Tetsujin

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.

Now that AJ has seemingly retired, where do people think he's gonna land on their lists? He's always been a tope 10 contender to me, and while his last WWE years were a waste in terms of output, I don't feel he ever became less of an awesome wrestler, just one that didn't have (or maybe didn't want to have) as many opportunities to show it. The final two GUNTHER matches and the last Nakamura match have been all great. There are some hidden gems here and there throughout the years with almost everybody on the roster. And, of course, we still have his monstruous 2014-16 peak and his ROH/early TNA stuff, which is still as impressive as any other pro wrestler I've ever seen. An extremely inteligent wrestler with the perfect balance between flashiness, intensity and psychology.

Pretty confident at the moment: 1. Kenta Kobashi 2. Bryan Danielson 3-5. Aja Kong/Hiroshi Tanahashi/Shawn Michaels 6-7. Nick Bockwinkel/Jushin Thunder Liger 8. Akira Hokuto 9-10. Mitsuharu Misawa/Ric Flair

Thinking about this, I believe the TNT title run, the Christian and Mox feuds or the Sting retirement match were clear proofs of Darby being an awesome underdog you wanna root for, not just a crazy guy you want to see get killed.

The more I think and rewatch him, the more I like him, and he was already top 5 for me. I don't think he's surpassing Kobashi and Danielson on my list, but atm he's against Aja for my #3. Just an overall perfect pro wrestler in every stage of his career, at any role, against both elite wrestlers and broomsticks that needed to be carried to something pretty good. His crowd control is second to none, too.

My favourite wrestler in the world right now (alongside Mox), tremendous aura very interestingly displayed in the ring, as her pseudo heel persona while trying to market herself as the purest babyface the joshi landscape has to offer is very mesmerizing. Feels larger than life in every setting she's in. So glad she escaped WWE before it was too late for her case. She's still so young and has an incredible career to fulfill until the 2036 project, where I hope she has a strong case for being as high as anyone else. Right now, at her current level, she already looks one of the best ever. She just needs to keep going for a longer time.

Crazy to realize he wasn't nominated until now. A really unique wrestler, for sure. Maybe the biggest fumble the industry as a whole had this last two decades or so.

Not enough case *yet*, but dam if I was a wrestler promoter I would love to build this kid as my top babyface in the near future. He's a total package and one of the most believable wrestlers today. Surprisingly good as a heel as well, and can cut good promos. I really feel like the sky is the limit for him.

While I also believe he will fall, I can only see Danielson, Funk, and the Pillars (sans Taue) ranking higher than Flair this time.

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.