met the Midnight Express for the first time, kicking off what is one of the top two or three tag feuds ever. Along the way Ricky & Robert won the Mid-South Tag belts three times.

By 1985, Ricky and his partner showed up in the NWA's Mid-Atlantic territory. From this point on, the legacy of the R 'n' R Express and the selling prowess of Morton grew by leaps and bounds. The pair, but Ricky especially, were endearing fan favorites due to their small build and good looks. They were easily the NWA's top babyface team of throughout the '80s and had longstanding rivalries with all the top heels of the day, including The Russians, The Andersons, The Horsemen and their old foes The Midnight Express.

Ricky was slowly breaking out as the star of the team. In the summer of '86, Ricky got his first taste of singles success as he went through a series of singles matches with then-NWA Champion Ric Flair on the Great American Bash tour.

The pair continued to dominate the NWA tag team scene through the '80s, but as a new decade dawned, it was time for a change. In the summer of '91, Ricky turned heel on his injured partner and joined The York Foundation. Ricky now went by "Richard Morton" and had a nice run as a mid-card heel, teaming with Thomas Rich and feuding with his old partner and Dustin Rhodes. Unfortunately the heel turn didn't take off like everyone had hoped and by early '92 he was a low-card jobber teaming with various heels like Diamond Dallas Page and Kevin "Vinnie Vegas" Nash.

By 1993, Ricky was out of NWA/WCW and working the southern indys like Smokey Mountain and USWA. He reunited with Robert Gibson to reform their legendary team. They picked up regional tag championships and battled teams like The Heavenly Bodies and The Gangstas.

During WCW's hiring craze in 1996, Ricky & Robert were brought back to WCW. They were used primarily as face jobbers for the new heel teams of the day. They then made a brief stop in the World Wrestling Federation in the spring of '98 as part of the ill-fated "NWA invasion" angle.

Since the new millennium, Ricky has been toiling through the independent scene and even made a brief appearance on one of the early editions of NWA-TNA. He is currently still semi-active and is in the starting process of writing his autobiography.

His legacy lives on through his training of such southern stars like Chris Hamrick and Kid Kash. And let's not forget he did the cocky-blonde-who-turns-on-his-brunette partner-thing months before a certain Heartbreak Kid. Where else do you think Michaels got the idea to use Kevin Nash as his personal bodyguard?

He has recently had some legal troubles, but his wrestling career shouldn't be remembered or defined by what he has become now. He is ranked on this list because of his outstanding in-ring talent, selling ability, psychology and an ability to connect with the fans that most wrestlers can only dream of. He literally redefined how to tell an entertaining tag team match.

During his heyday in the '80s he was considered just as a big of star as Rhodes or Magnum. And to this day he is still a hero to those old-school fans in the southern United States. When Chris Jericho made light in his book that Ricky was on the level of Jesus to those Tennessee wrestling fans, he was only about half-kidding.

Man...

Yeah!

It's tough to decide who was the hotter!

They were Cena over 10 years before Cena came along!

52.BIG VAN VADER

Real Name - Leon White
Hometown "" Lynwood, California
Debuted "" January, 1985
Titles Held "" WCW World Heavyweight; IWGP World
Heavyweight; AJPW Triple Crown; WCW United StatesOther Accomplishments "" Wrestling Observer Best Heel award in 1993; Wrestler of the Year award in 1993; Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996); Most Improved Wrestler award in 1999; PWI Wrestler of the year 1993; PWI ranked him # 27 of the 500 best singles wrestlers during the "PWI Years" in 2003; PWI ranked him # 36 of the 100 best tag teams of the "PWI Years" with Bam Bam Bigelow in 2003; arrested in Kuwait in 1997 for assaulting TV interviewer; right eye came out of socket during Stan Hansen match in 1990; Mick Foley's opponent when he lost an ear during match in 1994



Who do I think the top five big men in wrestling are? Simple: Big Show, John Tenta, The Undertaker, Bam Bam Bigelow and Leon White, better known as Vader.

Vader had it all, an imposing look, wrestling skills and a unique charismas that set him apart from every other big man on the block. Vader has an impressive list of ****+ matches to his name with everyone ranging from Mitsuharu Misawa to Mick Foley. Add to that stellar bouts with Ray Traylor, Owen Hart and The Undertaker and you have a list of some of wrestling's best matches. Not forgetting his legendary series of matches with Sting that redefined Big Man Vs Plucky Babyface matches.

Vader made a statement right at the start of his big time career in New Japan Pro Wrestling by bulldozing through Japanese legends such as Masahiro Chono, Tatsumi Fujinami and the big kahuna himself Antonio Inoki. By blasting through the big stars in Japan, Vader made himself into an international wrestling star and it was only a matter of time before one of the "Big Two" in the USA picked him up. WCW got to him first and Vader began to carve out a legacy as most fans favourite big man of all time.

If you had to name his top three nemeses in WCW you could do no better than chose Sting, Cactus Jack and Ric Flair. His feud with Sting was, and still is in my opinion, one of the best storylines that the company did ever. Everything about it was perfect and the two contested a series of phenomenal matches, that Vader usually won by the excellent strategy of just beating the f*ck out of Sting till he couldn't get up. My personal favourite battles between these two were their "King of Cable" match at Starcade 92 and their simply amazing strap match at SuperBrawl 93. I am serious that I think every wrestling fan should go out of their way to find this match. Quite simply, it is one of the most brutal, bloody and emotional bouts I have ever seen with neither man holding back and tearing pieces of flesh from one another in an attempt to have one of the greatest matches in wrestling history. And they succeed, oh BOY do they succeed! Just taking a look at Vader's back after the contest will let you know that you just witnessed a war. Vader and Sting both belong in a top 100 list for their bouts against each other alone.

However, Vader wasn't happy just having an iconic series of matches with one man, nah that would be too easy! Vader took the bar and raised it even higher with his new opponent Cactus Jack. He didn't just raise the bar, he punched it, kicked it and shot it with a shotgun before pissing on the ashes! The best bout between these two was, in my opinion, their unfathomably awesome brawl at Halloween Havoc 93 where they tore the arena down to pieces on the way to having what I think you could technically call a f*cking awesome match. Everything about this match is just great. The drama, the violence and the crowd are perfect and it's probably the only reason to bother sitting through that show, even though there is an hilarious skit with Tony Schiavone at the begging and Eric Bischoff dressed as a gay cowboy provided much entertainment.

You'd think Vader would be done with awesome matches wouldn't you? Tut, tut, tut you'd be wrong. Vader's next match in the ****+ range was a match with Ric Flair at Starcade 93 that wasn't just a tremendous match but also happened to save the company. Not bad eh? After that match Vader went on to have a stellar series of matches with Ray Traylor, better known to many as "The Big Boss Man", that were both physical and dramatic and only cemented both men as fine workers. Along the way, he had another series of matches of Sting, that were just as good as their past efforts, and then defied time, logic and space by having an excellent bout with a washed up Jim Duggan at Starcade 94. Even though he was way past his peak as a performer Duggan had what many called his finest match since his Mid South days with Vader, which was lofty praise indeed.

Sadly, Vader's great run in WCW came to an end when he feuded with Hulk Hogan. Despite the match quality generally being good between the two, Hogan did the exact opposite of what Sting had done for Vader. Where as Sting had sold for Vader and made him look like he was a beast, Hogan did his usual "no sell the big guy's finish" routine that he had one for the past 10 years with stiffs like The Warlord and Barbarian. Not surprisingly, Vader's star fell dramatically and after getting beaten up by Paul Orndorff he decided to split from WCW and have a mediocre run in the WWF.

Vader certainly had very good matches in the WWF, with Owen Hart and Shawn Michaels most notably. Indeed he was legitimately pushed as the companies top heel for a while against Shawn but the old magic really was just gone. Vader was never really able to recover from Hogan's politicking and he gradually faded into the background during the Attitude Era. Thankfully, he experienced a career renaissance of sorts towards the end of the decade as he returned to Japan and became a huge star in both All Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling NOAH before signing a WWE Legends contract and pretty much retiring from in ring action.

Despite a rather lacklustre middle portion, Vader has a storied career filled with fantastic feuds, angles and matches and thoroughly deserves inclusion on this list. He truly was one of the greatest wrestlers that I ever witnessed compete.

"Sadly, Vader's great run in WCW came to an end when he feuded with Hulk Hogan. Despite the match quality generally being good between the two, Hogan did the exact opposite of what Sting had done for Vader. Where as Sting had sold for Vader and made him look like he was a beast, Hogan did his usual "no sell the big guy's finish" routine that he had one for the past 10 years with stiffs like The Warlord and Barbarian. Not surprisingly, Vader's star fell dramatically and after getting beaten up by Paul Orndorff he decided to split from WCW and have a mediocre run in the WWF.

Vader certainly had very good matches in the WWF, with Owen Hart and Shawn Michaels most notably. Indeed he was legitimately pushed as the companies top heel for a while against Shawn but the old magic really was just gone. Vader was never really able to recover from Hogan's politicking and he gradually faded into the background during the Attitude Era."

Of course you guys are missing the most important point!



He's drinking beer!

Beer = Power

Hogan truely is a douche!

I still remember that fucker no-selling a powerbomb from Vader right before a PPV. Asshole Hogan jumps right up, and does the patented "YOU!" complete with finger pointing, just to let everyone know that he was all angry like!

Completely killed any hope for a legitimate feud between the two.

But we do agree that Hogan is a cunt, correct?

That's great!

I have to disagree with the authors review of Vaders WWF run.

He(the author) did comment that Vader arrived with much fanfare and for the first year at least, he was pushed as the companies monster heel!

There's reference at the time that Vader was supposed to win the World title but got injured and the WWF employed Sid Vicious especially to hold the belt for a while.

To me, Hogans idiocy didn't hurt Vaders WWF run, I got the impression from watching the WWF at the time that they didn't know what to do with him!

After they jobbed him out for a while they just lost interest.

With hindsight, we have seen the WWF/E do the same thing to other monsters such as Big Show and Kane - difference being that Wight and Kane weathered it and enjoyed countless pushes..., as well as countless pointless jobs!

I would say that Vaders career in the US at least, was irreversibly damaged by his WWF tenure, rather than hogans cuntishness! I think in his last televised match, he got squashed by Bradshaw!

For a true Hogan casualty - Bam Bam Bigelow to me is one of the biggest wastes of potential!

he was supposed to beat Michaels at SummerSlam originally, wasn't he?

What am I thinking!

50. RICK MARTEL

Real Name - Richard Vigneault
Hometown - Quebec City, Quebec
Debuted - 1972
Titles Held - Stampede International Tag Team (with Lennie Hurst); NWA Austra-Asian Tag Team (with Larry O’Day) ; NWA New Zealand British Empire/Commonwealth Heavyweight (3x); NWA Hawaii North American Heavyweight; NWA Georgia Tag Team (with Tommy Rich); WWC North American Tag Team (with Pierre Martel); NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight (2x); NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team (with Roddy Piper 3x); NWA Vancouver Tag Team (with Roddy Piper); WWF Tag Team (3x, 2 with Tony Garea, 1 with Tito Santana); IWA Montreal International Heavyweight (2x); AWA World Heavyweight; WCW World Television
Other Accomplishments - Ranked #48 of the best 500 singles wrestlers during the PWI years by Pro Wrestling Illustrated; Ranked #70 of the best tag teams during the PWI years by Pro Wrestling Illustrated (with Tito Santana); Ranked #74 of the best tag teams during the PWI years by Pro Wrestling Illustrated (with Tony Garea)

Rick Martel got an early start to the world of pro wrestling. Already an accomplished amateur wrestler, he found himself in his first pro match at the age of 16 when his brother asked him to replace another wrestler who was injured. Martel was hooked and began competing in his native Canada and around the world, winning various titles along the way.

In 1980 Martel headed to the United States, where he entered Don Owen’s Pacific Northwest Wrestling and quickly rose to the top of the card. It didn’t take long for Martel to win gold here as he defeated Buddy Rose for the Pacific Northwest Heavyweight title on March 22nd. He and Rose would continue trading the belt until September 20th, when Rose ended Martel’s second (and final) title reign.

In addition to the primary championship, Martel and Roddy Piper entered into a war with the Kiwi Sheepherders (better known today as the WWF’s Bushwhackers) over the Pacific Northwest Tag Team titles, winning the titles a week after Martel’s heavyweight title win. The Sheepherders won the belts back in May, and the titles were returned to Martel and Piper in August when the Sheepherders left the territory. The next challenge came from Buddy Rose and Ed Wiskoski. The two teams quickly traded the titles, but Martel lost a loser-leaves-town match to longtime foe Buddy Rose on August 16th. As Martel left the company, Piper replaced him with Mike Popovich, and their title reign continued for another month.

Martel, however, headed to the WWF. He formed a tag team with Tony Garea and captured the WWF World Tag Team titles in November by defeating the Wild Samoans. (Interestingly enough, the Samoans had defeated Garea and then-partner Rene Goulet in a tournament to crown new champions after Bob Backlund had won the world title.) Martel and Garea lost the belts the following March to the Moondogs team of King and Rex. They recaptured the belts in July and held them until October, when Mr. Fuji and Mr. Saito defeated them.

Martel left the WWF shortly thereafter and headed to Montreal. Again, it didn’t take Martel long to win gold as in September of 1982 he won a tournament to crown a new Canadian International Heavyweight champion. He held the title until December, when he was defeated by Billy Robinson.

Going into 1983, Martel had a new feud ahead of him. He soon found himself engaged in an unusual war with Dino Bravo, where both men played the babyface role. Martel would finally recapture Bravo’s International Heavyweight belt and would lose it back to him in September.

Again, it wasn’t long before Martel moved on. This time he headed to Verne Gagne’s AWA. On May 13th, he defeated Jumbo Tsuruta to become the AWA world champion.

This was an unusual move. After all, it was only the year before that Hulk Hogan had departed for the WWF after Gagne continued to refuse to put the world belt on him.

Martel also suffered from another problem - he was plain compared to some of the other wrestlers around on television. He was a great wrestler, but he didn’t have anything remarkable about his looks and wasn’t as good on the microphone as a Hogan, Flair, or Bockwinkel.

Although Martel would compete in matches against top-notch talent (including Flair), the crowd was still unsure about whether to accept him or not. Martel’s credibility took another direct hit in December of 1985. Martel lost the belt to Stan Hansen.

The problem wasn’t Martel losing the belt. The problem was that Martel lost the belt via submission. This was an unusual move for a title change at the time and fans thought it made Martel look weak.

Martel remained in the AWA for another year before he headed to the WWF once again. This time he was tagging with Tom Zenk as the Can-Am Connection (a team that the two had formed in Canada during 1986). Although the team was popular, it split after Wrestlemania III when Zenk left the WWF. Zenk has claimed that he discovered that Martel was making three times as much money as he was and left as a result.

However, Martel was still feuding with the Hart Foundation. He quickly recruited Tito Santana and the two teamed as Strike Force. Finally, in October of 1987, Strike Force was able to end the Hart Foundation’s ten month title reign. The following March at Wrestlemania IV, Strike Force lost the belts to Demolition. Martel found himself on the shelf shortly thereafter. A Decapitation from Demolition on the floor would put Martel out for nearly a year.

Martel returned to action at the Royal Rumble, but tensions were starting to simmer. At Wrestlemania V, Strike Force was facing the Brain Busters (Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard) when Tito accidentally hit Martel with his flying forearm. A livid Martel left the ring and allowed Santana to be destroyed and pinned by the Brain Busters.

Martel began feuding with Santana as a result of this and would do so for the remainder of 1989 and through most of 1990. Martel also underwent a personality change. Now known as the Model Rick Martel, Martel changed into someone who was full of arrogance and extremely narcissistic. In addition, the Model carried a pastel atomizer filled with his own personal cologne - Arrogance. Arrogance commercials (such as these) also began airing on WWF programming.

After Martel won the feud with Santana, his next battle was with Jake Roberts. According to the storylines, Martel “accidentally” sprayed Roberts in the face with Arrogance, which blinded him. After Roberts’s vision returned, he battled Martel in a blindfold match at Wrestlemania VII. Roberts won the match, and, in doing so, again proved that blindfold matches are quite possibly the most boring stipulation ever concocted.

Martel’s next feud was against the Native American Tatanka, after Martel stole Tatanka’s sacred eagle feather. Tatanka won the match at Wrestlemania VII and Martel moved on to fighting Shawn Michaels over Sherri Martel’s affections. Michaels would win that with a victory at Summerslam in a match with a no punching in the face stipulation.

Shortly thereafter, Martel vanished from WWF programming until October of 1993. Martel and Razor Ramon tied in a battle royal to determine a new Intercontinental champion following Shawn Michaels being stripped of the belt for failing to defend it. Razor defeated Martel the next week on Raw to begin his first IC title reign.

Shortly after Wrestlemania X Martel vanished again from WWF programming and left the company. He returned to Canada and began tag teaming with Don Casablancas (AKA Don Callis, better known as ECW’s Cyrus or the WWF’s Jackyl) as the Supermodels. There was talk of bringing the Supermodels into the WWF, but nothing ever came of it.

Martel returned to television in 1997 as he signed with WCW. He quickly began a feud with Booker T over the WCW World Television title and won the belt on the February 16, 1998 Nitro. At Superbrawl less than a week later, Martel faced Booker in a match with the winner defending the TV title against Perry Saturn. Not long into the match, Martel hit the ropes awkwardly, which saw him tear a ligament in his knee, break his leg, and damage the cartilage in the knee as well.

Martel made one more comeback which saw him facing Stevie Ray. Martel injured his neck during the match and decided to retire. Today he is involved in real estate in his native Quebec.

Martel was a great ring technician. However, he never truly broke out of the pack until we met “The Model.” In an instant Martel transformed himself from the vanilla babyface to an arrogant jerk you wanted to punch (preferably before he sprayed you with a shot of Arrogance). Finally Martel had the total package - the look, the skills, and the attitude. However, it is disappointing that everything clicked for Martel so late in his career. If everything had lined up earlier (such as during his AWA title reign) it’s extremely possible that Martel would find himself much higher up this list.

Martel was also held back by bad booking decisions. When he had trouble expressing himself on the microphone in the AWA, they could have simply supplied him a manager. Instead they left him out in the wind. He was weakened by the submission loss to Hansen, and only used in tag teams for years by the WWF, who could have instead used him as an example of another promotion’s former champion dropping ship. (Although, to be fair, the WWF also talked about Harley Race being a rookie when he jumped in 1986, despite being a 26-year veteran with eight NWA World title reigns under his belt.)

However, when Martel finally got the chance to shine after Strike Force ended, he grabbed the spotlight and held on. The Model has definitely earned his place on this list of the top 100 wrestlers of the modern era.

number 50? really? shittin' me! yes, he was a model, but 50? I call bullshit. Martel was a damn good heel when he turned, but he was wasted on the midcard. never did anything of note other than his feuds with Santana and Roberts. oh, and Michaels didn't win their SummerSlam '92 match. it was stopped when both men broke the "no hitting in the face" rule. research.

I like the Big Show, but come now! Ranking him higher than the likes of Cena, Christian, JJ, Scott Hall, and both Hardys?!?