GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[TRMD]

17 minutes ago, Jetlag said:

 

The problem is, how do you quantify someones charisma? How is Austin  more charismatic than, say, Choshu, or Hashimoto, or Kandori, or Dusty Rhodes, or Dusty Rhodes, or Hacksaw Jim Duggan, or Chigusa Nagayo, or Inoki..? Yes, Misawa is the more stoic type, but I think the stoicness can be quite charismatic too, as evidenced by him regularily bringing Japanese audiences to a boil while hardly showing any emotion. Also, this list was supposed to center around in-ring work, and while charisma does factor in it shouldn't be the major deciding point.

I’m talking about charisma from the time the wrestler walks out of the curtain until the moment he walks back into it.

as far as how you quantify charisma, it’s just intrinsic. The word was invented and humans know what it is and who has it and who doesn’t.

Take the glass of charisma out of my analogy. Replace it with a swimming pool or a pond. Bret and Misawa are very charismatic. They’re pro wrestlers at the absolute highest level and both extraordinarily good at it. Misawa and Bret’s stoicism are both forms of charisma.

Austin just has a lot more.

[Tetsujin]

2 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

Austin gotta be the highest "peak candidate" to ever place in GWE, right? I'm reading the 06' and 16' polls top 10s and I think Bret in 06' at #8 was the prior highest.

Though Misawa has always felt like a "peak" wrestler as well, I'm not sure a 8-12 years isn't considered as longevity, lol. 

Considering Austin's peak is in reality two separated one-year peaks (1997 and 2001)... Yeah, by a wiiiiide margin.

[MoS]

At the outset, I must say that while Austin is my favourite wrestler ever and I became a fan because of him, Hansen is my 2nd favourite, and I ranked Austin 10 and Hansen 4, and with the careers they had, no way should Hansen be below Austin, although I feel Austin could have surpassed him if his neck and knees did not allow him to do a mix of brawling and a lot of holds at his babyface peak. 

But Austin was an all-time great worker at not just projecting his gimmick in his matches, he also developed an ability at his peak to raise the drama and the stakes of his matches through his work in the ring. It isn't just the middle fingers and the trash talking, it's the way he sells, the way he holds matches, no matter how terribly booked and short, together through his selling and his underrated, how to put it, his kinetic energy into the service of his matches (Hansen was better at the latter, but Austin's selling was better imo), the way he is always scratching and clawing at his opponent while also selling the accumulated damage. His sense of timing was absolutely GOAT-level, and he had (has?) a mind for wrestling every bit as good as Foley or Bret had. The Attitude Era was shit for wrestling, but Austin still had great matches with Dude Love, Rock, some very good TV matches with Shamrock, making Road Dogg bearable, having some of the best matches of Hunter's career even though a bunch of them were terribly overbooked. No matter the match though, he would feel like a transcendental all -time great in all of them. I also think his First Blood match with Undertaker in 1999 is great, and his Raw match with Kane where he regained his title a day after losing it is better than it has any right to be.

Unlike Rock, Austin protected his spot a lot more, so he didn't often give a lot to his opponents on TV, but he was one of the absolute best at both garnering sympathy for himself and showing babyface fire, even though his punches were never great - but late in his career, fit his gimmick perfectly - and his stomps got terrible as his knees went to shit. It's his ability to be tremendous at transitions, connective tissues, his selling and babyface fire and comeback that got him to rise above his injuries and booking and yes, sometimes his mechanics to be not just a top draw, but a folk hero in an era where everyone turned all the time. His comeback in 2000 was botched obscenely, first with Rikishi and then - incredible how inevitable this feels when discussing WWF/E booking of the last 30 years - with Hunter, but he still had some tremendous performances. He has a match with Benoit in 2000 that is very good, and a fun Eddie squash. His work in the 6-man HITC in December stood out to me the most when I rewatched it. His babyface work in the 2001 Royal Rumble is again all-time, and in hindsight should have been the first and ideally the last and persuasive warning for Vince McMahon to not turn him heel against The Rock. 

As a heel, he was tremendous. The way he worked as Stunning Steve Austin is different from how he worked Bret, and the way he worked Bret in Survivor Series 1996, and the way he worked Bret in Survivor Series 1996 is different from his work in Canadian Stampede, all of which are completely different from his all-time heel work against Angle and Benoit in 2001. Now of course the heel turn in 2001 did not work and yes, it sounds very LinkedIn-esque "My biggest weakness is that I care too much and take too much ownership" to say that the only reason his heel turn did not work was because fans loved him too much (being booked to play 2nd fiddle both to Vince and - again!! - Hunter did not help), but it really does feel true in his case. His actual work was tremendous, both in tags and in singles, with fantastic matches with Benoit and some of the best matches in WWF history with Angle, and some great great stuff with RVD too. He basically became permanently out of shape in 2002, but he still had some really fun stuff with Flair, although the booking was shit, and then he signed off the first time with arguably the best match in his WM trilogy with Rock in 2003, and then 19 years later, uplifted his match with Owens to a tremendous degree with his projection of his gimmick (or "aura" as the kids would say) in his match with Owens in a match that had no right to be as good as it was, and I believe it was better than both the Rock-Roman tag and Roman-Cody rematch 2 years later. Everything he did was awesome because he was awesome, he could take you for a ride in his matches in a way almost no one could, although Hansen did do it better for longer and again, with the careers they had, Hansen should be higher. 

Austin > Bret though and I agree with the rankings in that regard. I had Bret at 44. Bret was tremendous, and his greatest strength was how good he executed both his offence and how he bumped, and how "correctly" he sold. He truly was the Excellence of Execution. It's funny that we now (correctly) praise him for his ability to make everything logical and believable, when Bret's original appeal was that he was an uber-workrate guy with a lot of moves. By itself, "making everything look logical" would never have been enough for Meltzer to put his name for the inaugural hall of fame. If you follow @Loss's invaluable playlists, you would know that Meltzer in the 80s would get letters from readers talking about how 10 years before, the wrestlers did not do as many moves as Bret Hart does, but they made everyone believe and heightened the drama in their matches in a way Bret did not do, and at that time they were absolutely right, because the Hart Foundation are not particularly great in my opinion.

He became so much better and kept improving in fact till 1997, his peak year ever in the ring imo, but he could never heighten the drama in his matches by his own work the way Austin could; he needed an opponent or a stage to truly bring that out of him. Austin was someone you could put in the main event with the idea that you could ultimately book him to have a stadium match with the right opponent; Bret was someone you could choose to safely put in a major spot/main event of a booked stadium match or against a really hot guy needing a hot main event program, knowing that he would rise to the occasion. Bret was mechanically much better than Austin, far better punches and kicks, could sell more "correctly" and was better at long-term selling in the match, but he was not as good at keeping the crowd both sympathetic while also thinking he is a complete badass and losing their shit for his offence. I re-watched some of his major face performances - Perfect Summerslam 1991, Shawn Survivor Series 1992, Razor Rumble 1993, and while the Perfect match was a great, great match and the other two were good-very good, I never felt he truly reached all-time heights in any of them as a babyface In contrast, the Summerslam match with Davey felt much better than I was expecting going in, partly because Bret is great shit-talking the Brits while beating up Davey. I have to say that his work in Canada in 1997 is an exception in that regard. His 1997 work is definitely all-time. 

Bret's platonic ideal is Misawa whom I had at 15, and it is a bit silly that Misawa ranked below Bret, just like how it is silly that Hansen ranked below Austin. I know most people voted for Kobashi above Misawa, but Misawa was my highest ranked pillar (my highest ranked Japanese man was Jumbo at 5, and it is sad he fell, he was better at many different styles), and part of it is because of how good he was at, first, conveying his story/narrative first during his arc to unseat Jumbo, and then being the ace who kept taking on a bunch of challengers a bunch of times and keeping them at bay until finally passing the torch to Kobashi in 2003. Many have said it, but he truly is the best ace ever. Misawa was the best at conveying accumulated damage and long-term selling, he was the best at pacing his matches, he was the best at having his matches with the same opponent escalate and convey an overarching narrative. Kobashi was more flamboyant and perhaps jumped at the screen more, and it was funny to read Meltz's obituary of Misawa where he said "Kobashi was more popular and Kawada was a better wrestler but Misawa was always the top guy simply because Baba said so" as if even All-Japan fans would let someone be at the top for so many years (until all of them got stale tbh) just because Baba told them to. Misawa's connection with the fans was unshakeable and the most special, because he could be tremendous at both making challengers look great and also imposing his own authority on them at the end. Bret was tremendous at the former, not so much at the latter. It would also be wrong to say Misawa did not have charisma; he had a shit-ton of charisma, just a different kind, much like Bruno. Kobashi's work of escalation in his matches and subsequent evolution of his work as he progressed up the card was not as good at Misawa's imo. 

Having said that, we are talking about all-time greats here, so ultimately this is all nit-picking. 

[MoS]

2 hours ago, Boss Rock said:

Hansen was number 4 for me. The exact ordering of him, Bryan, and Tenryu was subject to much deliberation. Ultimately, I believe his peaks surpass the latter two’s. I actually had him number 1 about a decade ago when I first started doing a deeper dive on wrestling but Kawada, Kobashi, and Misawa gradually overtook him. Still, he was the greatest brawler and greatest heel ever. There have been a lot of dastardly heels in wrestling, but no one could play a rotten, no good bastard like Hansen could. His ability to create chaos was untouchable and nearly every match of his is a glorious spectacle of violence. Easily one of the greatest sellers as well because he always knew exactly when and how much to sell. Whether it made more sense for him to walk through a weaker opponent’s offense like it was an annoying mosquito or whether to cower and mewl like a wounded animal, still one dangerous Lariat away from stealing a win. There was also no wasted motion in his game. Whether an opponent was down or he was the one on the mat, he was still able to throw an errant kick to create the sense he was in a real-life fight.

Heeeeeeeeeewwwww!!!!

Perfect description of why Hansen is one of the GOATs. The sense of chaos he brings is perhaps unmatched.

[TRMD]

7 minutes ago, MoS said:

At the outset, I must say that while Austin is my favourite wrestler ever and I became a fan because of him, Hansen is my 2nd favourite, and I ranked Austin 10 and Hansen 4, and with the careers they had, no way should Hansen be below Austin, although I feel Austin could have surpassed him if his neck and knees did not allow him to do a mix of brawling and a lot of holds at his babyface peak. 

But Austin was an all-time great worker at not just projecting his gimmick in his matches, he also developed an ability at his peak to raise the drama and the stakes of his matches through his work in the ring. It isn't just the middle fingers and the trash talking, it's the way he sells, the way he holds matches, no matter how terribly booked and short, together through his selling and his underrated, how to put it, his kinetic energy into the service of his matches (Hansen was better at the latter, but Austin's selling was better imo), the way he is always scratching and clawing at his opponent while also selling the accumulated damage The Attitude Era was shit for wrestling, but Austin still had great matches with Dude Love, Rock, some very good TV matches with Shamrock, making Road Dogg bearable, having some of the best matches of Hunter's career even though a bunch of them were terribly overbooked. No matter the match though, he would feel like a transcendental all -time great in all of them. I also think his First Blood match with Undertaker in 199 is great, and his Raw match with Kane where he regained his title a day after losing it is better than it has any right to be.

Unlike Rock, Austin protected his spot a lot more, so he didn't often give a lot to his opponents on TV, but he was one of the absolute best at both garnering sympathy for himself and showing babyface fire, even though his punches were never great - but late in his career, fit his gimmick perfectly - and his stomps got terrible as his knees went to shit. It's his ability to be tremendous at transitions, connective tissues, his selling and babyface fire and comeback that got him to rise above his injuries and booking and yes, sometimes his mechanics to be not just a top draw, but a folk hero in an era where everyone turned all the time. His comeback in 2000 was botched obscenely, first with Rikishi and then - incredible how inevitable this feels when discussing WWF/E booking of the last 30 years - with Hunter, but he still had some tremendous performances. He has a match with Benoit in 2000 that is very good, and a fun Eddie squash. His work in the 6-man HITC in December stood out to me the most when I rewatched it. His babyface work in the 2001 Royal Rumble is again all-time, and in hindsight should have been the first and ideally the last and persuasive warning for Vince McMahon to not turn him heel against The Rock. 

As a heel, he was tremendous. The way he worked as Stunning Steve Austin is different from how he worked Bret, and the way he worked Bret in Survivor Series 1996, and the way he worked Bret in Survivor Series 1996 is different from his work in Canadian Stampede, all of which are completely different from his all-time heel work against Angle and Benoit in 2001. Now of course the heel turn in 2001 did not work and yes, it sounds very LinkedIn-esque "My biggest weakness is that I care too much and take too much ownership" to say that the only reason his heel turn did not work was because fans loved him too much (being booked to play 2nd fiddle both to Vince and - again!! - Hunter did not help), but it really does feel true in his case. His actual work was tremendous, and he basically became permanently out of shape in 2002, but he signed off the first time with arguably the best match in his WM trilogy with Rock, and then uplifted his match with Owens to a tremendous degree with his projection of his gimmick (or "aura" as the kids would say) in his match with Owens 19 years later in a match that had no right to be as good as it was, and I believe it was better than both the Rock-Roman tag and Roman-Cody 2 matches 2 years later. Everything he did was awesome because he was awesome, he could take you for a ride in his matches in a way almost no one could, although Hansen did do it better for longer and again, with the careers they had, Hansen should be higher. 

Austin > Bret though and I agree with the rankings in that regard. I had Bret at 44. Bret was tremendous, and his greatest strength was how good he executed both his offence and how he bumped, and how "correctly" he sold. He truly was the Excellence of Execution. It's funny that we now (correctly) praise him for his ability to make everything logical and believable, when Bret's original appeal was that he was an uber-workrate guy with a lot of moves. By itself, "making everything look logical" would never have been enough for Meltzer to put his name for the inaugural hall of fame. If you follow @Loss's invaluable playlists, you would know that Meltzer in the 80s would get letters from readers talking about how 10 years before, the wrestlers did not do as many moves as Bret Hart does, but they made everyone believe and heightened the drama in their matches in a way Bret did not do, and at that time they were absolutely right, because the Hart Foundation are not particularly great in my opinion. He became so much better and kept improving in fact till 1997, his peak year even in the ring imo, but he could never heighten the drama in his matches by his own work the way Austin could; he needed an opponent or a stage to truly bring that out of him. Austin was someone you could put in the main event with the idea that you could ultimately book him to have a stadium match with the right opponent; Bret was someone you could choose to safely put in a major spot/main event of a booked stadium match or against a really hot guy needing a hot main event program, knowing that he would rise to the occasion. Bret was mechanically much better than Austin, could sell more correctly and was better at long-term selling in the match, but he was not as good at keeping the crowd both sympathetic while also thinking he is a complete badass and losing their shit for his offence. I re-watched some of his major face performances - Perfect Summerslam 1991, Shawn Survivor Series 1992, Razor Rumble 1993, and while the Perfect match was a great, great match and the other two were good-very good, I never felt he truly reached all-time heights in any of them as a babyface In contrast, the Summerslam match with Davey felt much better than I was expecting going in, partly because Bret is great shit-talking the Brits while beating up Davey. I have to say that his work in Canada in 1997 is an exception in that regard. His 1997 work is definitely all-time. 

Bret's platonic ideal is Misawa, and it is a bit silly that Misawa ranked below Bret, just like how it is silly that Hansen ranked below Austin. I know most people voted for Kobashi above Misawa, but Misawa was my highest ranked pillar (my highest ranked Japanese man was Jumbo, and it is sad he fell, he was better at many different styles), and part of it is because of how good he was at, first, conveying his story/narrative first during his arc to unseat Jumbo, and then being the ace who kept taking on a bunch of challengers a bunch of times and keeping them at bay until finally passing the torch to Kobashi in 2003. Many have said it, but he truly is the best ace ever. Misawa was the best at conveying accumulated damage and long-term selling, he was the best at pacing his matches, he was the best at having his matches with the same opponent escalate and convey an overarching narrative. Kobashi was more flamboyant and perhaps jumped at the screen more, and it was funny to read Meltz's obituary of Misawa where he said "Kobashi was more popular and Kawada was a better wrestler but Misawa was always the top guy simply because Baba said so" as if even All-Japan fans would let someone be at the top for so many years (until all of them got stale tbh) just because Baba told them to. Misawa's connection with the fans was unshakeable and the most special, because he could be tremendous at both making challengers look great and also imposing his own authority on them at the end. Bret was tremendous at the former, not so much at the latter. It would also be wrong to say Misawa did not have charisma; he had a shit-ton of charisma, just a different kind, much like Bruno. Kobashi's work of escalation in his matches and subsequent evolution of his work as he progressed up the card was not as good at Misawa's imo. 

Having said that, we are talking about all-time greats here, so ultimately this is all nit-picking. 

Fired me right the fuck up, brother.

[TRMD]

17 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

Considering Austin's peak is in reality two separated one-year peaks (1997 and 2001)... Yeah, by a wiiiiide margin.

That’s if you’re only able to judge someone’s peak simply on match quality. I would considered Austin’s peak the 5 years where he’s the single most over wrestler the business has ever seen and not skip 3 years in the middle of that because his promotion turned every match into an angle.

the match can be overbooked or short or only serve the purpose of progressing a storyline. That doesn’t change the fact that the dude the match was built around was incredible.

[MoS]

2 hours ago, Childs said:

Hansen dropped from No. 1 to No. 4 for me, but that's no reflection on him. I just felt compelled to bump Tenryu and Fujiwara up while recognizing that Danielson was the one who kept me attached to the game over the last decade. But no one has ever expressed his character through his work better than the Bad Man from Borger Texas. He made you reckon with him, and those who met his fury produced some of the most stirring wrestling in history. 

I also value longevity a lot - I ranked Danielson number 1 - but I make an exception if I think someone's short peak is truly transcendental. I ranked Akira Hokuto number 3 (had Casas at number 2) because, while she has some great pre- and post-prime work, her run from 1991-96 is the highest, most transcendental peak run I have seen from a wrestler. 

Danielson for me is a case of having a transcendental peak once, a tremendous 2nd peak, and of course, his longevity with good-really really great stuff throughout. 

[MoS]

Also @Matt D Bock got retrospectively declared the winner over Cena so you have to do a full kayfabe narration of their match 

[Matt D]

42 minutes ago, MoS said:

Also @Matt D Bock got retrospectively declared the winner over Cena so you have to do a full kayfabe narration of their match 

It’d be AWA Super Sunday 83. I can’t outdo history.

[MoS]

This one is a more satisfying finish though, surely!

[WingedEagle]

2026 -- Attitude Era GWE. Never saw that coming. That pie chart of when voters started watching remains the most instructive, even if imperfect, ballot that we've seen.

[ohtani's jacket]

Live from Jim Ross' home:

 

[WingedEagle]

When do we find out Jim Ross cast 50 ballots? Is Bill Watts sneaking in at #4?

[Makai Club #1]

Pre-10

The likes of Kawada and Tanahashi missing out is a surprise to me. I would've thought enough people would've had then number 1 to make the top 10. But I like the surprise at least and it has lead to a few interesting wrestlers within the top 10. 

10. Mitsuharu Misawa

At his best, Misawa is the greatest ever. Super subtle but capable of going big. Excellent at building holds, just as much as Kawada is and has got some of the best big moves to ever grace the squared circle. But some low-key performances in critical moments and the overall underwelming Tiger Mask run hurts him for me. I don't know if that was considered with all voters though. Misawa was my #3

9. Bret Hart

I think yes, if you truly compare Bret to, let's say,  Misawa, Bret comes up short in every way. His match resume is little leauges in comparison. But Bret to me is the embodiment of American wrestling, especially classic American wrestling, where having MOTYCs wasn't on the agenda. It was about having the right match on the right occasion and Bret always did that. Bret whether he wrestled 5 minutes on Superstars or on a PPV. Had him #12

8. Rey Mysterio

I can't think of anyone who, week in, week out, was as good as Rey for near on 3 decades. With injuries, WCW booking and age all playing apart with it.  Crazy work from Rey. He was my #21

7. Stan Hansen

The King of the best performance rather than the best match. Who else is a better version of themselves as Stan Hansen. He is a holdover from the era where all you could sell is yourself and he did that perfectly. My #10

[Jetlag]

Oh no, Misawa fell off to be only #10. Tell it to the likes of Virus or Jim Breaks.