Tetsujin

They're acts that are getting tv time by default while they're actively bad and/or their contributions to the product have come to an end.

I really enjoyed his AEW run for the most part, he's always been one of my favourite wrestlers since I was a kid, but yeah, he adds nothing to the product now. If he never wrestled in AEW again, I wouldn't mind, in fact he's one of the guys I see hurting the company the most right now (alongside HOOK, Lashley, Harley Cameron, Jack Perry, Julia Hart and the Bucks). The bad thing is that I believe he's coming back with Christian to take the titles from FTR sooner than later, so that'll be annoying.

Just an over glorified stuntman. And I mean, there's place in for wrestling for that, but there's also plenty of wrestlers who do that role much better (and they actually wrestle) than Shane. Moving on.

It's gonna be Omega. That saddens me, but it is what it is. Ospreay and Okada too, both will make it as well. Maybe ZSJ and (hopefully) Naito, also the Shield guys specially Moxley, but Omega, Okada and Ospreay seem like the three undisputed fan favourites of the last decade. They're the biggest representation of today's canon of what great wrestling is, this late-meltzerism era of workrate and fandom that led to AEW as the first real alternative to WWE's US monopoly since the late 90s. They have the hegemony at the moment and I'm sure they'll rank somewhere between 80-100.

That's a superb tournament right there. I would have put Okada/Takeshita on the same league just to add more uncertainity, and I really wanted heel García to make it, but other than those two nitpicks this is an absolute gem of a C2, holy.

From AEW, I'd say Moxley has somewhat strong chances to make it next year; as for the "not yet" part, I believe Ospreay, Darby, Hangman and MJF are already on their way to be strongly considered by 2036, and Takeshita, Fletcher and Daniel García have all the potential in the world to join them.

PPV was a bit weird to me. Every match delivered, yet there was little to no cohesion at all. If you watch any of these matches in a vacuum, It will feel awesome, but when you put seven or eight awesome matches together, it gets tiresome sooner than later. It's a shame both world title matches had almost no heat at all. I honestly would prefer matches that each complement the show on its way, instead of every match competing to be the most epic one of the show. The Casino Gauntlet was my motn, everyone shined in their roles and I would specially call Ricochet for one of the best performances of his career. He was to this match what Flair was to the 1992 Rumble, only on (even more) cocaine. I would also like to point out how experimental Mox/KOR felt, the crowd wasn't really with them most of the times but it was a match that tried to educate them into new forms of northamerican wrestling and I hope more wrestlers with their spotlight do the same kind of stuff, so eventually northamerican crowds can get invested in holds, counter holds, quick pin attempts and stuff like that. The show also had very questionable booking choices. FTR beating Brodido is definitely not bad, but the upcoming transition to Edge & Christian is. Darby going from making Mox submit at the main event to losing to PAC at the opener is very weird an dissapointing, and I know that that result and Mox tapping against KOR again are both setting up the DR being better without Mox and maybe even having PAC as the new leader or whatever, but that's an approach I don't see anyone benefiting from (other than babyface Mox wanting revenge). The DR are not gonna be better without Mox, guys. And then the main event. I love Joe to death, but this didn't feel a right way to crown him again. No, I don't think Hangman necessarily needed a 300 day long reign (well, maybe I do, but that's besides the point), but that doesn't mean it has to end so abruptly after such a cathartic coronation. Joe practically losing two times in the match and then winning because of help from a C Tier guy on the roster is insane to me, definitely not the way of presenting a new top heel champ. And you're telling me Swerve is coming back? Jesus Christ, just make Hangman vs Swerve for the belt. It's so easy. That's exactly what Hangman's reign needed: higher stakes challengers, rivalries that can feel the biggest act of the product right now. I don't know why instead they took the hard way with another heel champ hiding behind a stable, AGAIN. After only four months or so after Moxley dropped the title. Maybe Hangman takes it back from Joe anyway, but I don't think they're gonna hot potato the world title so, we'll see. Hey, at least they had Statlander winning against Moné. Such a shame it didn't felt as great of a moment as it should have due to the crowd being exhausted and the build up not being powerful enough (should have been the main event, but I guess Swerve's new nerfed theme song is more important).

She'll rank pretty highly for me as well, probably first half of the list. I find her undenniable. Not only because of the great and excellent interpromotional matches like the tag trilogy, the Hokuto match or Thunderqueen; she has the Street Fight with Kansai, her matches with Devil Masami in 1991 and, specially, 1993 against Undertaker Masami are amazing as well, and I fucking love the 1994 Chiggy singles match and the GAEA stuff I've seen from her. And that's with me still needing to watch the Shimoda bloodbath and some of her most recent stuff. Definitely awesome in every aspect of pro wrestling I've seen her approaching: fast paced workrate, classic title matches, 2/3 falls psychology, multiwoman matches ring awareness, crazy brawls, underdog babyface, fucking nasty asshole heel, comedy... She has it all.

Not wanting to be booked just for a three minute women match in an already problematic company when it comes to giving the women's division as much importance as the men's, doesn't sound bad to me at all. Funny how many "you should be grateful of any tv time you're given/you should do your job because that's why it's a job" people are appearing all of a sudden when that exact alienated mentality is the one that led Vince to build basically a cult of his personality in order to create the most horrendous wrestling product ever for decades. I guess we're still suffering the consequences even within the supposed main alternative. And yeah, it fucking sucks that Nox's girlfriend is a terf, but that's sadly besides the point. The point is that male wrestlers have far more opportunities to still make a name despite being booked in three minute squashes as nobodies, because wrestling is a men's world sadly. Women? Not so much. I'm happy there's a statement of "don't give me three minutes when you're giving men the other 57 minutes of the show" out here now. The ones making said statement? Couldn't care less, and if one's a terf then fuck her and hope I'll never ear from her again. But that's a different story.

I just thought that Mondo guy was taking advantage to gain some eyes on him. No big deal, everyone should do stuff like that to try and put themselves over. People obviously overreacted because tribalism and thinking they're smarter than anyone and kayfabe is dead, when it actually is heavily alive and stuff like this still proves it.

Oh, man. KUSHIDA is sooo great, and definitely a guy that should have had a classic career and a no brainer status for a project like this. Sadly, NJPW wanted to waste him and refused to mix him with the heavyweights (just to give Ospreay that distinction the very same year, duh) and he made the "mistake" of wasting time in WWE (get that bag man, whatever). He's still more than capable of doing great stuff today, his BOSJ match with Kosei Fujita is awesome and maybe the most unique match in current New Japan in ages. But he was a beast on his peak and it's a shame he didn't have the options to experience it better.

Mox/Darby might be the most uncomfortable match I've seen since the 1983 Hansen/Funk singles match. Holy shit.

The thing with Cena is that you can see the wrestling sicko he is and the kind of wrestler he would've been had he lived and worked in any other time and place than PG WWE. There's no way you watch the Umaga match and don't think "Cena would have been awesome in 80s MidSouth or Arena México". So, when he's having a great match thanks to a much better dance partner (the Lesnar match, for example) and he suddenly lives the moment and taps into that hidden potential, it definitely elevates the match into something else than just great. I believe that quality of him is what resonantes with more hardcore fans like ourselves, although I would agree it tends to overrating him, as it didn't happen as much and there's still a lot of bullshit to go through while examining his career. He's a "moments" kind of wrestler, both in the best and worst way possible. Obviously Bret is far better at everything inside the ring than Cena.

She'll be my highest woman on my list, and what finally gave her the edge over Hokuto (both in my top 10 atm) is these recent performances where she takes full advantage of her limitations as well as her usual strongs (the stifness and the character work). A lot of +20 years veterans would kill to be able to still deliver at the level current Aja with +30 years of experience is delivering. She's my #7 right now, but I can see her climb as high as #3.

What they have done with those two Mox/García matches + the turn on Darby is amazing classic pro wrestling right there. I'm as excited as I was when the original BCC turn on Danielson happened, I wanna ser where this all goes. There are tons of interesting dynamics to explore (Garcia-Darby, Garcia-Yuta, Garcia-Menard, García-Bryan...)