GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[Matt D]

The New Four Pillars of Heaven: Danielson, Punk, Joe, Styles.

[Boss Rock]

20 minutes ago, Shrike02 said:

I would love to see this argument discussed in more detail. I would take the field versus this claim. 

I acknowledge that at the end of the day this is all subjective and I understand why folks might have something like Bret-Austin ahead of them. But these two have always been my favorite WWE matches because of how violent and physical they are without the need for excessive plunder or contrived spots. The first HIAC match is almost like a horror movie if the slasher was the hero and the teenager was the obnoxious villain. Shawn does a terrific job as the sniveling, cowardly heel who can only sporadically get the upper-hand on his much larger opponent and bumps and sells like crazy. The Mind Games match is also somewhat akin to a horror movie, only this time Shawn is the face impressively fighting for his life against a much larger opponent who is significantly more deranged and unhinged. Both matches have some pretty brutal and gruesome spots but everything feels like a natural development and escalation.

[El McKell]

Just now, Matt D said:

The New Four Pillars of Heaven: Danielson, Punk, Joe, Styles.

I think the original 4 pillars will have a better finish for their 2nd & 3rd ranked members than that group's #2 and #3 will.

[Boss Rock]

Taue finally has a different placement, but unfortunately it's lower. I'm not entirely surprised but I was also hopefully optimistic considering I saw a few ballots with him as the highest pillar (though in hindsight, this was a rather small sample). I had Taue at 7. While I also had him as the lowest ranked pillar, the narrative that there was a huge gap between him and the rest was always nonsense, though its prevalence may be a bit overstated. He was an essential part in every classic tag and trios match and his rivalry with Kawada was the fuel in a lot of the early 90's ones. I think his singles resume is just a smidgen thinner than the other pillars, but it's still incredible at the end of the day. A terrific big man even when he wasn't really all that big.

[Microstatistics]

#40

L.A. Park

He fell out of my list at the last second so I won't argue with this placement even if there are luchadors I prefer. Need to watch more of his 90s stuff.

#39

Jon Moxley

Realized I didn't actually talk about him during the process. Sure he has (had?) some goofy tendencies, with the faux badass stuff and blading over a slight breeze, but that's really losing the forest for the trees. Because since 2019 he has been on an absolute tear and is easily one of the best wrestlers of the decade. Creative, violent, versatile, fundamentally sound, and ambitious. My #31 and I'm glad he did so well.

#38

Jun Akiyama

Didn't really give him too much attention during the process when I put him at #19, though I like the recent DDT stuff. An unreal career in many ways where the guy was rarely less than good for 30 years and had some substantial peaks.

#37

Shawn Michaels

Glad he got a couple of #1s. He beat Santo at the last minute to take the #2 spot for me. The relatively high points per vote is telling. I've said more than enough about Shawn and his standing/perception I think.

#36

Antonio Inoki

My #30, though I'm wondering if I should have put him closer to #25. A deserved resurgence.

#35

Akira Taue

My #58. Great, super intelligent wrestler even if I don't think he comes close to Kobashi and Misawa and is beaten by Kawada on variety.

[Makai Club #1]

23 minutes ago, Matt D said:

The New Four Pillars of Heaven: Danielson, Punk, Joe, Styles.

You mean MJF, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara and Jack Perry? 

[Matt D]

Just now, Makai Club #1 said:

You mean MJF, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara and Jack Perry? 

I do not.

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2023/05/aew-five-fingers-of-death-522-528-part-2.html

[Boss Rock]

1 minute ago, Makai Club #1 said:

You mean MJF, Darby Allin, Sammy Guevara and Jack Perry? 

Thankfully Tony course-corrected on those last two.

[Resident Evil]

I'm hoping for the absolute best for Kobashi, Misawa and Kawada. I think Kobashi's too great and too charasmatic to be denied, it's just a matter of how familiar everybody is with him that were voting.
I'm cheering for Omega. Some of my top 10 favourites are already gone but I want to see him up really high.
Takeshita is somebody who is 10 years is going to be ranked a lot higher than he is in this poll even if he were to stop wrestling today.

[Matt D]

If nothing else, I am happy with my blurb.

[DR Ackermann]

Cena beat Bockwinkel by a single point. 

[DR Ackermann]

I've always been a fan, but how is Samoa Joe going this high?

[El McKell]

10 minutes ago, DR Ackermann said:

Cena beat Bockwinkel by a single point. 

If I had swapped Bockwinkel & Benoit on my list, Bock would've beat Cena. 

[Microstatistics]

#34

Nick Bockwinkel

Another guy who was always going to fall I suppose but not a bad showing. Had him at *only* #51 but do think he is exceptional, great at every facet of pro wrestling.

#33

John Cena

Ok, not as high as I feared. I don't mean to bag on Cena, who I don't even consider to be that bad (the Brock maulings are great) but don't think he belongs near this company.

[Boss Rock]

I had Cena at 81 and honestly, I still don't know if that's too high or not. As I mentioned yesterday, he's the one wrestler in a constant state of being both overrated and underrated. The "You can't wrestle" chants were always way too dismissive (though Cena is still pretty rough in 2005), but a lot of the reappraisals of him as an all-time great felt too generous and came off as an overcorrection. There's a lot of crap on his resume, and even if a good deal of it came down to booking and not always having the best company to work with, it's hard to overlook a lot of it. While I've not seen every single Orton match, the rivalry has largely done nothing for me. His matches with Batista and Edge were fun but never outstanding. I even find the Punk feud to be a bit overblown, as great as the matches were. And while his 2015 U.S. title run was a fun novelty, it was too reliant on finisher kickouts. I'll give his final year a pass.

But his 2007 was a genuinely remarkable year, not just for his classic with Umaga but for getting good to genuinely great matches out of a super green Lashley and the Great Khali of all people. He has all-timers with Bryan in 2013 and Brock in 2012. He has the occasional Raw gem like against Rey in 2011. His series with A.J. was excellent even if that also fell victim to too many finisher kickouts. While his offense and execution have always been sloppy, his babyface heart and fire are difficult to ignore. And for all the (sometimes warranted) critiques of "Super Cena", he is a genuinely strong seller for most of his matches.

At the end of the day, he was a flawed worker who had undeniable moments of greatness.

[Childs]

Fuck John Cena. The No. 1 voters who referred to him as the best ace ever and the best big-match worker in North American history need to watch more wrestling. 

[DR Ackermann]

I had Bock at 6 and Cena at like 83 right behind Pillman. Maybe that was too high. This is all my fault.

[HowtobeaMark]

My favourite part of Cena write-up

"He could talk"

Yeh really loud all through his matches 

[DMJ]

* Had Moxley at #41, but as I've written about countless times now over the past year, I have some very, very big blind spots in my wrestling knowledge (basically all of lucha, NJPW, FMW, post-95 joshi, WoS) so I totally get why people with broader tastes and knowledge wouldn't even consider him.

* Had Shawn at #9. Sometimes I feel like the Shawn backlash is contrarian-for-contrarian's sake. It's not quite at "The Beatles Actually Sucked" levels but I don't see how someone can watch Shawn and not see him as a top 20-25 guy. You can hate the melodrama, sure, but I just don't see how over-the-top bumping can be a knock against him and not countless other workers people tend to love. Not a perfect comparison, but sometimes the criticisms levied against him are more for what he inspired rather than what he himself did, similar to what people might say about Eddie Van Halen and how his guitar-playing inspired some of the most soulless, over-the-top "watch what I can do" guitar-playing of the 80s. 

* I had Cena at #33 too! I predict that if we do this again in 10 years, he'll end up somewhere closer to 50. I wrote about it elsewhere but his final run with the failed heel turn is a negative mark on his overall career. Hogan added to his case with the Hollywood stuff while Cena's heel work was needlessly "meta" and resulted in some loathsome matches. I think he thought he was doing something smart and almost post-modern and maybe I should give him more credit for his ambition but, at the end of the day, it flopped hard. 

[Boss Rock]

I don't want to disparage the folks who voted for Cena this time around because at the end of the day this is all subjective and he did genuinely do a lot of things well. But I recall I think Dylan Hales once arguing Cena was better than all four pillars and I remember being completely gobsmacked by that.

[El McKell]

26 minutes ago, Boss Rock said:

But I recall I think Dylan Hales once arguing Cena was better than all four pillars and I remember being completely gobsmacked by that.

iconic podcasting 

[WingedEagle]

40 minutes ago, Childs said:

Fuck John Cena. The No. 1 voters who referred to him as the best ace ever and the best big-match worker in North American history need to watch more wrestling. 

Nearly 35% of voters essentially started watching wrestling with John Cena. He's their Hogan and Flair without any of the drawbacks (yet). Its remarkable he didn't finish higher.

[WingedEagle]

Really amazing that Chigusa Nagayo, Bull Nakano and Io Shirai are getting their flowers here. A lot of voting makes no sense and some makes a lot of sense (often for good and bad reasons), but its cool to see some deserving names not get overlooked.

[Shrike02]

1 hour ago, DR Ackermann said:

I had Bock at 6 and Cena at like 83 right behind Pillman. Maybe that was too high. This is all my fault.

I had Bock at 4 and Cena didn't make my top 100. I'm fine with that.

[Boss Rock]

I voted Chigusa at 48 and Bull at 24. I feel pretty good about those and am thrilled they both finished so high. I really admire how Chigusa went from a plucky and (almost) unsinkable face in the 80's battling Dump to a bulked-up badass in the 90's. The '94 Ozaki match in particular is an all-time favorite. As for Bull, she seamlessly assumed the force of nature role previously held by Dump. Could work a faster-paced style to match someone like Inoue or could just beat the shit out of her opponents like Aja. Speaking of the Aja feud, so many fantastic and violent singles and tag matches. I recall Elliot once saying that Aja was still pretty green at this time and if true, that's an even bigger feather in Bull's cap. Shame she retired so soon.

Also, anyone who uses nunchaku in a match is objectively extremely cool.