Mark Davis Discusses His Mount Rushmore Of Australian Wrestlers

Mark Davis took time to reflect on the state of Australian professional wrestling, revealing his personal Mount Rushmore of the country’s top performers and speaking about the influence Nathan Jones had on his own career.

The conversation comes at a moment when Australian talent is more visible on the global stage than perhaps ever before. Between WWE and AEW alone, names like Rhea Ripley, Buddy Matthews and Kyle Fletcher — Davis’s longtime Aussie Open tag partner — have become fixtures on national television, while a deep bench of independent stars continues to feed both companies. Davis himself has been part of that wave, building a reputation through Aussie Open’s run in AEW, ROH and NJPW before Fletcher’s move into singles competition.

Nathan Jones’s name carries particular weight in Australian wrestling circles. A former strongman who transitioned into pro wrestling and had stints with WWE and TNA in the 2000s, Jones was one of the earliest Australians to reach a mainstream American audience, and his crossover appeal — including a role in the Mad Max film franchise — made him a recognizable figure well outside wrestling. For a performer of Davis’s generation, citing Jones as an influence underscores just how long Australia’s pipeline to the majors has actually been developing, even if it took until the last several years for that pipeline to turn into a steady stream.

Exercises like a ‘Mount Rushmore’ list are more than just fun barroom debate for wrestlers in Davis’s position — they’re a way of contextualizing where a wrestling scene has come from and where it’s headed. Australia’s independent circuit has produced a disproportionate share of talent relative to its size, and companies like AEW and WWE have taken notice, actively scouting and signing wrestlers out of that scene rather than waiting for them to make names elsewhere first. Davis, as both a beneficiary of that pipeline and a active contributor to it through Aussie Open’s success, is well positioned to speak to how far things have come.

With Ripley near the top of WWE’s women’s division, Fletcher building momentum in AEW, and a steady flow of new names emerging from the independents, Australian wrestling shows little sign of slowing down. Conversations like this one from Davis serve as a reminder of the road that got the scene here — and a nod to the trailblazers, like Jones, who made the current boom possible.