GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[El Dragon]

Holy Fuck that DiBiase drop. Damn. That feels extreme 

[Tetsujin]

34 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

Holy Fuck that DiBiase drop. Damn. That feels extreme 

Yeah, almost no one is safe now. Jeez. To be honest, #42 was kinda insane for DiBiase back in the day, this time he feels more were he belongs, but man. No country for old men. At this point, if Lawler appeared now I wouldn't be as surprised.

[Monch Wrestling]

I was convinced I was gonna be Toni's high voter (I had her at #7 on my list) but then I realized it probably wouldn't be the case once it became clear she was gonna rank pretty high.

#175 is quite impressive cause most of her votes probably mostly come from her current "Timeless" run and it's been less than three years worth of work. Not that she wasn't good before but she obviously wasn't near as popular and talked about.

If I'm not mistaken I think Sareee and MJF are the only wrestlers younger than her left.

[El-P]

Alex Shelley. Yet another "Awesome and super influential tag worker who doesn't quite get his due", and even moreso, because Alex Shelley outside of MCMG has a whole lot of good stuff too, including being the really good worker being the Big-fish-in-a-small-pond champ, a role that I always loved, dating back to Shane Douglas in ECW.

Timeless Toni Storm. Took the awkwardness of the Goldust character (I mean, really now) and turned it into an all-time great pro-wrestling character. Her work early on with the gimmick was not exactly great, but she finally found the right balance. The Mariah May (hey, remember her ?) feud is a contemporary classic.

Jake Roberts. I don't think I ever saw an actual great Jake Roberts match. I don't think I really care that much, considering how great he was.

Nothings is more of a tell that this edition has *nothing to do whatsoever anymore* with the spirit of the original 2006 SC edition than TheTribalChiefofRhodeIsland voting Roman Reigns #1 with this justification : "Roman Reigns is a great talent, even overcoming his health issues. But he is my #1 primarily due to his run as the Tribal Chief and, in particular, his dominant 1316-day reign. It's worth noting that he is, maybe at this point, the preeminent Paul Heyman-guy! In this run, he beat the likes of Lesnar multiple times, Edge, Cena, Danielson, Cody, Strowman, Mysterio, Owens, Zayn, Jey Uso, and Goldberg - so an almost peerless run there. Roman is the dominant force of this era...acknowledge him!"

Regular copy-pasta here.

Oh, I have nothing to say about Roman Reigns. I already spent my Nepo-baby card on Orton. Plus, you know, when you have nothing nice to say about someone, just don't say anything. 

Ultimo Dragon. When you look back at it, not only the Ultimo bashing was always ridiculous and unwarranted (no, he actually didn't "blew spots in every big match"), but he's probably one of the most influential worker on modern wrestling.

DiBiase dropping was long overdue. Hey, I always liked DiBiase a lot, ok. But still. Come on now. Top 40 ? Really? Nah. Not even close. Not 20 years ago, not 10 years go, certainly not today.

[Reel]

So here’s a sort of serious question which I’ll admit is sort of a troll: Based on these results, and the people still left to drop, in 6 years has AEW assembled the greatest roster of talent ever assembled while also producing enough great matches to significantly boost, if not form the entirety of, the cases of the majority modern wrestler in the top 200? Is the output of that company that great?

[El-P]

4 minutes ago, Reel said:

 Is the output of that company that great?

Yes. And will probably be underrated still because of the circles in which GWE has been promoted (and I shall say no more).

Although I must say, I'm pretty shocked (in a good way) that the Elite (the real members, sorry Cody) are still alive. 

[El Dragon]

1 minute ago, Reel said:

So here’s a sort of serious question which I’ll admit is sort of a troll: Based on these results, and the people still left to drop, in 6 years has AEW assembled the greatest roster of talent ever assembled while also producing enough great matches to significantly boost, if not form the entirety of, the cases of the majority modern wrestler in the top 200? Is the output of that company that great?

I mean, I think the Darby case in particular is really legitimate and he’s been adding great performances repeatedly in that stretch, and many of the AEW names still left outside of him had solid resumes coming in. Weekly, it’s up and down depending on the month seemingly. They are on a massive hot streak with Darby’s title run though.

[oldcasper]

I started to type a somewhat sarcastic comment, but I felt that wouldn't do the question much justice.  Recency of footage is a big part of it, and also I think there is a perception in the modern wrestling fandom to constantly defend the wrestling they watch as the greatest thing ever.  It doesn't help that taste makers continue to tell fans that they are watching the greatest matches of all time each week.

I own my biases, but I am feeling that the wrestlers in the lower hundreds feel much more interesting from a curiosity basis than I think 150-300 will.  At the same time, with so many to vote from and hundreds of ballots we will a homogenisation of the middle leaning to those most known.

It also reflects that tastes somewhat change and there is little value in feeling sad about it.

 

[BackToBionic]

11 minutes ago, El-P said:

Nothings is more of a tell that this edition has *nothing to do whatsoever anymore* with the spirit of the original 2006 SC edition than TheTribalChiefofRhodeIsland voting Roman Reigns #1 with this justification : "Roman Reigns is a great talent, even overcoming his health issues. But he is my #1 primarily due to his run as the Tribal Chief and, in particular, his dominant 1316-day reign. It's worth noting that he is, maybe at this point, the preeminent Paul Heyman-guy! In this run, he beat the likes of Lesnar multiple times, Edge, Cena, Danielson, Cody, Strowman, Mysterio, Owens, Zayn, Jey Uso, and Goldberg - so an almost peerless run there. Roman is the dominant force of this era...acknowledge him!"

Yeah, I mean I think there's room for all sorts in a ranking like this and I'd even argue that's the whole point of it but man, we're straying pretty far if someone is number one because "he beat everyone!" in predetermined matches. By this guy's own metric (length of title run and beating every big name thrown at you) you might as well throw Hogan at number one.

[Reel]

2 minutes ago, oldcasper said:

I think there is a perception in the modern wrestling fandom to constantly defend the wrestling they watch as the greatest thing ever. 

This is sort of where I'm at. I'm not saying there isn't bias inherent in any list, I'm not saying that anyone's ballot isn't reflective of who they think the greatest wrestlers are. Still, in my, increasingly less interested view of the current discourse of pro-wrestling, it seems matches get exceedingly hyped and are given high star ratings because they are kind of long and feature wrestlers that the person likes. So you watch the weekly TV, and you end up with 300 4 star matches at the end of the year, and it is hard for anyone not wrestling today to compete with that kind of resume, unless they are canonically great, have decades of hype, support, and lore behind them. 

[brockobama]

Gotten (needlessly) mad at some of these top ten votes we've seen already but I have to say, really do appreciate this Ultimo Dragon #1 voter for making an influence case as opposed to simply saying "he got booked to beat everybody!" or even "he do the wrestle good!" Closer to the original spirit of this thing than most people are getting. 

 

6 minutes ago, oldcasper said:

I think there is a perception in the modern wrestling fandom to constantly defend the wrestling they watch as the greatest thing ever

Amen brother. 

[Control21]

6 minutes ago, Reel said:

This is sort of where I'm at. I'm not saying there isn't bias inherent in any list, I'm not saying that anyone's ballot isn't reflective of who they think the greatest wrestlers are. Still, in my, increasingly less interested view of the current discourse of pro-wrestling, it seems matches get exceedingly hyped and are given high star ratings because they are kind of long and feature wrestlers that the person likes. So you watch the weekly TV, and you end up with 300 4 star matches at the end of the year, and it is hard for anyone not wrestling today to compete with that kind of resume, unless they are canonically great, have decades of hype, support, and lore behind them. 

It also doesn't help that it is a self-feeding loop. A match gets a lot of hype, Meltzer rates it 5 stars, Twitter accounts spread the news....the cycle continues

[Control21]

23 minutes ago, Reel said:

So here’s a sort of serious question which I’ll admit is sort of a troll: Based on these results, and the people still left to drop, in 6 years has AEW assembled the greatest roster of talent ever assembled while also producing enough great matches to significantly boost, if not form the entirety of, the cases of the majority modern wrestler in the top 200? Is the output of that company that great?

I think it is kinda overblown, honestly. The Darby Allin stuff is something I'll never get. I'm not convinced he's on an all-timer run. But he takes a bunch of sick bumps (which always seem to have less purpose to me compared to someone like Jeff Hardy or Mick Foley) and sells melodramatically. I guess that's all you need to get people to buy into your gimmick. 

[El Dragon]

I will say, on the No.1 vote case, I largely think the Roman vote was intentionally sarcastic. But maybe I’m giving too much credit. We had silly ballots in 16 too

[El-P]

13 minutes ago, BackToBionic said:

Yeah, I mean I think there's room for all sorts in a ranking like this and I'd even argue that's the whole point of it but man, we're straying pretty far if someone is number one because "he beat everyone!" in predetermined matches. By this guy's own metric (length of title run and beating every big name thrown at you) you might as well throw Hogan at number one.

I mean, part of the humour in this is that the guy is literaly called TheTribalChiefofRhodeIsland. It's almost too good to be true. But hey, I've seen a #1 vote for Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, so there... 😅

[Reel]

Sarcastic or not, Roman wouldn’t be in my top 5 worst or undeserved #1 votes thus far. 

[Matt D]

I have a whole 50% of my list gone. No regrets though. It's just funny compared to some people with 85% or whatever left.

[Mattsdmf]

I wonder if Parv sees where DiBiase lands, he'll have a stroke.

[HeadCheese]

Was really hoping HARASHIMA, Fuchi,and Dr. Wagner Jr. would make it to the top 100 but, they are niche cases. Hope my blurb inspires people to watch more/consider Wagner Jr.

Really glad Chihiro Hashimoto made it that far especially with Sendai Girls being a smaller promotion.

[Boss Rock]

I'll admit I struggled a bit with recency bias on my list. But basically, if I felt someone had at least 7-8 years of good work (or were very good for the majority of a short career), I considered them fair game. Ultimately, you just have to go with your gut.

[DMJ]

7 minutes ago, Reel said:

So here’s a sort of serious question which I’ll admit is sort of a troll: Based on these results, and the people still left to drop, in 6 years has AEW assembled the greatest roster of talent ever assembled while also producing enough great matches to significantly boost, if not form the entirety of, the cases of the majority modern wrestler in the top 200? Is the output of that company that great?

Sure...I mean, I think there are probably times when WCW had a roster just as good (especially if that time happens to overlay with the brief window when they had Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto working for them), but its not like they had  Rey, Benoit, La Parka, El Dandy, Eddie, Regal, Finlay, etc. all getting 15+ minutes a week to deliver high-quality matches.

With AEW, it'd be hard to pinpoint an exact date, but there was/is/could be a time, you might see FTR, the Bucks, Kenny Omega, Darby Allin, Brody King, Swerve, Jay White, Roderick Strong, Takeshita, and Claudio Castignoli all wrestle in the same week...and then on the next week, you'd see half those guys again but now maybe Moxley, Hangman, Bandido, Christian, Okada, Samoa Joe, Toni Storm, Orange Cassidy, and Mark Briscoe are rounding things out. (And I'm purposefully leaving out MJF and Cole because mileage may vary, Mercedes Mone [because she barely wrestles on TV], Andrade [the first run wasn't my favorite, but this second run has been awesome], and Willow and Mark Davis [because they're both great but I'm trying not to pile on]).

As for people who don't "get" Darby Allin, well, your loss. The view that he is just a "bump machine who sells melodramatically" is an overly cynical underselling of what he does. He may not be your cup of tea, but the days of him being a "just another Spike Dudley" or "Jeff Hardy wanna-be" are long gone. If you're going to compare him to someone, he's much closer to Rey Mysterio. Not as good as peak Rey, not as revolutionary, obviously doesn't have the longevity, but, yeah, I'll say it, that's the more apt comparison now. 

[Control21]

I wish I saw the comparison between Darby Allin and Rey Mysterio, but I really do not. 

[El Dragon]

29 minutes ago, Control21 said:

I think it is kinda overblown, honestly. The Darby Allin stuff is something I'll never get. I'm not convinced he's on an all-timer run. But he takes a bunch of sick bumps (which always seem to have less purpose to me compared to someone like Jeff Hardy or Mick Foley) and sells melodramatically. I guess that's all you need to get people to buy into your gimmick. 

I legitimately do not understand this one at all. Darby is one of the most easy to understand wrestlers of all time. His character is that he’s undersized, but tough as nails and will beat you through a combination of force of will and using anything he can think of to gain the upper hand. To illustrate that, he takes massive bumps that illustrate how tough he is, and uses his own body as a projectile because it’s the best way to do damage when you are under sized as he is. He wrestles in a way that is specifically perfect to get over his character. 
 

Almost all the AEW guys in the running for this at this point I have some problems with their cases personally, but Darby is just pretty clearly to me a great underdog babyface that’s building up a hell of a resume of matches on his scoresheet. 

[Tetsujin]

This post is specifically with US wrestling in mind. At the end of the day, most people canonized as all timers are wrestlers that were pretty good week to week on tv. Eddie Guerrero, Benoit, Rey, Angle, Savage, Bret, Jericho, Austin, Regal, Valentine, and a long etc, they're guys that were in our tvs being the best part of the show more often than not. Their case was *mostly* built like that. Most of those don't even have as much "five stars matches", whatever that is, as you might think. But, in retrospect, when you watch what they accomplished in their day, their CV speaks for itself for sheer volume alone. I feel this is the same that's happening at the moment with guys like Darby, Ospreay, GUNTHER or Místico, to name a few. It's the same. Being able to identify that process happening in front of your eyes, and not some time after, might be recency bias, but I also think it's kinda fair. Not in a "Reigns had a +1000 days reign so he's the best" kind of way, obviously, but it's no mystery why the great wrestlers of today receive the same praise and high votes as the great wrestlers of yesterday from some people.

[ethantyler]

48 minutes ago, brockobama said:

Gotten (needlessly) mad at some of these top ten votes we've seen already but I have to say, really do appreciate this Ultimo Dragon #1 voter for making an influence case as opposed to simply saying "he got booked to beat everybody!" or even "he do the wrestle good!" Closer to the original spirit of this thing than most people are getting.

Amen brother. 

The influence case he laid out was factually inaccurate though, which I would argue is worse than having an unpopular subjective opinion.

Lucharesu existed before Ultimo Dragon thanks to Gran Hamada, and was spreading its wings before Toryumon/DG thanks to the Great Sasuke & Michinoku Pro. Ultimo took it further, exporting the style to AEW doesn't happen without DG, but that's a different position to the one the voter adopted. His view involves deleting Hamada & Sasuke from history, and that's wrong.