GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[Robert S]

I would have bet A LOT of money that Liger would rank top 15 at the worst, most likely top 10.

[Makai Club #1]

We should agree not to mention wrestlers we don't want to drop next. It's a curse

[Matt D]

Low Ki is a tragic story. This could have been him. 

[DR Ackermann]

Top 25, who all is left after Liger?

[Boss Rock]

I expected Liger to fall from the top 10, but falling outside the top 20 stings a bit. I know some were speculating he would drop even farther given the lack of recent interest in the 90's NJPW junior style, but Liger always struck me as a fairly universal wrestler. Almost everyone who's a fan of wrestling has some kind of exposure to him. I had him at 9. A guy who was really, really good for a really, really long time up until the last year of his career. An excellent high flier in his early days but successfully adjusted his style after brain surgery while still being capable of the occasional high spot. Great offensive wrestler his whole run who could be a fiery babyface or a total dickhead heel. Incredibly expressive for a guy who wore a full bodysuit and whose face you could almost never see. Some wrestlers have higher peaks but few can match him on volume.

[Matt D]

14 minutes ago, DR Ackermann said:

Top 25, who all is left after Liger?

I was just trying to do this in my head. Someone else can come in and finish it.

Three Pillars:

1. Kobashi
2. Kawada
3. Misawa

Four Indie pillars
4. Bryan
5. Joe
6. Styles
7. Punk

NWA Champs
8. Funk
9. Flair
10. Steamboat

Joshi
11. Hokuto
12. Aja

NJPW
13. Tanahashi 

Rey and Eddy
14. Rey
15. Eddy

Lucha
16. Hijo del Santo

17. Bret

People on my list I forgot about.
18. Tenryu
19. Hansen
20. Jumbo
21. Savage
22. Austin
23. Vader

And one other person?

EDIT: It's Foley! Wow.
 

[ohheylook]

@Grimmas is there someone in the top 24 that didnt receive a #1 vote? or did i miss the annotation of "highest without a #1 vote"?

[Tetsujin]

2 minutes ago, Matt D said:

I was just trying to do this in my head. Someone else can come in and finish it.

Three Pillars:

1. Kobashi
2. Kawada
3. Misawa

Four Indie pillars
4. Bryan
5. Joe
6. Styles
7. Punk

NWA Champs
8. Funk
9. Flair
10. Steamboat

Joshi
11. Hokuto
12. Aja

NJPW
13. Tanahashi 

Rey and Eddy
13. Rey
14. Eddy

Lucha
15. Hijo del Santo

16. Bret

People on my list I forgot about.
17. Tenryu
18. Hansen
19. Jumbo
20. Savage
21. Austin
22. Vader

And two other people?
 

Foley and......

[Grimmas]

Just now, ohheylook said:

@Grimmas is there someone in the top 24 that didnt receive a #1 vote? or did i miss the annotation of "highest without a #1 vote"?

two of them. #15 and #20.

[Matt D]

2 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

Foley and......

I misnumbered. Better I go nuts over this than someone else.

Just Foley. Maybe multiple Foley faces?

[Tetsujin]

4 minutes ago, Matt D said:

I misnumbered. Better I go nuts over this than someone else.

Just Foley. Maybe multiple Foley faces?

I was indeed going crazy trying to remember people and even reading Grimmas when he put the top 50 some pages ago. I was even scared some mistake was made and Low Ki was indeed #100.

[Matt D]

3 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

I was indeed going crazy trying to remember people and even reading Grimmas when he put the top 50 some pages ago. I was even scared some mistake was made and Low Ki was indeed #100.

Sorry. We are all now Cactus Jack.

[Tetsujin]

As for Liger, shocking fall, holy shit. I know juniors have not performed quite well, but he always seemed on a different level. I guess he retired too soon after 2016, because if he could have gone strong after the pandemic ended in Japan, I'm sure the recency bias would have let to more people acknowledging the awesome career he has, just like Tanahashi's retirement earlier this year is doing for him.

[El McKell]

21 minutes ago, Grimmas said:

two of them. #15 and #20.

I'm guessing Vader & Eddie Guerrero

[MasterJonBurr]

Draconian New Japan clip sharing policies nuked Liger, who I am not that high on but is absolutely a clippable monster. 

[Microstatistics]

#30

Negro Casas

Neat, Santo takes the top luchador place. Casas fell out of favor for a little while there for me, especially relative to Santo and Satanico, but a late surge ensured at #40 placement. His versatility and longevity are well documented. Glad he is still Top 30.

#29

Kenny Omega

I was wondering when he would drop and am happy with this showing. Easily one of the most polarizing guys as is evident but personally think he is one of the more brilliant big match wrestlers in history. Had him at #14.

#28

Jerry "The King" Lawler

My #43. Of course I'm not as high on him as his biggest fans are but can recognize it takes something special to pull off that stuff vs. Andy Kaufman (particularly the first match) and the quasi-shoot vs. Snowman.

#27

Kazuchika Okada

Similar to Moxley, another guy I barely talked about. He ended up as my highest native modern NJPW talent at #21, beating even Naito. Honestly, don't even really know what to say about him except that for a 10+ year stretch from the early 2010s onwards, you can count on one hand wrestlers who were better than him globally.

#26

Shinya Hashimoto

My #37. Not as high on him as I used to be a couple of years ago but he was a wonderful wrestler nonetheless. 1996 and onwards is where his career really clicked for me.

#25

Jushin "Thunder" Liger

Ah, another guy who just had to fall. Put him at #9 in the end but was actually considering putting him outside the Top 10 for a second (something unthinkable ten years ago) so myself am lower on him. But the two Sano matches and the Samurai match are an ungodly peak and perhaps the bulk of his case for me, though he had great stuff across the 90s and early 2000s and good stuff for like 35 years.

#24

Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat

My #27 so very close. One of the more universal wrestlers for sure based on the > 75% ballot appearance. 

#23

CM Punk

Finally. This finish makes me almost regret ranking him (#80) at all.

[MasterJonBurr]

CM Punk ahead of Ricky Steamboat has me needing to go lie down awhile. 

[WingedEagle]

Glad to see Punk ahead of Cena. I was really surprised how poorly the latter's work held up when rewatching things since 2016. Both should be behind Okada, Omega and Ishii, but that's a story for another day. Hopefully there's justice for Tanahashi.

Aja Kong has never connected with me at the level she fares in these parts, but I've got no objection to it. Clearly great and someone who's delivered at a ridiculous level for a ridiculously long time. I've just always preferred, Bull, Ozaki, Hokuto and Shirai.

Similarly, I'll always rate Satanico & Casas higher than Santo, but I get it. No complaints there. 

On the other hand, I will never understand the Eddy & Rey love. Those 2 and Savage are a few of my biggest disconnects from these rankings. Just rarely workers that stood out as elite, even on their best nights.

The Danielson/Tanahashi 1-2 dream lives on!

[DR Ackermann]

Punk's AEW run cemented his status for me. His influence on FTR made them much better workers after working with him. I loved all those tags and multi man's during that time. I had him at 92, probably could have/should have had him higher but I didn't do a major deep dive on his earlier career to see if it held up, which I remember being pretty spotty to me when it occurred. Mechanically he's only a few notches better than Cena, but he really is a smart and thoughtful worker. The back of my list is a mess and I should have ranked him over Cena. Had both guys over Danielson, which is sacrilege to almost everyone, I know, but Peak Punk clicked with me much more than Peak Danielson who often felt like he was doing a parody of whatever style he was trying to emulate. You could say that about Punk too at times, especially with the faux mma stuff. From a psychology/storytelling standpoint his supposed Bret Hart Tribute Act was superior to Bret Hart in practice.

[Boss Rock]

Voted Steamboat 56th. I don't think he's a huge volume worker, but his peaks are well-documented and deserved in their praise. His clean-cut family man image was the perfect foil to Savage, Flair, Tully, and Rude. And there was still an intangible "coolness" about him. Just a top-tier babyface.

Punk was 94 on my ballot and was also one of the final additions. For the longest time, I always thought he was overrated and I think he still is to a certain extent. His offense, execution, and transitions can be sloppy and genuinely pretty bad. There is an inherent charm to it, yes, but there are times it comes off as a guy failing to understand what he’s not physically capable of. If you fall on your ass once trying to do a Buckshot Lariat, maybe don’t try it again (he did try it a second time and again almost fell on his ass). I also understand his appeal in his promos hyping up and getting the audience to care about the matches, but sometimes I feel like that’s weighed a bit too heavily when considering the actual match quality itself. And while the Joe and Cena series are very good, I was never blown away by them either.

What ultimately earned Punk a spot on the list was not just his AEW run where he had some of the best matches of his career against MJF and Kingston, but his ROH run. Going through his catalog, I was amazed by how much of a massive prick he was to Raven and how much of a fiery babyface he was against Jimmy Rave (his character work seems to be fueled by the fact that he is by all accounts a genuinely good guy with the capacity to be the biggest dick in the world). That kind of versatility really impressed me. It also helps that a lot of his deeper cuts during his first WWE run have held up quite well, particularly the matches with Rey. And while I think his current WWE run has been largely a disappointment, he’s proven he can still occasionally deliver the goods. In retrospect, I should’ve had him higher than Cena.

[Grimmas]

When people were revealing their lists, I said "If Hokuto is top 25, it's a good list. Therefore, by my criteria, the 2026 GWE list is a good list.

[Boss Rock]

1 minute ago, Grimmas said:

When people were revealing their lists, I said "If Hokuto is top 25, it's a good list. Therefore, by my criteria, the 2026 GWE list is a good list.

Hear hear!

[tcg91]

1 hour ago, MasterJonBurr said:

CM Punk ahead of Ricky Steamboat has me needing to go lie down awhile. 

Me too. I mean, Punk himself would chuckle at that lol.

[DR Ackermann]

45 minutes ago, Boss Rock said:

Punk was 94 on my ballot and was also one of the final additions. For the longest time, I always thought he was overrated and I think he still is to a certain extent. His offense, execution, and transitions can be sloppy and genuinely pretty bad. There is an inherent charm to it, yes, but there are times it comes off as a guy failing to understand what he’s not physically capable of. If you fall on your ass once trying to do a Buckshot Lariat, maybe don’t try it again (he did try it a second time and again almost fell on his ass). I also understand his appeal in his promos hyping up and getting the audience to care about the matches, but sometimes I feel like that’s weighed a bit too heavily when considering the actual match quality itself. And while the Joe and Cena series are very good, I was never blown away by them either.

What ultimately earned Punk a spot on the list was not just his AEW run where he had some of the best matches of his career against MJF and Kingston, but his ROH run. Going through his catalog, I was amazed by how much of a massive prick he was to Raven and how much of a fiery babyface he was against Jimmy Rave (his character work seems to be fueled by the fact that he is by all accounts a genuinely good guy with the capacity to be the biggest dick in the world). That kind of versatility really impressed me. It also helps that a lot of his deeper cuts during his first WWE run have held up quite well, particularly the matches with Rey. And while I think his current WWE run has been largely a disappointment, he’s proven he can still occasionally deliver the goods. In retrospect, I should’ve had him higher than Cena.

We've disagreed on a lot of wrestlers but we seem totally in sync here.

[MasterJonBurr]

Lucha has been assassinated.