Predictions

[Grimmas]

Since we are now over 200 voters and over 90% didn't vote in previous GWEs, I think it's time to make your predictions ahead of the May 5th deadlines. 

Top rankings? Who drops off? Who joins the top 100? Whetever you want to predict.

[Control21]

I think Ric Flair and Jerry Lawler both see relatively sizeable drops compared to 2016. The top three will probably have Danielson, Funk, and Kobashi in some form.

[Boss Rock]

Predicted top 10:

Bryan Danielson, Kenta Kobashi, Terry Funk, Genichiro Tenryu, Mitsuharu Misawa, Jumbo Tsuruta, Toshiaki Kawada, Negro Casas, El Hijo del Santo, Stan Hansen

 

Predicted top 3:

Bryan Danielson, Kenta Kobashi, Terry Funk

 

Biggest jumps: 

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Akira Hokuto, Aja Kong, Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega, Will Ospreay, Chigusa Nagayo, Manami Toyota, Bull Nakano, LA Park, multiple Joshi and lucha wrestlers

 

Biggest drops:

Undertaker, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Ted DiBiase, Ronnie Garvin, Kerry Von Erich, Shinsuke Nakamura, multiple U.S. 80's wrestlers

[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.

[Microstatistics]

Funk and Bryan are Top 2.

[KB8]

I'd be absolutely astounded if Danielson isn't the overall #1. Funk as #2 feels about as good a shout as any. 

[Reel]

My sense of things is that the non-stars: Arn, Eaton, Togo, Kikuchi, Tito, Morton are gonna be the major casualties of new people finding their way onto ballots. 

[highflyflow]

Easiest no-brainer prediction: Joshi makes a major comeback. Joshi was severely shafted in the 2016 poll, only including four women (Aja, Hokuto, Bull & Toyota) and leaving out some of the biggest icons of the scene like Chigusa Nagayo, Devil Masami, Lioness Asuka, Dump Matsumoto, Jaguar Yokota, Mayumi Ozaki etc. There are countless reasons to expect Joshi to be more well represented this time around; the explosion of Stardom's popularity, wrestlers like Kana/Asuka and Io Shirai/IYO SKY making it big in WWE, Grimmas's pushing of Joshi in their blog posts and the Watch Parties in the Discord, Kadaveri's excellent work curating the 80's Joshi set, the GAEA channel uploading new/updated footage regularly, a younger and more diverse voter base more in tune with the style, and maybe even just a change of heart in the minds of previous voters (look no further than Grimmas voting Hokuto #1 or Elliot driving discussion of Dump Matsumoto). I expect to see a majority of the aforementioned icons make the list alongside more contemporary names like Meiko Satomura and (possibly even) Mariko Yoshida.

Slightly hotter take: 80s territory guys take a big hit. I've seen people speculate about how far Flair will fall, but personally I'm not too worried about that as I think he'll still finish comfortably in the top ten if not the top 5. Even guys like Lawler and Arn and Windham and Eaton, who I expect won't finish as high as they did in 2016, I don't think have any danger of falling off completely. It's moreso the likes of Ted DiBiase, Dick Murdoch, Sgt. Slaughter, Ron Garvin, Curt Hennig who I could see falling off completely. I think that the 80s sets did these territory guys a lot of good in terms of garnering votes for them, alongside them being a lot of people's sentimental favorites growing up in the 70s and 80s, and with a younger demographic being the primary voters I don't think that same affinity will hold for them.

Hottest take? I know most people see the top of this list as a two-man race between Bryan Danielson and Terry Funk, and I agree, but I think #3 is also locked up, and I think it'll be Genichiro Tenryu. I could see Hansen or Kobashi making it close, but I think the narrative has shifted even further in Tenryu's favor over the last decade and people of all camps will rank him highly, including myself.

[Ma Stump Puller]

6 hours ago, highflyflow said:

Easiest no-brainer prediction: Joshi makes a major comeback. Joshi was severely shafted in the 2016 poll, only including four women (Aja, Hokuto, Bull & Toyota) and leaving out some of the biggest icons of the scene like Chigusa Nagayo, Devil Masami, Lioness Asuka, Dump Matsumoto, Jaguar Yokota, Mayumi Ozaki etc. There are countless reasons to expect Joshi to be more well represented this time around; the explosion of Stardom's popularity, wrestlers like Kana/Asuka and Io Shirai/IYO SKY making it big in WWE, Grimmas's pushing of Joshi in their blog posts and the Watch Parties in the Discord, Kadaveri's excellent work curating the 80's Joshi set, the GAEA channel uploading new/updated footage regularly, a younger and more diverse voter base more in tune with the style, and maybe even just a change of heart in the minds of previous voters (look no further than Grimmas voting Hokuto #1 or Elliot driving discussion of Dump Matsumoto). I expect to see a majority of the aforementioned icons make the list alongside more contemporary names like Meiko Satomura and (possibly even) Mariko Yoshida.

 

Mariko Yoshida will I think 100% be on the overall official list, I've seen too many ballots at this point with her included in a prominent position for that to be dismissed. Same with Meiko with her retirement match just a year ago still ringing true and well with voters.