Tetsujin

Predicted top four (ordered): Terry Funk, Bryan Danielson, Genichiro Tenryu, Kenta Kobashi Those are the four guys I've seen getting more universal love online on recent GWE discussions, by far. Other predicted top ten locks might be Flair, Misawa, Hansen and, you know what, Tanahashi as well. His retirement seems to be this year's case of recency bias much like Bryan's first retirement was for 2016 and Eddie Guerrero's passing was for 2006. If I were to predict the whole top ten, I would say something like this: 1. Funk 2. Bryan 3. Tenryu 4. Kobashi 5. Flair 6. Misawa 7. Hansen 8. Liger 9. Kawada 10. Tanahashi Bret Hart has regained a lot of fans these recent years with guys like Punk or FTR pridefully showing his influence over their bodies of work, so maybe he sneaks in. Biggest jumps will be most of the big joshi names and some of 10s New Japan and huge recent indie stars (WALTER and Ospreay). Inoki, too; him not being in 2016's list seems like the biggest mistake to colectively correct. Biggest drops I would say will be some (definitely not all) of the US territory guys that made pretty well last time. I don't believe most of the big WWE names will heavily drop, due to the nature of most of the lists I've seen on Twitter from new people (hell, I'm one of those, I still have in high regard some names like Taker, Michaels or Angle). I would also bet on luchadores somewhat improving their last results, but not by a lot.

Here's mine. Time is a bitch, so there's still so much to explore and rewatch, but honestly I feel pretty confident about it, as I kept working on it throughout some years, as I was watching stuff. I foresee that the last 30 spots or so are gonna change drastically from here to ten years in the future.

Incredible post, holy. Really appreciate those out of his confort zone Liger matches. The Taichi one is really fucking good.

I mever liked him as much as others, I don't really dig his overchoreographed style for some of his signature spots, that require his opponent to stay there watching him do the thing and waiting for him. Once you notice it, you can never unsee it, and it always ruins my inmersion. Other than that, yeah, he's athletic, he's charismatic, and sometimes he knows how to sell to gain sympathy. I'm currently rewatching Lucha Underground (still on seasons 1, now towards the end) and he's not giving me the vives of one of the very best on the roster like he did ten years ago, but yeah the Graves Consequences remains untouchable. It's more of a Mil Muertes absolutely stellar performance, but Fénix plays his role better than ever.

I'm curious about Ishii's performance in this GWE. He's definitely one of the standards of last decade's New Japan boom that a lot of people love, yet he's not as present in conversations like Tanahashi, Okada or others. He's been a consistency king for far too long, and his highs are among the best I've ever seen from anybody. I'll definitely rank him, and quite high, but he's one of the wrestlers I have no clue what the general consensus is. Is anybody considering Ishii for their list? If so, where? And do you believe he's gonna rank in the overall top 100, and if so where?

So excited for this. Thanks to everyone doing the work.

It's Moxley. No one did something remotely close to the character work he did throughout the year, with very different settings and opponents. Ok, Sareee was in fact close.

While not enough for a top 100 case, his WWE run is really good. An athletic prodigy with enough charisma that should have been pushed as a bigger deal. I like him in AEW, booking aside. I don't have any idea what he's done in between, I've never heard anything good or bad about it.

Obviously super duper talented, but sadly the WWE money bag is just too heavy for him to go elsewhere so he can actually have matches akin to his level. He's still pretty consistent week to week and has been for quite a lot of years now.

Definitely the most underrated pro wrestler of the last ten years or so. Awesome moveset and execution, perfect timing for everything, can play the chickenshit heel, the more serious vicious heel, the fiery underdog babyface, can work the typical dick meassuring fighting spirit kind of match WITHOUT feeling a parody or cliché, excells in both singles and tags. He gets wrestling psychology like few today in his environment. Pretty charismatic guy that should have been pushed since at least the late 10s, and still being great today, maybe the best NJPW wrestler since Tanahashi's peak ended and he became a heavyweight.

Macho won't be on my list, and he's probably the wrestler I've tried to make myself vote for him the most without actually ending up doing it. I just can't connect with him the same way I connect with others. Sure, the larger than life character is obviously there, and I dig his ringwork, but his output doesn't look as strong to me as it does for many others. I like the Warrior match but I've never seen it as a masterpiece or any of that. I like the Tito and Steamboat series but the matches are all between good and great, nothing really extraordinary. Not impressed with most of his 90s work either. I guess I don't like 80s WWE nor post-1994 WCW enough, and he suffers from that, even if I can see he's one of the best at working under those contexts and styles. Don't like him against Lawler for some reason, and the Tenryu match would have been awesome if there was more actual, physical wrestling going on. To me, he lacks true peak matches in comparison to a lot of other wrestlers.

His performance last week against Josh Alexander is so impressive. Here's Claudio, who's been working heel since september 2024, being a babyface champ who has to look badass and powerful while showing vulnerability through an injured leg, building anticipation for his signature spots. And he has the crowd in the palm of his hand, in part thanks to not only his strength spots, but to how he struggled to do them. He also moved as quick as a cat still, and he's in well into his fortys working full time with no injuries since I don't even remember when. Unreal pro wrestler.

That Brisco/Armstrong match is a real gem, one of my favourite short matches ever. They tell so much with so little.

Grand Slam Australia was weird, and a good example of what I've been feeling with AEW lately. The matches were all good, but none were truly great, it all felt like a house show with tv build. No ambition behind anything, except maybe some instances at the main event. The storylines all feel stale and the product overall not as interesting as it was during the peak of Mox's reign last year and the first months of Hangman's. They're definitely not on a bad batch, theres some good stuff going on mostly everywhere on the card, but something is missing, idk what. Am I the only one?

I still need to watch much more from her, but atm she doesn't resonate with me all that much in the 80s, she's a bit hit or miss in those years. I believe her pseudo hybrid style needed more time to be properly defined, and fair enough, I often enjoy her more the later in her career I see her.