wrestling / Columns

Top 7 Male Wrestlers of the 2010s

December 15, 2019 | Posted by Steve Cook
John Cena’s John Cena WWE Smackdown

As we approach the end of this decade, it’s the perfect time to take stock of what’s happened over the past ten years. Who has stood out among the pack to establish themselves as the best in the business?

We’re all going to have different answers on this one. This isn’t the 1980s, where the choice was either Hogan or Flair based on your preference. It’s not the 1990s, where Steve Austin strapped the business on his back and took the WWF to new heights. It’s not even the 2000s, where John Cena dominated everything whether people liked it or not, and even the people that didn’t like it still went along for the ride. Who was the Wrestler of the 2010s? I would guess that a lot of you will have a lot of different answers, as it’s tough to say that anybody in North America really broke away from the pack like a Hogan or a Flair or an Austin or Cena.

Today, we look at my top 7 Male Wrestlers of the 2010s.

7. Roman Reigns

3-time WWE Champion
1-time WWE Universal Champion
1-time WWE Intercontinental Champion
1-time WWE United States Champion
1-time WWE Tag Team Champion

Reigns signed with WWE in 2010, spending the first couple of years of the decade training with Florida Championship Wrestling/NXT before making his way to the main roster as part of The Shield. Roman immediately stood out with his look & charisma, and it didn’t take long for people to peg him as a future star. The Shield ran roughshod over WWE until Seth Rollins broke the group up, and Reigns immediately got inserted into the main event. The Raw brand in the middle part of the 2010s was all about making Roman Reigns the next top guy, and fans didn’t really buy in. The more fans didn’t buy in, the more WWE dug in. They thought the lesson of John Cena was that the fans having a mixed reaction was a good thing. The problem: that mix was even more of a boo for Reigns than it was for Cena. Beating cancer got him respect in most quarters, but we’re all waiting for that next big push & the fans turning against him again.

The Big Dog probably should have been the Wrestler of the Decade. WWE wanted him to be their top star for several years, and did almost everything possible to do so. The things they didn’t do, while still pushing him down everybody’s throats when the people he couldn’t beat (Brock Lesnar) weren’t around, kept it from happening.

6. John Cena

8-time WWE Champion
1-time WWE World Champion
2-time WWE United States Champion

After being the Wrestler of the 2000s in most peoples’ estimation, Cena kept things rolling for the first half of the 2010s. Most of his early-decade activity involved feuds over the WWE Championship. Batista, The Miz & CM Punk were just some of Cena’s title adversaries, but his rivalry with the Rock that main evented two WrestleManias & his matches with Brock Lesnar are probably what most people remember from that era. He was Raw’s top star up until 2016, when he got drafted to SmackDown Live and had a tremendous series of matches with AJ Styles. He won nine world championships during the decade, leaving him at sixteen overall, tied in WWE canon with Ric Flair.

As the decade progressed, Cena would find himself taking more time away from the ring due to injuries & other commitments. Eventually he completely phased out of in-ring competition to pursue a film career. That’s working out pretty well for him right now, and at this point it’d be a surprise if John Cena was ever a full-time WWE Superstar again. Nobody can knock the guy for taking that route, he’s done more than enough for WWE inside & outside the ring.

5. Seth Rollins

2-time WWE Champion
2-time WWE Universal Champion
2-time WWE Intercontinental Champion
1-time WWE United States Champion
5-time WWE/Raw Tag Team Champion
1-time NXT Champion
1-time ROH World Champion

After rising to the top of Ring of Honor at the end of the 2000s, the man then known as Tyler Black signed with WWE in August 2010 while still ROH Champion. He dropped the title shortly afterwards & made his way to FCW, which eventually became NXT & was dominated by Rollins under both names. He won every FCW title available to him & was the first NXT Champion. Once he was done developing, he formed the Shield with Dean Ambrose & Roman Reigns, and dominated WWE alongside them until it was time to make his own name by stabbing them in the back. After a run on top as champion backed by the Authority, Rollins got injured, vacated the title, then came back to feud with Triple H. He slayed the King of Kings, and eventually he would slay the Beast Brock Lesnar as well. He’s had countless great matches on TV and has been pushed as strongly as anybody in WWE this decade.

So why isn’t he #1? It never really clicked on top for him. The first run was marked by drops in ratings & attendance. His 2019 run was marked by him doing everything he could to come off as unlikeable…while being pushed on TV as a babyface. He had a rise to the top, but it wasn’t as memorable as Daniel Bryan’s.

4. Hiroshi Tanahashi

4-time IWGP Champion
2-time IWGP Intercontinental Champion
2-time G1 Climax Champion
1-time CMLL Universal Champion
2-time NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champion

The first few years of the 2010s were the Hiroshi Tanahashi Show. His rise to the top of New Japan coincided with the promotion returning to respectability & viability at the top of the Japanese wrestling food chain. It’s hard to remember how low NJPW had fallen during MMA’s rise to prominence & Antonio Inoki’s response being to have New Japan wrestlers try to shootfight (and fail miserably). It wasn’t until Tanahashi reached the top of the card and became the Ace of New Japan that things started turning around.

Tanahashi currently holds the record for most IWGP Championship reigns with eight, and has the second-most title defenses & second-most days as champion to his credit. The man he groomed to replace him at the top of New Japan, Kazuchika Okada, now holds those records. Even after passing that torch, Tanahashi remains one of NJPW’s most reliable & popular performers.

3. Daniel Bryan

4-time WWE Champion
1-time World Champion
1-time WWE Intercontinental Champion
2-time WWE/SmackDown Tag Team Champion

After spending the 2000s owning the independent wrestling scene, Bryan made his way to WWE for the 2010s. His start was a little bumpy, as his stint in the first season of NXT didn’t go so well & he got fired for being too violent during the Nexus invasion of Raw. He came back soon afterward, but fans were still slow to catch on to his in-ring style & personality. Once they did, he became the biggest thing in the business, much to the surprise of WWE. They went with it eventually, and the rise of Bryan to the top of the mountain at WrestleMania was one of the biggest moments in the history of my fandom, along with many others like me that had followed Bryan back when he was wrestling in parking lots & national guard armories. The fact that he wasn’t the prototypical WWE Superstar was exactly why the people liked him.

The main argument against Bryan? The time period from April 15, 2015 until April 8, 2018 where Bryan didn’t have any matches. To be honest, a lot of his return hasn’t been what people had hoped for. The New Daniel Bryan run was pretty great though, and it’s not like he’s been having bad matches.

2. AJ Styles

2-time WWE Champion
2-time IWGP Champion
3-time WWE United States Champion
2-time TNA World Champion
1-time TNA World Tag Team Champion

One of the very first shows of this decade was TNA’s big Monday night debut with Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Eric Bischoff & all sorts of people making their debut & trying to create a lot of hype. AJ, along with his opponent, Kurt Angle, stole the show with a spectacular main event. This was a sign of things to come for Styles in the 2010s. He didn’t get the most hype when he was in TNA, but more often than not he was part of the highlight of the show. TNA management didn’t recognize that, and when they low-balled Styles on a new contract, AJ decided to take his talents elsewhere. New Japan & ROH were happy to have him, and he was one of many gaijin to help keep Bullet Club viable longer than it had any business being so. Also, people who had stopped watching TNA for various reasons remembered just how good Styles was. The Phenomenal One finally signed a WWE contract in 2016, and since then he’s been collecting title reigns and building houses while solidifying his status as one of the best wrestlers of the 21st century.

To be honest, a lot of AJ’s “dream” matches over the past year or two that people got hyped up about haven’t quite lived up to expectations. The Shinsuke Nakamura & Samoa Joe feuds stand out as disappointing. They’re still better than most matches on a card, and he did more than enough during the rest of the 2010s to deserve a high ranking in a list of this nature.

Honorable Mention: The Part-Timers

We can’t deny the fact that many of the most effective pro wrestlers of this decade haven’t spent a majority of their time in the ring. Brock Lesnar started the trend of the “part-time wrestler”, and he’s certainly been very successful when he’s been around. Chris Jericho has had multiple stints in the ring this decade, and the best of those stints have been among the best things to happen in the 2010s. (A couple, particularly the ones where he was a babyface…not so much.) The Rock had a huge effect on business for the two WrestleManias he appeared at, along with a random match here & there.

Can we classify CM Punk as a part-timer? Probably not yet, but the guy was on his way to WOTD status when he went home.

1. Kazuchika Okada

5-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion
2-time G1 Climax Champion
2-time New Japan Cup Champion

The lowpoint of Okada’s decade came pretty early on, when he went to TNA for a year and did absolutely nothing. The bright side of that was he had plenty of time to learn & train, and by the time he went home to New Japan, he was ready to carry the company on his back. Tanahashi started the ball rolling, Okada took it to the next level. The Rainmaker had more five, six & seven star matches than anybody during the 2010s, won countless awards from the Japanese press & was recognized across the globe as one of the best wrestlers in the world. His series of matches with Tanahashi & Kenny Omega broke the star rating system. He’s main evented five out of the last six Wrestle Kingdoms, and it’ll be a major shock if he doesn’t go on last on at least one night of the two-night 2020 extravaganza. He had a 720-day IWGP Championship reign mixed in with those five reigns, shattering that record. Also had a 391-day reign that ranks sixth overall. The man has done it all.

Will he get the itch to move out of Japan & make his mark in another company like some of his peers have? That’s a story to be told in the 2020s. He’s only 32 years old, so there’s a good chance he could be the wrestler of next decade as well.

I kind of spoiled it with the title, right? Join me next week when we look at the Top 7 Female Wrestlers of the 2010s!

article topics

Steve Cook