Awards Moderator Onyx2 Posted February 9, 2020 Awards Moderator Share Posted February 9, 2020 Who was the best wrestler of the decade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members PunkStep Posted February 9, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 9, 2020 Christ, this is extremely hard. I'd say Roman deserves to be up there too as all five haven't stopped putting out cracking matches. Lesnar's matches can be samey, Daniel Bryan hasn't had the same aura since he came back and AJ spent half of the decade wasted in TNA before revitalising his career in NJPW. These are extremely picky reasons to bring it down to one guy for me- Big Match John. He has had career highlight matches VS The Rock, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles for a start. Plus, he managed to have many thoroughly enjoyable matches VS Alberto del Rio and later became King of the Indies whilst United States Champion. That reign ended with a series of brilliant matches VS Rusev. At one point, for a few years, he was knocking it out of the park every single time. This was the decade where he proved the naysayers wrong and established himself as a super worker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted February 10, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 10, 2020 Big Match John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted February 10, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted February 10, 2020 (edited) I'm his biggest fan in the world but I don't think it is Cena. He's been winding down for the second half of the decade. No doubting his quality even over half of it but Lesnar and Styles have been so good for so long. Styles walking into WWE in 2016 and immediately being the best wrestler on the planet all year was incredible. It's Lesnar though. Even though he's permanently part time, everything he's involved in benefits from him being the the biggest star and best worker on the planet. Matches with Cena, Bryan, Styles, Rollins, Goldberg, Reigns, Punk, etc were outstanding. Edited February 10, 2020 by tiger_rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 Well, this is close! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Love-Wilcox Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 It's easily Okada but I'll settle for AJ Styles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shane O' Mac Version 2 Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 On 2/10/2020 at 4:28 AM, PunkStep said: Christ, this is extremely hard. I'd say Roman deserves to be up there too as all five haven't stopped putting out cracking matches. Lesnar's matches can be samey, Daniel Bryan hasn't had the same aura since he came back and AJ spent half of the decade wasted in TNA before revitalising his career in NJPW. These are extremely picky reasons to bring it down to one guy for me- Big Match John. He has had career highlight matches VS The Rock, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles for a start. Plus, he managed to have many thoroughly enjoyable matches VS Alberto del Rio and later became King of the Indies whilst United States Champion. That reign ended with a series of brilliant matches VS Rusev. At one point, for a few years, he was knocking it out of the park every single time. This was the decade where he proved the naysayers wrong and established himself as a super worker. Funnily enough, even though he's probably my least favourite of the 4, I have to go with Cena for the things you mentioned here. Not that I'm a "boo Cena sucks" guy, just that I happen to be a really big fan of Brock, AJ and Bryan. Big Match John is incredibly consistent. Brock is fucking tremendous when he can be arsed, but it's a coin flip. He's had some of the best matches of the decade, but then there's the Wrestlemania stinker with Ambrose where he really phoned it in, knowing that he was pissing off to the UFC in a couple of months. If the Brock that faced Punk, Styles, Goldberg and Bryan showed up every time, he'd run away with this. AJ Styles... I didn't really watch TNA often and only saw him wrestle twice in NJPW- the WK matches against Naito and Nakamura. So I can really only evaluate him on his WWE work... loved his debut year in 2016. His matches with Jericho, Reigns and Cena were all ace, and he ended the year with a fun TLC match with Ambrose. Then 2017, he had a Wrestlemania show-stealer with Shane O Mac of all people... then he started to slide just a little for me. His feuds with Owens, Nakamura and Joe didn't really hit the mark for me. Not that they were bad, just a notch below the standard I had viewed AJ at, where I quickly became a massive fan in 2016. I remember seeing a TNA compilation of Styles back in the day and loving it, while being aware that he wouldn't be quite the same a decade later. He's still good, occasionally great, but not at the best in the world level any more. Whether it's because he can't, or if he's consciously slowing himself down for career longevity, I'm not sure. Daniel Bryan... just his injuries and inactivity bring him down for me. He lost about 4 years of the decade to injury, and while he's been great either side of that, it is a factor. It was alarming how quickly he felt like "just another guy" after his miraculous return to the ring, thankfully his heel turn was just the ticket to get him back on track. But yeah, it's gotta be John Cena. As I started writing about Brock, AJ and Bryan, I realised that all three of them had their best, or one of their best, WWE matches with John Cena. He's excellent. And for all the "hurr hurr you can't wrestle" talk, if you objectively look back at the best matches of the decade- from Punk at MITB 2011 to Styles at Rumble 2017, Cena is all over it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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