GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[ohtani's jacket]

I didn't vote for Takayama, but he fits the bill for that aura farming thing. 

Baba still has people's respect. I can't remember who finished higher last time, Inoki or Baba. You'd have to think it was Baba.

I thought the Osprey kid would do better. 

[Tetsujin]

Glad Lesnar dropped. Moxley ranking ahead of him in participar delights me, finally some justice for sabotaging their WM 32 match.

Didn't expect Ospreay to drop this early! This adds even more intrigue and unpredictability to the list, maybe Omega is not as high either. We'll see. Right now, I don't even fucking know which tendencies are gaining the upper hand anymore. This is so fun.

[MidasGloves]

I'm overjoyed at the jump for Takayama since he should definitely be in the same conversation as Hansen & Vader as some of the best big bruisers ever. It's pretty impressive given he's been effectively retired via his paralysis for years now, but his career already spoke for itself and he was still awesome right up until the day he got hurt.

Ospreay getting a huge number of Top 25s and 9 Top 3s but only barely getting a third of the vote is pretty much what I expected, I just expected that to be enough to launch him into the Top 30 or so. 75th is still a massive jump from 2016 when he had only just made a name for himself in the BritWres boom but I'm pretty happy with the result, given I knew he'd make it deep regardless of what I think (and there are occasional Ospreay matches that do it for me to be fair).

Baba getting just above Ospreay is really fun but I'm also quite surprised Inoki did better than him in the same way as Eaton beating Morton and Dusty beating Dustin.

[Boss Rock]

I've seen a bit of Takayama, but there are some gaps. I did not vote for him, but I've always really enjoyed what I've seen. A big, hulking dude and entertaining striker. And while it's not related at all to pro wrestling, him and Don Frye remains one of my favorite MMA fights, as unrefined as it is.

I'm sure there are lots of folks who object to Ospreay making the top 100, but probably lots of sighs of relief he didn't make the top 50. Personally, I had Ospreay at 27. A bit too high? I'm not sure yet, but I ultimately went with my gut. A decade now of great work with 2019-onward looking like the best in the world. As DMJ so eloquently put it in his nomination thread:

"I'd much rather watch an Ospreay match, willfully going into it expecting to be blown away by a bunch of convoluted spots designed for the sole purpose of "popping" the crowd, than, say, watch a Seth Rollins match where he'll try to do the same thing but get nowhere close because (a) his offense isn't nearly as exciting and (b) if you're going to just not sell, its almost better to just not sell the whole match. Ospreay is a maximalist and, if you're going to be that, if you're just going to do superhero wrestling where almost nothing matters because everything is going to get a 2.9 count, well, you have to really, really blow the audience away with your stuff. If its going to be a fireworks show, you can't have any misfires. Ospreay does it better than anyone else I've seen in the past decade. "

That pretty much sums it up for me. Very few who are as consistent a big match wrestler as he is. And even when he's just wrestling a match on Dynamite, he's almost always the highlight.

[Boss Rock]

5 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

Glad Lesnar dropped. Moxley ranking ahead of him in participar delights me, finally some justice for sabotaging their WM 32 match.

Didn't expect Ospreay to drop this early! This adds even more intrigue and unpredictability to the list, maybe Omega is not as high either. We'll see. Right now, I don't even fucking know which tendencies are gaining the upper hand anymore. This is so fun.

It was probably my fault for even bothering, but I legit got into an argument with someone on Reddit because they insisted Mania 32 was Moxley's fault. Because of course Mox was the one who didn't want to do anything interesting and just wanted to do his stupid suplex routine.

[Control21]

Volk Han is going to be ranked above Ospreay. There is justice in the universe, after all.

[Boss Rock]

38 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I didn't vote for Takayama, but he fits the bill for that aura farming thing. 

Baba still has people's respect. I can't remember who finished higher last time, Inoki or Baba. You'd have to think it was Baba.

I thought the Osprey kid would do better. 

Baba did.

[ZubazKid]

Giant Baba was my #74, making him the 1st person I voted at the spot they finished at.

[El Boricua]

1 hour ago, MidasGloves said:

Baba getting just above Ospreay is really fun but I'm also quite surprised Inoki did better than him in the same way as Eaton beating Morton and Dusty beating Dustin.

I'm thinking these may be influenced by:

Cornette having a podcast makes Eaton (Midnights) have more modern visibilty for inclusion as a legacy cannon great.

2010s New Japan being more valued in voting means you have to include the All Father of New Japan on your list (plus the aura from gifs like the one of people lining up to get slapped by him).

Dusty is the All Father of Codyism with Cody's most prominent programs in WWE invoking his all time great father.

Tully resurfaced in AEW which gives him that modern visibility boost as a cannon great plus the legacy cache of being part of the quintessential Four Horsemen lineup.

Windham is Uncle Howdy plus the legacy cache of being part of the quintessential Four Horsemen lineup.

Bruno has aura qnd also is the Babe Ruth of early WWE.

For the old timers it's about who has in  some way remained relevantly visible in the modern landscape to where someone not deep diving beyond that scope would feel that these are the legacy cannon guys one should sprinkle somewhere on their list.

 

[WingedEagle]

Why'd they put a 7 in front of Ospreay's number?

[HeadCheese]

Hope to watch more Baba, the Fritz from December 1966 match is awesome!

Giant Baba still lands at great but, not all time great to me. He is a really cool interesting guy even in the the 90s AJPW/IWE dads matches. It's really cool he made it to 74 though.

My liking of him might grow

 

[El Dragon]

Thank God Regal at least beat Ospreay, even if I still find his placement is way way too low. Best utility player in wrestling history. Yes, I put him over Arn in that catagory.

[Boss Rock]

I did not vote for any of the three most recent drops. Regal was considered but ultimately cut. I think his best stuff is really good (the Hashimoto match in particular is excellent), but I personally didn't see a ton of volume with him.

I like 2000's KENTA. I don't like WWE KENTA. I think NJPW KENTA is OK. Similar to Nakamura, I have to imagine him placing is due to newer fans discovering his peak in ROH and Noah and either ignoring or not being aware of the rest of his career. He's kind of the anti-Nakamura in this scenario, with having a lower peak but a better run this past decade.

Seeing Mercedes place is really cool even if I think her WWE booking hampered her. Being the best U.S. women's wrestler ever may seem like an incredibly low bar considering how poorly women's wrestling has been treated/booked in this country for so long, but it's still an impressive feather in her cap. And when she was actually given the opportunity, she almost always delivered. The matches with the other horsewomen go without saying, but she was also able to have fun matches with folks like Alexa and her match with Bianca is arguably one of the greatest Mania matches ever. And since leaving the Fed, she's really hit the ground running in AEW and Stardom.

[highflyflow]

For a wrestler so “obviously undeniable”, Ospreay missing 66.5% of ballots seems fairly deniable to me.

[NotJayTabb]

Pleased to see the superior English William place higher

[tcg91]

Looks like a solid top 70. Sting, Moxley and Necro are probably the only three that wouldn't make my top 70.

[MoS]

I am actually very surprised that there were 61 voters who voted for Ospreay but didn't have him in their top 25. Ospreay to me feels like someone who, if you love his "style" (interpretation?) of wrestling, he is undeniably top 25 *at worst*. Who are the people ranking Ospreay number 45 or 61 or whatever?

[HeadCheese]

7 minutes ago, MoS said:

I am actually very surprised that there were 61 voters who voted for Ospreay but didn't have him in their top 25. Ospreay to me feels like someone who, if you love his "style" (interpretation?) of wrestling, he is undeniably top 25 *at worst*. Who are the people ranking Ospreay number 45 or 61 or whatever?

I ranked at 88 (above Rene Ben Chemoul and below Alexander Otsuka), I feel like Ospreay can very good to one ot the best in the world but, has a period 2020-2024 where I he feels not to click with me oftentimes, he still has matches/perfomance that click with me (him vs. Ace Austin). I like punching up (AEW Worlds End 2024 and 2015-2018 work) and party match Ospreay (vs. Shane/Swerve Strickland in WXW with the dance off).

I also for wrestlers who wrestle his a similar style PAC, Fenix, Ricochet, and Mike Bailey are just better.

I sometimes Ospreay can be a bit checklist epic matchy and/or feeling he is a 100 overall create a wrestler.

I think it's also important to remember 25 isn't that mainy wrestlers especially for all of history (100 isn't either).

[MoS]

22 minutes ago, HeadCheese said:

I think it's also important to remember 25 isn't that mainy wrestlers especially for all of history (100 isn't either).

Fair, this is actually very much true, I also felt the exact same when making my list haha

[Tetsujin]

1 hour ago, MoS said:

I am actually very surprised that there were 61 voters who voted for Ospreay but didn't have him in their top 25. Ospreay to me feels like someone who, if you love his "style" (interpretation?) of wrestling, he is undeniably top 25 *at worst*. Who are the people ranking Ospreay number 45 or 61 or whatever?

People who think he's been pretty great for quite some time, but are careful about putting him much higher due to him being still young and in the middle of his peak. That was my approach for most of active wrestlers I voted for, at least (had Ospreay at #84).

KENTA this high surprises me, because when it comes to guys with questionable consistency but a monstruous yet short peak, there has been more interesting wrestlers dropping before him. But I get that peak is undenniable.

[El-P]

Thanks for the kind words about the Eaton post, people.

The fact only a third of a the people voting had Ospreay on their list may be the ultimate tell about this version of the poll and the overall voting crowd. For all the "recency bias" and "AEW influence" talk, this is pretty revealing that on the contrary, someone like Ospreay who is without a shadow of a doubt one of the greatest wrestler ever and already influencing the next generation and has for a while (you can see him in all the great upcoming pro-wrestlers, from Leon Slater to Nick Wayne to Kyle Fletcher) can't get more than 33% of votes. It is what it is.

9 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

Why'd they put a 7 in front of Ospreay's number?

This. 

[ohtani's jacket]

I wouldn't put Regal in my top 10 European workers, but he's always going to win the popular vote. 

I've only watched bits and pieces of KENTA's mid-00s work. I can see why he was popular the time. 

Neither guy strikes me as particularly divisive. 

[El-P]

Regal is divisive in that he's like the greatest wrestler who never had a legit great match. Quite a feat.

KENTA is divisive because he's a top 2 most influential wrestler for the pro-wrestling of the last 25 years probably (or at least the two previous decades). And a lot of the older generation began starting hating on wrestling with the 00's Japanese tropes and the US indies tropes. KENTA (and Marufuji, who did not make it, oddly enough, when he didn't drop like KENTA did when he got to WWE and was still awesome at worst in 2016) is all over this.

Mercedes making it feels exactly right. She was the best of the WWE bunch from the start, and was never surpassed. And has peaked last year (thus far).

[MoS]

I ranked Inoki over Baba. I think Inoki's sheer charisma and just, very honestly, the kind of weird shit he does in the ring, that only he can do successfully because has God-level charisma, gelled with his very nifty matwork and an almost sui generis sense of mat structure trumps Baba's watertight pysychology, his surprising athleticism, and his nifty matwork. Both of them are masters of understanding and leading the crowd, but that's a given and that is why there are two of the greatest wrestlers of all time. But Inoki trumps Baba for me, at least at this stage of my wrestling fandom. Peak Inoki just feels far more like a pinnacle of what pro wrestling can be than peak Baba. 

[El-P]

Also, I'm gonna put it out there while I'm at it, since I dunno when he's dropping and I may be offline for a few, the placement and % of AJ Styles is probably really interesting, since he's a guy whose name has been "legitimized" by a long and harmless WWE stint, while his case is basically famous for the short but great NJPW stint, yet most of it is TNA. If you watch AJ Styles's TNA stuff, it's obvious where he is. NJ only adds to it. And he's most probably the only guy who made a case one of being of the GOATs from TNA (Samoa Joe was a lot more ROH during his peak). Well, there's another one, actually, but... we'll see.