Tetsujin

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.

I see Bockwinkel did in fact rank higher than Cena. Justice.

I ranked Kobashi at #1, Danielson at #2, Flair at #9, Misawa at #10, Bret at #23, Hansen at #27, Funk at #30, Tenryu at #32, Rey at #42 and Austin at #72.

Aja just outside the top 10 hurts the most, specially with Stone Cold making it (Bret and Rey are boring picks too, but they were far better than Austin). GWE redeemeed itself with joshi this time, I don't think anyone can complain. Eddie repeating at #12 is cool, but holy shit that amount of votes. Crazy. I wouldn't be surprised if Austin, Bret and Rey rank above everyone else except Danielson. Glad Tenryu made the top 10 this time. So: Kobashi, Misawa, Hansen, Tenryu, Flair, Funk, Rey, Bret, Austin and Danielson. Not a bad top 10 at all (even with one big intruder imo). Prediction: 10. Tenryu 9. Austin 8. Bret 7. Misawa 6. Rey 5. Hansen 4. Flair 3. Kobashi 2. Danielson 1. Funk

Surprisingly "low" amount of votes for Tanahashi, but almost everyone who voted for him had him really high (hell, I had him at #4), so yeah. Awesome showcase even if he didn't crack the top 10, not that much of an issue. The best babyface in the world since Kobashi retired, and broken down Tana had so much fire and dignity whitin him that I believe he even added to his case these last few years. A pro wrestling legend I had the pleasure to follow most of his time on top writing his own legacy right before my eyes. Oh and there's no way Austin should be ranking above him and Kawada.

Kawada dropping now and only having 75% of votes I guess kinda confirms that the other two Pillars will rank below Danielson, whose group of guys is having much more people behind. Also, really funny that both Vader and Kawada beat the living shit out of Kobashi on their gifs. If the trend continues, maybe Hansen or Misawa drop next.

Vader being once again the highest voted without a #1 vote is so cool. It also surprises me a lot that Aja Kong had (at least) one #1 vote.

So, out of the 15 remaining, I would say Vader, Stone Cold, Aja and Bret are the more likely to drop tomorrow (are they???), and Flair, Funk, Danielson, Misawa and Kobashi the least likely to miss the top 10. The other six (Eddie, Rey, Hansen, Kawada, Tenryu and Tanahashi) are the ones I'm more intrigued about. Again, this is all based on vibes because the list has only been consistent on lowering territory guys. Everything else is not as set on stone as one would believe.

I voted for all wrestlers in the top 15. 7 of them are on my actual top 15, with 6 of them on my top 10 (including the first four). Austin is my lowest ranked at #72, followed by Vader at #65 and Mysterio at #42.

Hokuto getting this high with so less ballots than almost everyone around her, a queen indeed. Sadly, I believe her showcase spoilers Aja not being in the top 10.

I would even say having a really good gimmick match (and I mean a REALLY good one) it's more difficult than having a standard really good singles match. You have to organically craft a lot of different and risky spots, give them some sense of progression, not wasting time on the set ups nor ruining the suspension of disbelief with obvious cooperation to get through said spots...

What if I told you Austin annoys me more than Foley being this high... It's gonna be funny when Foleh drops and his blurb is something like "he never really said 'I quit' during that Rock match" or "the only wrestler to compete three times on the same Rumble!".

I'd add Misawa and Kobashi to the race. Probably won't win, but maybe they rank higher than some of those. Hansen can be another favourite-killer.

See? There go the ROH Pillars! Only Danielson alive, just like that. The amount of people who voted for Joe is crazy, holy. Jumbo did pretty well, all things considered. I expected him to drop much earlier. A very respectable rank for him, I don't think anyone can get mad. I'm also very surprised Vader managed to rank above Punk/Joe/AJ, and even some other names. Foley and Austin are well known WWE faces, but I doubt Vader is beneffiting from that at all, which makes his ranking much more impressive for me. Again, Vader is very well known, he tied Flair and Funk for maximum amount of votes in 2016 iirc, but I never see him discussed in such high regard. I don't think he'll make the top 10 (... right?) but the fact he's getting closer and closer this time fascinates me. Love me some Vader.

Steamboat is pretty awesome, but I've always seen him too high on lists like this for a guy who's very dependant of the Flair series for his case. No one has Bill Dundee on their top 25, for example. I'm not saying he's not a great wrestler outside the Flair matches, but... C'mon. I'm glad Macho Man didn't make the top 20. He was the last remaining wrestler I didn't vote for, somebody I could never see as an all timer in the ring as much as I tried. Definitely good, often great, but I don't connect with him more than that. Tremendous charisma and personality, that is obvious. The top 20 is quite solid, yeah. I would suspect Vader, Foley, Joe, Jumbo and the two ladies fall outside the top 10, and the closer Tanahashi gets to the top 10 the more I convince myself he won't make it, but honestly, I don't even know anymore. I was really convinced Punk would make it, and here we are, not even top 20. It's a really exciting list, for sure.

As for Liger, shocking fall, holy shit. I know juniors have not performed quite well, but he always seemed on a different level. I guess he retired too soon after 2016, because if he could have gone strong after the pandemic ended in Japan, I'm sure the recency bias would have let to more people acknowledging the awesome career he has, just like Tanahashi's retirement earlier this year is doing for him.

I was indeed going crazy trying to remember people and even reading Grimmas when he put the top 50 some pages ago. I was even scared some mistake was made and Low Ki was indeed #100.

Foley and......

Man, you doomed it.

1. Austin and Tanahashi will both drop tomorrow. 2. I can see Joe dropping first because of the consensus idea of "didn't do anything worthwhile in between ROH and AEW", while the other indie guys + Pillars all have pretty well recognized consistency. If he dropped today, I wouldn't be surprised the way I would be for any of the other six guys. I can see Kawada dropping next (by far the Pillar with the most backlash I've read recently) and him and AJ will be near the top 10. Punk and Misawa will surely make it. Bryan and Kobashi probably (hopefully) top 5. So both groups of guys I expect them to go toe to toe against each other. 3. Aja hopefully top 10, but if not, she shouldn't be far away. I would be (gladly) surprised if Santito survived today. 4. Sneakily getting into the top 10 again due to basically being loved by every wrestling fandom there is, yeah, I can see it. I would say the same for Eddie... It's a duel of "peak vs consistency" between those two, let's see who wins.

Lawler landing in the middle of Okada and Omega is so fucking funny, I love it.

Okada has the Tanahashi series and a big case for BITW years before Omega received his main event push. Omega's case benefited more from Okada than the other way around.

FINALLY, Jesus Christ. This was becoming embarrasing. Omega at #29 is something that is not gonna age well when/if we do GWE 2036, I'm sure. Seeing how he didn't even get that many votes (58%), but more than half his voters put him in the top 25, that's very telling. In all honesty, I quite enjoy some Kenny from time to time. His execution is mostyl flawless, and the intensity and velocity he brings and gets out of many wrestlers can and have been a strong tool for great matches. But it's his bad tendencies, that plague all his work throughout his whole career, what bothers me a lot. As recently as the MJF match this year, where he couldn't stop pretending to have a mega epic fight with just too much shit going on, too many "cinema" moments with his very bad acting, and obvious cooperation tells to pull their shit off, that's Kenny in a nutshell for me. I admit that when he clicks, damn, does he click. But most of the time, he annoys me more than anything. He's what so many people criticize Shawn Michaels for.

Santito over Casas this time reinforces the theory of huge babyface top guys resonating more with people now.

He was the one that carried himself as a star the most, from the very beginning. Seth and Roman were each pretty good at their respective role, but none of them screamed "future push to this guy" the way Ambrose did.