NotJayTabb

I had Necro in the 60-70 slots last time. I think he'll drop a bit this time, but I still think he'll be in my list. His rep has taken a bit of a hit in the last 5 years, partly due to his bad politics and partly due to that SHLAK match where he looked like a mummified corpse, but prime Necro had an aura like few others. I think his work has stood up better than a lot of 00s indie workers, his brawling still looks great, his selling is still surprisingly sympathetic, and his ability to turn his strengths to both deathmatch and non-deathmatch bouts gives him a bit of range.

DiBiase is a guy who I like well enough, but I don't see him getting onto my list. He reminds me of Terry Taylor (who did make my list in 2016, but is unlikely to in 2026), in that he's always solid, but never blows me away. Even when I watch Mid-South, which I haven't watched extensively but am working my way through, I get more excited by a Paul Orndorff match than I do DiBiase. I'm still working through Mid-South, so I'm not 100% ruling him out, but he's unlikely for me.

Tyler Bate is someone I've been a fan of since the very first time I saw him. It was a tag match in a WMC in Coventry, teaming with Chris Brookes against The Henchmen. Bate was 16 and nowhere near as muscular as he is now, but he played a great face in peril before hitting a superb spot that was unforgettable, hitting a German suplex on the 350+lb Jim Diehard. What made it great was the execution - it wasn't a suplex where you can see the opponent do the work. Instead, Tyler got him in a rear waistlock and motioned for the suplex, which got a bunch of titters from the crowd. After all, here was this normal sized kid trying to lift a huge, huge man. Then suddenly, Diehard's feet slowly left the ground as Bate deadlifted him, all freaky core strength. The crowd rightly popped huge, just a good spot made great by the execution. As for his candidacy, he's got a reasonable shout. He's been at worst good for 8 years now, is still in his early 20s, and is both helped and hurt by being in NXT UK. Hurt because not many people watch the show, but helped because it's a show that'll give him plenty of chances to stretch his legs in the next 5 years, he's a featured wrestler who'll be on every Takeover and get a bunch of good 10-15 minute TV main events. I'm certainly not discounting him.

Barbarian was someone I was pretty high on in 2016, and I think he's got a good shot for 2026. In a way, he's an interesting counterpoint to the Goldberg argument, because he's got similar tools and a similar aura, but didn't get a big sustained push the way Goldberg did. Of course, his big push in WCW flopped, but the switch from midcard tag worker to world champion needed more than a month or two build to be accepted. What a beast though. Great offence, clever at knowing when to sell and how much. A guy who didn't win a lot, but always managed to maintain his aura so a win over him felt impressive. Comfortably the best worker in both the Powers of Pain and the Faces of Fear. Even last year, working a tag for ICW NY, he still looked and moved pretty well for his age, which is rare for a muscular 80s wrestler nowadays (Warlord, for example, looked pretty stiff and was clearly less comfortable in the same match)

I was possibly most impressed by the Jordynne Grace match, because Grace is someone who's matches never feel as good as I think they should. She's very athletic and powerful, but often the matches don't come together. Here, everything made sense, there was a proper story and structure, and I think Martinez was integral to that. She played the wily veteran perfectly

I love Iron Mike Sharpe, he's got a very good shot of being my #100 final guy on the list. Watching WWF Prime Time from 1986 can be a chore in places, a lot of dull Sivi Afi or Tony Garea matches, and Sharpe manages to make both guys seem entertaining. I love how he makes potentially tedious lower card matches more interesting with his stooging, the way he plays to the back rows with his selling and offence. Just a really fun guy to watch.

I really enjoyed the watch party, it definitely made me think more of Mercedes than I did before. I'm not certain she'll make my 100, just because there's a lot of great wrestlers out there, and 100 is a small number. She didn't immediately stand out as a "Oh my God, yes" candidate the way Yokota did last week. I'll check out the matches Grimmas listed above (bar the David Starr, because he sucks as a human and as a wrestler) and some of her WWE standouts, but at the moment she feels more top 200.

The problem there is that, although she's currently in a prominent role, she's in a role that's almost certainly going to prevent her having good matches. Nothing The Fiend touches ends up being good to watch in the ring (miracle Bryan match and hilarious Goldberg squash excepted), and if Alexa starts wrestling more like Wyatt, she's going to be in the unwatchable category with him.

There's 2 matches against Jumbo, one in 75 and one in 79, that I loved when I watched them. The earlier one is Fritz brutalising Jumbo in front of Baba before their match the following week, and it's a mugging. The later one is Fritz putting over a more experienced Jumbo. I'm also high on old man babyface Fritz. Like, I really like his retirement match against Bundy where he's this big, aging crotchety old guy taking it to a young punk.

I was the Fritz high vote in 2016, think I had him as a top 40 guy. Don't think he'll be so high this time, but I want to try and watch/rewatch as much Fritz as possible to see if he's still a top 100 guy. I think he's hurt by volume of footage, but I love everything I've seen. He's so fun in his AJPW matches, just a nasty vicious bastard.

Iron Mike Sharpe The ultimate "knew his role" guy. Canada's Greatest Athlete was rarely put in a position to have great matches or stand out, but he remains memorable thanks to his work. A big powerful guy, he'd make his opposition look great by stooging, missing big with wild swings and loudly protesting. His offence looked good, nice clubbing blows and though he rarely won, he still made it look impressive to beat him Matches: vs Tony Garea (WWF Prime Time 16/6/86) vs B Brian Blair (WWF Prime Time 5/5/86) vs Sivi Afi (WWF Prime Time 28/4/86)

Its went down very well, total change of pace from the Galactica match before it, really dug the sense of struggle

I'm looking forward to watching more Jaguar now for sure. I can't say for sure that I'd put her in my top 100 in 5 years time just based on one 2hr viewing session, but if the rest of her output is in that ballpark, I think she'd be undeniable

Yeah, I think the first watch party went really well, an excellent choice of matches. I think it was a useful exercise because Joshi doesn't have the obvious entry points that other types of wrestling do. You can easily start watching puro by using US performers as a gateway, or even someone like Liger who worked a lot of WCW. Same with lucha, where I started by looking up the WCW luchadors. Now, I've a bunch of different names I enjoyed from the footage and that can lead into a number of different directions. Plus it was fun when Jaguar did some crazy suplex variation or some insane bump to see a bump of "Fuck" "OMG!" in the chat.

Kingston is a lock for my list, and he still feels like a guy where I've not seen his best stuff. But he's a standout in early CHIKARA, someone who stands out as being a smarter worker than his peers, and he's very much a guy where I can type his name into the IWTV search bar and every match that comes up sounds intriguing due to his presence. He's also someone Fight Club Pro seemed to wheel out every time I didn't fancy going to one of their shows: "I'm not really feeling this card. Wait, they've booked Kingston against Dunkzilla? OK, looks like I'm going"

I've seen precisely one Jaguar Yokota match, a tag from 2004, so I'm very up for this. Is this going to be an entirely Yokota session?

No disrespect to Trish, but I think I could name 100 better wrestlers than her without thinking that hard. I could probably name 10 better women wrestlers currently under contract to WWE, and given that there's only one Horsewoman who I think could make my list, she's not making it.

Yeah, agree with Boss Rock's post above. She's always been the least of the Horsewomen for me, her instincts aren't as good and I don't think she's got the range of the others. While the other 3 all feel different to their NXT incarnations, she's pretty much stayed the same in terms of character and ability.

Taking a dive from 2016: Adrian Street, Matt Hardy, Doug Williams, James Mason, Terry Taylor, DDP, Zack Sabre Jr Probable additions at this point: Cesaro, Bayley, Lex Luger, Eddie Kingston, John Tenta, and I want to nominate Iron Mike Sharpe for my #100 spot

She's still got 5 years to go too, and though not many people watch NXT UK, she's now going to be having matches on a show that is easily accessible. She's already had the best match of Isla Dawn's career, and there's a bunch of good/ great women on that roster.

I just can't see an argument for her. It'd be a stretch to call her a top 10 WWE women's wrestler of the last 10 years (4HW, Naomi, Io, Sane, Asuka, Ronda, Shayna at least all ahead of her), and that covers her whole career. Add in the men, and she's not a top 30 WWE wrestler of just the past 10 years, and I don't see that making a top 100 of all time.

Omeg'a final placing is going to be interesting, I think. He feels like the candidate who's most divisive, where the people who like him will vote him very highly, but the people who don't wont place him at all. I don't feel like he'll get many votes in the 75-100 range.

Finished in my mid-70s last time, almost certainly a lock to rank again this time. Very good tag worker with Martel, Pillman, Johnny Gunn and various others. Smart enough to be able to adjust his style to his opponents, working as an underdog high flyer against larger heels or using his relative size/strength when working smaller opponents. Has the advantage of working TV matches in one of the best years of any North American promotions and he looks good whenever he turns up.

The king of the wobble sell, made his opponents look like stars just by getting him off his feet. I've recently gotten a 2-disc Tenta comp from the IVP patreon, so I'll be giving him a fair crack.

I would freely admit that I'm not very consistent on things like this, and I genuinely can't explain or justify why that is. Like, I still really like Chinatown and I still watch Woody Allen films, but I haven't listened to Lostprophets in a decade. I'm the same with wrestling - I still watch old CHIKARA, and Quack has a good shot for my list, despite being a scumbag. Same with Lawler, and I think that's in part because a lot of his offences happened before I knew who he was, it's easier to keep separate in my mind. Conversely, I can't bring myself to watch the likes of Jack Gallagher or Travis Banks now, they feel ruined for me. No real logic to it, sadly. Regarding Benoit, that feels different because it's arguable that his issues were a result of his wrestling style. Watching Chris Benoit miss a diving headbutt or split William Regal open with a headbutt does feel like you're watching a man damage his brain to a tragic conclusion, so for that reason he's out.