>>7281859Even if you're just talking North American wrestlers, HBK's a stretch for top ten of all time. Matysik only had him at number 15. His ranking was just a ranking of North American wrestlers, he made his list in 2013, and of the fourteen guys above him, not one has an obvious case to be behind Michaels.
If you're counting worldwide, it's not even close. Dynamite Kid alone's significantly more influential in-ring than Michaels. Even the people who don't copy from Billington directly copy from someone who copied from him -- Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, Mick Foley -- far more than they copy from Michaels. And Billington's hardly the only guy who in a worldwide listed be above Michaels. El Santo, Mil Máscaras, Karl Gotch, Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa, Jumbo Tsuruta, Antonio Inoki, Giant Baba, and Rikidozan all have very obvious cases a head of Michaels.
And keep in mind, I'm a big fan of the guy.
