Hot take!
By Scott Keith on 29 March 2018
Mark Calaway is the greatest wrestler of all time. Not just because he's a multiple time World champion or the Streak or all the money he's drawn.
Consider:
1 – He was brought in to be fed to Hogan as just another Monster of the Month and then get cycled down the card again.
2 – He's either a classic early 90's Wrestler With A Job or a Memphis style Movie Monster Wrestler. Either way, he's saddled with a "let's not get over" gimmick.
Instead he got this "wrestling mortician zombie but a noble zombie like an undead Spaghetti western Clint Eastwood who's also a cult leader and also a biker and proud American" over, he's been around 28 years, and is probably main eventing Wrestlemania again.
To put it another way: he got that gimmick so over that he was able to get Kane over.
I mean, no one's denying that he's a talented guy who was able to get a ridiculous gimmick over by sheer force of willpower. That being said, he's easily the most protected guy in the history of the company outside of, like, Bruno Sammartino or Andre the Giant. He had SOOOOOO many advantages over other people around the same level as him that it's almost unfair to make a comparison in a lot of ways. Like seriously, if you're booked to wrestle once a year and only do jobs in a span of 25 years at Wrestlemania? Obviously you're gonna stay over.