DMJ

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.

I don't think he'd have been a main eventer or anything, but he would've probably been used to get over the emerging heels in 96' - Vader, Austin, probably Foley and Goldust too, maybe Farooq, maybe Sid. I don't think his W/L record would've been great, but throw in matches against the rest of Camp Cornette - Bulldog and Owen - and potentially teaming up with Shawn for the random Raw and I think Steamboat in WWE in 96' produces some quality and gets over. In 96', Vince had Marty Jannetty, Jake Roberts, Barry Windham, and, at Survivor Series, Jimmy Snuka and Terry Gordy on his roster and all of them were embarrassingly past their prime. Hell, he brought back the Warrior that year. Vince was mocking the old-timers in WCW with the Billionaire Ted sketches with one hand and putting Jake Roberts in PPV matches with the other. Based on Steamboat's brief comeback in 09', he probably would've come into the WWE in 96' as one of the top 5 best in-ring performers and, at the end of the day, Vince isn't going to throw that away when he's also in the process of trying to make stars out of guys like The Sultan or Mark Henry or Rocky Miavia or Tiger Ali Singh in early 97'.

Aside from the Rumble, I haven't watched a whole WWE show in about 9 months but the WWE product is a hamster wheel so my take is probably as good as anyone's... The women's roster is actually super stacked. IYO SKY is there. Rhea Ripley is there, still very over, still very capable of delivering good matches. Charlotte and Alexa have become a fun tag team and, because they've reeled back on Charlotte being a "main event only" talent, the kneejerk hate for her has faded away. Tiffany Stratton plateau'd as a character and worker, but she's 26 and it's not like she's fallen off a cliff - just maybe wasn't ready for the main event. Kairi Sane and Asuka are still around and very dependable. Sol Ruca in NXT has a sick finisher. Stephanie Vaquer, Lyra Valkyria, Blake Monroe, and Giulia are all works-in-progress, adjusting to the WWE, and its still too early to call any of them "flops," especially Vaquer, who has made the most strides of the three. Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez have both had moments when they've shown they're worthy of being on the main roster. Liv Morgan isn't a great wrestler, but, for a time there, she was probably among the top 2-3 most over women on the roster not named Rhea Ripley. Becky Lynch was never a super worker and her on-screen work pales in comparison to her Twitter game (where she's been doing a pretty funny Trump impersonation for the past year) but she's still a big name for the company and a valuable piece of the division. Chelsea Green was (is?) super over for a bit there. So...no, the roster isn't poor. In terms of depth, it is much, much deeper than AEW or TNA. Star-power, rising prospects, raw talent, in-ring workers, charismatic characters, it's all there. But, see, the WWE are stupid so, based on just a cursory look at the card, they've taken this all-time great assemblage of talent and stars and booked them so poorly and with such a lack of understanding chemistry or character that you wouldn't be wrong to think the division sucked. IYO SKY: arguably the best women's wrestler on the planet, isn't on either night of a 2-night show. Ditto for Kairi Sane, Asuka, and Stratton (deserved or not, they made a huge deal of her last year and this year she's a non-factor). Liv Morgan: ready-made "comeback from injury" babyface storyline squandered so she could come back, rejoin a stable that was getting stale before her injury last June, and become a singer/dancer reminiscent of the best-forgotten Jillian Hall character. And then she beats Vaquer in under 8 minutes, a wrestler who really shines best when the WWE gets out of their own way and lets her wrestle. The feud will likely continue but who even cares? Becky Lynch: Based on my limited viewing of a clip here or there popping up in my social media feeds, Lynch has been mired in a months-long feud with AJ Lee that feels like a side-plot of the years-long Punk/Rollins feud and never really took off on its own. It's actually kinda sad and embarrassing for both of them. I'm guessing they've tried to elevate it but, to a casual viewer, it gives "My Husband Hates Your Husband So I Hate You Too, Let's Fight!" rather than an actual rivalry over a real personal issue. The opposite of creative, the opposite of interesting, just putridly staid, paint-by-number stuff. Charlotte and Alexa: Over with live crowds, have established good chemistry with interesting hints at a potential split over the past year that could've been the basis of an emotional story...all of it pushed aside so we can spotlight The Bellas and Paige, stars from a decade ago. Bayley wrote a thoughtful piece on social media about the importance of the Women's Tag Team Championships and, even without watching the shows in months, I can assure you nobody in the writer's room gives even 1/100th of the shit she does. Chelsea Green: Injured, but also, instead of making her the host or giving her some sort of backstage segment or doing really anything to keep her momentum, let's just air parts of the Hulk Hogan documentary. Rhea Ripley: Put in the unenviable position of having to carry Jade Cargill tonight. They'll likely have a decent match (maybe even a very good match) because Ripley is a pro and they've probably spent the last 6 weeks rehearsing every spot so that Cargill doesn't look terrible. There's also a non-zero chance that it will be a car crash if Cargill gets lost or there's a hiccup that means she has to improvise a single sequence. Crazy as it sounds but if I hear the match is good-to-great, I probably won't watch it, but if it's an awful trainwreck, I'd be more likely to??

The fact that there is somehow a "$70 service fee" (included or not) for a "photo" on your cell phone is just *chef's kiss* of greed. These bloodsuckers would charge you extra if Roman happens to fart and you smell it.

Its all a bizarre comment because it seems fairly obvious to me that this year's Mania *did* require a pivot and the use of a 2nd stringer in the form of Randy Orton. The truth is, Randy Orton hasn't main evented a WrestleMania since 2014. I'm not saying he's not a huge star, but last year, coming out of WrestleMania, the big storylines were Cena's Heel Retirement Tour and the partnership between Rollins and Heyman. Rollins was headed to a Mania main event this year, but I think its worth shitting on The Vision for a second... Rollins and Heyman had no chemistry and the reasoning behind their alliance was hazy at best. The addition of Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed didn't help things gel either. It was a stable of disparate parts. Put Heyman with Punk, Lesnar, or Roman, and it just feels right. Heyman didn't get there with any member of the Vision.

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.