Tetsujin

Maybe not your cup of tea but the first Anarchy in the Arena (2022) is genuinely awesome. That one takes itself very seriously. It should have been the only one in history, because any succesor tried to recreate or even surpass what made the first one so great, failling misserably as you just witnessed.

Cagematch is basically a post-six star matches kind of IWC, so yeah, it tracks. Modern meltzerism, the past isn't worth revisiting, what's new is always better.

I'll add some thoughts. Number of wrestlers who made the top 100: 75/100. Pretty good, can't complain. I'm a guy with very varied tastes and the list was heavily diverse, so it makes sense. Number of wrestlers who made the top 200: 94/200. Almost half of it, again, not bad at all. A lot of those other top 200 were guys I was heavily considering until the very end, too. Highest rated wrestlers to make my ballot: Terry Funk (1, my #30), Bryan Danielson (2, my #2), Kenta Kobashi (3, my #1). I wouldn't be surprised if I was the lowest Terry vote. He could've been as high as #23, and maybe I would have been the lowest vote too. Crazy showcase. Highest rated wrestlers to not make my ballot: Randy Savage (21), Kenny Omega (29), André the Giant (44). I almost voted for André, and I seriously considered Savage too. Omega never had a chance. Lowest rated wrestler to make my ballot: Taichi (433, my #100). Honestly, I didn't even expect him to make it past the first 100 reveals or so. Absurdly underrated wrestler that can do anything and everything. Exact placements on my ballot: Mitsuharu Misawa (#10) and Bryan Danielson (#2). Some others were pretty close, the funniest one being I had Arn Anderson and Sami Zayn at #58 and #59 and they ended up being #59 and #58 on the overall list. Fuck me, I guess. How many in my top 50 made the top 50: 33/50. Yeah some unexpected drops before the top 50, like Devil, Tamura, Satánico or Ospreay, but overall I couldn't complain at this point. How many in my top 20 made the top 20: 9/20. Ok this is were I started to complain more. What do you mean Fujinami is not even top 40. What do you mean Akiyama at #38 and Taue at #35. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BOCK AND LIGER OUTSIDE THE TOP 25. How many in my top 10 made the top 10: 4/10. Kobashi, Danielson, Flair and Misawa. Funnily enough, three of those four have now appeared in the top 10 in every GWE edition, and Bryan has been top 5 both times he appeared. So I guess those four + Funk and Hansen (Hansen is the only one who also made the top 10 every time, while Terry has been either #1 or #2 the two times he made it, and he was #11 the only time he didn't so it doesn't really matter) are always a safe bet. # of wrestlers outside the top 500 (Contrarian Award): None. Being contrarian for the sake of it has to be one of the most pathetic things you can be on the internet (but having a contrarian opinion and believing in it with your full heart and soul has to be one of the coolest, most based things). Highest wrestlers who did not make the Top 500: Nobody. I'm an expert. # of wrestlers outside the top 200 (Hipster Award): 4. Taichi, HHH, Edge and KOR. I can understand the first three but it really surprises me how underrated KOR was overall. He should have been far closer to make the top 100. Highest wrestlers who did not make the Top 200: Kyle O'Reilly (287, my #68), Edge (207, my #79), Triple H (239, my #81). Highest wrestlers who did not make the Top 100: Buddy Rose (104, my #18), Jim Breaks (119, my #26), Mark Briscoe (110, my #46). Rose and Breaks hurt the most, but something about Mark not making it while Jay was #80 annoys me to the bone. It's like when people vote Ricky Morton super highly while Robert Gibson is nowhere to be seen on their ballots. It's weird. In the case of the Briscoes is even weirder because the gap is much, much closer. Highest wrestlers who did not make the Top 50: Chris Benoit (85, my #15), Devil Masami (56, my #21), Kurt Angle (55, my #22). Ranking Benoit is always gonna be uncomfortable, but in the end I couldn't drop him just because him being a murderer. This is just a good wrestlers list. If I had to take outside of wrestling stuff into consideration, almost no wrestlers would be available for me to discuss. However, I totally understand why people wouldn't want to vote for him at all, specially considering the fact that you can see -at least- one moment per match where you thing "yeap, that's the one that did it". Devil so close to top 50 but not making it feels like torture, sure we'll correct that by 2036. I hope. Angle is a guy that people need to get over with. The guy was awesome, you weren't right twenty years ago. It's ok. Seriously though, I do believe that a lot of wrestlers today are exactly what people said Angle was back then, and in comparison Angle looks totally legit and believable, in a way a lot of workers today just don't. Highest wrestlers who did not make the Top 25: Shawn Michaels (37, my #5), Nick Bockwinkel (33, my #6), Tatsumi Fujinami (42, my #12). Shawn, like Angle, is another guy people need to reconcile with. If you wanna look at how actually being as bad as some people argued HBK was, just look at Kenny Omega today. In comparison, Shawn smokes every guy he inspired after him, he looks so real, even when overacting. Bock not making the top 25 is just a matter of people needing to watch him more and discuss him more, simple as that. I don't know anyone who has put the work that doesn't consider him a top tier pro wrestler. Fujinami pains me because he's such a relatable babyface and his longevity and versatility are soooo tremendous... I believe there's some version of Fujinami somewhere in time and space for literally any fan to enjoy. He should be with Flair or Misawa or Hansen in the "undisputed near the top of the list guy" tier.

I was looking at the overall list, and it intrigues me that figures like Harley Race or Dynamite Kid, who did really well on 2006, still made the list on 2016 but far lower, and not even close to the top 100 in 2026. They both seem like very well regarded pro wrestlers in ring, but it looks like not so much as time passes. They're far less bullet proof than other contemporary guys like Fujinami, Robinson, Baba or whoever. Why would that be the case? Harley in particular interests me the most, as he's a big figure in late 70s-early 80s (the biggest, maybe?) and has a lot of material on tape.

I remember a 1995 Tully vs Fujinami match that was surprisingly great for such a bizarre pairing and time. Tully displayed his usual strengths while also giving his performance a more serious tone, less cartoony and more sports-like. I think he would have been really awesome if he worked through the 90s full time.

Great thread, hope you get through the whole list. It's been a while since I watched the Hero/Danielson match, but I remember it feeling really well paced for a match that long, with awesome crowd.

Kobashi vs Negro Casas

Eddie Monster is a, no pun intended, monster heel in SGW Uganda, and he's actually pretty fucking cool (a must see match I would recommend is the I Quit against beloved babyface Kapeeka). A top 100 vote this early in his career is obviously insane, but he does have a lot of talent. Ugandan wrestling is very intense and stiff, and he manages to have a real destructor aura while at the same time stooging and bumping like any heel in the territories.

Lucha has ten really interesting years going forward. Both WWE and AEW are getting stronger within it, be it with AAA or CMLL, and while the consequences of that for current Lucha might be concerning, I ask myself if it's possible that both big American companies showcasing mexican wrestling to a broader audience might get more people interested in its past.

Nah it's fine like that.

And this was it. It's been really fun, I'm gonna miss the forum being so alive again. But now my actual favourite part begins: the one when I start tracking wrestlers I don't know as much (or at all) that did somewhat ok on the list and watch some of their stuff. Terry Funk is obviously an amazing winner. It's also really interesting how he managed to get such outstading result in a year were the pass of time didn't go as well for a lot of his contemporaries. It seems to me like every old school fan put all their efforts in keeping him high, maybe even at the cost of the rest. It's a fascinating poll to try to unfold, all things considered. If/when we do this in 2036, my earliest and biggest prediction is that Will Ospreay will get really close to winning it, but either Kobashi or Danielson take it this time (very surprised to see the people who started watching in the 2020s ranking Kobashi at their #1). I'm actually planning a big project in spanish, to help people from Spain and Latin America to get closer to all the different pro wrestling through time and space, as our communities are mostly WWE and/or current wrestling fans. You'll probably be able to check it out on twitter soon. This GWE is gonna be a great thing to put a lot of people in search of new, different, excellent wrestling and I hope by 2036 I can help improve the spanish-speaking discourse and participation on it. Thanks Grimmas and everyone involved.

If you watched it and didn't like it, why would you have the need to vote for it? It's not about being unfair, it's about you not enjoying it.

Guys I'm sorry but I'm far more interested in speaking about how to make more people watch/talk about lucha than if Bryan should've wrestled Triple H with a machete (yes).

It's funny he's slowly getting higher and higher each GWE.

Holy fucking shit.

The top 2 is very deserving in the sense that I can't think of two more versatile wrestlers ever. Liger, maybe. But Funk and Danielson feel like the two guys that managed to master absolutely every single facet of pro wrestling available.

And Kobashi just dropped. He had far more voters that I expected compared to the other Pillars (as he should). He's also the list's best japanese wrestler ever, and by some margin too (as he should). What can I say about him. He's my favourite. There's no other wrestler that makes me FEEL the most, and to me that's the most important thing. The ability to make me care about him, always wanting him to win, always making me nervous or emotional. I could say he makes me feel that way because he's my favourite, but in reality it's the other way around: because he's making me feel this way, he became my favourite. And how did he manage to do that to me as a distant fan in time and space? It's obviously subjective, but I believe you can see his effort in any match he's in, and you can understand it. The guy wrestles like nothing is more important in that moment. It's do or die. Wheter as a lowcarder destined to always lose but always making you believe, to a midcarder on the rise who slowly but surely got to the top, to the undisputed ace of puroresu with his legendary title reign, to a broken man giving his all to retire with dignity. He's the one with the best attitude possible to make me suspend my disbelief the most, there's no other wrestling as sincere as he is. It's clear, based on his showcase this year compared to the rest of the Pillars and contemporaries of his, that this appeal of his, this aura as we say today, is universal. His passion for being the best just overwhelms and charms people. So glad for the top 3 result (#8 ten years ago always felt wrong for a guy like him). Also, he's one of the only four that never left the top 10 in any GWE edition (Misawa, Hansen and Flair as well).

Didn't Grimmas said Danielson was "only" the fourth with most votes? That really surprised me a few days ago. And it is true that I've seen a lot of ballots on Twitter either without Bryan, or with Bryan outside the top 50. So maybe he's not as unanimous as we all thought (I mean he's still top 3). Again, both Kobashi and Funk also have fans sectors where they're not really present, neither is on the radar of the WWE voters, Funk is mostly an 80s guy and those suffered the most this time (but he's also a hardcore guy and those got a bump, so...), while Kobashi is a Pillar, and we all know the recent relative push against the idea of the Pillars being the absolute best, and they're not having as many voters as the rest of the upper part of the list (1/5 didn't vote for Misawa at all!). I guess what I'm trying to say is the cases of the last three have pros and cons. I believe it's far more open than we realize, even if a lot of people (myself included) predicted the same three guys on the podium a couple of months ago. Or maybe I'm wrong again like every time I write something in this thread, and indeed Danielson wins by a huge margin. If Bryan drops now at #3, I believe that would be the most interesting result. A Funk/Kobashi final sounds more unpredictable than any option with Bryan tomorrow, I would say. But, again, any order would be reasonable between these three.

That amount of Austin votes is surprising even for one of the most popular wrestlers ever like he is, holy. And the fact that almost everyone who voted for Tenryu voted SUPER high for him is also tremendous. Yet the fact that other four wrestlers ranked ahead of them, with one of them being the last Pillar remaining in an edition where the Pillars aren't that voted compared to the rest of high ranked guys, man, that's incredible. I honestly believe the last three remaining are one of the best combinations for a consensual top three ever possible. Funk, Kobashi and Danielson are three wrestlers whose PASSION for profesional wrestling is very clear at everything they did on that ring, maybe more than anyone else ever. Funk is a perfect old school full package, Bryan is a perfect modern full package, and Kobashi is the ultimate heart and soul guy.

C'MON KOBASHI

The best Harley.

Considering Austin's peak is in reality two separated one-year peaks (1997 and 2001)... Yeah, by a wiiiiide margin.

Heart: 6. Austin 5. Tenryu 4. Flair 3. Funk 2. Danielson 1. Kobashi Brain (optimistic): 6. Austin 5. Tenryu 4. Flair 3. Kobashi 2. Funk 1. Danielson Brain (pessimistic): 6. Kobashi 5. Flair 4. Tenryu 3. Austin 2. Danielson 1. Funk

I remember my first experience with Hansen. A nerdy wrestling fan friend of mine told me about him as one of his favourites ever, and the name really captivated me. "Stan Hansen" sounds fucking dope, I don't know if we realize it enough. I searched him on YouTube and the first recommendation was the famous Kobashi match. Hey, I knew Kobashi, he was fucking awesome and rapidly becoming my goat. So I watched that match and my jaw was on the floor the entire time. That was more than ten years ago when I was a teenager. I gotta admit, there are some Hansen matches and performances I do not enjoy, especially when paired with aces (Bruno, Inoki, Backlund, Baba, Jumbo...). I believe those big figures take away too much of his essence when fighting him. The only exceptions are Carlos Colón and, to a lesser degree, Misawa. That's what ultimately dropped him out of my top tier list of guys, and in a couple of months he went from #7 to #27 (also because I ended up thinking better on newer guys to me like Jim Breaks or Buddy Rose). But other than that, he's sensational, and with Bret and Kobashi I would say he's the wrestler who wrestles the most like "yeah, that's what THEY would do in that situation" ever.

Kobashi being the most voted Pillar feels right. He's the most charismatic and the easier to get, after all. I'm shocked Misawa wasn't close to the top 5, but funnily enough I ranked him at #10 myself, so I can't really complain. He's one of the most subtle wrestlers ever and one of the biggest "final bosses" kind of wrestlers ever, if not the best one at that. And he managed to gain that aura not because of an overpowered gimmick like Streak Taker or Suplex City Lesnar or Hogan hulking up or stuff like that, no, he did it by just... Wrestling like the best guy in the match, with more stamina, the best strikes, the best reflexes for counters, more resilience, he just couldn't be beat in his best days. Hurts to say it, but I would've sacrificed Misawa if that meant Aja making the top 10 instead. It's a symbolic difference, but an important one for a lot of people, I believe. Bret and #9 and Rey at #8 feels kinda fair if both have to be on the top 10. Now I just want Austin dropping and I can rest, I will accept any order between the six remaining.