Snobbery is essentially the dividing line between "casual fans" and "geeks," the common terminology being "marks" and "smarts" (or "smarks," as in "smart marks") respectively. A "smart" is the guy who is somewhat knowledgeable about how the business works, someone who reads the "dirt sheets" and the insider Web sites and is interested in what goes on behind the scenes. The nerds, basically. "Marks" are everyone else. And both of these groups watch the product differently. Smarts are obsessed with what's called "workrate" -- essentially, the actual in-ring talent of the wrestlers. Generally speaking, marks don't care all that much about that ability. They are more interested in the stuff that happens outside the ring: the soap operatic storylines, the interviews, the T&A. These elements are secondary to the "smart" fan, who most of all wants to see good matches (and what makes a "good" match is highly subjective, of course). But being that fame is not necessarily directly proportional to talent in North American wrestling, and that all the extracurricular stuff is often given greater prominence in WWE, the "high quality" workers are not always the ones that get most of the shine.

For example: Hulk Hogan is probably the most famous wrestler of the modern era, but most smarts will tell you he is a horrible worker. He got pushed because he had a marketable look and a lot of charisma, but from a workrate persective, most of his matches -- other than the ones that are meticulously planned move-for-move (see: v. Ultimate Warrior, an even WORSE worker, at WM6) -- are terrible. Marks still love him, smarts hate him. The classic example of the reverse situation is Chris Benoit. He was a guy most "smart" fans championed early on in his career, and over time grew to be considered perhaps the best pro-wrestler in North America, if not the world. But because he was deemed "too small" by wrestling's powers that be, and because he never gave good interviews, he was never given opportunities to be the face of a company until the latter stages of his career, when he managed to get over by sheer force of will. Smarts loved him (up until, well, y'know), marks were sorta "eh" toward him.

So yeah, there are figures I and most "smart" wrestling fans would hold up as examples of quality. The problem is, a lot of those guys never enter mainstream consciousness. The situation is different in Japan, however, where wrestling is covered by the media almost as a legitimate sport, and the emphasis is put almost entirely on workrate, so the biggest stars are generally also the best workers.