Greatest Mic Worker of All Time - Nominations Thread
We've done greatest match and we've done greatest wrestler, so we've got the broad strokes down. I think "best talker" has a lot of potential as something for the forum to vote on and discuss, since there are a number of names that come to mind that could potentially win it. I don't know how many to put in the field...for now, let's just nominate workers and we can see how many truly viable candidates there are.
The names that come to mind for me...
The Rock
Steve Austin
Chris Jericho
Hulk Hogan
Ric Flair
Bobby Heenan
Vince McMahon
Arn Anderson
Jake Roberts
Jim Cornette
Randy Savage
Dusty Rhodes
Roddy Piper
CM Punk
Paul Heyman
Mick Foley
John Cena
Freddie Blassie
Terry Funk
Ted DiBiase
Kevin Nash
Scott Hall
JBL
HHH
Kurt Angle
Edge
Curt Hennig
Jerry Lawler (I know that his modern work would destroy his chances of winning this, but his overall body of mic work still really is quite good.)
Jesse Ventura
Raven
Harley Race
Not saying all of those guys are definitely in, but certainly I view them all as workers who were great on the mic during their careers. Anyway, hopefully people are interested in doing this; nominations and criticisms of the names I've put up there are welcome.
Buddy Rogers should be in if we're including old timers, although I actually wouldn't be against not including them in this one since we would mostly be going off reputation/quotes.
Stephanie McMahon seems a worthy inclusion to represent the women.
I have been critical of Shawn Michaels' mic work during the drafts and the greatest wrestler tournament but a lot of people like his stuff, particularly the DX stuff, and if you're trying to get 64 people he should probably be in. He's no worse than Kevin Nash.
This one may get loled at, but the Ultimate Warrior had awesome intensity in interviews, even if you couldn't always tell what he was saying.
Daniel Bryan's work from this year alone is probably enough to get him in imo.
Re: Greatest Mic Worker of All Time - Nominations Thread
I don't think Warrior is a laughable suggestion. His mic work was pretty ridiculous to me but was a big part of what got him over. I mostly couldn't stand Nash's mic work either, but it was clearly a huge basis for his success and many people loved it. Also am way more critical of Piper than most, but good luck arguing with his objective greatness.
I wouldn't be totally against including HBK even though I think his mic work is pretty weak personally. I'd include Bret if I included HBK since my problem with HBK always comes down to "he never had an epic promo once in his life," whereas Bret at least had one amazing year at the end and the rest of the time was about at an HBK level. To me they're both first-round fodder though.
Jim Ross comes to mind as a candidate, and only leaves me not knowing whether to include him because 99% of his work was commentary and he rarely cut promos. He was always pretty awesome at conducting interviews/cutting promos though.
I think the question here is whether it would be better to go with 32, where a good chunk of the field would be a legitimate threat to make some kind of run, or 64, where there would be quite a bit more filler. If we're filling out a field of 64, I definitely think there's a case to be made for Michaels, Bret, Owen, Pillman, Rick Rude, Shane Douglas, Joey Styles.
That makes 44 unique names mentioned in this thread (aside from Scott Steiner and Jeff Farmer who were obviously jokes). I guess as I write this it seems like it may be better to get to the field of 64 just because there's more than 32 names who would be worthy of "OMG they didn't get included?" if they weren't in.
Re: Greatest Mic Worker of All Time - Nominations Thread
How about Batista? I mean sure his face work has been a bit bland, but I keep hearing words that he raised his level up during his final main event run.
Re: Greatest Mic Worker of All Time - Nominations Thread
Quote:
Originally Posted by LKJ
I definitely think there's a case to be made for Michaels, Bret, Owen, Pillman, Rick Rude, Shane Douglas, Joey Styles.
I totally think that Pillman should be in. That dude, when he speaks, really does a great job as a crazy scuzzball or an ass, like Austin. Of course, longevity is the issue here.
Now, I can't say much for anyone else, since I haven't watched their work other than HBK or Owen maybe. But I'm such a huge HBK mark so I'm bias like that. At least, in his promos that he gets the job done, no matter how insane the storyline is, he gets the promo down with the right amount of emotion.
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