DMJ

I don't watch the week-to-week so I could be totally off-base here, but aside from Rhea/Jade, which does feel like a Mania match, the rest of the women's division stuff seems really weak and thrown together. (I also have less than zero interest in AJ vs. Becky despite loving the Becky-as-Trump tweets.) I wouldn't consider myself a Liv stan, but the decision to bring her back and re-align her with Dominik Mysterio when you could've had her comeback as a babyface (when she left, she was already halfway there with the audience), feuding with her former stablemates, Raquel and Roxanne, in February/March after winning the Rumble and then going on to challenge a strong Women's World Champion like IYO...I just don't get it. I know Liv isn't a world-beater in the ring, but give her and IYO a few weeks to plan and rehearse a 15-minute match and I think you've got a show-stealer on your hands. Hammy as it sounds, a "boyhood dream" story with Liv in the role of Shawn Michaels is really easy to sell. Sure, she's been champion before, but never "on her own" or in non-fluke fashion. Meanwhile, she's also suffered some serious injuries that make her sympathetic and the story was RIGHT THERE for Dom, Raquel, and Roxanne to betray her when she was out. Again, I don't watch anymore and haven't for about 9 months or so and I could be wrong on all this, but if casual fans is what the WWE is catering to and I now count as a casual fan - someone who barely watches but checks in for the Rumble and Mania - I'm definitely puzzled as to why Liv Morgan has been put back on a character hamster wheel with a stable that I didn't even know were still a thing when it seemed like, before she got injured, the trajectory was a big babyface run. And, also, no casual fan has any idea who Stephanie Vaquer is (while IYO at least had a relatively high profile run in 2025-26).

To the WWE audience and many current wrestling fans in general, Pat McAfee isn't just a non-celebrity, he's actually less than that - he's a wrestling commentator, full stop. He's an ex-NFL player and he hosts a TV show and he's a media personality, blah blah, but many wrestling fans tend to be wrestling fans and not necessarily fans of other sports or fans of sports-based talk shows or college football pre-shows. I had no idea who Pat McAfee was before he popped up in NXT. I still have never seen him do anything that wasn't directly related to the WWE. Pat McAfee appearing on WWE TV for months and months depleted any "star power" he had. He became just another commentator, not really any different from Wade Barrett or Corey Graves or whoever else. Sure, he sometimes gets a special entrance, but that's always felt, to me, more like something they were doing for him and that the crowd response is Pavlovian (s it is for almost everybody on the show). Fans like entrances and "Seven Nation Army" is a banger. Him being used in this storyline is worse than Disco Inferno being "the third man" (a reference to an angle from 30 years ago, an inadvertent and cringe-inducing admission that, yes, the WWE's Creative has been bad for decades now). It is more like if the third man had ended up being Nitro commentator-era/non-Horseman Steve McMichael. But, hey, when Travis Scott was at Mania, I thought it was terrible but heard many younger fans thought it was pretty cool, the same way I thought Dennis Rodman being in the nWo was cool when I was 13. I will readily admit my ignorance if Pat McAfee is a bigger star than I'm giving him credit for, but even if that is the case, to the wrestling audience, especially younger fans*, he's mostly known as commentator. As far as I know, there's no evidence that him being on commentary caused any sort of rating bump or helped sell a single ticket. * Again, maybe I'm wrong, but I work at a middle school and have never once heard a child mention watching College GameDay or The Pat McAfee Show but have seen kids come in wearing a Yeet shirt.

^ Agreed. I don't buy that WWE wasn't interested. I think they were...but whether it was money or dates or creative, it didn't work out. My assumption is that it was the first two. To pile on to what sek69 said, if the WWE had their way, they'd have every major "name" in wrestling under contract, past, present, and future. Moxley, MJF, Ospreay, Swerve, Kenny, Toni, Mercedes, Darby...it doesn't matter if they're in the middle of a massive cost-cutting, if they can make a buck off you, they want you. We may all be tired of Chris Jericho, but the guy still sells merch and would get that big nostalgia pop in WWE (and even got one last night). When the nostalgia pop fades (and it will fade quickly in AEW), he'll turn it into part of his "gimmick" to get heat and they'll use it to try to get someone else over (a pattern they've now done so many times that its become a trope that has go-away heat of its own). The Jericho Return in WWE would've been profitable. Also, if the WBD execs care about Jericho as a name, so do the Saudi princes.

I'm super psyched and deep in the weeds on finalizing my list. I'm glad I've still got time for more research, though I do think I've got it down to 110-120 wrestlers. While he wouldn't make my list this year I am thinking Brody King is quietly making a case for 2036. By my own requirements - I have to have reviewed a minimum of 20 matches - he wouldn't quite get there (I've reviewed 15 and I'm not going to go out of my way to watch more of him as he's not a nominee), but as I've gone back and watched the old AEW PPVs on Max, it's become abundantly clear that he is quite often the best part of the multi-mans he's in and is working circles around his House of Black teammates (and I say this as someone who isn't a Buddy Murphy or Malakai Black hater). He had an excellent 2025/2026 with Brodido and now as a singles. I just watched the 8-man from World's End and him getting in Matt Menard's face and essentially daring him to get involved is such good work. I think Menard might've actually had a tear in his eye from the emasculation he suffered in that moment. Also, extra points for the work on I Think You Should Leave.

I've reviewed close to 100 Seth Rollins matches on my blog and his average match rating is very high, which is almost silly because its a subjective rating scale and I'm definitely not a Seth Rollins fan. Like Triple H, though, its kind of undeniable that he's very good at delivering WWE-style "big match" matches. I can hate Seth Rollins and think he's total dogshit as a worker but then I look at the resume - the Shield six-mans, the 2015 3-way with Cena and Lesnar, the WrestleMania 3-way with Punk and Roman, the Mania tag match with Cody against Roman and Rock, Hell in a Cell against Cody in 2023, Money in the Bank 2016 against Roman, any number of multi-mans like Chambers and Survivor Series matches that he was in - and I think leaving him off my list is a bit like leaving Hogan or Undertaker off my list. While the GWE is ultimately a glorified list of everyone's favorites, if the spirit is to at least attempt to be objective and take into account more than just "Do I like him?", Seth Rollins is pretty undeniable if you're a voter like me whose wheelhouse is mainstream US wrestling of the past 35 years. Rollins is going to be someone I begrudgingly have on my list because, as much as I theoretically enjoy watching, say, Mikey Whipwreck more than Rollins (or Triple H for that matter), Rollins' resume is just too good for me to leave him off my list.

I think the "charisma vacuum" criticism is a little silly. The only "fun" Dean Malenko match/moment I can recall is when he dressed like Ciclope during the feud with Chris Jericho (IIRC?). Comparing Claudio to Malenko is doing a huge disservice to a guy that has had some really fun moments in AEW that show how much the WWE missed the boat on him. Is he a top level promo? No, but he's been very good at playing the "straight man" against guys like Orange Cassidy and the Young Bucks who often inject some levity into their matches and, recently, I really enjoyed him and Toni Storm's handful of minutes in the ring together. I'd also point to the Kings of Wrestling vs. Akira Taue and Jun Izumida match that's on YouTube for a really fun wrestling match with lots of comedy spots. I'm not arguing that Claudio would rate highly in terms of charisma, but if Malenko would be a 0 or a 1, Claudio is probably a 5 or 6.

They're waiting on Cena to headline SaudiAMania next year. That event is going to need lots and lots of good PR and Cena is the most marketable, highest "Q Score" star they have on the roster. I'd argue that his likeability/goodwill even surpasses that of The Rock, even if The Rock is the bigger star.

I'm fine with Takeshita and Mox buddying up. I'm way less fine with any attempt to turn Shafir, Yuta, PAC, Daniel Garcia, or Gabe Kidd into babyfaces. Wheeler and Shafir have been killing it in their current roles and still have plenty of mileage left there if they start building up Shafir as a TBS Champion contender with Yuta at her side. Garcia has been flip-flopped a couple times now already, Gabe Kidd is in the right role as a heel mercenary, and as for PAC...well...I hate to be unkind but because between the bad new haircut, bad new ring attire, and whatever he did with his body, the whole presentation is just terrible.

I thought it was a good show overall, but, like you said, nothing was truly "great." I thought the main event was very good and easily the MOTN and Brody King was excellent in it with his selling of the knee damage. It was a fairly straight-forward match that didn't over-rely on "finisher spamming" or a million nearfalls or any run-in nonsense and I thought it was effective. Mox/Takeshita lacked urgency until the final 5 minutes. I also read that Mox may have called an audible during the post-match by having Takeshita hit him with his finish. While this popped the crowd, I still think it was the wrong call from a storytelling perspective. Both guys have been sorta leaning towards being babyfaces over the past few weeks/months so Takeshita doing something so outright heelish when, if I'm not mistaken, he's in the process of an extended storyline where he's likely to be splitting from Don Callis and feuding with Okada seems like needlessly muddying the waters. I really liked the Mixed Tag. Fletcher/Briscoe was a little weird to me. There were some crazy spots - as expected - but it ended with a bit of a whimper rather than a bang. When you see a superplex off the top of a ladder and a piledriver through a ladder and both guys bleeding profusely, I don't think you should end the match with one guy just casually shoving the other guy's ladder over. I think a "bigger" finish would've really helped things. I also was expecting some sort of interference from Ciampa to theoretically build towards a 3-way, but I'm also 100% fine with Fletcher moving on from Briscoe entirely and getting a brand new challenger.

I'd call BS on this story if we didn't have significant evidence that Trump is the thinnest-skinned President ever and consumes every bit of press he gets. To this man, even the most benign criticism from the lowest D-list celebrity warrants a Twitter rant (or scattershot lawsuit) so I wouldn't be surprised if WBD is genuinely concerned that having a wrestler coming out wearing a tee-shirt opposing one of his policies could be deemed "inflammatory" and cost them the merger. I haven't finished Dynamite yet but, if this is true, it certainly helps explain why Kenny Omega would drop the line about Brody King being "the most dangerous man in AEW" in the middle of a heated promo with Swerve. When I heard it, I figured it was just an awkwardly-placed bit of praise to get Brody's name out there as he's got the big title shot coming up and Kenny is sometimes known to drop lines in a awkward/slightly "off" way (like the dialogue in the video games he loves so much). But, hearing this bit of gossip, that line makes more sense even if did still come out of nowhere and caught Swerve off guard. I don't think Ciampa/Fletcher was an all-timer or anything but I will say this -

When you're the lesser half of a tag team with Matt Morgan, you're not a top 100 wrestler.

I took a relatively lengthy break from watching any WWE content in 2025, not bothering to download the ESPN app despite having access to it via my Hulu account. Even knowing that the WWE's PLEs were just a click or two and an authentication away, I've just been so turned off by the company. But the pull of the Rumble is hard to resist and the WWE (or ESPN or Disney or whoever) very, very wisely had it featured prominently on the launch page of Hulu (or at least it was on mine). This was something new compared to other recent PLEs, which I believe required subscribers to access the ESPN app. With this show, you could just click play so I started it this morning. My sample size is small, but based on my buddy in NY texting me to ask if I was watching it, I'm going to guess that there were likely many casual fans who tuned in simply because access to the show was much easier than the past few ESPN events. Anyway...I've only watched the Women's Rumble so far, but here's some thoughts: - Flair and Alexa's shtick in the beginning was fun as they teased eliminating each other but mostly worked as partners until Flair inadvertently eliminated Alexa later on (a recurring theme that probably would've been more effective had it happened just once in the match but it also happened with the Kabuki Warriors and The Judgment Day so I assume it won't be the cause of any future conflict. - I thought most of this was pretty good aside from the usual moments when everyone else in the match plays dead so that the focus can go on just one or two women, like it did when Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair found themselves face-to-face. - Sol Luca and Lash Legend got to shine. The women's roster really is incredibly stacked at this point that it is nearly impossible to "stand out" and I wonder if some of these women wouldn't actually benefit from runs in AEW where maybe they'd be forced to either develop fresh, new characters for themselves or collaborate within a system where there is more risk-taking. I mean, I just don't see how someone like Ivy Nile or Jacy Jayne are going to ever get to the front of the line despite clear talent and potential without finding a gimmick or character that really connects with fans (and I don't think WWE Creative really has them on their radar to give that extra creative energy). - The Saudi crowd chanting for John Cena during Nikki Bella's showcase was especially hard to stomach coming from a crowd of mostly men who live in a country where women having something resembling equal rights is only a recent phenomenon. Brie Bella got a huge ovation for her return and I liked Michael Cole's verbal gymnastics has he tried to express the homage she paid with her Yes/It Kicks without mentioning her husband. - The final three was a fun stretch but I really feel like Triple H missed the boat with Liv Morgan's return and even this Rumble victory was only half-successful because of it. Morgan may not be the best in-ring performer, but her career has followed something of a classic modern WWE pattern that has gotten her over huge with the audience. She started out green in forgettable stables and teams, had her fair share of hot garbage storylines (Wikipedia reminded me she once professed her love for Lana), was booked as something of a joke during her first run with the Women's Championship after cashing in her briefcase against Ronda Rousey, and had some ups-and-downs due to injury in 2023 but had already begun to show chemistry with Raquel Rodriguez and, more importantly, Rhea Ripley. In 2024, that chemistry with Ripley led to probably the best love triangle storylines the WWE has produced this century with Dom Mysterio and, from there, Morgan and Dom were basically the top heels on RAW week-to-week. And, of course, as has been a pattern since at least the rise of Steve Austin 30 years ago, if someone gets hot enough as a heel but consistently is among the most entertaining acts on a show, part of the audience is going to embrace them and that part tends to grow until they're essentially a babyface. With Morgan, the time to make that turn official was when she returned and the WWE squandered it by having her immediately re-align with Dom and the Judgment Day. Had she come into this Rumble as a babyface, the stories they could've told with her and Raquel, Roxanne Perez, Rhea, and even Bayley, Becky, and Charlotte (as the locker room veterans one generation "ahead" of Liv) would've given this match much more cohesion. Instead, Liv got the win, but it didn't feel like the next step of a character trajectory as much as just a way to put her in the title mix after time away. She's still the same Liv Morgan she was when she got injured in June 2025 and that's a real shame because she deserved a more meaningful return story than what we got and it was so incredibly easy to do (she was literally replaced in Judgment Day by Perez and they could've also played up Dom Mysterio not being by her side as she rehabbed). Overall, not a terrible Rumble, but it could've been better in front of a crowd that was more engaged beginning-to-end and a throughline that gave us someone to root for.

He'll make my list, for sure. In fact, he's someone who I'll actually have to purposefully under-value because he kinda blows up my criteria system. The first thing I often go to for ranking is looking at my database and calculating "average match score." In order to make my list, I have to have seen and reviewed 20 matches of that wrestler. Darby meets that threshold with just AEW PPV matches, which have all been above average aside from some of the battle royales he was thrown in early, in which he was still often the most captivating guy in the match. So, points-wise, because his matches have been essentially "cherry-picked," his score is probably going to be higher than a John Cena, Sting, Dustin Rhodes, Randy Orton, or Ric Flair (all of whom I've reviewed 3 or 4 or 5 times more matches of across many more years and against a wider array of talent). So, I don't just go with "average match score" and also look at categories - influence/impact, tag work, carrying ability, reliability (can they be relied on to have good matches consistently), heel/face versatility, peak (were they ever an undeniable best or biggest star in their promotion/world), charisma (mic skills but also aura/presence), longevity, offense, bumping/selling, and the final question when comparing 2 wrestlers, Who Would You Rather Watch?. Darby would "lose" points on influence/impact, longevity, heel/face versatility, and "peak" because he's still relatively new and we haven't seen him work as a heel or in the main event all that much. He's not great on the mic, but I think he's got a ton of charisma. Bumping/selling is off the charts, I enjoy him in tags, I think he can basically be relied upon to give you a good PPV or TV match every time, and I think his offense is believable. Compared to so many wrestlers, he'd probably win the "Who Would You Rather Watch?" contest too. So, does that make him better than Rick Rude? Barry Windham? Hogan? Dustin Rhodes? Again, by my own criteria, he's right up there with them or better, but I'm not sure I'm ready to say Darby Allin is a top 50 or top 75 wrestler of all time yet.

I have similar thoughts - My 2016 list was primarily WWE and 80s NWA/WCW with a smattering of ECW and TNA guys because, at the time, that was basically all the wrestling I had seen. 10 years later, I've watched most every AEW PPV and a good bit of the TV, I've watched all of the ECW PPVs I'd never seen before, have watched much, much more of the TNA PPVs that are on YouTube, and, a few years ago, created a playlist of recommended matches and then turned it into a "catch all" to help me in the GWE process. At this point, I'm looking at almost an entirely new list with at least 20 workers who were not on my 2016 one. My biggest rule is that I'm not putting anyone on the list who I haven't watched and reviewed 20 matches from. I don't want to vote for anyone based on "rep." This basically means I'll have very few lucha guys and almost no modern Japanese workers. In the case of the former, lucha is such a huge blind spot and I haven't been "bitten by the bug" yet so there's just no way I'll watch enough of it in the next 4 months to really rank anyone other than the guys that I know and love already (La Parka, Psicosis, obviously Rey, maybe Pentagon Jr.). In the case of the latter, my international focus for the past few years has been 80s and 90s Japanese wrestling and I have fallen in love with so many workers from those eras that I'm just not going to make it to more modern stuff - which is also much, much harder to find on YouTube. I'll admit this does lead to almost shameful results on my list as someone like Konosuke Takeshita will probably make my Top 100 based on the strength of his AEW case and a handful of non-AEW YouTube matches I've watched, while Tanahashi and Okada will probably be absent just because I simply haven't seen enough of their stuff and, based on cursory searches, most of their most-hyped matches are not on YouTube (I'm guessing they're on NJPW World? Is that still a thing?).

In the short term, I'd be curious who else they set up on the "babyface side" of things against what would then be quite a pairing of top bad guys with Warrior and Flair (with Mr. Perfect at his side) going up against Savage. They were also already warming up Razor Ramon by October 92'. Bret makes the most sense for teaming with Savage but a tag team match at the Survivor Series - ostensibly Bret & Savage vs. Flair & Warrior (who would still be champion) - seems so weird to me. Plus, by this point, Perfect was back in action, so I'm guessing it may end up being Bret & Savage vs. Flair & Perfect with Warrior defending the championship against Taker (in a match that would likely end in a non-finish to keep the title on Warrior). Long-term from there and envisioning a scenario where Warrior doesn't flake and Flair sticks around for as long as he does...well, you've gotta think about the Rumble and what a seismic shift the 93' one was. They set up Taker/Gonzalez. They set up Yokozuna as top heel. Royal Rumble 93' is also the unofficial end of Savage's main event/World Champion-level run in the WWE (he was generally used to put over/work with the next batch of major heels like Yoko, Gonzalez, Shawn, and Crush on TV and the house show loops). Warrior being that top heel just feels so wacky in that context. So, putting my booking hat on, I guess I'd say that, at the Rumble, we get one more Warrior/Savage match and Warrior retains after Savage had maybe suffered internal injuries caused during a match with Yoko a week or two earlier (this would accomplish Vince's goal of transitioning to Savage/Yoko and effectively ending Savage's main event run). Bret wins the Rumble. Bret beats Warrior for the title at WM9? But...I dunno...this is basically talking about a Warrior that (a) agreed to turn heel in the first place, (b) agreed to remain heel for 6 months, (c) somehow didn't flame out due to drugs or unprofessionalism, and (d) was willing to drop the title to Bret and I don't think there's even a 1% chance of b, c, and d happening. Maybe Vince could've convinced him to turn heel in August, but by October, he'd have either demanded a face turn or walked. What happens if Warrior gets fired while still champion at the end of 92'...I'd assume they'd bury him on TV with Jack Tunney announcing some sort of tournament and we'd get Flair/Bret in the finals, if the timing worked out, at the Rumble or a SNME. I doubt they'd put the title on the line again in the Rumble, though it would be kinda cool and a great way to have Bret win it by lastly eliminating Flair, who would theoretically be the favorite (having done it once before). Or maybe that's where the Flair/Perfect split happens. I don't think Yokozuna needs to win the Rumble that year to be presented as the top contender by April. You could also still run the Giant Gonzalez/Taker angle at the Rumble to explain why Taker doesn't win. When you throw in Hogan returning in the build-up to WM9 things get even wackier because I assume Hogan would've politicked to be the one to beat Warrior at WrestleMania (rather than Bret) and it would've been kinda cool symmetry for Hogan to dethrone Warrior after losing to him at WM6 (6 and 9 being visually "flipped").