Top 5 Wrestling High Flyers

In this edition of The Wrestling Estate roundtable, we name our top five wrestling high flyers.

Steven Jackson’s Top 5 Wrestling High Flyers

Rey Mysterio Jr.

The ultimate high flyer! No list of wrestling high flyers is complete without Rey Mysterio Jr. Innovative, exciting and out of this world, no one soars like Rey Rey.

Bandido

When I found Bandido in Dragon Gate, I was immediately taken back to seeing Rey Mysterio for the first time. With attitude and charisma, Bandido still blows my mind.

Jyushin Thunder Liger

A comic book hero come to life, Jyushin Liger did have to calm his style down in later years. But for the early part of his career, you won’t find anyone at the time who can compare with Liger’s style and creativity.

Tiger Mask

Before there was a Liger, there was a Tiger. Tiger Mask I’s career was incredibly short. But in that short career, he (with some help from Dynamite Kid and Black Tiger I) literally changed the perception of junior heavyweight wrestling forever.

AJ Styles

Phenomenal; simply phenomenal. Styles’ high-flying X-Division matches built TNA into the company it is today. One of the greatest all-rounders, but more importantly, one of the greatest high-flyers EVER!

Chad Gelfand’s Top 5 Wrestling High Flyers

Jeff Hardy

Nobody has thrown themselves around with more reckless abandon than Jeff Hardy. Whether it was a ladder, cage or scaffolding, you could count on Hardy hitting a Swanton Bomb or Whisper in the Wind off of it.

Rey Mysterio

Mysterio is one of the biggest innovators of modern wrestling, bringing his lucha style to America in the ‘90s and continuing to wow with his moves to this day.

Kofi Kingston

Kofi has some of the highest hang time I’ve seen a wrestler get on his dives. The most memorable high flying moment of his is his Boom Drop to Randy Orton at MSG in 2009 that had the whole crowd chanting “Kofi! Kofi! Kofi!”

AJ Styles

When AJ Styles and his high flying gets brought up, “smooth” is what comes to mind. Styles’ execution always had a high level of precision and impact that you don’t see with a lot of other wrestlers. Made even more mind blowing with how complicated some of his moves have been over the years, and he makes it look easy.

RVD

RVD always flowed like water when he went to execute a high flying move, jumping to the top rope in a single leap. Like AJ Styles, RVD also had high impact with his moves, which sold the damage the Five Star Frog Splash did when the audience could see it hurt RVD, too.

Jack Goodwillie’s Top 5 Wrestling High Flyers

Rey Mysterio

If you were to make a list of who the most influential wrestlers to modern pro wrestling are, you’d be hard pressed to find Rey Mysterio and Rob Van Dam omitted from the shortlist. In Rey’s case, it has less to do with his style and more to do with him proving that stature isn’t essential if you can wow the crowd. Rey is a student of the game who adapted his style over time to better fit with the physical limitations in his older age.

In his prime, however, there was nobody better as far as high flyers are concerned. The full potential of a Rey Mysterio match was realized when he faced Eddie Guerrero at WCW Halloween Havoc 1997 in one of the greatest matches of all time and definitely the greatest cruiserweight match of all time.

Rob Van Dam

RVD is a favorite of mine, but whereas Rey is equally as influential for what he stands for, Van Dam is just as influential because of his style and innovation. His style is predicated on his “educated feet” and high work rate, which are common staples of several of today’s top stars, but he’s got one of the coolest movesets of all time. As far as where his Five-Star Frog Splash ranks, let’s just say between him and Eddie it’s different strokes for different folks.

But man… RVD introduced me to so many moves. His monkey flip is the best in wrestling. Obviously, he’s got the Frog Splash. When he brings weapons into the equation, he’s got the Van Daminator and Van Terminator, and he’s also one of the only wrestlers with special finishing moves depending on the rules of the match. Even if you took all of those out, you’re still left with the Rolling Thunder, his diving kick, skateboard dropkick, crossbody, slingshot DDT, corkscrew leg drop and step over heel kick. A Rob Van Dam match was the greatest hits of high-flying moves, and the fact that he was able to do these moves for so many years inside of a heavyweight frame is pretty insane.

AJ Styles

AJ has adjusted his style through the years, becoming more of a technician between stops in NJPW and WWE, but the reason he forced his way onto the radar of wrestling fans everywhere was because of his unique, high-flying style. Nowadays, AJ will still take to the skies with the Phenomenal Forearm, but it’s key to remember that prior to WWE, the move was just another part of Styles’ moveset. It was slightly modified, of course, to avoid similarities with Roman Reigns’ Superman Punch, but AJ was throwing superman punches far before Reigns was even in the business.

In addition to that, he had and has one of the coolest movesets in wrestling and has always been the top percentile athlete he needs to be to pull those moves off night in and night out. As he began to slow things down, he went from being AJ Styles, the high-flyer with a high ceiling to AJ Styles, world’s greatest wrestler over a three-year period, but that should not take away from the fact that as far as high-flyers go, AJ Styles was one of the best for a long time.

Jushin Thunder Liger

A common theme with my list is just how influential the greatest high flyers of all time are to modern talent. Liger is someone who, despite not having any kind of meaningful run in North America, rose to prominence thanks to the tape trading community and his sporadic appearances in WCW. It’s key to remember that New Japan wasn’t always as accessible to North American fans the way it is now, but anyone who saw Liger during his heyday was made into an instant fan. Nowadays if a fan were to put on a Liger match from the ‘90s, I have no doubt they would be able to find some sort of small nuance or the execution of a move that would directly correlate with their favorite wrestler.

His execution in the ring with high-risk moves for most guys was flawless. His look is one that is totally unique. And similar to Rey Mysterio, the longevity he has had in wrestling makes him a no-brainer for a list like this, plus, I’m thrilled to see the recognition he’s gotten from WWE as of late, working the NXT match with Tyler Breeze a few years back and getting inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Say what you want about WWE (and I have), but that was a cool gesture.

Rey Fenix/Ricochet/PAC

In modern times, there are a ton of high flyers you can pull from, in part because the athletes inhabiting the business have never been better. However, we also live in a wrestling landscape where all the top stars who were once considered “high-flyers” have dialed that part of their game back a bit to focus on becoming more technical and methodical. Kenny Omega would probably be exhibit A, but that certainly doesn’t apply to everyone. Will Ospreay is slowly going the way of the Dynamite Kid, after all, though that hasn’t necessarily hurt his credibility in Japan.

But while it’s tough to pull out a fifth high-flyer that has really differentiated themselves, for me, it comes down to three names: Fenix, PAC, and Ricochet. If I was making this list even three years ago, Ricochet would be the guy to include, given his body of work and upward momentum in WWE. The problem is, as it currently stands, Ricochet has no upward momentum. He can be the heir apparent to Rey Mysterio in WWE if it wants him to be, but he’s got a ways to go and is nothing more than another face in the crowd right now.

PAC, in the past, is someone who has been revered as an uber technical high-flyer in the mold of Liger, where the physics, point of takeoff and point of landing always seem to be perfect, but as he further developed the “Mad King” persona, has taken more of a “less is more” approach with the aerials. As far as pure high-flyers go these days though, Rey Fenix impresses me the most.

He’s someone who’s always looking to innovate and just seems to glide through the air in a way that only AJ Styles could really compare to. I wouldn’t say he’s the pure wrestler the other two are, but both PAC and Ricochet are elite in that area as well, so I couldn’t just leave them off the list. That said, if anyone has a chance to break out from this group and put a stranglehold on No. 5, it’s probably Fenix.