The old "Mt Rushmore" question

You all know it. Who's yours?

American:

Rock

Austin

Cena

Hogan

Puro:

Kobashi

Misawa

Mutoh

Inoki

American:

Harley Race

Andre the Giant(over Hogan)

Austin

Cena

Japan(I don't know that many):

Antonio Inoki

Giant Baba(Heard he might not have been great in the ring but he was a BIG deal in Japan. Pun intended.)

Tanahashi Hiroshi

Tiger Mask (Just over Juushin Thunder Liger)

Edit:

Personal Mt. Rushmore (impact on me and void of overall cultural impact):

Bret "The Hitman" Hart

Stone Cold Steve Austin

Tatanka

Taka Michinoku

@chamurai: I kind of understand why Harley Race gets his full name, but I think it's funny that Cena and Austin both get single names but Andre the Giant gets his full title, because otherwise it could be any Andre! Or any The Giant I guess.

But the main thing I gotta know is...why Tatanka. Not that I have any particular dislike of Tatanka, he was fine, but why Tatanka over Piper or Taker or a billion other guys? I think of him as a pretty generic midcarder with a gimmick that has aged poorly.

Also these mountains should have room for women wrestlers. Maybe Japan/USA combined just because especially on the US side you're going to end up with a lot of current performers.

@bigsocrates: Re Tatanka: I realized that and I debated on changing it to The Undertaker or someone else but since I was going with who I popped for the most as a kid, I went with Tatanka. By the time I started really watching wrestling it was around the time WWF was pushing Lex Luger for instance. I was aware of Hogan and Warrior and The Million Dollar Man but I was not savvy enough with the local TV stations where I lived at the time so I don't really have a real fondness for that era.

@bigsocrates:

Here ya go

Female:

Mae Young (Over Andy Kaufman)

Luna Vachon

Chyna

Trish Stratus

@chamurai: It's your mountain you include who you want I was just curious why Tatanka and the answer seems to be that Tatanka just captured your youthful imagination.

I suppose I should come up with my own mountain but I am bad at these things. How do you weigh Bull Nakano against Awesome Kong against Becky Lynch? I just don't know.

I guess for American men I'll go:

Piper

Hart (Brett flavor)

Macho

Austin

That seems defensible.

Giant Baba absolutely needs to be on the Japan Mt. Rushmore of wrestling. The man might not have been a great technical wrestler for much of the back-half of his career, but he a was massive figurehead in promoting and popularizing wrestling in Japan and one of the most universally loved figures in the entire country.

There's too many of them to etch in stone. Even if I was to narrow myself by 'era' or whatever.

Don't have any knowledge of Japanese wrestling other than the handful of guys I know made names for themselves over there before or in between WCW/WWF runs. Also fell off wrestling incredibly hard right around the time Scorpion King came out and a lot of the new crop seemed to be just First Name Last Name guys.

Given that context, obviously Austin and Rock would be on this, but I wanna be A Guy so here's four people I always begged for the PPV if they were on (which, ironically, only one wasn't a Name Guy):

Chris Jericho

Mick Foley, any version

Scott Hall

Goldberg

Honorable Mention, Always Picked His Moveset in the AKI Games: Kanyon/Mortis

Hogan- basically took wrestling from the bingo halls to the stadiums, more responsible for mainstream society to start absorbing wrestling than anyone

Austin- greatest anti-hero in history, Appealed to the blue collar crowd in a way only guys liek Dusty ever could, but with a better look

Flair- shitbag of a guy, but his influence and recognizability, countless classic feuds, laid the "pure heel" blueprint out better than anyone

Undertaker- the last of the true "gimmicks." The man was at the top end of the card for 25 years, so long that he went from fighting Yokozuna and Papa Shango to fighting nothing but guys wrestling under their real names, and kept putting on classic, show highlight matches up until like Wrestlemania 32

@cornfed40: The idea that Hogan and McMahon brought wrestling from Bingo halls to stadiums is pure myth.

Bruno Sammartino wrestled at Madison Square Garden 187 times. Whipper Billy Watson was a star attraction at the hockey arena in Toronto.

Wrestling was a big local TV hit for almost as long as there has been TV (and TV was much more local before the 80s and the growth of cable and satellite.)

It's true that there was wrestling in bingo halls too, but there was after Hogan as well. Raw taped from a high school gym a few times in the mid 90s!

Hogan definitely helped spark a boom period, but the claims that wrestling was some dark back alley activity beforehand are inaccurate.

Bret Hart, Chris Jericho, Randy Savage, and Flair. I want to put Mr. Perfect/Curt Hennig on there so badly but those would be my four. I don't know any wrestling outside of American well enough to add to the Japan conversation.

@sparky_buzzsaw: This would be my List 1.b. That's a real solid lineup.

I find it interesting that there's only 1 list on here so far with Taker.

@sombre:

Adam Cole

The Young Bucks

Kevin Steen

There, that was easy.