Predicting The 10 Best Wrestlers In The World Five Years From Now
2. Jay White
Jay White is such a pure heel that his work has broken critical consensus and its metrics of build, intensity and moves.
White stalls in virtually every match right at the opening bell, and labours in his heat spots, not because he doesn't know how to fill the space, but because he is cognisant that, really, the only metric that matters is heat. White knows what to do to craft a superb pro wrestling match - he just deprives the audience of it because it's effective and consistent with his character. He is the calculating son of a bitch that seeks to win with minimal damage to himself. The issue is that, in 2019, that damage informs the drama.
Sometimes this approach is effective, others not. White has almost mastered the space between moves with his wonderfully obnoxious facials, but he sometimes meanders through the middle act, losing his vice-like, manipulative grip on the patience of the crowd.
Jay White flashed forward five years in his genius performance opposite Kota Ibushi in this year's G1 Climax final, in which he was more relentless and vicious than obnoxious. It was a performance of perfect balance, of psychology and content, of heat and action.
The counter savant, when White counters his own instincts to revel in and not build the heat, he will become that genius.