A week or so ago,as an Entertainment Weekly subscriber,I received a Top 100 Entertainers of the last 50 years Special Commemorative Issue. ( Yeah,All Caps Baby !). Well ,I'm not quite as resourceful or a tenth as motivated as good ol' EW. So I decided I'd just try to come up with the five most IMPORTANT wrestlers of the nineties. Note that I did not say best wrestlers or favorite wrestlers. The "most important" means just that. These are the guys that tapped into the mainstream, and came back with more than just a " Stupid Wrestler " sticker posted in the " Kick Me" position on their backs. We're going backwards from five to one to add to dramatic tension. ( Ha ! ) Feel free to disagree, in fact, fell free to disagree in my mailbox it's MonsterMan316@aol.com. Mr Zimmerman will probably link that in the mail the author spot anyway, because, after all, he's the man !

Number Five:
HULK HOGAN
Oh I can hear the moans coming from the collective intelligentsia. The workrate freaks are practicing spinning over in there graves. Well, I'm about to make it even worse. Hogan took Mick Foley's spot on this list, *and* the only reason the Golden Brat is even this low on the list is because I'm not all that fond of him either. Here's the troublesome truth . Up until the advent of Whats-his-face 3:16, if any man on the street was asked to name a pro wrestler, there was an exceptionally good chance he/she/it was going to say Hulk Hogan. Add to that the fact that Hulk Hogan and Elvis Presley draw suspicous parallels and I feel a rant coming on. Elvis revolutionized the music industry. Hulk Hogan revolutionized wrestling. Elvis Presley got lazy and started churning out painfully bad movies. So did You-Know-Who. ( Hope,CRZ doesn't mind my blatant thievery there ). Elvis ,realizing that he was losing popularity to a quartet of mop tops ,donned black leather and did a rockin' television special.Hogan realizing that he was losing popularity to a slew of , ya know, actual athletes, decided to don black tight and become Hollywood Hogan. See ? Makes interesting cocktail party conversation fodder, eh ?

Four
THE UNDERTAKER
Don't think so ? Well here's my argument. A wrestler makes it to a certain level of popularity and then vainly decides to seek new heights in the entertainment industry. The casual fan flips through the channels looking for that wrestler. He ain't there. The casual fan turns on a syndicated rerun but very special episode of " Facts Of Life ", where Natalie gets her ashes hauled. Wrestling loses another fan, maybe forever. The Undertaker for the most part was always there and he was on top or close to it. Add to that the fact that his persona was probably the most over,strictly gimmick character, in the history of " this great sport" ( Hee Hee ), and whammo : Natalie loses her virginity alone. Okay, that came out wrong ,but you get the picture. Here's a smaller factoid, but a relevant one nonetheless; The Undertaker is the first wrestler that actually got the comic book crowd into the mix. That's a demographic, no matter how cultish, and can not be discounted. Plus I dig UT. No pun intended. Honest.

Number Three
SHAWN MICHAELS
I suggest (VKMism) that this will make those disgusted with my previous two choices a little happier. I swear on Lex Luger's grave that HBK was the total package.How long was the shelf life of the really big slow guys performing restholds and color by numbers promos going to last in this short attention span world ? Thanks to Shawn Michaels, we thankfully never had to find out. Quite simply the greatest athlete/entertainer combination pro wrestling has ever seen and only one guy that has that combo is working right now ( Chris Jericho ). Shawn could make anyone look good. Heck , Michaels pulled good a match out of Sid, for Pete's sake ! Shawn Michaels parellels draw closer to Ali than to Elvis, and that's why he ranks higher than Hogan. Hogan was a fair and charismatic entertainer. Shawn was the consumate Sports Entertainer. Get it ? Got It ? Good ! Speaking of bringing in key demographics. My wife hates pro wrestling. She LOVES Shawn Michaels. Any female casting an eye towards her male dominated television and seeing the Heart Break Kid probably did not divert her eyes. That's important. VERY important.

Number Two
Bret Hart
What can be said about Bret that hasn't already been said. " Wrestling with the Shadows" was groundbreaking. Bret's family troubles and tragedies, sadly, were and still remain world news level media. Bret , like Shawn Michaels brought some level of genuine awe inspiring atleticism and craft to pro wrestling as well as ushered out the era of ear shattering bellowing that passed for promos. I won't discuss how sad Bret's delusions have become. Outside of rejoining the WWF and *insisting* that the symbolification angle return so that he can crystallize his martyrdom ,Bret has covered all the bases without me throwing my opinion into the mix. The nice thing is that Hart can recover from all this and still make a rather large impact in the next decade, which is more than I can say for anyone else on this list. ( Shawn and UT are just about finished thanks to injury ) except Number One.

Number One
STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN
Two . count 'em. two TV Guide covers. And that's all I got to say about that !

Special Thanks this week to my buddy Tara, who sent me the autographs of the New Age Outlaws and more importantly a guy who barring injury will be on a similair list in 2010, Chris Jericho. Tara Rocks!

Until next time, I am my inner child.