7. Ricky Steamboat
Way ahead of his time, Steamboat was wrestling fast paced bouts and doing high flying throughout the Eighties when slow methodical wrestling was still king. Ric Flair puts Steamboat as his greatest ever opponent, and their Two out of Three falls match from Clash of Champions 1989 is one of my favourite ever bouts. Steamboat as NWA Champion retained that night, and all Three of Steamboat's matches with Flair in 1989 were awarded the coveted 5 star rating by esteemed wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer. By comparison, in WWE the most recent match to get those 5 stars was Cena vs Punk Money in the Bank 2011, and the one before that it was way back in Michaels vs Undertaker's Hell in a Cell match in 1997. Steamboat also had an all time classic with Randy Savage, their show stealer at Wrestlemania 3 setting the way for future WWF stars. Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels were hugely influenced by Steamboat. Steamboat retired still relatively young in 1994, fired by Eric Bischoff when out injured. He came back to wrestling in 2005, working as a road agent for WWE and featured now and again. He never turned heel in his career, always a babyface, and one of the greatest world champions of all time.