Thought of the Day: The Other Great Rookie Year
We often hear about Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle having the greatest rookie years of all time as they both won the World Title and the King of the Ring among other accolades. As great as that is, there’s another name that deserves to be on this short list.Yokozuna. Think about this for a second. He debuted around Survivor Series 1992, wins the 1993 Royal Rumble (in very dominant fashion), wins the WWF World Title at Wrestlemania IX, then squashes Hulk Hogan at King of the Ring 1993 to send him out of the company and holds the title for nine months. If you go a bit beyond the rookie year, Yokozuna was in four World Title matches in his first two Wrestlemanias, which is never going to be topped.
Lesnar and Angle definitely had better careers, but Yokozuna deserves to be on the list for greatest rookie years in company history.
Taker
It was good but I’d put Kane’s rookie year above Undertaker’s.
That one was pretty good too. If you count WCW Goldberg is up there.
Er… would he count? I mean, it wasn’t his first year in wrestling, not by a long shot.
Lesnar was in OVW for a while before he debuted. Angle wrestled for a good while before then as well. Also, hence why I said “greatest rookie year in COMPANY history”.