Posted in: Doctor's Orders
Doctor's Orders: The Top 100 WWE Stars Of The Post-Attitude Era (#40 -#31)
By The Doc
Jul 30, 2016 - 3:20:51 PM





About a year ago, a frequent collaborator on “The Doc Says” podcast – David Fenichel - suggested to me a column series that would begin to turn our historical attention toward that which came after the vaunted Attitude Era. With an eye on something fresh, he suggested that we identify the most accomplished wrestlers of the “post-Attitude Era” - from present day back to the night after WrestleMania X-8 as we have defined it. So, welcome to a labor of pro wrestling love roughly one year in the making.

We ranked our top 100 wrestlers based on a point system that involved headlining matches for WrestleMania, Summerslam, Survivor Series, The Royal Rumble, and all other PPVs, combined with a points formula based on titles won and length of reigns. While it was more difficult to ascertain the status of certain members of the WWE – namely tag teams, divas and legends w/ short tenures during this era, we believe that this is as unbiased of a countdown as you are going to find. Chad and I did a tremendous amount of work putting this together for you, so we hope that you enjoy the ride.

40. Ric Flair
39. Dean Ambrose
38. Cody Rhodes
37. Wade Barrett
36. Shelton Benjamin
35. John Morrison
34. Kofi Kingston
33. Mark Henry
32. Goldberg
31. Rob Van Dam


40. Ric Flair



Dave: I struggled to determine Ric Flair’s place on this countdown. While he is undoubtedly one of the best wrestlers of all time, his overall impact during this era was minimal. His biggest accomplishment by far during this time period was his farewell headlining match against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 24. Truth be told, I hated that match. Even HBK admitted that the two men didn’t click that night, and wishes that he could have given Flair a better send off. Flair’s other big point scorer for our countdown was an equally disappointing handicap match as part of Evolution against The Rock and Mic Foley at WrestleMania 20. I think he headlined an unforgettable PPV against Randy Orton in a steel cage. In sum, his overall greatness wasn’t on display during this era, despite his statistics scoring well on our countdown.

Doc: I completely disagree with Dave on this one. Ric Flair's impact may not have been as measurable in PPV buys as someone like Hogan's, but the Nature Boy's contributions were greater. He was consistently around, giving him the chance to interact with and impact the young stars spread from the back to the front of our list. Go back and watch his Hall of Fame speech and note the number of roster members crying in the crowd; that wasn't just because Flair was a legendary figure, but also because he'd established a connection with them. On screen, he was a new age mix between JJ Dillon and Harley Race, managing and participating in the ring with his fellow members of Evolution – the faction of the 2000s. He also had big-time matches with Orton, HHH, Edge, and – of course – Michaels. I'd say he was one of post-Attitude's most under-appreciated contributors.

39. Dean Ambrose



(Doc’s Note – We finished writing this series before Ambrose won the WWE Championship)

Dean Ambrose has been the Reality Era's Mick Foley thus far in his career, an integral part of the product from the moment he debuted at Survivor Series 2012 alongside the Shield and a consistent headlining act on mostly secondary PPVs since his faction broke up in 2014. From a statistical point-of-view, he holds the distinction of being the longest reigning United States Champion in WWE history as well as one of the most high profile Intercontinental Champions of the last decade. His PPV main-events with Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, and Roman Reigns aid his cause on our Countdown, as do the matches that the Shield had with Team Hell No/Ryback, John Cena/Sheamus/Ryback, the Wyatt Family and Evolution a few years ago. One would think that within a couple of years, the Lunatic Fringe will be in the Top 20 or higher. He’s closing fast on his post-Attitude peers.

Chad really did a bang up job on Dean Ambrose. I really can’t add much here, as I largely echo his sentiments. Ambrose is a lock to be a superstar for the next ten years. I’m blown away that he has amassed enough accomplishments to come in at #39 on the list despite a relatively short tenure thus far. The biggest compliment that I can give Dean Ambrose is that he’s gotten himself over at a main-event level as a face, despite the indisputable fact that his natural personality is to be a heel. This is a testament to his versatility. The minute the WWE decides to give up on the good-guy Roman schtick and turn him heel, Ambrose will be ready and able to step up as the #1 face of the company. I cannot wait for what I consider to be inevitable – Dean Ambrose becoming “the man”. We might be seeing that happening right now.

38. Cody Rhodes



A lot of people look at Cody Rhodes as a disappointment, but his #38 ranking on our list proves that he carved out an excellent career for himself. Being the son of Dusty Rhodes, many expected Cody to skyrocket to the main event. While this never happened, there wasn’t much else that he didn’t accomplish. He’s another guy who could play a face and a heel equally well. He was able to play both serious and comedic roles with ease. Cody scored extremely well in the titles category as a result of being a multiple time tag and IC champion, including one of the longest IC title reigns in history. I might be willing to argue that his tag team title win with his brother over The Shield a couple years ago was the most emotional moment in wrestling over the last five years. Cody really did have a great career.

Cody Rhodes was one of my favorite wrestlers; for his versatility, he earned the right to be considered among the best of his generation even if he never got the push to the top of the card that defines modern professional wrestling. I would contend that Cody could have been in the main-event at any point between 2011 and 2014 (pre-Stardust, essentially), as either a heel or a babyface I might add. The deranged Cody gimmick was gold and was what made him one of my favorites; the babyface, sympathetic Cody struggling to fight the Authority and the Shield was equally awesome. Whether he was part of a Legacy, “Dashing,” deranged, Mr. Mustachio, the underdog, or the comic book villain, he always got very over. Think of some of his peers who were offered more creatively, but never got over.

37. Wade Barrett



Our previous entry overachieved on our list as compared to the place he was able to consistently occupy in the WWE hierarchy. Wade Barrett probably underachieved. He won the Intercontinental Championship five times and he was the leader of (arguably) the third greatest faction of the decade thus far, but didn't you expect him to do more given his initial pushes, unique look, above average wrestling skills, and pretty stellar ability to sell himself on the microphone? I don't want to sell him short because he possessed many of the qualities that I celebrated in Rhodes a moment ago, but I think it'll be hard for me to look back on Barrett's career and think of something besides the injury bug. Money in the Bank, World Championships, and a plethora of PPV main-events seemed to be his destiny, but he could never sustain his momentum.

Like Rhodes and the next three guys on our list, Wade Barrett was a guy with all of the necessary tools yet while carving out an outstanding, title-laden career, never achieved consistent main event success. While I don’t necessarily agree with Chad’s distinction in how he views Cody and Barrett, I understand where he is coming from. Unlike Cody, Barrett had several moments during his career where it appeared that he was going to be given the ball to run with. Each and every time, mostly due to the injury bug hitting him, he was unable to do so. Nonetheless, Wade was a five-time Intercontinental Champion. There aren’t a ton of guys throughout history that can say that.

36. Shelton Benjamin



I’d like to be naïve enough to think that racism doesn’t exist in wrestling, but I’d be kidding myself. If not for his skin color, Shelton Benjamin wouldn’t be considered the “forgotten man” of the 2002 OVW class. We spoke on his tag team success. Shelton is a 3 time IC champ and 1 time US champ. He had great matches against HHH and HBK that looked to vault him into superstardom, but it never happened. He was voted the most underrated wrestler by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter three years in a row. I viewed Shelton as a modern day Sting. He didn’t need to work the mic because there was a natural aura and excitement about him that made fans stand up and cheer. It pleased me to see him ranked so highly here, but I can’t help but think about what his career could have been.

Shelton Benjamin was a tremendous wrestler. HBK called him the week after their Gold Rush Tournament classic, “The best young piece of in-ring talent I’ve seen in years.” Kurt Angle thought he was brought to Raw in 2005 to get Shelton to the next level. Benjamin was fantastic in between the ropes; he just got it. I wish he had come about during a time when managers were more heavily utilized, though, because his lack of on-camera charisma held him back as much as his ethnicity. Give him a mouthpiece and he’s a multi-time World Champion…I really believe that. He could’ve been booked like Mike Tyson, saying a few controversial one-liners but leaving the promoting of his personality to the Don Kings of the world. Alas, it never panned out for him. You can only be that good for so long and not have your skill set fully taken advantage of before you lose your motivation and just become another guy along for the ride.

35. John Morrison



Can I just copy and paste everything but the kind words from Shelton’s peers just written for the previous entry here for John Morrison? What a uniquely gifted talent Jo Mo was, offering something perhaps light on toughness but fascinating aesthetically. We talked earlier of his tag team success with MNM, but he also had tremendous tag team success with The Miz thanks to the Dirt Sheet, an underrated achievement in the last decade for its influence on proving to WWE the ever-increasing popularity of online media avenues. He also had a lot of singles success as an ECW Champion (when the belt mattered) and as a fixture in the Intercontinental Championship scene. His eventual headlining matches on Raw and PPV against The Miz with the WWE Title on the line were the validation for his consistency between 2005 and 2011.

A two-time Intercontinental Champion and a multi-time tag team champion with different partners, John Morrison attains this lofty ranking for the same reasons as Rhodes, Barrett and Benjamin. This is where the comparison ends. Morrison is a guy that I looked at and thought “this guy wants to be famous more than he wants to be a wrestler”. His unbelievable athleticism and million dollar look jumped off the page the first time I saw him on the ORIGINAL Tough Enough tryouts. WWE gave him the boot not because they didn’t think he could be a superstar, but because they didn’t think he had passion for the business. He never worked on his ring psychology and never made any attempt to improve his promos. In the end, his extremely unprofessional conduct towards Trish Stratus at WrestleMania as a result of a perceived snub of his girlfriend ultimately led to his undoing.

34. Kofi Kingston



No non-headliner on this list has a better title resume than Kofi Kingston. He has been a staple on WWE programming for the almost a decade. He’s a 4 time IC champ, 3 Time US champ, and 5 Time WWE Tag Team Champion. He has long been one of my personal favorites. I loved his lone headlining feud with Randy Orton. When he was the sole survivor of their Survivor Series match, I was certain that he was destined for main event stardom. It was not meant to be, perhaps for the same race-related reasons that Shelton Benjamin never got there. That said, Kofi has had a tremendous resurgence as part of the New Day over the past year, and I couldn’t be happier about it. While I don’t foresee a main event run, it guarantees that he will continue to be a relevant part of WWE programming.

Kofi Kingston is one of the most decorated champions of the entire WrestleMania Era, but it would be safe to say that the lasting memories that he forged prior to his work with the New Day came during the stretch of Royal Rumble matches in which he popularized for the modern era the near elimination. Nobody ever quite so spectacularly staved off their Rumble ousters. HBK’s famous “1 foot touched the floor” move in 1995 may have set the tone, but Kofi took full advantage of the Rumble rule book’s gray areas and turned almost getting thrown over the top with both feet touching the floor into an art form. I celebrate that achievement. He has also replicated much of that creativity in Ladder matches and was a big reason for the critical success of the first Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania.

33. Mark Henry



Mark Henry’s high ranking speaks to the historical impressiveness of his dominant run in 2011. Recall that it was in that year that he turned heel to total indifference from the audience, at first, but uncharacteristically found a much higher gear at a fairly advanced age for someone of his tenure and won everyone over. The summer of 2011 is known best for CM Punk and Christian’s ascent to headlining status, but Henry was right behind them, regularly inducting members into the Hall of Pain. He won the World Heavyweight Championship and proceeded to have one of the decade’s most underappreciated matches (and feuds for that matter) with Big Show – my personal pick for one of the two most pleasant surprises ever to take place in a WWE ring. Aside from 2011 and his brilliant faux-retirement promo in 2013 that led to a headlining program for Money in the Bank with John Cena, Henry has added very little to the quality of WWE programming; that’s about 5% of his career – better late than never I guess.

We reach the point in our countdown where everyone remaining had significant headlining duties. The first few entries can be considered outliers. Mark Henry is the first. His headlining statistics actually warrant a better spot on the countdown, but he falls here as a result of a lack of significance to any of his headlining runs. He chalked up points by being the 4th or 5th man on main-event level Survivor Series matchups. Thus, one can argue that his statistics are padded here. Nonetheless, I have fond memories of Mark Henry. A guy his size is never going to be the best wrestler on the roster, but you can tell that the effort is there. He’s also a guy that has made the best out of some terrible storylines that were given to him, and for that I suspect he will ultimately end up in the Hall of Fame.

32. Goldberg



Goldberg is the perfect example to highlight the differences between what the internet wrestling community believes is necessary to make a main-event star, and what is actually necessary to make a main event star. Goldberg couldn’t wrestle worth a damn and couldn’t cut a promo to save his life. Nonetheless, he had an undeniable “it” factor that attracted the masses. The IWC should think about this when evaluating their position on Roman Reigns. That rant aside, Goldberg had a short but absolutely monstrous headlining run in the WWE. During his one year stay, he main evented Summerslam in a very underrated Elimination Chamber Match, won the world title, main evented Survivor Series and several other PPVs against Triple H, main evented a PPV against The Rock, and headlined a WrestleMania against Brock Lesnar. That is an absolutely incredible year that racked up massive points on our countdown.

I’m not sure that I can add anything to Dave’s rundown of “Da Man.” Just think about that one year stretch for a moment, though. His vignette airs to much fanfare at WrestleMania XIX. He debuts the next night on Raw and proceeds to main-event Backlash against Rock. That was a dream match…and it took place at Backlash! He went onto to main-event every PPV that he was on with one exception – a good semi-main-event against Chris Jericho - for the rest of 2003. We had a party at my apartment full of former WCW fans to watch him win the title from Triple H at Unforgiven. He played a key role in my pick for the best Royal Rumble match ever in 2004 and had at least the makings of an epic clash with Brock Lesnar; though that match wasn’t epic, it was fascinating because of the crowd reaction. An incredible year indeed!

31. Rob Van Dam



Strip Rob Van Dam of the work he did in 2001 due to our cutoff of the night after WrestleMania X8 being the true start of the post-Attitude Era and you take away arguably the best run that RVD had in his WWE career. However, when you consider that he won several Intercontinental and Tag Team Titles, that he was a PPV headliner whenever they needed him to be, that he was perhaps their most over mid-card act between 2002-2005, and that he parlayed his sustained popularity and integral role in bringing ECW back into a brief stint as WWE Champion in 2006, it’s just hard not to view RVD as anything less than an underrated historical figure of the last 15 years. For my personal tastes, Van Dam had some of my favorite mid-card matches of last decade – vs. Benoit at Summerslam ’02, vs. Christian in a Ladder match on Raw in ’03, and against Shelton Benjamin at Backlash ’06.

I was fortunate enough to be in attendance at Summerslam 2002 and to this day consider RVD v Chris Benoit for the Intercontinental Title to be one of the most underrated matches of all time. It gets overshadowed by other more famous matches on the show, but I’d argue that it is one of the ten best IC title matches ever. My personal memories of RVD go far beyond that. RVD is the reason that I became an ECW fan. I loved the hardcore element of the product, but it was his unbelievable athleticism that made me tune in every week. I was able to see him face Jerry Lynn live at an event. I was able to be at the first ECW One Night Stand, and his in-ring speech was the highlight of my night. Chad knocked his description out of the park – RVD is a historically underrated talent.


QUESTION OF THE DAY: Considering he eventually became WWE Champion, did Rob Van Dam fulfill his full potential in WWE in your opinion?