In a previous article, I outlined why I believe The Rock’s People’s Elbow is the greatest move in wrestling history. I received some great feedback and counterarguments, and to the readers who chimed in, thank you for your responses. Some of you even took me down memory lane with your replies, and I always appreciate that.
But one comment in particular caught my eye regarding The Rock and how one reader felt that the People’s Elbow was ridiculous, saying:
“The whole thing is like a satire blended in with wrestling. Because of this, I can never rate The Rock’s [sic] as one of the top workers. He was great on the mic but he was an average wrestler at best.”
Initially, I was stunned by that statement. One could call The Rock many things. But to say he’s not a top worker?
Hmm.
I’ll return to that later. But first, we must all be on the same page. Therefore, I’ll ask the question that will ultimately help us to determine who is a great worker:
What is a worker?
One could spend an entire day scouring the internet for the precise wrestling definition of a worker. To some, the ability to work is the ability to perform a match. By that definition, how one performs in the ring, from the way they deliver their offense and receive it in return from others, makes a wrestler a great worker.
But perhaps the best definition of the term worker is the one given by wrestling superstar Al Snow, whose exploits as a trainer at Ohio Valley Wrestling are on display on the Netflix series Wrestlers. According to Snow in a 2020 shoot interview:
“What’s a work? Well, a work is a lie. It’s a sham. It is my ability to make you believe something that’s not true; that’s what it is, no ifs, ands, or buts. A work is to make you buy what’s a lie, and the only lie in wrestling is that it’s not predetermined, that I’m really out there trying to win and trying not to lose.
“A worker, a worker, is a guy who is very adept at being able to make or convince a large amount of people in a lie. It has nothing to do with his physical ability. It has nothing to do with how many moves he can do. All that matters is — it doesn’t matter how he does it — is to allow you to believe in who he is and why he’s out there doing it.”
Snow reiterated that stance <a href="https://youtu.be