GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[Boss Rock]

Funny enough, Dustin was my 85, one below. One of the last additions after much deliberation. He's really good in early 90's WCW, really good tagging with Cody against the Shield, and has continued to be really good in AEW (the street fight with Fletcher is what clinched his spot). It's just hard to overlook that huge gap of 90's WWF to early 2010's. I know his ECW run is well-regarded but I wasn't blown away. And I'm probably a bit lower on his early 90's peaks than others. But at the end of the day, it's hard to deny a guy this late in his career who can deliver with guys half his age who are much faster.

[El Dragon]

48 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

People keep on making the case for Strong that he was a good worker. He's right there next to a great worker in Dandy. So either it's a case of Who are you to doubt, Roddy Strong? or he's not top 100.

The only time the word “good” was mentioned in the posts pushing for Strong was to dismiss the argument he was just a good wrestler.  He’s clearly a great wrestler, to the point that trying to claim he isn’t just feels silly.

[Jetlag]

Roderick Strong feels very much like a Dean Malenko type of his time.

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't understand why we haven't heard more about this guy if he's such a great worker. I'm out of touch with anything that happened in the past 20 years, but you still hear the buzz around guys. 

Again, I really liked him when watching his early ROH stuff. Just didn't expect to see him in the top 100. Maybe he really is that good. I dunno. 

[DMJ]

- Roddy didn't make my top 100, but he wasn't far off. I'll readily admit that I haven't seen a ton of his career but he did meet my personal rule of having watched/reviewed 20 matches and while he scored highly on "average match score," when I ran him through the rest of my criteria, he didn't make the cut. Would've probably been in that 105-110 range. My issue is the same as others have said, he's an incredible mechanic and he's incredibly consistent but he misses me in the "I'm So Excited For Roderick Strong vs. _____" department. To me, its really the "it" factor of me actively getting excited for a match and its just not there for him. I could easily go the other way, though, and see him making my list in 2036 as I watch more footage.

- I had Dustin Rhodes at #43. Yes, there are some bad, bad stretches, but I actually think the initial Goldust run is great and showed that he could work a completely different style and pull off a very different character than what he was doing in WCW and get tremendous heat. I liked the ECW run. I liked the tags with Cody and I'm also admittedly one of the few people that really liked the Cody/Dustin match they had in WWE (probably more than even they did). I think he's been good in AEW. 

- I'm not surprised Owens hasn't "dropped" yet. I rated him pretty high, personally. He's a guy who checks a lot of boxes for me. Part of my thought process for my ranking or selecting was, if I was putting together a roster, is this guy going to be one of my top draft picks. Owens (and Zayn, to be honest) is a guy who makes things better every time, with his promos, with his character work, with his in-ring performances. I'm not sure I've seen him half-ass it despite the bad booking in WWE at times. And then, as soon as you call on him to do a match with a Roman or a Cody, he delivers. 

[Makai Club #1]

87. Ricky Morton
I’m glad he hasn’t been forgotten. His record is quite pristine despite being a big tag team guy and not really venturing outside of that. I’m glad he has the Flair and Bockwinkel matches just to showcase. Not many tag wrestlers make the transition. It’s hard to really capture what Morton is great at. Great seller, great timing on offence and all those things. But he’s like lighting in a bottle. Him and Gibson really. Magic. 

86. Tetsuya Naito
Other than a strong two year period where Naito hit on all cylinders, not surprisingly when he faced Tanahashi in their extended feud in 2017, Naito has always been hit or miss. Great one match, rudderless in the next. And fortunately for him, he has enough quality matches to be called a great wrestler. And while I’m not a big Naito fan, which might have something to do with my non-vote, I think history will look kindly upon him as things become the canon classics for later generations. But I think the consistency puts him behind the other top wrestlers of his era of New Japan. Just lacks the details, the quality offence and the intensity. But not star power and charisma, certainly not. I am not surprised that he made it. I’m surprised he wasn’t higher actually. 

85. Chris Benoit
An awkward one, for obvious reasons. I don’t think anyone wants to hear how great he was, but I think his work speaks for itself. I said that I wasn’t going to consider personal and real life thoughts in regards to rankings and that remains for everyone. Voted for him #14. Yeah…
 

[Microstatistics]

#87

Ricky Morton

My #94. I mean he is synonymous with FIP, that pretty much says it all. The Flair cage classic is more for Flair's case but Morton keeps up with him admirably.

#86

Tetsuya Naito

Honestly, I'm just happy with the 300+ jump and the main list landing. Aside from maybe Fujiwara, I find no other wrestler more charismatic. Also, I don't care much for reliability/personal investment in wrestling but I find his Stardust Genius to Los Ingoberables leader transformation arc as perhaps the most emotionally stirring in history. Also, I find people underrate his longevity and unfairly penalize him for the toll of injuries took on his working style (something that doesn't extend to someone like Tanahashi). Had him at #23.

#85

Chris Benoit

Put him at #56 but was considering Top 50 at one point. Darby Allin might give him a run for his money, but no one was better (both peaks & consistency-wise) on free TV. Delivered in pretty much every context and promotion.

#84

"Goldust" Dustin Rhodes

Never really got the hype around him tbh, even if I do think he is a good worker (especially in the 90s).

[Microstatistics]

#83

Minoru Suzuki

Still like him but am no where near as high on him as I was 9/10 years ago, to the point where I didn't even really consider him. But I see the case in between the PWFG, 2000s miscellaneous, and NJPW runs.

#82

"The Homicidal Suicidal Genocidal Death-Defying Maniac" Sabu

#81

Kevin Owens

Fitting that they are back-to-back because I was astounded that they made the main list. But being on ≥ 40% of ballots speaks for itself. Sabu has his death/chaotic-style appeal I suppose and Owens now has the longevity, even if it's largely Sami Zayn-driven.

[Boss Rock]

Suzuki was my 39. Maybe a bit too high, but I'm still somewhat comfortable with it. Very few wrestlers have played evil and sadistic as well as he has. And his more technical and strike-heavy style gels very well with the more high spot and bombfest-oriented style of modern day NJPW. The 2012 KOPW Tanahashi match is one of the best in the history of the promotion and honestly, he was almost as good a rival to Tanahashi as Okada was. And while he has been de-emphasized over the years, AEW, ROH, and several indys have provided ample opportunity to prove he still has it well into his 50's.

I like Kevin Owens well enough and think the Steenerico stuff is great, but 81 seems super high to me. His WWE run has definitely had its moments, but I don't think anything he's done has ever been truly excellent.

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

One interesting thing is a number of people posting in their reasons how their choices reinforced their own identities. 

“So-and-so influenced me as a queer man, as a fat person, as an undead funeral parlor employee etc etc”

That is to say, it is not only how a wrestler is performing, but also how it affects an audience member’s sense of self. Death of the author, all that. This is probably as valid as judging on how well a person can do a dragon suplex or pretend they’ve been punched real hard. But will be interesting to see more blurbs to see how prevalent.

No huge surprises otherwise. Sabu got a death bump. Owens got a WWE bump. Roddy was always going to do well. Smarks love an undersized charisma-vacuum who does 45 moves in a row. Oh nice, Benoit made it. 

[MoS]

4 hours ago, Reel said:

Check out the match with ZSJ from Evolve 25, I think or any of the stuff with Drew, he can be much more when he isn’t playing 3rd or 4th banana to his lesser friends. 

Thanks, will check these out. A lot of people here seem to hold Strong in much higher regard than I do and I am interested to explore this a bit.

[MidasGloves]

Morton dropping isn't a shock given the trend of 80s guys (though his longevity is kind of insane given he's still having decent matches on the indies to this day) but him placing below Eaton is a huge shock. I expect it'll come down to a couple people giving Eaton Top 5 finishes while Morton missed out on any Top 10s.

I think variety is actually a big part of Suzuki's case. You'd look at his background and expect all shootstyle but he's been slotted in everything from 2010s New Japan main event epics to wild crowd brawls to straight-up comedy matches and he's been a highlight in them. I particularly love his work in DDT where he plays a great straight-man to the nonsense; the Tokyo Dome Empty Arena with Sanshiro Takagi is just a riot, and there's a trios match where him and Yukio Sakaguchi beef so much that their own teammates are just scrambling to keep them apart that rules.

Sabu's placement is awesome and not many people seem to be commenting on it. Nobody has ever really moved like Sabu in the same way nobody's ever moved like Low Ki. Great in ECW, great in Japan, great on the indies, great in WWE, all against a huge variety of opponents, and every time it's very clearly a Sabu Match without being too formulaic. I do think he got a bump from his retirement and subsequent passing last year, but he's hardly the only one who looks to get that end-of-career bump.

KO making the Top 100 wasn't a shock to me at all. He's considered a bright spot in rough patches for multiple promotions; when ROH was pushing Edwards & Richards on top Steen was tearing it up in the midcard, and when WWE gave him bullshit he almost always pulled something good out of it. He was great in PWG, he was very good in NXT, and he's been attached at the hip of a guy who was an even greater lock than he was in Zayn/Generico for his entire career in a case of generational chemistry as both opponents and partners. I even had Kevin above Zayn on my ballot solely because I think Kevin is a much better heel.

[Childs]

The best-case scenario of Minoru Suzuki was incredible, but he mailed in so many performances with the goofy facial expressions and the mindless forearm exchanges. Couldn't bring myself to vote for him. 

I've never been a Sabu person. So much of his work strikes me as just a mess rather than something gripping and unhinged, though I'll happily acknowledge he was one of a kind. I'd prefer him at his 2016 placement, but his rise was inevitable. 

I'm not sure I'd have Kevin Owens in my top 500. I've enjoyed him as a fat guy doing crazy spots in matches made great by other people, but that's about the best I can say.

Morton and Dustin deserve better company.

Oh, and Dandy was a beautiful wrestler operating on a totally different level than most of those who've dropped so far. 

[Reel]

15 minutes ago, Childs said:

The best-case scenario of Minoru Suzuki was incredible, but he mailed in so many performances with the goofy facial expressions and the mindless forearm exchanges. Couldn't bring myself to vote for him.

There is nothing more deleterious to my enjoyment of modern wrestling than the stand in the middle of the ring, elbow each other in the traps, and makes faces stuff. It is beyond parody at this point. If we give points to Sabu for influence then we should take them away for this that spot. 
 

And Ishii still hasn’t dropped yet

[donsem43]

Iyo Sky being 80th at worst is wild...

[KB8]

I've also never been a Minoru Suzuki guy. I like some of his shoot style stuff a lot - a couple of those bouts are tremendous - and he has a couple 2010s New Japan matches that I thought were fantastic as well, but there's so much of his stuff that I want to actively switch off that it tips the scale entirely. Back in 2021 when we started revving this thing up again, I made a point of subscribing to New Japan World (is that still a thing?) to watch some of his more recent stuff, maybe kill a few birds with one stone and watch some Shingo, Ibushi, etc., the folks who'd made a real case since 2016. I hated pretty much all of what I watched (Shingo and Ibushi included) and gave up after like four matches. The modern strike exchange is what it is and those guys are far from the only offenders, but Suzuki doing it was even less fun than usual. I'm all for snarling demented goblin looking bastards clonking people in the head now and then, but I'd have Suzuki significantly lower than 00s Kikuchi if that's what we're looking at. I also maybe haven't seen the right stuff, but he's never struck me as the proper evil sadist people often talk him up as. Is this coming from matches where he's stretching people out and working guys over? Or is it him throwing elbows, sticking his tongue out and asking to be elbowed back? Because I'd take recommendations for the former, but the latter I've seen enough of and it's not making me forget a Murakami or a Kurisu. 

 

1 hour ago, Childs said:

I'm not sure I'd have Kevin Owens in my top 500. I've enjoyed him as a fat guy doing crazy spots in matches made great by other people, but that's about the best I can say.

Yeah, Owens is one of my least favourite wrestlers ever. Outside of the Austin match at Wrestlemania I don't think I've enjoyed one Kevin Owens match since he's been in WWE, and there really aren't that many before that I remember liking a whole lot. He's just never resonated with me on any level. 

[El Boricua]

At this point, some of the conversation is more along the lines of very good to great worker at a style I don't care for, so that's going to be a case where the disagreement over a specific wrestler will be harder to reach an understanding over. 

[Control21]

I think 1988-1992 Suzuki more than makes up for his NJPW sins, and you can't blame him for taking it easy/blending in after all the mileage he put on his body. He had a few good years in his NJPW work, notably the 2010-2014 period and his stuff with Suzuki-gun.

[Control21]

2 hours ago, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

One interesting thing is a number of people posting in their reasons how their choices reinforced their own identities. 

“So-and-so influenced me as a queer man, as a fat person, as an undead funeral parlor employee etc etc”

That is to say, it is not only how a wrestler is performing, but also how it affects an audience member’s sense of self. Death of the author, all that. This is probably as valid as judging on how well a person can do a dragon suplex or pretend they’ve been punched real hard. But will be interesting to see more blurbs to see how prevalent.

No huge surprises otherwise. Sabu got a death bump. Owens got a WWE bump. Roddy was always going to do well. Smarks love an undersized charisma-vacuum who does 45 moves in a row. Oh nice, Benoit made it. 

I think this is especially prevalent in the younger generation. I'm sure previous generations have done the same, of course, but there are so many fucked up things about our current context that I think younger folks seek deeper meaning in what they connect with. That's perfectly valid. I'm sure people connected with Dusty Rhodes because he was the "everyman."

[Kadooboo]

3 hours ago, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

One interesting thing is a number of people posting in their reasons how their choices reinforced their own identities. 

“So-and-so influenced me as a queer man, as a fat person, as an undead funeral parlor employee etc etc”

That is to say, it is not only how a wrestler is performing, but also how it affects an audience member’s sense of self. Death of the author, all that. This is probably as valid as judging on how well a person can do a dragon suplex or pretend they’ve been punched real hard. But will be interesting to see more blurbs to see how prevalent.

No huge surprises otherwise. Sabu got a death bump. Owens got a WWE bump. Roddy was always going to do well. Smarks love an undersized charisma-vacuum who does 45 moves in a row. Oh nice, Benoit made it. 

Considering logging off and going on SSRIs, might make you less of a grouch.

[gungan]

I like Owens a fair bit, but I never considered him for the list. He's one of those guys who can be compelling when he's in there with wrestlers he has good chemistry with (e.g. Super Dragon, Generico, Briscoes), but too much of the time he's just kinda whatever.

It sucks to see Dustin topple so far down the list, especially because he's meaningfully added to his legacy since 2016.

I've rewatched a solid amount of Benoit during the past decade and his stuff rarely lands for me anymore. He was a great opponent for Regal and Finlay and that Lesnar match is amazing, but far too often his stuff comes off as soullessly mechanical.

[MasterJonBurr]

Mantaur out here working stiffer than Low Ki my god

[NotJayTabb]

15 hours ago, MasterJonBurr said:

Roddy Strong the first entry on the top 100 that is just absurd to me. He’s like a Tom Zenk-level guy to me of his era. 

He wishes! (Spoken as someone who didn't voted Roddy, but did vote for the Z-Man)

[NotJayTabb]

4 hours ago, donsem43 said:

Iyo Sky being 80th at worst is wild...

Of the remaining active women workers, I think she's better than Mone or Asuka. She also benefits from already being very popular from her time as the ace of STARDOM, and is a rare example of someone enhancing their case in their WWE run by becoming a legit main event level star while also having really good matches. 

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

4 hours ago, Control21 said:

I think this is especially prevalent in the younger generation. I'm sure previous generations have done the same, of course, but there are so many fucked up things about our current context that I think younger folks seek deeper meaning in what they connect with. That's perfectly valid. I'm sure people connected with Dusty Rhodes because he was the "everyman."

Yes, for sure. I’m not saying it’s a new phenomenon, just that it’s interesting to see in the context of THIS project, which is ostensibly a semi-standardized attempt at finding the Greatest Wrestler Ever. So it’s fascinating to see some people try to apply certain criteria as objectively as they can, while others just fully commit to their personal feelings and subjectivism. 
 

And yes, perfectly valid as you say. It’s not any more or less serious than analyzing who did a shooting star press the best or who had the best fake punches. I am curious to see more blurbs though. I wanna meet the guy who deeply identifies and sees himself reflected in Onita or Andre.