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McNeill's Top 10 Draft Picks - Rock, Angle, or Austin - 2 Yrs Ago Mar 9, 2003 - 1:37:00 PM
The following McNeill's Take was published on PWTorch.com two years ago, on March, 8, 2002...
It's March, and Wade Keller put the word out last week in the Torch Newsletter that it's time for Torch subscribers to choose their "Top 10 Draft Picks" from the world of pro wrestling. If you had your pick of any ten workers in the world to start your own promotion with, who would you take?
The results won't be in the Torch for another couple of weeks. I hope nobody will mind if I go first.
(1) The Rock Well, duh. If I'm running a wrestling promotion, I'd like for fans to pay to see it. The Rock is wrestling's biggest crossover star right now. With "The Mummy #2" and "The Scorpion King" set to come out in the next couple years, I don't thing Rocky will become any less famous. The trick will be to get him to wrestle in between movie deals. Maybe the best talker in the business.
(2) Triple H Da Game. First to arrive, last to leave. You've gotta dig that. Top-notch wrestler. May actually improve over the next couple of years. As big as he is as a heel right now, you could probably make an even bigger face out of him.
(3) Booker T Player haters may disagree, but Booker has the highest upside of anybody in WCW. He can talk, he can work, he has a great look and connects well with the fans. Best of all, he'll be fresh to those North American fans who haven't been watching WCW.
(4) Kurt Angle Went from absolutely nowhere to the top of the WWF in under eighteen months. He's great heel who has the potential to be an even bigger face in a year or two. Oh, and he's one of the best workers in North America.
(5) Chris Benoit Benoit is the gold standard of modern North American wrestling. He has good matches with mediocre wrestlers, and great matches with good wrestlers. He's not the best talker in the world, but you don't have to be a great talker these days. Just look at Scott Steiner.
(6) Chris Jericho Yeah, I know, I know. But the talent is there, he's outstanding on the mic, and the people react to him. The worst case scenario with Jericho is that you have a solid guy near the top of the card.
(7) Mike Awesome How do you go wrong with a guy like this? He's built like the proverbial brick house, he has amazing agility, and he can work with almost anyone. Only a group of complete imbeciles could fail with Mike Awesome, uh, never mind.
(8) Lance Storm I might be alone in picking this guy. At worst, Lance Storm will stay in the upper half of the midcard in any promotion that he's in. At best, he will become the next legendary Canadian wrestler.
(9) Jun Akiyama If you don't follow Japanese wrestling, all you need to know is that I'm saving myself a lot of hate mail by including this guy. And if you do, I picked Jun because Kobashi and Kawada are both out with long-term injuries. There's absolutely no reason why American promoters shouldn't be able to turn a top-notch Japanese wrestler into a box-office draw here in America.
(10) Dean Malenko Don't laugh. Somebody's got to teach draft picks #11 through #30 how to work.
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