GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[Tetsujin]

What if I told you Austin annoys me more than Foley being this high...

It's gonna be funny when Foleh drops and his blurb is something like "he never really said 'I quit' during that Rock match" or "the only wrestler to compete three times on the same Rumble!".

[Makai Club #1]

14 minutes ago, DR Ackermann said:

"• AJ Styles is the FIRST one to win The WWE World Title outside of North America

• ONLY ONE to win a singles Championship at a WWF House Show in the last 25 years

• THE ONLY ONE who held IWGP, WWE, NWA, TNA WORLD TITLES **2X EACH**

• The Inaugural ROH PURE Champion

AJ Styles is the *only* professional wrestler in the history of the business to have won the IWGP,WWE,NWA and TNA World Titles. He is the first* western wrestler to win the IWGP title Twice* and the only American wrestler to win it twice

He is the only wrestler of the 2010s who Main Evented The Tokyo Dome and Madison Square Garden while competing for the World Title"

Very important criteria for determining who was the best in-ring. 

Particularly why Vader should be first, as the actual holders of these accomplishments. 

[MasterJonBurr]

I had Mick Foley at 82, but it is wholly believable that someone could look at his career and vote him very high based on his matches and not factoring in his promos. Dude was a beloved and unbelievably influential in-ring performer. 
 

Lucha got ASSASSINATED this time. We have a new agenda for next time, marks. 

[TRMD]

On 5/27/2026 at 1:17 AM, Mantaur Rodeo Clown said:

It's generally because Cena is very clearly an autistic man who happened to discover steroids and pro wrestling. There is nothing genuine about him. Even on Total Divas, which showcased Moxley and Danielson having their own wacky personalities, he came off like an emotionless robot. This is a man who proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of a wrestling ring and delivered it with the same cadence as when he announced Osama Bin Laden had been killed. STEPHANIE NICOLE GARCIA-COLACE, I AM COMPROMISING YOUR SINGLE LIFE TO A PERMANENT END.

A blank, automaton meat puppet is exactly what Vince needed, mind you. He was still quite sore in 2004 after Brock had torn up his boipucci and, worried that another star was going to leave him, figured out the best course of action was to push Cena. A man with no creative sensibility, no internal monologue, no grand artistic vision for what wrestling could be, and who could be coached to stardom by agents like Pat Patterson mentoring him. The world's first NPC champion.

He helped transformed people from fans of pro wrestlers, to fans of pro wrestling companies. It became less about his performance as a wrestler, and more of a meta-commentary on what you thought of his booking as a wrestler. He was essentially a prop. An effective one, but a prop nonetheless. You put him in there against Brock and have him get slaughtered as an example of Brock killing the face of the company. You put him in there against the PWG roster and he represents WWE adapting to the new US indie style. You put him in there against CM Punk or RVD and he is a prop representing corporate WWE culture. His performances or character (such as there is one) are unimportant in these cases. He is just a fungible representation of whatever Vince McMahon wanted him to be. 

Suddenly, for Vince it didn't matter if a temperamental star "took his ball and went home" on you, because you'd designed a system to plug in another gormless, blank babyface and have fans pay money to watch them regardless (SUFFERIN SUCCOTASH, BELIEVE THAT.) Do you think Vince was actually upset that fans brought a IF CENA WINS WE RIOT sign to One Night Stand? Do you think that's air you're breathing?

When it comes to the crunch, his performances underdeliver. The less that can be said about him butchering his long-awaited heel turn the better. His faux-epic matches with AJ Styles were tired the moment they went to air. But it was his inability to make Wrestlemania 28 an all-time classic, with all the build, with all the hype, with the amount of work and money poured into making that match a success, speaks volumes about his deficiencies and abilities. He simply couldn't replicate what Hogan and The Rock managed to pull off 10 years earlier. For the 33rd greatest wrestler ever, that was the easiest lay-up there has ever been. And he missed. 

Signing in the first time in over a decade, or maybe exactly a decade, to tell you that I feel like you mashed your fist through my skull and pulled out every thought I’ve ever had about Cena. It simply boggles my mind how people with fantastic taste in wrestling not only think he’s very good, but top 20 or top 10 good.

[tcg91]

Let's be honest, we all like Foley's work to some extent and he's universally known as a very nice guy. That being said... apart from the excellent Shawn Michaels match from Mind Games, can anyone name 5 *great* Foley matches that didn't involve any special stipulation?

[El McKell]

I don't think Mick Foley is a top 20 wrestler all time, but it feels kind of unfair to try to hold it against him that all of his best matches have a bunch of plunder. He's the best ever at plunder heavy matches, that's worth something.

[MasterJonBurr]

Who gives a single shit about whether or not a good match has stipulations? 

[Tetsujin]

I would even say having a really good gimmick match (and I mean a REALLY good one) it's more difficult than having a standard really good singles match. You have to organically craft a lot of different and risky spots, give them some sense of progression, not wasting time on the set ups nor ruining the suspension of disbelief with obvious cooperation to get through said spots...

[MoS]

Evolution v. Rock n' Sock Connection was fantastic. Not all the Dude Love-Steve Austin matches had stipulations and all were great. Plus, as a worker, he stood out so tremendously in everything he was in. 

[Matt D]

I think it's a little endearing that Foley is probably here because he's on so many ballots. He was on my 2016 ballot, even if not particularly high. 

The thing with Foley is that he really, really got pro wrestling. He understood the imagination of fans in a way that only someone that is a fan himself could. I think he thought about things years before his time. He thought about "What's the one thing that could capture someone's imagination in this match?" in a way that people weren't really thinking, not in those terms at least. I think he was more "objective" driven than a lot of his peers who were great in other ways that were more based on anecdotal evidence and the legacy of doing things because they've always been done. If everyone around him did what worked, he thought about what might work.

Does that mean he's a top 20 wrestler of all time? No, but I do think he's very special in his own way. 

[DR Ackermann]

4 minutes ago, Matt D said:

If everyone around him did what worked, he thought about what might work.

You could describe Jericho similarly, but with a much, much, much lower hit rate. 

[Boss Rock]

Foley also gave some folks their career best matches. Nothing Orton has done since matches what he did with Mick at Backlash 2004. Could probably say the same about Edge at Mania 22.

[DR Ackermann]

Michaels vs Mankind at Mind Games was my favorite match for years. Probably still my favorite Shawn match. Pretty plunder free, although they do a little bit of stuff with a chair and a casket if I remember right.

[DR Ackermann]

I had Foley at 51 for what it's worth. But honestly a lot of the guys in my ballot could move around. It was what I was feeling at the time.

[TRMD]

Foley is one of the first guys to understand that actually hurting yourself looks just as good, if not better, than working. And even though his style was basically adopted and turned into the house style of promotions like ECW, even then, virtually none of them had it in them to go full Foley.

The feeling you get when you see and hear Foley’s 320 pound body thud against the floor is unmistakable. It almost takes your breath away with his. But he also had a tremendous mind and love for the business that made him so much more than just a guy who makes you feel his pain.

 

(I didn’t vote or make a ballot. But I think he’d be top 40ish for me.)

[Boss Rock]

38 minutes ago, DR Ackermann said:

Michaels vs Mankind at Mind Games was my favorite match for years. Probably still my favorite Shawn match. Pretty plunder free, although they do a little bit of stuff with a chair and a casket if I remember right.

One of my favorites and yes, proof you can have a violent match with even limited plunder.

[Jmare007]

I fell out of the process so early I even forgot about the dates, been binge reading the roll out the past few days and as always, it's always a fun read the reactions (good and bad). Salute to @Grimmas and all the work he put out. 

I remember people being happy and surprised when Foley made it to 38 in 2016 and now he's in the top 20! I think it's fascinating because he hasn't really had a push from WWE for newer or lapsed fans to revisit his career and I don't think there's been a ton of work from the IWC to revisit or put him in the spotlight (at least to garner this level of attention). So him being so high, meaning he's gotta have a huge % of ballots, kinda says is it all about his power to endure in people's minds as someone worth voting for. 

 

ps: I'ma Danielson stan and thought him being 5th last time was too high, him possibly being n°1 feels kinda nuts even though his AEW run was outstanding. I hope Funk wins the whole thing.

Also, I'm very interested in how much Flair "falls". What was the level of arguing/discussing his case this time around compared to 2016 (when people OD'd with it, tbf)? He's another guy I feel -admittedly, from the outside looking in- that discourse kinda evaporated. Probably as a mix of people drying the well after 2016 and him becoming the relative you don't really wanna talk about, in the past decade. 

[HowtobeaMark]

I had Mick at 30

What cemented him for me was his ability to help people get over or get them to the next level including The Rock, Triple H, Randy Orton and Edge and to helped some goody goody babyfaces like Shawn Michaels and Sting show a more edgy side which endured them more to the male adult audience. Also was instrumental in allowing The Undertaker to show a different side to himself away from the zombie-like character. 

[tcg91]

1 hour ago, MasterJonBurr said:

Who gives a single shit about whether or not a good match has stipulations? 

That's not the same thing, though. Nobody is disputing that a good match is still good if it has a stipulation. I was saying that Foley mostly only had great (not good, great) matches when a stipulation was involved.

[club]

Liger only being on 72% of ballots was an eye-opener. I assumed he'd be a near consensus pick.

[Death From Above]

Can I get a full list of people offended by AJ Styles and Mick Foley Number Too High Discourse who found it in their hearts to vote for Jerry "the pedophile" Lawler so I know exactly who to treat like shit when I see them on the internet forever? Thanks

[TRMD]

12 minutes ago, Death From Above said:

Can I get a full list of people offended by AJ Styles and Mick Foley Number Too High Discourse who found it in their hearts to vote for Jerry "the pedophile" Lawler so I know exactly who to treat like shit when I see them on the internet forever? Thanks

Was that what he was going by before King?

[SirSam]

I had Foley in my top ten. To what has already been said I'd add his skill as a wrestler is also evident in how he was used to level up a number of wrestlers as they were getting a big push or entering their career peaks. Guys like Rock, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Triple H (multiple times), Austin, Sting, Orton, Edge all got boosts to their career, some career defining boosts from their work with Mick.

Someone else talked about how he had objectives going into matches and I think that is clear in how much attention to detail he had in ring too.

I think how he made multiple characters work also shows his skill. Noted that he wrestled more or less the same as each character but the fact the audience was happy to go along for the ride with them shows how good he was.

[DMJ]

I had Foley at #17. I don't really care that he wasn't a technical wizard (though, its not like he couldn't throw a decent snap suplex in his day or have a good-looking working punch). I also think calling him just a "glorified stuntman" is ridiculous. Foley was very inventive and really knew how to make individual matches and performances stand out. I'm a huge Darby fan, for comparison, but as we saw at Double or Nothing, he does seem to go to the same bag of tricks (as amazing and fitting-to-the-character as that bag of tricks is) in many matches. With Foley, there's just ridiculous breadth of the "hardcore ouvre." Mind Games is different than King of the Ring 98' which is different than the brawls with the Nasty Boys which is different than Rumble 99' which were different than the matches that he had with Triple H in 97' which were different than the Sting matches and the Vader matches and the Austin matches in 98' and that Van Hammer match and the underrated New Age Outlaws match at SummerSlam 99'  (I think?)...its just a ridiculous resume. And, yes, he does have more than a few patented spots/bumps that he would do in a bunch of matches, but there was also usually something new thrown in there that you'd never seen before and, more importantly, had a thematic/symbolic element that made it iconic. Anyone around in 2000 or 2001 saw countless guys do "Foley spots" - Shane McMahon, Rikishi, I think Crowbar or maybe Vampiro did a bunch of goofy Foley-esque shit in WCW? - and none of them are remembered or talked-about the way Foley's are because Foley made them count in an emotional way. Even more recently, I think Seth Rollins went through a table off the side of the cell and nobody cared (and its not just because we'd seen it before, its because when Foley took those bumps, you felt them with him). 

I had AJ Styles at #6. He's the most influential wrestler in the US of the past 25 years. I can't speak on Japan or Mexico, but in the US, AJ became The Guy the way Shawn was considered The Guy for awhile and Flair before him. Athleticism, agility, clean look, Japanese-inspired striking, high work-rate, wide variety of moves and submissions and pinning combinations...that describes so, so, so many guys considered the best workers today (Omega, Ospreay, Swerve, Fletcher, Rollins) and AJ sorta put all of that together into one package and now that package is what we consider an "all-arounder," which is crazy because, a decade before him, an all-arounder would've been like Stunning Steve? Or Ted DiBiase?

[Tetsujin]

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.