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About a year ago, a frequent collaborator on “The Doc Says” podcast – David Fenichel - suggested to me a column series that would begin to turn our historical attention toward that which came after the vaunted Attitude Era. With an eye on something fresh, he suggested that we identify the most accomplished wrestlers of the “post-Attitude Era” - from present day back to the night after WrestleMania X-8 as we have defined it. So, welcome to a labor of pro wrestling love roughly one year in the making. We ranked our top 100 wrestlers based on a point system that involved headlining matches for WrestleMania, Summerslam, Survivor Series, The Royal Rumble, and all other PPVs, combined with a points formula based on titles won and length of reigns. While it was more difficult to ascertain the status of certain members of the WWE – namely tag teams, divas and legends w/ short tenures during this era, we believe that this is as unbiased of a countdown as you are going to find. Chad and I did a tremendous amount of work putting this together for you, so we hope that you enjoy the ride. 80. Paige 79. Kevin Owens 78. The Usos 77. The Hurricane 76. The Spirit Squad 75. Beth Phoenix 74. Tajiri 73. MNM 72. The World’s Greatest Tag Team 71. The Dudley Boys 80. Paige Dave: After comparing her accomplishments to Michelle McCool’s, I think we may have overrated Paige here. That doesn’t mean that she deserves to be sold short. Paige really is the total package. She is beautiful, has a unique look, is a great wrestler, and has both fantastic mic skills and natural charisma. Paige has been near or at the top of the division from her debut to the end of last year. She’s a multi-time Diva’s champion, and has had excellent feuds with the likes of AJ Lee, The Bella Twins, and Charlotte. I think that if we were to take a look at this list ten years from now, Paige will skyrocket up this list right alongside the likes of Trish Stratus. However, I think we’ve given her too much credit for what we think she’s going to do. Her body of work is simply too short to warrant her inclusion ahead of Michelle McCool. Doc: A point I'd like to make about the Women's/Diva's Championship is that it has been a rare occurrence that someone wins the title without first proving her worth. Paige showed up and won the title on day one of her main roster tenure and was the top babyface of the division immediately; it was a role she maintained until roughly 18 months after her debut. Combine her early success with the work she did in NXT to establish a greater sense of importance around women's wrestling, her starring spot on Total Divas, and her high profile gig on Austin's podcast last year, she's already more relevant in just over two years on the roster than McCool ever was. So, I disagree; Paige gets the nod as a focal point of women's wrestling reaching its peak, whereas McCool was “The Woman” (see “The Man”) when women's wrestling was in the doldrums. 79. Kevin Owens We had a hard time finding the right spot for Kevin Owens. When you beat John Cena in your first main roster match, proceed to feud with the Golden Boy for weeks on end, put together a body of work in your first year in WWE that arguably has no peers, win the Intercontinental Championship multiple times and play a role in elevating its status, and earn remarks among intelligent wrestling fan circles as “the best heel in the business” before celebrating your first anniversary in WWE, I'd say that earns you a higher spot on the list using the same “relevancy” argument that shaped previous entries, only to a greater extent. I had Owens higher, I'll readily admit. I didn't feel it was projecting to push him beyond some of the upcoming entries. The other names to beat Cena clean this decade, by the way, are CM Punk, The Rock, Daniel Bryan, and Brock Lesnar. I love Kevin Owens. He is on the short list of my favorite current superstars. I have advocated that his trilogy with John Cena is the best of all time on Chad’s podcast before. With that being said, his actual accomplishments don’t warrant the spot he occupies on this list. While the John Cena program goes down as all-time great, it doesn’t register on our headlining statistics. His title accomplishments consist of two relatively short Intercontinental Title runs. Owens is another guy that I would expect to skyrocket up the rankings five to ten years from now. I fully expect him to end up in a headlining WrestleMania match next year. While it is too soon for KO’s accomplishments to make a major dent in our countdown, the sky is the limit for him. 78. The Usos The Usos are without question the best and most successful tag team of the last five years. I consider neither Jimmy nor Jey to be a fantastic wrestler when evaluating them in a bubble, however; it cannot be argued how consistently great they have been as a tag team. The Usos are a benchmark for consistency, as they seem to put on three to four star matches with anyone that gets in the ring with them. They have had great wrestling based feuds with the likes of The Hart Dynasty, Wyatt Family, Rhodes Brothers, New Age Outlaws, The Shield, and the New Day. Their 202 day reign as tag team champions might be the best single reign of the modern era, as they were incredibly active in defending their titles throughout. The Usos may be the single biggest reason for the renaissance of the tag team division. The consistency that the Usos displayed for years prior to their first run as the Tag Team Champions laid the foundation for the increased creative focus on tag team wrestling in WWE. I really believe that. All due respect to Team Hell No, but as entertaining as they were, they didn't do anything to create a sustainable run for a floundering division. The Usos vs. The Shield on a pre-show match at Money in the Bank 2013 helped tag team wrestling find its modern niche: putting on entertaining in-ring performances that enhance cards and push the rest of the roster to be better. Jimmy and Jey's reign in 2014 that Dave mentioned? It further established what tag team wrestling should be and gave us arguably the best Tag Title match of the decade against the Wyatts (2/3 Falls at Battleground). A round of applause is in order for the Usos... 77. The Hurricane The Hurricane was a noteworthy mid-carder for most of the 2000s. During the early part of the post-Attitude Era, he made his mark as a gimmick performer at a time when few wrestlers were making that sort of thing work. He was so good in his role that he won the Tag Team Championships for the first of two times (with Kane) and beat The Rock in a great moment on Monday Night Raw (with an assist from Steve Austin) after the pair had been involved in a series of highly entertaining backstage segments in prior weeks. It never got any bigger than that for Hurricane, but he managed to win another Tag Team Championship (with Rosey) and become the longest reigning Cruiserweight Champion in WWE history (over a year). He always carved out a spot for himself; I respect that. While Rey Mysterio is hands down the greatest cruiserweight in WWE history, I think that Hurricane Helms is firmly positioned in the number two slot. I agree with everything that Chad had to say regarding Helms. He was fantastic in the ring, fantastic on the mic, and played his gimmick to a T. He had an incredible reigns as cruiserweight champion, a very successful tag title reign with Rosey, and an absolutely massive moment when he defeated The Rock on Monday Night Raw. His backstage segments were even better than his in-ring work. Whether it be as the superhero gimmick with Rosey and Mighty Molly or his Clark-Kent like alter ego in Gregory Helms, I considered the Hurricane segments to be amongst the highlights of every show that he was on. Dare I say, he almost made you stand back, because a hurricane was coming through. 76. The Spirit Squad God, I hated The Spirit Squad during their heyday. I absolutely could not stand them. I never got it, was never interested in anything that they did, and never thought I’d eventually come to change my mind on them. As it turns out, hindsight allowed me to have a better perspective. The Spirit Squad made you hate their guts, and that was their job. They were a great heel heat seeking missile of a stable, and as a result enjoyed a solid run. They main-evented a Pay-Per-View against DX, and that alone is good enough to land them a spot on our countdown. Looking back, the only negative I see from the Spirit Squad is that they were the launching point to the career of one of the most overrated superstars of all time. Of course, I’m referring to Chad’s hero – the one and only Dolph Ziggler. The Doc and Dave present...Real American Heroes....”Real American Heroes”....Today, we salute you, Spirit Squad...”Let's hear it for The Spirit Squad!”...Real men don't just wrestle and jump off the top rope onto thinly padded wood, they do cartwheels and somersaults...”Look at that hang time!”...When it was time for the Royal Rumble in 2006, it all came down to you. I don't recall, did you call for the flying hand jive or the dancing rhino?...”Check out those spirit fingers”...Together you were like an intimidating T-Rex assembled to destroy Degeneration X...”Sweet a** rhymes bro”....You may have been relevant for less than a year and have been sent back to OVW in a giant box (“Yay!”), but you headlined Vengeance...and that's gotta count for something...”That's gotta count for something!” 75. Beth Phoenix Like Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix would likely have thrived in the modern women's climate in WWE and unfortunately her claim to fame was as a dominant presence and a female lead when the company wasn't creatively focused on compelling television in the women's division. She might have moved up the list a bit had WWE not oddly settled on the horrible 25 Diva Battle Royal at Mania 25, as she was in the prime of her career and could have been the female focus of the show as she was the year prior as the top heel and the year after as the top babyface. Alas, I think it's fair to say that everyone respected her abilities and should be able to agree that she could've done more if the opportunity had been there. 471 combined days as either the Divas or Women's Champion? Still not bad. Beth Phoenix was never one of my favorites. While she had a physical presence, I didn’t find her to be a particularly good wrestler. I thought she lacked charisma. She wasn’t strong on the mic. To be honest, the only memorable angle of hers was “Glamorella” – an angle that was successful because of Santino Marella, and Santino Marella only. With all that said, she undoubtedly deserves her place on our countdown. As Chad detailed, her multiple title reigns lasted well over a year. In the Diva’s division, that is an incredible accomplishment. She was extremely dominant during her run, as dominant as any other Diva has been in the modern era. To steal a line from Chad, Mrs. Edge carved out quite a nice career for herself despite what I perceive to be a subpar skill set to work with. 74. Tajiri I loved Yosihiro Tajiri. I still do. The strongest run of his career took place prior to the time period measured for this countdown. I was a diehard ECW fan, and Tajiri was one of the guys that I looked forward to seeing the most. His triple threat matches with Super Crazy and Little Guido tore the house down night after night. Tajiri had a knack for using facial expressions to engage the audience both as a face and a heel. I may view Tajiri with rose colored sunglasses due to my fandom, but I hold him in much higher regard for his WWE run than his accomplishments would suggest. He had runs as the Light Heavyweight and Cruiserweight champion, as well as a short and unmemorable tag title run with Eddie Guerrero. Nonetheless, a lack of tangible memorable moments does nothing to lower my admiration for Tajiri. Having been there in the Charlotte Coliseum to see Tajiri partner with Eddie Guerrero in a Ladder match against Team Angle, I find at least his Tag Team Title victory to be very memorable. ECW was something that I gained an appreciation for in hindsight, having missed the entire live phenomenon, but it took little to no time at all for Tajiri to leave an impression on me when he arrived in WWE. Memorable is, in fact, an apt word to describe the Japanese Buzzsaw’s mid-card role in the early-to-mid 2000s. No matter his wrestling personality’s orientation, he excelled and added a great deal to the show, be it in a match or a segment. Despite limited opportunities to speak, there really wasn’t anything that Tajiri couldn’t do as a character; and, of course, his in-ring performances were chock full of innovation. WWE needs more Tajiris. 73. MNM MNM – Mercury, Nitro, and Melina – burst onto the scene in the spring of 2005, winning the Tag Team Championships from Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio. The Tag Team division, at that time, was beginning to flounder and they were quickly tasked with carrying it; to their credit, they were up for it. A lot of silly gimmicks debuted in the mid-2000s, so the Hollywood, paparazzi-craving MNM was a breath of fresh air. Mercury was the anchor, allowing Nitro to grow into the wrestler that he eventually became. Melina was the star, her curves and her antics perhaps the most dynamic aspects of the group. Unfortunately, MNM did not have a plethora of talented duos to work with and that, combined with creative’s lack of attention on the division, hurt their overall success. Aside from their championship success and a handful of really good matches, their contributions were limited. I feel a little guilty. Every time I think about MNM, my first thought immediately jumps to Mercury’s face exploding like a scene out of the latest “Saw” movie during their ladder match with the Hardy Boys. I recognize that there have been worse in-ring injuries in other matches, but not much has made my stomach turn the way it did when Mercury’s nose starting spurting blood like a geyser and his face swelled up like Rocky Balboa post-Drago fight in Rocky IV. From a wrestling and an overall impact standpoint, I largely echo Chad’s sentiments. MNM had a great technical wrestler in Mercury and a phenomenal athlete just finding his stride in Morrison. They were the flag bearer for the tag team division at the time, but ultimately lacked the right dance partners to go down as an all-time classic tag team. 72. The World’s Greatest Tag Team When we put this list together, I had the World’s Greatest Tag Team penciled in as one of the best teams of this generation. Looking back, I can’t help but feel like they didn’t accomplish as much as I would have expected them to. They debuted with a monster push, being partnered with the top heel in the business in Kurt Angle. The dressed like him and were positioned in fan’s eyes as the next generation of Kurt Angle. Despite this monster push, their runs as tag team champions were largely unspectacular. The closest thing they saw to a headlining match was a losing effort in a handicap match as part of Team Angle against Brock Lesnar leading up to WrestleMania 19. The biggest reason that they score so highly on our countdown is their longevity, as they tagged on and off for the better part of eight years. Haas and Benjamin suffered from the same problem as MNM; we just don't typically associate them as being the top tag team when tag team wrestling was on the down-swing. By the time MNM was the dominant force in the division, it had been well-established that WWE had, for some reason, de-emphasized tag team wrestling. When Haas and Benjamin truly became the World's Greatest Tag Team, every duo of note was breaking up and moving on, replaced by The Basham Brothers, an aging APA, and an over-the-hill Rikishi-Scotty tandem. This has been a phenomenon that extends well into WWE's past, during and before Attitude (see New Age Outlaws). Take nothing away from Haas and Benjamin, though. Their matches with Los Guerreros, Mysterio and Kidman, and the Hardy Boyz (when Matt and Jeff reunited in 2006/2007) were top notch and they were another excellent tandem without much to work with. 71. The Dudley Boys In the early days of two brands and two separate Tag Team Championships, the Dudley Boyz were largely responsible on both Raw and Smackdown for maintaining the credibility of the titles. With occasional jaunts into higher profile situations such as the Great American Bash 2004 main-event and the Team Austin vs. Team Bischoff match at Survivor Series the prior year, their name value was reinforced, allowing their placement as anchors of the tag division to carry more weight. I shudder to think what Raw’s tag team scene in 2003 or Smackdown’s in 2004 would’ve looked like without the Dudleys around. I’d like to call attention to the quality of their work once TLC ended and the teams that helped them build WWE’s second golden tag team era were no longer. They had several noteworthy matches post-Attitude with the likes of RVD & Kane and RVD & Mysterio. The Dudley Boys are the second greatest tag team of all time behind the Road Warriors. Like many others on this countdown, they suffer because their biggest impact occurred prior to the measurable time period. They were already on the tail end of their run at the start of the post-Attitude Era. Despite this, the Dudleys still enjoy a respectable place on our list as the result of main-eventing two Pay-Per-Views. I have distinct memories on both. The Dudleys v The Undertaker at the Great American Bash 2004 was arguably the worst PPV main-event ever. On the other hand, I was fortunate enough to see the Dudleys close the show live at ECW One Night Stand 2005. Watching them put Tommy Dreamer through a flaming table is a memory that I will never forget, one of the highlights of my life as a wrestling fan. QUESTION OF THE DAY: Are you disappointed with the Dudley Boys return in 2015/2016 or do you feel you got the nostalgic rush and are satisfied to now be moving on?
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