Tetsujin

Virus is a guy I'm definitely interested on. I watched the Guerrero Maya Jr 2011 and 2013 matches, and the Dr Cerebro 2015 match, and I loved his performances. I know he has some high regarded stuff in late 90s, but I would thank more guidance with him.

Maybe it was his list of wrestlers projecting grumpiness.

Mediocre-to-decent wrestler. Good sometimes. Just a few matches in his career are great (I love the Ryback and HellNo vs Shield TLC). Definitely not a contender.

Top 10 contender to me. He's part of that select club with Hokuto, Joe, Kobashi, Eddie or Misawa, the club of guys who at their very best, look like the best ever. What I admire the most about Rose is that, yeah obviously you have the Martel and Piper matches, you have the Rockers matches (it was obvious Shawn Michaels was a prodigy), but also most of his greatest matches are against opponents you couldn't care less. But, against Buddy Rose, everyone could have the best match of his career. He's also capable of doing it while working 2/3 Falls matches, a gimmick that I usually don't like that much, but Rose mastered the style. He's also a tremendous tag worker, comedy wrestler, vicious heel, surprisingly good babyface, amazing at the mat, all time seller and bumper... When you are at that level for most of the 80s and the late-70s, you clearly are one of the greatest wrestlers ever. Whatever he did in the 90s is still a blind spot for me, so depending on how good that stuff is he can be even higher. But right now, I don't think he'll be out of my top 15.

The Meiko match deserves serious five-star match consideration, I marked like a little kid while watching it the first time. I even have it higher than the Kandori match or Queendom (right now it's in my top 10 for the GME Project). She's a top 10 contender, definitely. I'll watch her 80s stuff (thanks Kadaveri!) and more of her 00s work, but it's true that at her peak years she seems like the best wrestler of all time. If those other periods of her career deliver in a big way, she 100% will be in my top 10.

Taue as the best of the Pillars is something I like to hear a lot. Not that I agree (he's my second favourite though), but I'm glad he's closing the gap with the others in these forums.

I think he's locked in my top 50. Not only that, he's a top 25 contender to me. Amazing tag wrestler, very underrated mat worker, incredible powerhouse, great use of his signature moves amd big spots, always delivering with very good matches (at least) every single week. He doesn't have as many great or legendary matches as the top tier wrestlers(*), but his consistency and amazing offence need to be acclaimed. (*) Althought I would count the ROH Bryan match, the CZW-ROH Cage match, the two Zayn NXT matches, the Regal match, the IC F4W match at Payback 2016 and the No Mercy 2017 tag match as MOTYC level matches. By my standars, those aren't just a few. He definitely has elite stuff.

Tana is right now at my top 10. He clearly was the 10s WOTD, because he peaked between 2011-2018 (that's a fucking eight years peak) and almost always delivered. There's no other wrestler that produced that many "very good or more" level matches last decade, against such different opponents and settings: you have his Ace run with guys like Goto, Suzuki, the Okada series is one of the greatest wrestling rivalries ever, you have the personal and stiff matches with Shibata (another great rivalry), he put over guys like Ishii, Okada, peak Nakamura, Styles Omega, pre-Ingobernables Naito, etc with great matches... After WK 10 you have his Ace in decline run, with a fantastic Omega match, an all time great IC title reign (I specially recommend checking out the ZSJ G1 and Destruction matches), one of the very best wrestling trilogies ever with Naito in 2017, the Ibushi matches, his big comeback to the main event of WK with another great match with Kenny, and more recently he has been working with guys like peak Jay White, definitely non-peak Jericho, the Dangerous Tekkers, Great O-Khan, Shingo, etc and he totally delivered. Then you go to his pre-peak stuff, and more often than not you find great matches with more different opponents and with Tana playing different roles: Bryan, Nagata, Suwama, Angle, the HARASHIMA tag match, the Naka tag against Sasaki and Suzuki... people have already bring those and more matches out. His catalogue is INSANE. The key about Tanahashi is that he always manages to get his formula in all of his matches, but in a way it never feels like the same match at all, he's very versatile while still being a formulaic wrestler, and that's why he might be the best formulaic wrestler (and big match wrestler, honestly) ever. He totally feels like a wrestling superstar thanks to his connection with the fans throughout his matches, his amazing selling, his clever offence, the way he portraits his character and can be the dominant Ace, the arrogant subtle heel, the good guy that gives the bad guy some of his own medicine, the angry, extremely prideful veteran not wanting to be left behind, the veteran that can no longer go at the same level as current guys... He can do it all perfectly, adding so much interest and tons of emotion to his matches. He has a NEVER Championship match with Jay White next week, and I can't wait to see it. He's definitely starting to get physically limited (the Shingo match shows), but he's so intelligent as a worker that he manages to make his condition a reinforcement of the story of the match, instead of trying to ignore it and going all out with horrible results like other aged veterans like, Idk, Undertaker or Jericho for example. Or Okada

The Orton/HHH/Cena Mania match is pretty fun. The Batista SummerSlam match is great. In 2009 you have the high regarded LMS with Edge at Backlash, and more of the Orton saga (the Breaking Point match specially was very good). Then you have some of his most famous matches ever: the Punk matches in summer 2011, the first Lesnar match, Punk at NOC 2012, Punk at February 2013 on RAW, and Bryan at SummerSlam 2013.

I talked about this in the GWE forum, but I think Kobashi has become the most popular and fan favourite of the Pillars (rightfully so, imo) since 2016, so now I guess he might have a stronger chance to be #1 than ever. He's in fact my current #1, and I can only see Danielson, Liger and Bockwinkel challenging him for the top spot in my list. But we still have five more years, so who knows. Don't think he'll be out of my top 5.

I talked about this in the GWE forum, but I think Kobashi has become the most popular and fan favourite of the Pillars (rightfully so, imo) since 2016, so now I guess he might have a stronger chance to be #1 than ever. He's in fact my current #1, and I can only see Danielson, Liger and Bockwinkel challenging him for the top spot in my list. But we still have five more years, so who knows. Don't think he'll be out of my top 5.

I hardly disagree with that take. The Nagata match is amazing, because it's a great example of the ace Kobashi formula: he's a freaking mountain, but he can be damaged, and he showed more and more vulnerability as the match went on and Nagata persevered. I remember a sequence in which Nagata gave him like, five enzuigiris, and Kobashi sold each one of them differently: first he no sells it, then he tries to come back, then he starts to have spaghetti legs, then he's down to a knee... Near the end there's also a struggle on the top rope for a big bomb that felt crucial. I appreciate stuff like that in maximalist matches, much better than just spamming spots with cero build up and treat all of them equally no matter who the moves and wrestlers are.

Yeah his post WWE stuff has been amazing guys. The 2019 NJPW run was fantastic, he killed it against Juice, Ishii, Naito, Takagi, Yano, and had very solid matches with Shota Umino (great three minutes squash), a dull babyface Jeff Cobb, a burned out Goto, MiSu, post prime KENTA, etc. His AEW stuff has some great matches, specially the two Omega hardcore matches, but you can also watch him being a dominant ace against Darby Allin, Janela -which I hate-, Brodie, Cage, MJF... I love his title reign, all those matches were worked different yet still very close to what Mox as a character is. And then you can watch him in the indies giving great matches with Killer Kross, Dickinson and recently the long awaited Barnett match, that one was HUGE. I also like his WWE run. FCW and Shield Ambrose was fun as hell and gave us some great singles and tag/tríos matches (fuck, the TLC against Ryback and HellNo and the EC Wyatts matches are two of the greatest matches in WWE history, and Ambrose played a big role in both). 2014 Ambrose was over as fuck and worked great with Rollins and Bray Wyatt. He's inconsistent in 2015-19, yeah, but his good stuff is very enjoyable (title match with Triple H, Ladder with Seth, the Styles series, Miz matches, tags with Rollins against The Bar and Ziggler & McIntyre). His pre WWE stuff also have some fun performances against Bryan or Brodie, but I'm not a deathmatch guy so most of that early career stuff remains unexplored for me. I wouldn't vote for him right now because I'm not really into voting for current wrestlers (I mean, wrestlers that haven't make their careers already, not guys like Bryan, AJ or Tanahashi who already built their legacy). But if he continues at this level by 2026, I would really think about putting him at the bottom of my list.

I love his work. I love The Rockers in AWA and 80s WWE, I LOVE his 90s peak run (specially 96-97), but I think it's his 00s work what puts him near my top 10. I love most of his great matches, he's one of the best gimmick workers I've seen (I mean, you can put him in a Ladder/HIAC/LMS/Elimination Chamber/Royal Rumble/Unsanctioned/whatever and he's gonna deliver in a big way as much as he did in more traditional WWE big matches). I've been watching random tv matches from him in 2007-09 (last three years of his career, remember), and he was great against lesser opponents like Jeff Hardy or fucking Khali. He clearly have some bad tendencies (specially if you put him against Triple H), but damn I still love the energy he brings, how wonderfuly he can work the crowd either as a heel or as a babyface, and how he keeps the value of his maximalist moveset intact.

Best matworker ever. One of the best formulaic wrestlers ever. Obviously, one of the best babyfaces ever. Amazing signature spots. Lot of great and legendary matches trhoughout 20 years. Definitely the best luchador in my eyes and a clear #1 contender.

One of the few #1 contenders I have right now. He's perfect at everything. I don't think most of the 80s US wrestlers that made the list will stay there in 2026, but I hope Bock survives and even makes his way to the top 10.

I love his 10s NJPW work (and he's still going in 2020-21) and I can see myself voting for him just with that in mind, but I would love to watch everything remarkable from this early period in his career.

Yeah I'm with Micro here. He's a guy I can see making my top 15-20. I don't think his 70s and early 80s stuff should be considered part of his peak, he was an amazing athlete, but his work had almost no personality behind it most of the time. That's until the Choshu feud, obviously. 83-88 Fujinami is as amazing as you would expect. And in his post-prime stuff he has very good showcases of him not only still being good, but playing his new role as an old veteran perfectly (the biggest example for me being the 98 Hashimoto title match, his body language alone carries a beautiful story). I think the biggest argument for him it's his versatility: guy could work the mat pretty well, long strong style matches, short strong style matches, short sprints, could brawl, could bleed in a big way, amazing seller, amazing and innovative offensive wrestler, always the greatest star of those multiman matches, great as a veteran... The only two NJPW wrestlers I see right now higher than him are Liger and Tanahashi (think about all the more-than-great wrestlers I put him ahead of).

The few things I watched from her, I was mesmerized. She's totally a revolutionary wrestler. Would love more recs.

I don't like Cena as a worker. His peak stuff (2006-08) is very fun, and his famous three-four big matches are undeniable (although not all of them are as good as most of the other contender's greatest hits), but I hate how dull his formula is when it comes to regular tv matches and house shows. I get WWE calendary has to do with that, but there were wrestlers working the same schedule with a higher floor than him. He's also part of some of the worst matches in recent WWE history due to booking (I'm thinking about the Laurinaitis match or stuff like that, and that's not Cena's fault, but for example you can have Austin working with Vince and make it fun, or Lawler with Andy Kaufman, etc) or the PWG run (which aged very poorly imo, the Reigns match and the SummerSlam AJ match being two of the worst big matches I've ever seen). And his very good big matches, while obviously amazing, seem like they worked because other wrestlers forced Cena to work their way and not his (Punk, Lesnar, Bryan, AJ, you can even add the Firefly Funhouse match, I LOVE that thing). Maaaaaybe there's room for him in the botton of my list, but I don't think he'll make it honestly. But ironically he would be my first pick of wrestlers I wanna hang out with!

Okada's peak is undeniable and his best stuff is some of the best pro wrestling I've ever seen (hell, right now he has literally my #1 match, against Shibata). But since 2019 he has become this dull, repetitive, automatic pilot version of himself and it has been seriously painful to watch. Consistency is definitely not an argument for him, and he's still only 32, so I don't think his career will improve that much considering he already wrestles like a guy in his sixties. He's a bizarre case.

The following is what I wrote about Naito as a top 10/ contender on the GWE Project forum. He's one of my favourite wrestlers ever. We all know his peak stuff (16-17) is absolutely incredible, as he was easily one of the best un the world and producing some of the best wrestling matches of the 10s, some of them arguably among the greatest ever (the Tanahashi 2017 trilogy, the first Omega match). In that period, and still today, he's one of the most consistent guys in current New Japan, having a lot of 'from very good to great' matches against very different opponents and kind of matches: vs Shingo, vs Taichi, vs Moxley, vs Ishii, vs White, vs Ibushi, more against Omega, vs Shibata, vs Styles, vs Jericho, the infamous WK 12 main event, vs Juice... As you can see, not all of those are top tier workers and, even though Naito always had his classic spots in mind everytime, he managed to insert them without feeling it unnatural despite how the match was going to be. But I gotta say, a peak from 2016 to 2017 is a two-year peak only, and there are a lot of workers with a larger and more diverse peak. I'm not saying Naito is on their league, at least not from a "peak" perspective. Some other things I love about him is how he always projects his persona, in a way that everything he does, it feels like the correct thing El Ingobernable Tetsuya Naito would do. He might be in that "larger than life" character tier with guys like Hokuto, Funk or Hansen, because of his fantastic character work and amazing charisma. And, I gotta, say, is pre-Ingobernable stuff is pretty great top, clearly underrated. In the first half of the 10s you have great and even amazing stuff with Ishii, Tanahashi, peak Okada, YUJIRO TAKAHASHI, the WK 9 Styles match... His character was kinda dull back then, but he was already at a high level of work, both on a regular basis and in top tier matches, but obviously he needed that Ingobernable transformation to became the best version of himself. Throughout his whole career, Naito became also one of my favourite offensive wrestlers on the modern era, not because he's stiff (he's not), or because he's spotty (he is sometimes), but because he uses every part of his offensive game with a purpose. He doesn't spam things, he always do the right stuff when it has sense for him to do it. For example, his beautiful flying forearm smash or his spinebuster are great counters to his rival's momentum. He have great neck-based offense, setting up his bigger moves. The Destino literally was born as the perfect counter for the Rainmaker. I appreciate a lot stuff like that. I think a case can be made about Naito being one of the best workers of the 10s, and to me it's early to consider him a top 100 ever contender, but his career looks great from today's perspective and I think he could be at the bottom of my GWE list in 2026 or 2036. We'll see. But I'm curious about what do you guys think.

Best wrestler ever when it comes to making the basics feel big (maybe tied with Hashimoto). The stiffest non-stiff worker ever. One of the longest peaks I've seen (92-97, those are six whole years working as one of the best wrestlers in the world, and in a moment where WWE was almost dead). If his Hart Foundation stuff is good enough, he could be top 15 for me.

The fact Akiyama is still building his legacy as a GOATC is amazing to me, considering he worked the same style as the Pillars. He's with guys like Rey, Fujiwara, Liger and Flair as kings of consistency and longevity. I might have him above guys like Kawada, Taue, Hashimoto, Fujinami, Jumbo and Tenryu... Hell, the only japanese heavyweight wrestlers I think would rank higher than him in my book would be Kobashi, Misawa and Tanahashi. He's that good, and has always been. Clear top 10 contender.

Kandori is quickly becoming my favourite female wrestler (not yet, but she's growing on me faster than Aja and Hokuto back then). I hope she finishes, at least, at the top 50 for 2026. To me, she's like top 30-25 contender right now (and I still haven't watched the Devil Masami match).