GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[Boss Rock]

Surprisingly, I also had Hokuto at 16. While she had the big moves and spots like many of her contemporaries, there was just a grittiness and edge to her that really set her apart. It’s tough to put your finger on it, but you know it when you see it. Obviously she has one of the highest peaks of any wrestler ever (1993) but even though her career was relatively short, I never agreed with the assessment that she was simply a peak wrestler (Grimmas also did a fantastic job arguing Hokuto’s case). She’s really good to great almost immediately and up until the end of her career.

Foley was my 35. As far as brawlers go, I have Hansen and Funk ahead of him. But he was still excellent at what he did. I'm sure he regrets a lot of the stuff he put himself through but none of it ever felt like bumping for the sake of bumping. It was always in service of making the match feel as wild and unpredictable as possible. And while some might think wrestling in hardcore/no DQ settings might be considered "easy mode", I've seen enough Triple H plunder matches to know that's not the case. Foley was just so good at crafting matches, which makes it no surprise Orton never had as great a match as he had with Foley, and arguably neither did Edge.

[Ma Stump Puller]

30 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

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'd bet on Kong making it actually, she has a lot more exposure with modern voters through her work in the 2020's and her case is more biased towards longevity which typically is something more considered than things like peak or, god willing, how many times they won the WWE championship. 

 

 

[Shrike02]

I have two casualties from my top five (Bock 4, Jumbo 2) and I expect only one to survive and land there in the final results.

I'm puzzled by some of the results for wrestlers I don't rate that highly - indeed there's a few who've landed in the top 50 I didn't vote for - but that's the beauty of this project. It gives food for thought.

 

[Microstatistics]

#17

Mick Foley

Definitely an over-performance but makes sense considering the Samoa Joe effect (presence on well over 80% of ballots) and the hardcore/death match affinity boost. Had him at #35. Perhaps the greatest bumper in history of course but intelligent and creative to boot with sound fundamentals.

#16

"The Dangerous Queen" Akira Hokuto

@Boss Rock My #16 as well so perfect alignment. So Aja is the highest ranked woman but I would have flipped them: To me, Hokuto is the greatest women's wrestler ever and it's not even close.

[ZubazKid]

Hokuto is the 1st from my top 10 to fall. Hopefully Aja survives to the top 10. I’d hoped Casas & Santino would make the top 20. Maybe I need to stop jinxing people by rooting for them.

[Tetsujin]

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.

[Reel]

I didn’t have Foley very high, but I do think he’s among a handful of wrestlers who have sort of invented a style that made themselves great wrestlers, and I think that’s a sort of admirable and impressive feat. Onita and Maeda in the same sort of boat. 

[Boss Rock]

Remaining 15 made my ballot, 7 in my top 10, another 6 in my top 35, and 2 just outside the top 50.

[Tetsujin]

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.

[Childs]

Of those remaining, Austin is the one who belongs nowhere near a top 15. Huge star at a time when many of the voters dipped in, but he didn't have more than two or three years as a great worker, with maybe five others at the very good level. I voted for him, but in the lower half along with Joe, Foley and Punk. I didn't have Tanahashi in my top 50, but if your fandom was heavily shaped by the last 15-20 years, you could argue he was the best ever, so I have no problem with him going this far. 

[TRMD]

18 minutes ago, Childs said:

Of those remaining, Austin is the one who belongs nowhere near a top 15. Huge star at a time when many of the voters dipped in, but he didn't have more than two or three years as a great worker, with maybe five others at the very good level. I voted for him, but in the lower half along with Joe, Foley and Punk. I didn't have Tanahashi in my top 50, but if your fandom was heavily shaped by the last 15-20 years, you could argue he was the best ever, so I have no problem with him going this far. 

You’re correct, he belongs nowhere near 15.

He should be top 5 at the bare minimum.

(I’m sorry, i shouldn’t be here. I didn’t vote. This thread belongs to the voters. I’ll see my way out.)

[Microstatistics]

Voted for 12 out of the remaining 15. Only 3 in my Top 10 and 5 in Top 15. All 12 were Top 50 though.

Aja and Tanahashi sort of replacing Lawler and Liger makes sense considering the rise of Joshi/modern favorites and the fall of territories/90s juniors. Also, I guess you have things like Jumbo dropping (expected) and a boost to Austin but, otherwise, the very top of the list in terms of who is there is not really that different from 2016. The sequence remains to be seen of course.

[cad]

18 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

My biggest takeaway from the lucha results is that people still aren't taking it seriously. We can argue back and forth about most of the top tier candidates, but for lucha there is no real discourse and not a lot of critical analysis. You'd be hard pressed to find a critique of Negro Casas or Santo. You might find the odd outspoken lucha fan who has an opinion that's different form the norm, but until we get people critiquing a lucha candidate the way they do with the top US and Japanese guys it'll never be given the respect it deserves.
...
I would really love it if lucha was taken as seriously as some of the other topics we've been arguing about even if it meant more fighting on the internet. 

I do think it's true that there isn't a lot of biting criticism of Mexican workers. It never really did develop an accepted set of understandings like '90s AJPW or WWE. A lot of fans don't have it on their radar, so people who do like it are gonna focus their efforts on building guys up. There's no widespread overpimping that would necessitate tearing anybody down, like with the backlash against Angle or Flair. That naturally leads to luchadores and lucha matches being treated like found money. Like, hey, Blue Panther's been having classics for almost half a century now, why would anyone care about some shitty match he had with Octagon, or some random 3v3 from over thirty years ago? I know that, to the extent anyone knew who I was, I got labeled as a pain in the ass for some of the stuff I said about Satanico. And goodness knows that reading Parvini on lucha used to drive me up a wall in my early days posting here.

At the same time I don't know if people really talk that way anymore about anything. Back and forth debates and nitty bitty dissections were staples of message board interaction, but boards themselves are now relics. Today we mostly just surround ourselves with people and sources of information that aren't going to challenge our worldview. An argument is a bad thing to happen. For wrestling, is that really so bad? I mean, does anyone really want someone else taking apart a match they like jdw-style and having to defend why they like it? The other side of the coin, though, is that if all that matters to me is that I like something, and that's enough to make it great in my eyes, then there isn't really a discussion to be had. I'm using a standard that obviates anyone else's opinion, or any sort of objective measurement.

I thought that the Mexican guys who made the top hundred were more or less predictable. No problems there. I don't know that much about Mistico, but he's hot right now and riding that momentum, and maybe he really is that good. Santo was a fine number one luchador. Of course I say that as someone who placed him in the top spot on my list. To me he's someone who could walk into any arena in the country and have a classic on any given night. That's not to say that he always did, but he has a remarkable number of great matches, and I don't think you'd ever call El Hijo del Santo a passenger. Chicana actually did have a badass match discovered in the past couple of years, but it just doesn't seem like one newly found match creates shockwaves anymore. I dunno.

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

I’m fairly comfortable saying Samoa Joe is the most overrated person in this decade’s edition of the list. The guy has been a broken down shell of himself for years coasting off reputation. Never came up with a way to work to cover for his declining explosiveness, and his AEW title reign was a horrible error that killed the company’s momentum dead.

I’m not saying the guy wasn’t obviously great at points or isn’t top 100 material (getting laughed out of Japan notwithstanding). I just don’t see how a guy ranked THIS high could have stretches in his career where he was as unwatchable as Joe was at points in TNA. I could also be describing Foley here, except Foley did enough to stand as his own man and leave a legacy that was truly his own. Joe just copied his betters. Add to that a lack of versatility and growth in his work I find quite dull after two and a half decades. There’s a chasm between himself and the guys/gals he’s ranked alongside. 

And he’s FAT. 

[club]

Vader, consistency be thy name.

[Tetsujin]

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.

[SirSam]

I ranked Vader 15 in my list. Do I get to shout BINGO or something?

[El Dragon]

I'm fairly confident Vader didn't get a 1 vote in 2006 as well. Meaning he's ranked 14-17 in 3 different polls, with over 600 ballots between them, while receiving zero No.1 votes.

 

More so then any other wrestler ever, I think there is consensus on Vader's all time standing that is almost inarguable.

[concrete1992]

It is official that Vader is the Greatest Wrestler Ever Who No One Thinks Is The Single Greatest Wrestler Ever

[ZubazKid]

22 hours ago, El McKell said:

Vader's gotta be a stronger candidate for not getting a number 1 vote than Mick Foley, no?

You were correct & it seems we should never doubt that Vader is a top 20 wrestler in everyone’s eyes & the greatest wrestler in no one’s eyes.

[Childs]

Vader is the ultimate rewatchable wrestler. His style is such a pure distillation of what makes wrestling fun, and it works in enough different settings that I'm never going to dip into his career and come away bored or disappointed. Come to think of it, I had him too low at 28. 

[Matt D]

11 minutes ago, Childs said:

Vader is the ultimate rewatchable wrestler. His style is such a pure distillation of what makes wrestling fun, and it works in enough different settings that I'm never going to dip into his career and come away bored or disappointed. Come to think of it, I had him too low at 28. 

I feel like Aja is a bit like that too. 

[Boss Rock]

Had Vader at 25. Like Rey, sort of the ultimate consensus wrestler. Best traditional big man wrestler by far (I have Hansen ahead but he was more of a brawler that a power move guy).

[Childs]

7 minutes ago, Matt D said:

I feel like Aja is a bit like that too. 

Yep, they've always been a natural pairing.

[urbanecowboy]

16 hours ago, TRMD said:

You’re correct, he belongs nowhere near 15.

He should be top 5 at the bare minimum.

(I’m sorry, i shouldn’t be here. I didn’t vote. This thread belongs to the voters. I’ll see my way out.)

No you’re correct. Austin is absolutely a Top 15 caliber wrestler. It was an absurd statement to make