10 Wrestlers Who Were Way Ahead Of Their Time
3. Dynamite Kid
Tom Billington may very well be the most influential professional wrestler of the modern age. Known as the Dynamite Kid, he stood just 5ft8 but completely changed the perception of 'smaller' men in the ring. Dynamite was intense as they came and his offence mean and crisp, and he is regarded as the first to merge the styles common in Europe, the US, Mexico and Japan into one iconic style.
The only real issue here is that Dynamite's style hasn't exactly led to many happy endings. You could argue that it creates the perfect in-ring wrestling, but out of the ring it has a shoddy track record. Chris Benoit was the most famous Dynamite clone, and that didn't exactly end well.
Daniel Bryan is another who took huge inspiration from Billington, and his wrestling career came to a premature end this year. Dynamite's own story hasn't had the happiest of endings, with all sorts of terrible rumours following the now-paralysed grappler like a bad smell.