I just wanted to see what everyone here thought. First and foremost, the WHY must be answered or I'm deleting your post. No bullshit, no arguing, just intelligent wrestling discussion. I'll do this later as I don't really have time at work......

Go at it motherfuckers!

Kurt Angle -

I'd like to use an indy guy, or one of my personal favorites, but it just means so mutch more when you can do it on the biggest stage.

Reasons :

Even in his condition, Angle is able to have a very good match any time, seemingly with any opponent.

He has the innate ability to make the viewers care. Usually, it's because he's a heel, and the fans hate him, but he can be an effective face too.

Purely on workrate, he's not the best. Not the best Promo, not the biggest draw. But he's so good at everything, I really think he's the best thing going.

Everyone is going to crucify me, but my answer is AJ Styles. Selling problems? Maybe. But his execution is FLAWLESS, and he can do just about anything from a 90 mile an hour spotfest to a more ground and pound type match. People bitch because he stops selling for a second to hit a big move, but those same people would suck off Kobashi given the chance. The main reason I love AJ: He had a handicap match with the Redshirt Security last year on a Wednesday TNA PPV, and it was watchable. No other man alive (not doing a comedy gimmick) could do that for me.

I won't crucify you. I think that's a solid choice.

I'm both shocked and amazed this hasn't already turned into a Puro lovefest, which kills my chance to say "take it to the puro folder." :(

I would say Chris Benoit is still one of the greatest wrestlers today. I can't remember a bad match he's had since that horrible Billy Gunn match at Armageddon 2000, and can work around everyones flaws.

Here's mine.....

Kenta Kobashi

-There is nobody that can match his quality of matches.....even currently. He's been in MOTYC's for the last several years, and even though his knees are completely shot, he still puts up the match quality. Not to mention that there probably isn't too many people that are honestly as important to the company that they work for as he is as well. Plus, he's definately a bigger draw than anyone currently working in the US.

This is the thing...a few really top wrestlers come to mind, but here's probably top of the list:

CM Punk

He's a great athlete, gives a strong presence to the ring, and give him the mic and let him go. And, he's still young, he can get so much better than he already is. He's trained a lot of the upcoming talent in RoH. And his feuds with Raven and Samoa Joe has sparked new interests in wrestling.

(Even though he's a pretentious and cocky asshole who knows he's good, from what I've heard.)

Eddie Guerrero

Constantly given nothing to work with in the WWF yet still puts on consistently solid to good matches. I think almost everyone on Smackdown could point to their best match of the past year having Eddie involved.

Fun Fact: There has yet to be two people with the same choices.

Even more fun fact: Kurt Angles best match was probably with Shawn Michaels in the last year, according to most reports (and the Jannetty match kicked all kinds of ass).

I'm going to make a potentially controversial choice and name Paul London. He is the most exciting wrestler in the WWE right now, due to the high quality matches he has been putting on over the past year and a half. He has really shined on Velocity and it is finally beginning to pay off for London. He's the Cruiserweight Champion and is being treated as a big deal. London also wins over just about every audience he is in front of as he will enter to a minimal pop but will win to a huge pop.

London already proved he had the tools to be one of the biggest stars in wrestling while working the independents and now he's on track to living up to it.

No doubt in London's talents, I can't wait for a couple years down the road for him in the WWE.

But...I haven't seen much of London's mic skills. And from what I have seen, I wasn't all that impressed by him. But all the reason to push him as a "real" pro wrestler, and may be give him a manager.

Kenta Kobashi, for being a godly teller of epic tales in the ring and a master of playing The Ace. And for guiding lesser workers to good matches and elevating them.

Toshiaki Kawada would be a contender if he consistantly put on performances like his in the TC loss to Kojima, but he's hasn't.

Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero are still the best in WWE, even if they've struggled a bit since their title reigns ended.

Not arguing the merits of Styles' selling, because I don't follow TNA or care about his work, but Kobashi's booked as an immortal legend. Him not selling is not really comperable to Styles not selling.

There was a tag earlier this year with La Res that was pretty bad.

Probably? ;-)

Don't get me wrong, I love me some Kobashi. I'm not a huge puro man, I dabble here and there, but he is certainly among the elite in the world, has been for about a decade. But my comment is only directed towards those who point out that AJ would sell the knee the whole match, but then hit a kip-up rana or something. The thing is, right after this, AJ GOES BACK TO SELLING THE KNEE. Or at least he does this in a majority of the cases. I find this very akin to Kobashi getting dumped on his head, popping up and nailing a lariat, and then falling down, selling the effects of previous moves. I see no problem with it, and it can be extremely effective in the build of a match. It's the whole "rush of adrenaline" or "fighting spirit" thing. These same people complain about Kurt Angle hitting that little hop-up belly to belly off the top. If they took the extra five seconds to watch, Kurt almost always sells that fucker and takes just as long to recover from it as his opponent does. But if say, Samoa Joe gets his leg worked on for 30 minutes by Bryan Danielson, but Joe hits his twisting tope thing on the bad knee, there's no problem and it's still a five star affair. I dunno, assholes who get all nitpicky about that kinda stuff but set a double standard at the same time just gets me a little heated.

Oh... the Benoit/Jericho vs. La Resistance match from the Super Show Taping... what the hell went wrong there? It seemed like B&J were about 3 moves ahead while La Rez were 500 behind.

I enjoyed the Kojima match a lot as well. It's always nice to see Kawada break out of the kickfest mentality every now and then.

I still think Chris Benoit is the best wrestler in the world. This guy just knows what he's doing. Whether it's selling a body part (the arm in recent weeks), working over a body part (especially as a heel where he can be VICIOUS), putting a match together (he rarely runs through the same routine every match), and adding drama, Benoit is the man.

I can't remember the last Benoit match I didn't enjoy to some extent. He had a decent match with Tyson Fucking Tomko for christ sakes. He's also very adapt to many different styles, be it technical wrestling, brawling, highflying, or just going pure WWE style. Add that to the fact that he rarely, if ever, has had a terrible match, and you have the makings of the best in the world.

This could change in a few years, with age, and rising stars like Danielson and Joe, but who knows. Benoit's still the best in my eyes.

Haha. What a surprise. ;) (j/k)

Now, now. Don't forget Daniels.

I wouldn't really consider Daniels a rising star, seeing as he's been on the indies for over 10 years and is in his mid thirties. I think it's safe to say Daniels will nver make it to the WWE, which is a damn shame, considering he's probably in my top 10 best wrestlers in the world.

Christopher Daniels is 32 I think, but I'm probably wrong. He's been around as far back as 1994.

So lets see here....

Over 10 year veteran of the sport.

Has fought all over the US and in Japan.

He was/is considered to be the best Indy worker EVER.

Now I can see why the WWE would never touch him.

They had Daniels, he was actually one of the Los Conquistodors backstage during all that crap, but they let him go like all of the other talented guys in the development leagues.

I don't think he was ever in the developmental companies, but I could be wrong. The way I took it, they were just paying him per appearance for a little while to be one of the conquistadores. I also read that Conway and Dinsmore were the conquistadores for awhile too.

Daniels was a hot commodity for about 5 months in 2000/2001 but I think it might've been more of a WCW/WWF dick waving contest.

I hate to say it, but Daniels blew his only shot at the big time.

He was. I have a Daniels/Jerry Lynn match for the Light weight title on my computer, actually.

And he's not so much a rising star...as he's considered a big name in wrestling. I just completely misworded what I meant.

Yeah, I've seen the match, but he was never under contract. He was just being used as "enhancement talent" (I refuse to refer to Daniels as a jobber) and they put the belt on the line because WWE could care less about it.

He was signed by WCW but broke his kneck on his first Nitro.

He broke his kneck?! I never even heard of such a horrible injury!

Ummm.Yeah.

"He was/is considered to be the best Indy worker EVER."

I hope people don't honestly believe this.

He's definately one of the top indy workers.

Who would you consider then Ray as the greatest Indy worker EVER?

I honestly don't know. I'd need to research the subject. But if it's Daniels, that's a sad statement about the indies.


Come to think of it...Chris Benoit worked the indies.... ;)

Well, mostly everyone worked the indies at some point. I don't think anyone has been more of a fixture as a top guy on the indies as Daniels.

Well research then Ray....because Daniels is as good as it gets.....and Benoit was primarily in Japan before he came and reazlly got on the US indy circuit. So I wouldn't necessessarily put Benoit over Daniels.

Right now...Daniels, Danielson, Samoa Joe, CM Punk, Colt Cabana are a few of the top indy wrestlers whom have not been signed to a national or global contract. (I wouldn't really count Daniels because he wasn't really used, and we could even debate Joe being as good in the ring as the other four.)

I would say Joe is better than Punk and Cabana.

I probably just haven't seen enough Joe matches. The couple of matches I have seen with Joe is him retaining the title. But then again, it's not like RoH had Joe squash all of his opponents and retained, almost all of his matches could have gone either way. May be I just haven't given Joe as much credit as I should.

Note: Colt Cabana is also a personal bias. :) But he's still good in-ring and I love to see him on the mic and in interviews.

That would make two of us.