10 Most Explosive Wrestlers Of All Time

7. Masato Yoshino

AEW PAC
YouTube (Steven Hindarmawan)

Masato Yoshino's explosiveness was powered through a searing pace the likes of which even this generation hasn't yet caught up to.

Yoshino is a talent that makes a mockery of old, worm-brained arguments of size automatically driving drawing power: Dragon Gate in the mid-2000s became the cult sensation among hardcore U.S. fans. Through the company's partnership with Ring Of Honor, the warp-speed puro-lucha in-house style, vastly influential in its accelerated hybrid fusion, saw Dragon Gate rise to prominence as the import of choice, and much of that appeal was powered through Yoshino's scintillating cameos in - again - influential six-man tags, the likes of which the Elite drew inspiration from to seduce the pro wrestling fandom.

Yoshino was a speedball so jaw-dropping that he was thoroughly, gloriously distraction-proof, and his work never felt like a one-dimensional, get-the-sh*t-in flex. He used that pace to both mystify his opponents and as a launchpad to inflict painful looking damage.

Yoshino was a GIF wrestler before social media willed such a thing into existence; his lung-bursting sprints created the template for so much of the modern landscape.

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!