DMJ

- To echo what El-P wrote, with Darby, Christian, Jericho, Swerve, MJF, etc. not making the top 100, I think the "AEW dominated the list" talking point can be put to rest a little. Theoretically, guys like Jericho and Christian should've done better because, while Jericho lost a lot of...appreciation (dammit)...over the past couple years, its really only because he stayed on TV too long. I feel like Christian is as beloved as ever. I would assume AEW-centric voters would have voted for them as essentially "the legends" of the company the same way a WWE-centric voter might vote for The Miz. Darby not making the top 100 is a big blow to the argument too. Darby is arguably the most AEW of AEW guys, for better (if you like AEW) or worse (if the mere thought of AEW makes you puke). High work-rate, plenty of false finishes, gore, crazy bumps, every match being treated like its an epic - all the stuff that the AEW critics point to as negatives, Darby does it. If there really were 100s of AEW-centric voters casting ballots, there's no way Darby doesn't make the top 100. And then we have Will Ospreay. As El-P wrote, if the voting base was overwhelmingly pro-AEW, its hard to imagine Ospreay not cracking the top 50. - Speaking of Ospreay, I'm one of those people who voted for him but not in my top 25. I had him at #49. As someone posted above, my appreciation for Ospreay (right now) is based on my opinion that he is the best fireworks show in wrestling. Still, I tend to see greatness as more than just physical/athletic prowess. I like character depth and breadth and longevity and to see how a wrestler adapts over time or changes style to match changes in character or setting. To be honest, seeing how Ospreay adapts post-injury is very intriguing to me and is arguably more important than what he accomplished at his physical peak. donsem43 called him a pro-wrestling Mary Sue, but now we have the neck injury, which means, to sustain his career, Ospreay is going to have to figure out how to maintain match quality while also respecting his own physical limitations. The truly great workers, the all-timers, the people who made my top 10 and top 15, were generally able to do that, shifting their style without losing their greatness.

- Loved El-P's troll post about Eaton. Very funny. I just watched a Dustin Rhodes/Bobby Eaton match a couple days ago from Saturday Night (I think it was December 91') and it was terrific. Great Madusa performance and JR is solo on commentary and is great too. I had Eaton at #46. - I won't make the case for Lesnar because he has a whole thread devoted to it, but I had him at #11. If you stopped caring about the WWE after 88' or 93' or 97' or 99', there's no case that will convince you that, in terms of aura and "big match feel" and then delivering great performances, Lesnar is at an elite level.

- Roddy didn't make my top 100, but he wasn't far off. I'll readily admit that I haven't seen a ton of his career but he did meet my personal rule of having watched/reviewed 20 matches and while he scored highly on "average match score," when I ran him through the rest of my criteria, he didn't make the cut. Would've probably been in that 105-110 range. My issue is the same as others have said, he's an incredible mechanic and he's incredibly consistent but he misses me in the "I'm So Excited For Roderick Strong vs. _____" department. To me, its really the "it" factor of me actively getting excited for a match and its just not there for him. I could easily go the other way, though, and see him making my list in 2036 as I watch more footage. - I had Dustin Rhodes at #43. Yes, there are some bad, bad stretches, but I actually think the initial Goldust run is great and showed that he could work a completely different style and pull off a very different character than what he was doing in WCW and get tremendous heat. I liked the ECW run. I liked the tags with Cody and I'm also admittedly one of the few people that really liked the Cody/Dustin match they had in WWE (probably more than even they did). I think he's been good in AEW. - I'm not surprised Owens hasn't "dropped" yet. I rated him pretty high, personally. He's a guy who checks a lot of boxes for me. Part of my thought process for my ranking or selecting was, if I was putting together a roster, is this guy going to be one of my top draft picks. Owens (and Zayn, to be honest) is a guy who makes things better every time, with his promos, with his character work, with his in-ring performances. I'm not sure I've seen him half-ass it despite the bad booking in WWE at times. And then, as soon as you call on him to do a match with a Roman or a Cody, he delivers.

Sure...I mean, I think there are probably times when WCW had a roster just as good (especially if that time happens to overlay with the brief window when they had Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto working for them), but its not like they had Rey, Benoit, La Parka, El Dandy, Eddie, Regal, Finlay, etc. all getting 15+ minutes a week to deliver high-quality matches. With AEW, it'd be hard to pinpoint an exact date, but there was/is/could be a time, you might see FTR, the Bucks, Kenny Omega, Darby Allin, Brody King, Swerve, Jay White, Roderick Strong, Takeshita, and Claudio Castignoli all wrestle in the same week...and then on the next week, you'd see half those guys again but now maybe Moxley, Hangman, Bandido, Christian, Okada, Samoa Joe, Toni Storm, Orange Cassidy, and Mark Briscoe are rounding things out. (And I'm purposefully leaving out MJF and Cole because mileage may vary, Mercedes Mone [because she barely wrestles on TV], Andrade [the first run wasn't my favorite, but this second run has been awesome], and Willow and Mark Davis [because they're both great but I'm trying not to pile on]). As for people who don't "get" Darby Allin, well, your loss. The view that he is just a "bump machine who sells melodramatically" is an overly cynical underselling of what he does. He may not be your cup of tea, but the days of him being a "just another Spike Dudley" or "Jeff Hardy wanna-be" are long gone. If you're going to compare him to someone, he's much closer to Rey Mysterio. Not as good as peak Rey, not as revolutionary, obviously doesn't have the longevity, but, yeah, I'll say it, that's the more apt comparison now.

Kyoko Inoue not cracking the top 200 is a shocker for me, though I guess she did at least move up from #217 to #204. In 2006, she was #65. I had her at #30 on my list. With Takeshita making #206, I'm thinking Darby Allin will make the 100, which is crazy because he was not on the 2016 list. I wouldn't be mad at it either. I have him at #61.

- I had Yoshinari Ogawa at #77 but was surprised to see he was #24 for someone else. If this was a ranking of my favorite wrestlers to watch, he'd probably be in my top 50. - IIRC I was the one who nominated Charlotte so I'm surprised I wasn't even close to the high voter on her either (I had her at #70). Charlotte is divisive and arguably even a "problematic" nominee because she's not always been super professional or safe (that TLC tag match w/ Becky against the Kabuki Warriors was unforgettable in a bad way), but for Big Fight Feel and often making you wonder if you're about to see a trainwreck or a great match, she's amazing. For someone who has so often been criticized as being "hand-picked" or "forced," she's maybe the least polished, least manufactured, least phony personality they have. Her desperation for fan approval, peer approval, even critical approval...its been on her face since NXT, which is also why none of the first couple babyface runs really worked. People like confidence. She's better as a heel because, as a heel, she played the cocky, arrogant athlete with obvious insecurities. Its classic Disney. The Evil Queen in Snow White with all the power in the world, all the riches, but none of the inner beauty or peace. And, real or fake, she was great in that role. I think this tag run has been solid - and well-received - because, eventually, thanks to that Players Tribune article and also (hopefully) just a general softening of the crowd in understanding how absolutely shitty the company she works for is and how many fans are absolutely awful, entitled pieces of shit towards all wrestlers but women wrestlers especially. Oh, and then there was her being Ric's kid, her brother dying, and the multiple failed marriages/relationships. At a certain point, the Evil Queen becomes a pretty sympathetic character and I think some fans actually just want her to not end up living at the bottom of a vodka or pill bottle when this is all over. But, in the words of Taz, I digress...she made my list because she has a resume of matches I really like.

Surprised I wasn't the high vote on DDP this time around (I had him at #67). When people talk about the best "TV workers" from the Monday Night Wars on, DDP should make everyone's shortlist. You could give him 5 minutes, 8 minutes, 10 minutes...and he made them count against a very wide variety of opponents, some of whom were absolute stiffs or were well past their prime. Also, the knocks against him "scripting" his matches seems silly to me in 2026 when its fairly clear that many top performers script their matches and have been doing so for years (Jericho included a rundown of his Mania match against Punk in one of his books, for example). Scripted or not, Page would often put creative twists and transitions into his matches that felt organic. Anyway, I guess I'll have to change my avatar. I also had Rhea Ripley on my list and am surprised I wasn't the high for her either (I had her at #74). It's a shame we'll probably never see this fully-formed, "peak" version of her anywhere but the WWE, but I can overlook that and say she's been the best female "ace" the WWE has ever had. She didn't shatter the glass ceiling like Becky did, but she's better in-ring. More consistent than Charlotte and more versatile as a heel/face. I ranked Mercedes Mone higher (as well as other women), but I don't think any could carry the division the way Rhea did/has as the "face of the company" (which I do think is fair to consider). She checked a lot of boxes when I went through my ranking system.

With the 400s and 300s, I've finally seen some names of mine drop but I'm not too bummed or surprised. They've all been in the 80s-90s range. I know I've stated it multiple times over the past year, but I'm an admittedly "generic" US wrestling nerd who grew up with WWE/WCW/ECW, some TNA, a lot of AEW now...blah, blah, blah, I'll spare the details. So, yeah, you can expect to see Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre on my list. The "pool" of wrestlers I could even consider for a list like this is probably something like 150-200, not 500 or 1000 like some of the other voters. That being said... Even if I had to list 200, folks like Kane and Abyss wouldn't make my list. Even if we're talking about getting carried to great matches, I'd put the Ultimate Warrior above them. At least Warrior has the Savage matches, WM6, and the Rude matches plus he was a better promo. Hell, I might put Warrior above Adam Cole too, which is probably crazy to some folks, but Cole is kinda like a one-man Young Bucks to me. With the Bucks, I can overlook that they are two small dudes doing lots of high-energy offense because two cruiserweights doing a dizzying array of high-impact, high-flying moves creates chaos and unpredictability and it can wear down a team of heavyweights. Its not totally dissimilar psychology to the Rockers or Rock n' Roll Express. But Adam Cole is just not my thing. I'm probably splitting hairs but I just find him less believable than a Rey Mysterio or Danielson or Darby Allin.

Classic Rollins. Undeniably athletically talented, but he might have the worst instincts of any major WWE star ever. Wrestles like a spirited, "pop-the-crowd with spots" babyface when he's supposed to be a heel. Wrestles like a boring, methodical heel when he's supposed to be a babyface. His idea of "character" is wearing garish outfits. At least Koko B. Ware had a bird. Incredible "pick me" energy. I voted for him on my GWE list because I do think he has a very respectable resume of good matches (and because so much of my life as a fan has been WWE-centric, my list reflects what I've seen), but I can't wait till 2036 when I think it'll be that much easier to leave him off entirely as I broaden my viewing and watch less WWE.

^ Yeah. I think, to us, there's still stories we'd love to see told, but maybe there's not enough "meat on the bone" to really pad out a 42-minute show. My dream episode, for example, would be about Ranger Ross, who wasn't really a huge star but ended up committing a series of bank robberies as "The Motorcycle Bandit." Then again, I think that story, embellished and with lots of creative liberties like a thrown-in love story and an of-the-times soundtrack, would make for a tremendous and potentially hilarious movie or TV series. The actual facts of that story might be kinda straight-forward and boring. Plus, again, he wasn't some huge star (though that hasn't stopped them from making episodes about other non-stars either). I'd also posit that this show was always going to struggle after 2-3 seasons. First, the wider audience is really only interested in the wrestlers they care about (stars), which is why episodes about Savage or Owen or Benoit made sense while an episode on Ranger Ross probably wouldn't work. Second, some stories are so sadly commonplace and unsettling that they're off-putting. For example, Buck Zumhofe. There's just not that much of a story beyond he was a child rapist who was a pro-wrestler. I'm not interested in 42 minutes about that just like I'm not interested in a documentary about any other random child rapist.

I'd disagree with the word "influential." Successful? Powerful? Important? I think those are better descriptors and, even then, I don't know if he's the definitive number 2. I mean - yes, Ted Turner changed television so, by default, that includes wrestling and baseball and basketball and news and syndication. It's a bit like saying Les Paul is the most influential guitarist in the history of rock n' roll, punk, heavy metal, funk, jazz...yes, obviously the guy who designed/innovated the electric guitar is incredibly important in the history of music in general, but parsing it out like that is a weird way to look at it. Also, if we're going by that definition, what about the computer/internet pioneers who changed the way professional wrestling was produced, consumed, sold, etc. over the past 20 years? Or the people who invented/innovated digital video? Would these folks take the rest of the top 10? In the grand scheme of things, they're much more meaningful/influential in the production and consumption of pro-wrestling (and all media) than the guy who invented the Royal Rumble. I just don't think that's the right way to look at it. Ted Turner was never WCW's booker. He was the money man that hired Hogan. He was the guy who took on Vince by giving WCW 2-hours of prime-time on Monday Nights. Those decisions can't be downplayed, but the further we get from the Monday Night Wars, the more its clear that, in the grand scheme of things, we are talking about 83 weeks out of 40+ years of WWE dominance and the influential aspects of Nitro - exposing US audiences to lucha wrestlers like Rey Mysterio, for example - have never been credited to Ted Turner anyway. Now, I don't have a clear "second behind Vince" person in mind. Maybe Paul Heyman? He's fairly influential in that ECW, even if it was being funded by Vince, was viewed as "independent" and "anti-mainstream." It's not hard to draw a line from ECW to Ring of Honor to AEW, for example. I'm sure the more knowledgeable folk around here could argue that there are figures in Japanese or Mexican wrestling history that are incredibly important. My point is, I'm thankful and grateful that Ted Turner created WCW, but let's not go overboard with crediting him for much of what we, the fans, actually saw on TV week-to-week.

- The New Day are a very good tag team and took a terrible gimmick and got it mega-over with the live audiences and sold a ton of merch through chemistry and personality. They'd be a good signing, even if only for a year or two. You bring back the trombone, you give them a "chant-able" name, you let them be them, and the live crowds are going to be engaged and loud (just like they always were in WWE) and that looks good on TV. Also, the fact that so many of their colleagues are tweeting support is only helping. The bullets that the "anti-WWE smarts" load in their guns against any former WWE talent coming to AEW are getting pulled out by every pro-New Day tweet that the Bucks or MJF or Mercedes or Swerve sends out. While I agree that AEW has established itself as a place for great wrestling/great wrestlers, that doesn't just mean the Ospreays and Swerves of the world. Kofi and Woods are solid in-ring, safe workers, have good signature stuff, etc. This isn't AEW going out and signing The Ascension or The Highlanders or the Prime Time Playas or the Bloodline or Wyatt Sicks rejects, these are guys with experience who can hang with the best tag teams.* - As for the Reigns thing, I'm guessing this is just another example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. * I know it was across many years and some were singles and not tags, but Kofi and Woods had some good matches against Danielson, Cesaro (& Kidd), Mistico (I think? Not sure who was playing Sin Cara at the time), FTR, Shelton, Samoa Joe, etc. These are not guys who will need to have their hands held to get them through a good match.

As someone who really only watched WWE and WCW with some ECW, some TNA, and then AEW up until a few years ago, my ballot is very "major US promotions centric." I'm likely going to be the high voter on a fair number of WWE guys and gals from the past 20 years and even I only had him at 45.

I posted my list over at my blog. I must admit, I'm not especially proud of it or even agree with all of it, which is weird to say, but this time around, I really tried to stick to some self-imposed rules and a "system" designed to keep it from just being a list of my favorite wrestlers.

Wow. Genuinely surprised to see New Day leaving. They both seem like smart guys so I'd hope they're not hurting for money and got a nice chunk of all that merch they sold over the years. I'm not necessarily interested in them going to AEW long-term, but would kinda love to see them do a few dream matches there and maybe do some international work/indie stuff just for the fun of it. I doubt they'll go to TNA.