GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[DR Ackermann]

Based on various number 1 blurbs, a lot of new voters are factoring a lot of criteria beyond the in-ring. I don't think it was every formally stated that in-ring should be the sole criteria, but to me that is what we are supposed to base this on and the original intent/spirit of the process.

[El Boricua]

It penalizes wrestlers due to language barriers, which is why promos and other stuff not in ring aren't the focus. In ring charisma would count. 

[jihadidas]

First time poster (@avinashdash1997 on X for identification), hello everyone! Last year we had the Greatest Match Ever project, with 1334 matches in consideration. Granted, the sample size was only 60 voters (much smaller than this GWE project), but the Top 30 GWE according to the GME project would look something like this:

#	Wrestler	# of matches in GME project	# of matches in Top 100
1.	Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan	50	6
2.	Mitsuharu Misawa	40	7
3.	Toshiaki Kawada	40	4
4.	Kenta Kobashi	38	8
5.	Ric Flair	37	7
6.	Genichiro Tenryu	37	3
7.	Jerry Lawler	31	3
8.	Jumbo Tsuruta	28	2
9.	Stan Hansen	26	3
10.	Akira Taue	25	3
11.	Terry Funk	24	6
12.	El Hijo Del Santo	24	3
13.	CM Punk	23	4
14.	Kazuchika Okada	22	3
15.	Shawn Michaels	22	2
16.	Yoshiaki Fujiwara	22	1
17.	Shinya Hashimoto	21	0
18.	AJ Styles	21	0
19.	Aja Kong	20	4
20.	John Cena	20	4
21.	Antonio Inoki	20	1
22.	Bret Hart	19	3
23.	Mick Foley/Cactus Jack/Mankind/Dude Love	19	1
24.	Vader	19	0
25.	Akira Hokuto	18	4
26.	Kiyoshi Tamura	18	4
27.	Tatsumi Fujinami	18	2
28.	Devil Masami	18	1
29.	Rey Mysterio/ Rey Misterio	18	1
30.	Kenny Omega	18	1

 

Ricky Steamboat lands at #31 with 17 entries and SIX matches in Top 100.

[HeadCheese]

50 minutes ago, DR Ackermann said:

Based on various number 1 blurbs, a lot of new voters are factoring a lot of criteria beyond the in-ring. I don't think it was every formally stated that in-ring should be the sole criteria, but to me that is what we are supposed to base this on and the original intent/spirit of the process.

I think think in ring work is the main focus but, other emotional attachment factors help too.

For example - I think promos can helps someones case even if I don't speak their language but, it doesn't really hurt a case much I think. Dr. Wagner Jr made my number 1, his growly enthusiastic promos get me excited despite me not knowing what he is saying.

My take on the intent of the project is more the attempt at discovery, looking at what you value in wrestling, and celebrating wrestling.

[Matt D]

The project is in-ring. If a wrestler can leverage out of ring aspects in their in-ring work, great. Otherwise, not great. If we did a bad job of disseminating that information, that’s on us, I guess. 

[Microstatistics]

#22

El Hijo del Santo

My #3. Part of my wrestling holy trinity as the best Mexican wrestler, alongside the best American wrestler (Shawn Michaels) and best Japanese wrestler (Kenta Kobashi). The lack of a Top 20 finish is disappointing, but the mammoth points per vote is immense. Endlessly versatile with great matwork, great high flying, and great power moves, but I'm starting to think brawling was his real hallmark, to the point where he might be better at it than anyone else.

#21

Randy "Macho Man" Savage

Singularly charismatic, I will give him that. His performance in the WM3 IC title is tremendous and the "Nothing means Nothing" promo might be the greatest in history.

[ohtani's jacket]

Thank the heavens and the stars that Macho Man finished ahead of Punk. I'm thrilled that Santo is overtaking Liger too. The top 20 has some overrated mofos in it, though. 

[ZubazKid]

I’m stunned to see Foley make the top 20. And I like Foley! Everybody likes Foley! My guess is that universal appeal is what drove him this high.

I thought I was high on Samoa Joe, but he’s guaranteed to finish at least 22 spots higher than I had him.

Really surprised to see them both ahead of Macho Man, even though I think 21 is a good finish for him.

[Boss Rock]

All 20 remaining were on my ballot, and 14 in my top 20. Lowest is Joe at 57. Surprised both he and even Mick made it this high, but both are great. Not mad about this top 20 at all. Maybe at a few eventual placements though, ha.

[DR Ackermann]

15 of the remaining 20 made my ballot, but only 3 of them were in my top 20.

[ZubazKid]

All of the remaining 20 are on my ballot with Foley lowest at 65. I still have 14 of my top 20 alive, and my top 11 still kicking. Highest ranked loss was Akiyama at 12.

[cad]

10 hours ago, Matt D said:

Somehow I blame @Jimmy Redman for all this Cena stuff even though she didn’t vote.

Jimmy Redman never browbeat anybody for not liking Cena enough or tore other wrestlers down to build Cena up. Her enthusiasm for him was pure and genuine, and I hope she still feels the same way wherever she may be.

I'll try to do a Mexico postmortem some time tonight.

[DR Ackermann]

My top 10. 

1. Terry Funk

2. Genichiro Tenryu

3. Jerry Lawler

4. Negro Casas

5. Stan Hansen

6. Nick Bockwinkel

7. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

8. Tatsumi Fujinami

9. El Satanico

10. Buddy Rose

4-9 are pretty interchangeable. 

[Tetsujin]

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.

[Makai Club #1]

Steamboat had great match with Rick Rude, Randy Savage, Steve Austin, Regal, was apart of War Games 92 and had a classic tag match at the 91 Clash return. But it's reliant on Ric Flair? Those Flair matches are certainly his best but he's got the body of work to back up the praise. 

 

Edit: and Luger! Forgot about that match. Plus I love the Halloween Havoc 93 match with Orndorff.

[DR Ackermann]

7 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

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.

I had Dundee at 20 actually. Personally I think Steamboat's case is really made from 89-94. I think his real peak started in 92, maybe late 91 and lasted until the back injury forced his retirement. He was a good worker in the 80s but I think he is overly mythologized because of the canonized matches in that time frame. He could be laughably bad. Horrible in Japan.

[highflyflow]

11 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

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.

I like the Flair series, but he would’ve done just fine on my list without it. Think you could reasonably make the claim from the time he came back to WCW in late 1991 to his last match before retirement in 1994 he was at worst a top 20 wrestler in the world, and that’s one of the most stacked eras in history. 

[MidasGloves]

Casas was the first of the lucha legends I found when I was first looking for stuff outside of TV products, in an indie match with Hechicero, and I ultimately had Casas one spot ahead of Hechicero on my ballot right up around 40th. Insane longevity, incredible technical work, stands out with his expressions and mannerisms even across from much more colorful masked luchadors. Even though Panther has had a more spectacular recent run, Casas just has the better overall case so it's good that he won out there.

Omega seemed like a lock for Top 20 from the onset so 29th really tells me that I overestimated how many new voters were super into his work, and I say that as someone who had him 63rd. I think of all the guys who have these big bombastic maximalist main events I like Kenny's approach the best; he's able to go a mile a minute and still make adjustments to work to the crowd or add a little detail for his fans to pick up on, and he's protected his finish for over a decade now. I think his AEW work can feel like a less-great version of his peak mixed with some PWG fun-time but he does nail (most of) his big swings there. I also just think his DDT & All Japan work are very good.

Lawler right after Omega is poetic. Mr. Maximalist just barely beaten out by Mr. Minimalist. Whether it's fans who need at least more than punching and a piledriver or just enough people who can't separate art from artist, I was also surprised by Jerry dipping all the way down from 10th, but this is closer to where he was on my ballot (23rd). Another insane longevity case, though it's kind of a given when you look at how his matches go. I watched this man wrestle live in 2016 and it was like the 3rd-best match on the whole card of 10+.

Okada's case to me is different from a lot of peoples' Okada case, though I did put him in the 50s on my ballot above Kenny (and Tana). I think his best work is when he gets to be a cocky prick and work tight sprints and he spent the better part of a decade working as the top face in 30+ minute epics instead, but outside of some poor pacing (and a couple Tana matches where he gave up on selling the leg at the end) he still looked incredible in most of those. The thing is, without his past few years I don't think I'd have him nearly as high on my ballot. His little feud with Kiyomiya is EXACTLY what I want Okada to be, and while AEW Okada isn't quite that it's a lot closer; he's such a good heel on offense and when his opponents actually get him in a pickle, and that translates to great shorter matches on TV and even PPV. AEW's Okada/Omega is the 2nd-best of their series and would be the best with a cleaner finish, and Okada has put together some awesome TV performances with the likes of Adam Priest and Bandido (guys he'd probably never have worked in New Japan).

Hashimoto missing the Top 25 is very disappointing since I had him 13th but I get that guys who depend on NJPW footage that wasn't from the past decade or so lost out, and not a lot of people are spontaneously watching 00s Zero-1 (though they should). I look at him and I see the Main Character of Professional Wrestling and every single match of his has him back that up even when he's working in front of maybe 50 people as NWA Champion. I said LA Park is the coolest wrestler ever yesterday and that photo of Big Hash might have made me a liar.

Liger hurts the most of ANY drop so far as my #4. A wrestler who demands attention in any match in any era of his career. Invented the SSP and then kept his matches engaging even after he couldn't do it anymore. Has some of the best Jr. Heavyweight singles matches of all time, but delivers in any other context you could want, even outside Japan and into his 50s. Liger vs Hashimoto is among my absolute favorite Hash matches but maybe only Top 10 for Liger IMO. I admit a big part of what had me latch onto Liger is knowing someone who went through an extremely similar brain surgery and seeing how much Liger flourished even after going through that. I also saw him live in 2016 and he was in the best match on the card (same show I saw Lawler; Northeast Wrestling's Wrestling Under The Stars V, wild show).

Steamboat being the guy everybody rated but few put at the very top sounds about right (I had him 67th but in retrospect I could've probably shifted him down a bit to move Butch Reed up). Incredible babyface in singles or tags for a half-decade run with stone-cold classics and fun TV work alike, plus a fun little 2009 run that showed us a glimpse of what if. He's thrown some chops in AEW as just a guest ref/commentator that are better than 95% of active wrestlers'.

Punk is a guy that surprised me when I really thought about his case. I was never that big of a Punk guy, but especially with his 2020s comeback run he's really got an undeniable resume and I put him 70th. Had his whole persona locked down in the ring in the early 00s in IWA-MS, had a number of excellent matches in ROH despite leaving before the promotion even peaked, has plenty of matches that are bright spots in the midcard of bad WWE shows until they really started running with him and giving him feuds that are defining for himself AND his opponents (mostly Hardy & Cena). His AEW run as messy as it was backstage was just fantastic, and while it took a minute his current WWE has more strong matches than you'd expect while having the clout to bring blading back to the company. Shame his final match with Cena was a dud but that's hardly his fault.

Santito is the wrestler I voted for having seen the smallest percentage of their work, which speaks to how incredible he was. The 2001 bloodbath with LA Park is a contender for the best Lucha match I've ever seen and yet it's not his best match (it's not Park's best either but you get the idea). The famous 5-star Horace Hogan match in FMW is that good because of him and Casas going absolutely wild in it more than anything else. I've seen all the big matches from him, but for a wrestler so prolific with 40+ years of work there's a massive amount I haven't seen. I couldn't really bring myself to rank him based on work I hadn't seen yet but knew he deserved to be on my ballot so I ended up with him 60th. Seeing him place outside the Top 20 makes me wonder if I put him too low, though he wouldn't have even caught up to Savage if I put him in my Top 5.

I had Savage 22nd so he actually outdid what I voted him at and I still am a little surprised he missed the Top 20. Savage could channel the Memphis style of making every single move count, but embraced the cartoonish nonsense of Hulkamania WWF as well. He managed to have amazing matches with all sorts of opponents, even having an all-timer with the Warrior on the back of his insane storytelling chops (with Sherri picking up any slack). I think he's quite good into his WCW run even if he's not at his peak. Ultimately a good placement. In 2036 maybe we can get Sherri to place next to him.