El McKell

I didn't rank Shibata over Choshu or anything & he definitely isn't close to as influencial a figure as the people you listed. But I do wanna address the "Did Shibata have the breadth of great matches that Hulk Hogan or Bruno Sammartino did?" And say, yes he did, comfortably.

Bret will probably over Shawn No way is Sting ranking higher than Flair. Absolutely no chance whatsoever. I really can't predict who's going to do better between Bull Nakano & Aja Kong. I'm guessing Aja, but I wouldn't be surprised either way.

Still 44 of my 100 left. The only top-50 wrestlers I didn't put in my 100 were: Meiko Satomura, Volk Han, Roddy Piper, Shinya Hashimoto, Atsushi Onita & Andre The Giant.

I think Ospreay has a better shot to be able to adjust to his body breaking down than Ibushi. Ospreay is dumb, but he’s not “I don’t like reading because I don’t like the idea that other people are putting thoughts in my head” dumb

I think seeing Yuki Ishikawa ahead of Riki Choshu is the first time I’ve felt that real visceral disappointment with a reveal other people posting have clearly felt with some other reveals. Choshu is a charisma and vibes machine who made everything he was involved in feel more exciting & important

I think where your Jack Kirby analogy falls down is it is clear that drawing war comics and being in a war are different things. The case Control is trying to make is that matches in Pancrase, regardless of whether they are worked or shoots, are pro-wrestling matches.

Went through the thread to see how everyone chosen shook out. Matt Riddle Not nominated, did not appear on list of non-nominees getting votes Rush up from #359 to #180. not a bad prediction Fred Yehi No votes in 2016, to #644 in 2026. Not a big rise Tim Thatcher From #297 to #242. No real improvement from 2016 Bray Wyatt Not nominated but did get votes Roman Reigns #416 to #172. If people in the thread weren't calling him a lock for the 100, this I'd be a strong rise Zack Sabre Jr #327 to #101. strong pick Andrade No votes in 2016, to #208 in 2026. Pretty good pick Big E Not nominated but did get votes Dragon Lee No votes in 2016, to #506 in 2026. Okada We'll see how high he goes (probably pretty damn high), but it doesn't feel like the spirit of this to pick the #137 from 2016 Hiromu Takahashi No votes in 2016, to #201 in 2026. Another solid good pick Tomoyuki Oka Not nominated, did not appear on list of non-nominees getting votes Dalton Castle Not nominated but did get votes, I think even without the injuries he wouldn't have done well Gino Hernandez Dropped from #229 to #368 Jose Lothario Dropped from #276 to #609. Old Houston guys were not the correct way to go here Drew Galloway No votes in 2016, to #415 in 2026. El Lindaman Not nominated, did not appear on list of non-nominees getting votes Sami Callihan Dropped from #304 to #569 Will Ospreay The correct pick. The true prognosticators are Jamsie and JRGoldman. From appearing on 1 ballot were he placed #100, Ospreay has risen to the top 100 El Cachorro /Black Panther/Dark Panther Not nominated, did not appear on list of non-nominees getting votes Matt Riddle and Cachorro are interesting choices because they were both relatively inexperienced in 2026, looked really good at the time, but surprisingly they were peaking right around the time of the 2016 ballot

Nobody who voted for Regal is doing so thinking of him as a WoS wrestler. They're doing so because they see him as a top tier worker in WCW from 92-96 and in WWE from like 05-10. I didn't vote for Regal and I did vote for Steve Grey and Clive Myers so I might not be the best person to talk, but Regal's best work is all in the USA, it doesn't affect his case that he wasn't close to being a high level performer on WoS.

Voters were asked to give a little blurb for their number one. So if you don't have a number one vote you don't have any little blurb. It'd be a bit much to ask people to write something for their whole ballot.

How about Onita, El Dandy, Takayama, Mayu Iwatani, Ricky Morton & Jay Briscoe

Mark Briscoe couldn't beat Jay Briscoe. I think that's the first long term tag team like that were the one I prefer did worse.

I assume Grimmas is still in bed, it's only 7am for him rn

Well Alex Wright is terrible, so he was right about that.

I definitely don't wanna do this every 5 years. Every 10 years is good, but we definitely should like not be trying to sustain conversation about the GWE for ten years. This time we had a kind of ceremonial reopening of the process in April 2021, but 5 years before the ballot was way too fucking long of a time. I think we got it exactly right in 2016 when everything started 18 months before the ballot was due.

I'm a big fan of engaging with jokes sincerely. So I'm gonna go for it. Base Rating (offense, selling, psychology): 0/3 2/3 2/3 = 4 Intangibles: 7 Great matches: 0 Length of Peak: never a top worker no peak = 0 +1 ability to work as an underdog babyface Never works any other roles Ability to work different styles / roles = 1 Variety of Opponents: 1: Only had good matches with Chris Brooks I give Lulu Pencil a BIGLAV score of 13. That might be a lower score than anyone Parv rated in 2016.

I think the way things played out in the end is evidence to me that the nomination process was flawed and would have been better if it were handled differently. The fact that there were wrestlers who received multiple votes who don’t appear on the list due to not being nominated is a weakness of the system. These were not troll votes. People who were voted on but not nominated include wrestlers with strong reputations: AR Fox, Bad News Allen, Bandido, Big E, Billy Kidman, Blue Demon Jr. BxB Hulk, Edouard Carpentier, El Hijo Del Vikingo, K-Ness, Kzy, Magnum TOKYO, Starlight Kid, Takeshi Rikio, Tiger Mask IV. People sincerely wanted to vote for these wrestlers, they are not outlandish picks by any stretch of the imagination. So, this is a weakness of the process that you can decide for yourself is offset by the strengths of the nomination process. I’ll make a bit of a case below why I don’t think it is. People in this thread are making arguments about whether or not the nomination process actually served as a barrier to entry for legitimate candidates or not. Saying things like: “It's not like the process is extremely tedious as it is when all you need is a name and 3 matches to recommend “ Or “if a person can't even make the effort to get a name nominated, what business do they have making a Top 100”. The counter against these arguments is the simple fact that so many wrestlers got votes without being nominated. The barrier to nominations was clearly real and people have brought some of those up in this thread, that this message board is a nightmare to sign up for, that discord invite links die (the one in the pinned thread called links, literally doesn’t work), not acknowledged is that if you encounter this project on Xitter or reddit or whatever how do you know what the nomination process is or how to find out about it, what about the highly knowledgeable people who chose to vote only when the ballot opened up, your Alan4Ls, Rich Kraetch, Jesse Collings or Liam from You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me and I’m sure many more. If were going to do outreach to get in as many ballots as possible we should ensure that anyone these people might want to vote for are eligible. Matt D said something I partially agree with in this thread: “I like the three match rule since this thing is based on footage not rep or drawing or anything else. If that can be enforced without nominations, I don’t care as much.” I too like the three match rule because it means we vote on footage and not rep. But that rule was not enforced on the nominations. Frank Shamrock got nominated with 1 pro-wrestling match and 2 MMA fights, Muhummad Ali got nominated with 2 worked wrestler vs boxer contests and one shoot wrestler vs boxer contest, Gus Sonnenberg was nominated based on incomplete matches (14:20 out of 31:45 with no finish, 21:03 out of 107:35 and 15:20 of literally slowed down, silent, grainy, blurry footage of a 22:37 match), Jim Londos was also nominated based on three incomplete matches. (I could also make the case that Ken The Box and Andreza Giant Panda shouldn't be valid nominees because we don't know who's under the costumes. Like how do we know Andreza Giant Panda isn't a different person every time, how do we know Ken The Box isn't the same person as every costumed Survival Tobita opponent?) Having the nominations did not keep out these theoretically ineligible candidates but it did serve to keep out Kzy & Tiger Mask IV. Some people are suggesting it encourages discussion or it prevents non-brought up or discussed wrestlers from being voted on. But there were 114 nominated wrestlers with zero replies in their threads (around 12% of all nominees). You don’t have to be a discussed wrestler to be voted on. The nomination process as implemented largely just punished voters who didn’t pay attention to or know about the nomination process.

He was born and raised in Japan. He’s as Korean as Eddie Guerrero is Mexican.

I just wanna take issue with this part of the comment. This is not a mathematical oddity. It's to be expected due to the availability of footage. Just to demonstrate how normal 16 AEW wrestlers in the top 200 is, let's look at the top 200 in 2016 and look at a period of time equal to how long AEW has been around: September 1989 - April 1996 (chosen because it lines up with 30 years since AEW's existence & because I think it's close to the most represented period in 2016). And look at WWF and WCW wrestlers who appear (without counting silly cases like Jeff Hardy, Tenryu or Barry Winhdam as WWF wrestlers, or Owen Hart, Undertaker & Antonio Inoki as WCW, just cos they did work at least a couple of matches there). WWF has 40 wrestlers, 20% of the total & WCW has 42 wrestlers, 21% of the total. These will both drop for 2026, but I bet they'll still be ahead of AEW's total. You can think the present day should get less representation than the past because it's still happening and harder to examine. But I think you should acknowledge that the present day IS getting less representation than periods of the past with comparable footage availability and it's level of representation is not a 'mathematical oddity'

Do you think that the overrepresentation you're talking about exists when your two examples of that type of wrestler, don't appear on the overall list?

Gordy and Williams both in the top 150, Miracle Violence is alive and well in 2026

It is a banal observation in a sense, because it does seem like it's stating the obvious but the suggestion seemed to be being made that AEW wrestlers were doing well because people like AEW. So, I think it's worth pointing out these people were incredibly highly regarded before working for AEW, that working for AEW is not the real reason for them doing well in this poll. I don't know what it means to be overrepresented because of internet smark fandom. Everyone voting should be a "smark" because it should be a voter base of people who have watched a lot of wrestling from different places and times. Your point about ROH in 2006 probably would've been true if the poll happened in 2010, but when the 2006 poll happened ROH had been around less than 4 years and unlike AEW it built a roster of people who did not have long successful careers before they ever got there. The early ROH guys didn't have the longevity to do well in that poll.

And just cos I finally checked I've lost only 12 of my ballot so far. Wrestler My Rank Overall Rank Dynamite Kansai 34 163 Pirata Morgan 46 174 Verne Gagne 68 231 Koji Kanemoto 72 269 Kyle O'Reilly 79 281 Steve Grey 85 210 Clive Myers 87 480 Ricochet 88 204 Seth Rollins 89 241 Christopher Daniels 92 232 Satoshi Kojima 94 224 Naomichi Marufuji 97 159

On the point that there's so many AEW wrestlers left to come, I think that says more about the fact that AEW assembled a roster made up of wrestlers who were perceived by fans as the best in ring performers on earth before they came in. In a world where AEW never existed of course Kenny Omega, Samoa Joe, Kazuchika Okada, Young Bucks & Will Ospreay all make the top 100.

I'm locking in a prediction here that Ric Flair finishes number 2 behind Bryan Danielson.

I don’t have a problem with someone voting him number one. But the blurb that TribalCheifofRhodeIsland literally makes it sound like he put him number 1 for his kayfabe achievements. I don’t know if this person understood the point of the project or was trolling or what. Matsunaga also received a number 1 vote and I think he’s not as good as Reigns but the person who put Matsunaga first wrote something that made it sound like they understood what we’re doing here.