Professional wrestling has never been as popular as it has been
over the last thirty years. Beginning with Hulk Hogan's rise to the
top of the industry and the advent of WrestleMania, it found a
place in the pop culture lexicon that made it a widely accepted,
albeit still controversial, form of sports entertainment. The WWE
has led the way, making the business as much about theatricality as
it is about simulated combat and expanding their viewership in the
process. Subsequently, a generation of fans has grown up with pro
wrestling as one of their pastimes. Wrestling's growth has
paralleled the rise of the media's obsession with sports. Fans
enjoy greater access than ever before to their favorite teams and
superstars through television and the internet. Increased coverage
has brought more in-depth discussion, creating a network of
enthusiasts who are as much critics as they are devotees. Sports
analysis is no longer just water cooler talk. Be it as diehard
supporters of respective sports enjoying educated conversations or
be it as a team's employed statistician, we have become a sports
world obsessed with analytics. The WWE product is more globally
visible than ever. They currently broadcast their weekly
programming in 150 countries and in 30 languages. Websites that
cover pro wrestling draw tens of millions of people every week from
around the world. Much like ESPN, Fox Sports, and others, these
sites provide news, results, and insider reports. The thirst for a
constant stream of information is as strong amongst wrestling fans
as it is for any sport or entertainment avenue. "The Doc" Chad
Matthews knows that better than anyone. He started watching
wrestling with his grandfather when he was two years old. In his
early college years, he began writing television recaps of WWE
shows for a popular website as a hobby, later writing full-fledged
critical columns and reviews while going through professional
schooling to become a doctor. During the same period, he took a
strong interest in analytics. Matthews eventually followed the lead
of his favorite basketball writer, Bill Simmons, in combining his
interest for hyper analysis with the sport that he covered. Simmons
proceeded to take his analytical approach and create a list of over
ninety of the greatest to have ever played in the National
Basketball Association. His amazing work, The Book of Basketball:
The NBA According to the Sports Guy, was the ultimate fan account
of pro basketball history. Inspired, "The Doc" set out to write the
modern pro wrestling equivalent. He developed a methodical
criterion to support his personal observations of nearly thirty
years of fandom in order to definitively answer the question as to
which wrestlers belong in the debate for the greatest of all-time.
While analytically reviewing and celebrating the "WrestleMania Era"
dating back to the early 1980s, he spent countless hours
researching, formulating, and categorizing the matches, the
interviews, the main-events, the pay-per-view buyrates, the
television ratings, and the championships won. A five-tiered
breakdown shaped the definitive list. Through a formula (to bridge
the gap between eras) for championships won, a scale for
main-events and headlining matches to account for longevity, a
compilation of television ratings and pay-per-view buy rate data
for financial success, a wrestler scoring system to reflect
physical attributes and microphone skills, and a film critic-like
star rating scale to account for performance, Matthews has named
the "Greatest Wrestlers of the WrestleMania Era."
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