Jimmy Snuka

[8.0] "I rate Snuka higher than most I realize, but at the time he wrestled I don't think anyone else offered what he did. Everything from the look and the style was new for the time, and he did it super well. He did it so well he inspired Mick Foley to be a wrestler! Snuka wasn't a belt collector in the WWF, but he was an absolute legend because you remember him for so many things. Even the way he sells is memorable. Snuka was the man."

[8.0] "It may be difficult to understand as I am using the translation function. A true superstar with great looks, character and finishers. All the boys who grew up in Japan in the 80s, when professional wrestling was broadcast in prime time (since the 90s, professional wrestling has only been broadcast in prime time in Japan for a dozen or so special programs), still remember this man who entered the ring barefoot.I'm not interested in what happened in his personal life. I loved Jimmy Snuka, not his real name."

"Jimmy Snuka was a very talented competitor in the 1970s and early 1980s but like so many wrestlers, personal demons took their toll. He wrestled way past his prime (70s-early 80s) which is why he doesn't get the credit he deserves. He had a phenomenal physique and had a good blend of brawling and aerial moves (which were ahead of their time). His promos were limited which is why he usually had a manager (which is one of the major purposes of managers). I don't rate wrestlers based on their personal lives."

[6.0] "Peak was probably in the late 70s and early 80s. He is one of the first true high flyers with his superfly splash off the cage. Continued wrestling until 2015 and he wrestled like a man way past his prime. His demons outside the ring became more known later in his life with the death of Nancy Argentino getting a ton of attention."

[5.0] "He had the splash from the cage and a few good feuds in the mid 80s but was mostly the drizzling shits. The drugs and the booze caught up with him faster than the law did."

[6.0] "If I was just scoring his career until the mid-80s then he would definitely be a solid 8 but unfortunately he wrestled way past his prime and put on some absolutely hard to watch matches on the independent circuit in the 90s and 00s. He will always go down as the first ECW Champion which is cool (even if he only held it for one day) but his best days were in the 70s and 80s."

[7.0] "Jimmy Snuka was a good performer he had a fantastic look, for his time he was doing things few had seen before like dives over the top rope and splashes off the top of cages. His matches with Bob Backlund and Don Muraco are brutal and revolutionary classics for the mid-80s. I got to meet Jimmy Snuka in 94 or 95 This was way after his prime and he was at a local Indy show I attended. He was nice enough to me and much bigger than I expected him to be."

[6.0] "His peak was the late 70's into the early 80's. His return in 1989 until he retired he was a shell of what he used to be. He was the first to make a leap off the cage and it was the hallmark of his career. The clip of him diving onto Don Muraco is as iconic as Hogan slamming Andre in WWE. The problem is, he couldn't cut a promo. He could barely talk. Then there's the shady circumstances surrounding him and Nancy Argentino. We'll never know for sure if he murdered her but it seems pretty likely."

[5.0] "Jimmy Snuka became a big star in the early eighties thanks to his sculpted physique and state of the art highspots like the Superfly Splash off the top rope (or even off the top of a cage). Snuka had been a star since the late seventies. His look and his spots got him over quickly as he moved into various territories, but his work was pretty limited. He wasn't very good at working holds or telling a story during the body of a match. Those drawbacks became less important as Vince McMahon and the WWF drove the business toward shorter, more formulaic matches built around a few memorable spots and indeed Snuka became one of the top babyfaces in the WWF before backstage problems resulted in his push being cancelled. Snuka is well remembered for a feud with Roddy Piper. The feud consisted mainly of Piper hitting Snuka in the head with a coconut during an interview, the two of them having a couple of unspectacular matches, and Piper working around the horn with Sivi Afi as Snuka's proxy because Jimmy was in no condition to perform. Eventually Snuka showed up in the AWA, which was always surprising in the mid-eighties, though not yet fully recognized as the kiss of death that it would become over the next few years. Snuka got into another racially charged feud, this time with Colonel DeBeers (Ed Wiskowski working an apartheid gimmick) that actually led to a Diamond Miner's Glove match that was a decent payoff to the feud, particularly by AWA standards. Snuka later returned to the WWF as a midcard jobber to the stars. Grab any Snuka vs big name opponent match from the late seventies or early eighties and you will probably be disappointed. Too many chinlocks. Too much dead time. The spots are cool, but you want to fast forward to them."

[9.0] "From 1978-1985, Jimmy Snuka had many great matches, and was involved in many legendary feuds, angles, & moments. He is also one of the greatest Babyfaces in pro wrestling history as well, even though he originally started as a Heel actually."

[6.0] "Jimmy was at his peak in the early years of his WWF career and while wrestling in Japan. He is a participant in one of the most famous cage matches in history, and his splash from the top of the cage has inspired many wrestlers. In the last years of his active career, apart from a run in the mid-tenths, he was no longer in very good shape. He also had a not-so-good reputation due to his infamous tangled history with an ex-girlfriend. But with regards to wrestling, in his best years he was an excellent tag team specialist and the owner of a large number of NWA championships. Not the best of the best, but quite a worthy performer."

[8.0] "The original phenom. A guy who was way ahead of his time as far as some of the stuff he was doing in the ring (the superfly splash, the dives over the top rope, etc), .Always dug his ring gear and jacket. Had one of the best bodies in all of professional wrestling well in to his 40's. A very distinctive delivery with his promos (people still mock his voice till this day). Good heel when he worked for Baba in Japan and a great babyface for both Vince Sr. and Vince Jr.. He's also apart of the samoan wrestling dynasty and it's hard to find anyone from that family that WASN'T a great worker."

[5.0] "Another guy who relied on the big finish move. His overall move set was pretty mediocre even by 1990. He had the look, but was sometimes impossible to understand in promos. Still have no idea what he was saying in that 1990 Rumble promo."

[8.0] "Look I know, I know, murder. That is impossible to ignore, but I'm choosing to judge him as a wrestler. As a wrestler, Superfly was an iconic part of the 70s and 80s scenes who was at a time, as big as a draw as Hulk Hogan thanks to his Superfly Splash and unique looking offense."

[1.0] "Super slow, bad backstage, couldn't talk, had many problems and his only saving grace is that superfly splash on the top of the cage. I'm so conflicted between a 1 and a 0, but I have to give him credit at least for that moment which made Mick Foley start training to become a wrestler"

[1.0] "There's no doubt he was very popular at one time and had influence on other wrestlers, but even by the standard of the time his high flying doesn't seem all that exciting, and he didn't seem capable of much beyond it."

"Jimmy Snuka, like other acts in wrestling history, should be remembered for the person they were outside the character. Many of times history gets glossed over, in favor for immortalizing the in-ring character. I'd consider watching the Dark Side of the Ring episode on him. He was an innovator in the ring, but he was a murderer outside of it."

[3.0] "Overlooking the fact he is possibly a murderer. Was good in the early 80s. Was innovative and the first to use the Superfly splash of the top rope. When he did it in a cage match against Don Muraco was a clip that was used for years. From 1984 onwards he deteriorated badly he hit the juice and was practically immobile. I think 3 is fair because he was only good for about 3 years and then he was dreadful."

[8.0] "I am just rating him as a wrestler, because that is what we supposedly should do in this site. Very innovative wrestler in his time and very entertaining. What he did outside of the ring is nothing of my concern."

[3.0] "Awful human being, not the best of workers, pretty basic (the splash was innovative though), despite a nice gimmick and some in-ring gestures."

[4.0] "To be completely honest Jimmy Snuka had little going on for him outside his Superfly Splash: he was very limited in the ring and could not talk to save his life. His body of work has aged terribly: at least Roddy Piper could sell (when he wanted to) and was a great talker. But I'll be damned if Jimmy Snuka couldn't sell tickets and if he couldn't get people to cheer for him like few others: he was immensely charismatic. He's one of those "he could have been huge" wrestlers who were ruined by their real-life behavior: not even the money Jimmy Snuka brought in was enough to convince promoters to push him for long because after a while the compliants and the "him or me" threats would start to pile up."

[3.0] "Honestly, if you look past the (at the time) exciting finisher Snuka really had nothing going for him."

[0.0] "He was awful in the WWE after the late 80s, but kept coming back for failed match/run after failed match/run. He isn't the legend that WWE present him to be, he just has two good moment (Piper's Pit and the Cage Dive) and therefore WWE present him like a God. I hate watching all of his work partly in fact of what he's accused of, and partly of how boring he was in his later years."

[2.0] "Never cared for him in the ring or on the mic. His work ooutside the WWf/E was decent but never above the mid card level. Outside of his off the top of the cage dive in the WWF if ya ask me he was a total flop and really a piss poor gimmick that looked foolish. Throw in what he was accused of and he might not be even worth the 2 rating I am giving him but he'll get that for his work in the NWA."

[10.0] "Very Underrated! RIP Snuka! He was a wonderful legend to watch in the ring. I consider Snuka one of the best high flyers of all high time. He rarely pick up his opponents but kick and jumped and exciting to watch. Who cares if he was a murderer he had an excellent wrestling career. Snuka fought until last year at 73 years old. Impressive!"

[9.0] "An excellent career. Effective as hero and heel. High profile feud with Piper. Worked effectively, even as an older wrestler. While Mascaras was an earlier high flyer, Jimmy took it to another level with the Superfly Splash, including diving off the cage. He looked the part and was decent on the mic. Always worth the price of admission."

[0.0] "Jimmy Snuka is defiantly a legend in WWE's book, but just think that splash of the cage is the only thing that made him famous. He was really underwhelming as a wrestler and was pretty bad on the mic. Really the only thing good about Snuka is tha he got hit in the head with a coconut during an episode of Pipers Pit."

[8.0] "Snuka was one of the top 3 baby face in the WWE when it took off as a nation wide promotion. His appeal was universal and he captured everyone's imagination with his leaps off the cage and his feud with Roddy Piper. Of course the career was very quickly interrupted by the death of his girlfriend {which he is now being tried for some 30 plus years later. } Snuka was a very troubled man when he drank. His long term mentor Buddy Rodgers publically talked about Snuka abusing other women. The boy's tell stories on podcasts that it was unsafe to drink with Snuka. This obviously hurt his career. I try to rate Snuka only on his in-ring work. He had amazing popularity with huge crowds and could draw money. His promo work wasn't strong so I can't see him as the main event guy for any decent sized promotion, but snuka was someone that kept you glued to the tv when he was on screen and put your butt in the seats when he toured to your home town."