Elder Statesmen

By Scott Keith on June 1, 2019

Every sport has those revered former players from the previous era who can show up at a game and be cheered and usually are universally respected or admired. Even wrestling has had quite a few, like Lou Thesz, Bruno, Harley Race, guys like Baba and El Santo in foreign markets.

Looking back at what I consider the recent “era”, from WrestleMania 1 until the end of WCW and the end of a competitive wrestling market more or less, do you see any guys who fit the bill now? Or has the rise of the internet and dirt sheets leading us to know so much more backstage realities and the drug and CTE-related deaths, plus things like Montreal and all the skeletons being in our face caused that era to be tarnished across the board? The only true one I can think of would be The Rock, but he’s being moved so far from wrestling into being seen as a movie star first that soon they’ll be a generation watching his blockbusters who’ll have to be informed he was a wrestler at some early point in his life. Even my childhood favorites like Bret and Shawn and Flair are so tarnished to me now that I can’t see them today like I saw them for all those years.
Thoughts?

I think Bret and Flair fit the bill. The problem now is that WWE brings out these guys for a payday and humiliates them, so it's really only the biggest and smartest stars who avoid that treatment and stay away. So maybe Sid Vicious will end up filling that role.

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