Blog Question

By Scott Keith on 6 September 2012

Hey Scott,
Have a question for ya. The term "wrestling technician" is one that interests and confuses me. What does it exactly mean? For example, Bret Hart is generally considered the epitome of a "technician" but what exactly made him so? What it his grasp of ring psychology in regards to working on body parts and getting the crowd into his comebacks and selling? The way he could chain-wrestle and weave amateur wrestling into his matches? Or was it the way that all his moves looked high-impact and realistic?
And who exactly are wrestling's top technicians? Bret is an obvious choice and guys like Regal, Backlund and maybe Steamboat, Benoit and Angle are in the mix as well. I'm curious as to your thoughts. Maybe a top five best technicians in wrestling's modern era?
Thanks!

It's basically considered the person who can best make it look like "real" wrestling while doing worked wrestling. Benoit and Angle were awesome at that aspect, Bryan of course although he does the more broad WWE style now, Regal (who used to actually do exactly that for a living in carnivals) is also tremendous at it. Bret called himself a technician all the time, but he did more of a general WWE style once he got to the main event. Overall I'd say you've got Benoit, Bryan, Regal, Angle, and someone like Backlund.