NotJayTabb

There was a small window between Kyle O'Reilly leaving the most boring faction in wrestling and him leaving WWE where he worked as a babyface and let his natural goofy charisma shine through, and it was a total "Where has THIS guy been the past 4 years?", immediately became more interesting.

Sheamus dropping from 2016 is a bit of a surprise, given that he's only enchanced his case since the last poll. He's had the best of seven with Cesaro, leading into that really fun run as The Bar. Then some fun stuff with the Brawling Brutes, including the banger against Gunther in Wales and the Mania triple threat with Gunther and McIntyre. Even just allowing for modern candidates, I suspect we're going to see a lot of wrestlers with less to offer than Sheamus higher than him.

As the 2016 high voter for both Fritz and Kevin von Erich, it's nice to see other people voting them even higher, with Fritz improving on his 2016 placing. He feels like a guy who'd be much higher if we had more prime footage, but he's great in everything I've seen

Davey Boy is my first top 50 vote to drop. He's really taken a hit since the last ballot.

As a Welshman who still hears about how the All Blacks cheated against us to win in 1978, the feeling is mutual I do regret not giving WoS a deeper dive on this GWE. I've got 5 guys on my list, but I could probably have watched a bit more. Jon Cortez was one of my last cuts because I didn't feel I had enough of a grip on him yet.

Pleasantly surprised Adam Cole has dropped this early, had visions of him cracking the top 200. Apparently a lovely fella, but my word that Cole/Ciampa/Gargano era of NXT was absolute death to the point they had to totally rebrand to wash the stink away (this probably isn't Adam Cole's fault, but it's my thesis and I'm sticking to it)

The Guns' WWE run is going to look so odd in hindsight. Brought them in, brief feud with DIY over the tag titles, didn't do much else, not much promo time despite Alex Shelley being loaded with charisma. All it's really done is give them a tag title run to make them a little more decorated as a team that you're then basically handing to AEW.

The Johnny Valentine nomination thread didn't exist until 2021, if that helps

Glad we're now entering the "photos" section of the countdown Quack feels like someone who'd be much higher if his actions hadn't caused him to be persona-non-grata after Speaking Out. When I think of how long he was good for and how influential he was, especially through CHIKARA, he'd definitely have ended up higher if he'd not spent the last 6 years under a cloud. Even in 2020, he was still having great matches, had a terrific match with Tyler Bate at the penultimate Fight Club Pro show I went to.

Same is probably true of Bob Orton Jr

Thought Tenta would do better than he has done. Incredibly fun big-guy wrestler, his stuff more than holds up. Even as a big Tyler Bate fan, who was watching him wrestle in WMC's in Cov when he was just 15, placing at #35 on someone's list is wild

Just been browsing the "Highest 2026 debut" thread in the 2016 folder, where 10 years ago we tried to guess who would be the highest placed person to make their top 200 debut in GWE26. Fascinating to see only one person picked the likely winner, Ospreay, but there was a huge swell of support for Matt Riddle. I can't see Riddle having a thread and he's not in the list of "not nominated but received a vote anyway" that Grimmas posted, so that feels like a huge fall from grace.

We did a Terry Rudge watch party right at the very start of the GWE26 process, and it was very much a "this guy is clearly awesome, why have I not watched him before?" moment for me. I'm surprised he's fallen so early.

To me, this is where your #95 - #100 slots can be used. I think a lot of us have put personal favourites that maybe aren't an all-timer, but deserve some recognition. #2 just feels like trying to get attention. But then we're now having a conversation about Lulu Pencil that we wouldn't be having if she'd had one vote at #99, so maybe it's worked?

Hallowicked getting 8 votes makes me happy, there's going to be indy workers with less range, longevity and ability who'll rank higher, so good to see him get his flowers regardless. Thought I might end up his only voter, instead I'm probably the low voter