2026 Greatest Wrestler Ever List

2026 Greatest Wrestler Ever List

Starting in 2006, every 10 years, a few hundred wrestling nerds cast ballots online to decide The Greatest Wrestler Ever. The process is run by mega-fans at the ProWrestlingOnly message board but is open to anyone with enough free time to rank the top 100 professional wrestlers of all time. 

Over the past 20 months, I've watched probably close to 200 hours to help inform my ballot on top of my usual diet of AEW pay-per-views, full-length TNA events on YouTube, and, up until fairly recently, WWE PLEs. Now that I'm done with this project, I'm excited to go on a lengthy break from wrestling.

The list below, the list I came up with, bothers me in places. There are rankings in it that frustrate me and wrestlers that I wish weren't on it. I too am shocked that Batista earned a spot and The Great Muta didn't or that somehow Seth Rollins outranks Sabu even though I'd rather watch a bad Sabu match than a good Seth Rollins match. But I went into this project with a system of self-imposed rules and criterion and I tried to stick to it in an effort to do more than just list my favorite wrestlers, which is not the point of the exercise (that list would look very different and undoubtedly include Mikey Whipwreck and Psicosis and Buddy Landell). 

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1. Terry Funk 

2. Steve Austin

I had Austin at #1 in 2016. 

3. Bryan Danielson

4. Ric Flair

5. Rey Mysterio Jr.

6. AJ Styles

AJ is the most influential wrestler of the past 25 years. 

7. Bret Hart

8. Eddie Guerrero

9. Shawn Michaels

10. Randy Savage

11. Brock Lesnar

12. CM Punk

13. Mitsuharu Misawa

One of my goals over the past two years was to watch the many hallowed classics of Japanese wrestling that I'd never seen before. I watched a fraction of them and almost all of it was 80s and 90s All Japan Pro-Wrestling (AJPW) and All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling (AJW), which is why you won't find any of the major Japanese stars from New Japan or NOAH or FMW on here. 

14. Bull Nakano

15. Toshiaki Kawada

16. Kenta Kobashi

17. Mick Foley

18. Ricky Steamboat

19. Chris Jericho

I've had little to no interest in seeing Chris Jericho talk or wrestle in a few years, but in the 90s and 00s, he was consistently good-to-great and, at multiple points in his career, the best act in whichever company he was in. 

20. Kevin Steen 

21. Sami Zayn

22. Samoa Joe
I wish I could ignore the years where Samoa Joe was booked so poorly in TNA that he looked completely checked out.

23. Kenny Omega

24. Christian

25. Akira Hokuto

26. Aja Kong

27. Kurt Angle

28. The Rock 

29. Cesaro (Claudio Castignoli)

30. Kyoko Inoue

She rules and I'm surprised I haven't seen her on more people's lists.

31. Sasha Banks (Mercedes Mone)

32. Arn Anderson

33. John Cena

Yes, I think Arn Anderson, Christian, and Cesaro are all better pro-wrestlers than John Cena. 

34. Shinya Hashimoto

"Discovering" Shinya Hashimoto two years ago was one of the best parts of this project.

35. Jushin Liger

36. Manami Toyota

37. Vader

Through this project, I learned post-WWE Vader is actually pretty good.

38. Asuka (Kana) 

39. William Regal

40. Owen Hart

41. Jon Moxley

42. GUNTHER

43. Dustin Rhodes 

44. Hulk Hogan

45. Roman Reigns

46. Bobby Eaton 

47. Curt Hennig

48. Chris Benoit 

49. Will Ospreay
Having Will Ospreay ranked above Roddy Piper will anger any "old school" wrestling fan reading this and probably ruin any credibility I have as a "smart" wrestling fan, but Ospreay is a fireworks show personified, the guy who took on the mantle from Omega (who took it from AJ who took it from Shawn who took it from...) in terms of pushing the athletic boundaries of pro-wrestling.

50. Roddy Piper

51. Tully Blanchard

52. Finn Balor (Prince Devitt)

53. Brian Pillman

54. La Parka (LA Park)

One of my goals for this project was to watch more lucha libre. It didn't happen, but I did see enough to recognize how great La Parka is.

55. Rick Rude

56. Barry Windham

57. Nick Bockwinkel

Before 2 years ago, I'd never seen a Nick Bockwinkel match. He's terrific.

58. Sting

59. Jeff Hardy

60. Yoshihiro Tajiri

61. Darby Allin

Darby Allin was tough to rank because he blew up my "system." His matches are always entertaining. He's great against a variety of opponents. He's good at hardcore brawls but can also straight-up wrestle. His offense is believable despite his size. He's got undeniable charisma, a cool look, and is a great underdog babyface. He's good in singles, tags, six-mans, even battle royals. He rules.

62. Stan Hansen

Having a "stunt man" like Darby Allin ranked higher than Stan Hansen would anger some people.

63. IYO SKY (Io Shirai)

64. Genichiro Tenryu

Prior to my extensive GWE viewing, I thought Tenryu was one of the dullest wrestlers ever because, growing up, I'd only really seen him at WrestleMania VII. I was way off.

65. Sean Waltman (Lightning Kid/1-2-3 Kid/Syxx)

66. Shane "Swerve" Strickland

67. Diamond Dallas Page

Underrated, incredibly creative performer who put more thought into 6-minute filler matches than others do for their 30-minute "epics."

68. Fit Finlay

69. "Hangman" Adam Page

70. Charlotte Flair

I have a soft spot for wrestlers whose matches can either be incredible or complete car crashes - like a Brock Lesnar or a Hashimoto - and Charlotte brings that same intensity and emotion to her matches.

71. Sheamus

72. Seth Rollins - 

I don't like Seth Rollins. I kinda think he sucks. But I've reviewed about 90 matches of his and the vast majority of good-to-great. I wish I could keep him off this list.

73. Triple H

A summary of my feelings about Triple H would be near-identical to what I wrote about Seth Rollins. 

74. Rhea Ripley

75. The Undertaker

76. Akira Taue 

The lowest ranking of the Four Pillars of AJPW, but also the Pillar I've watched the least of.

77. Yoshinari Ogawa

Terrific wrestler that is very easy to appreciate even if you're new to Japanese wrestling, which I was when I started my GWE viewing. 

78. Jumbo Tsuruta

79. Cody Rhodes

80. Randy Orton

81. Edge (Adam Copeland)

82. Matt Hardy

83. Drew McIntyre

84. Konosuke Takeshita

One of my favorite wrestlers to watch over the past 3-4 years.

85. Becky Lynch

86. Rob Van Dam

No 90s kid could leave RVD off their list, though his work after 2006-or-so is rough.

87. Ricochet

88. Luke Harper (Brodie Lee) 

89. Bayley

 
90. Batista

91. Dean Malenko

Yes, I have Dave Batista ranked higher than Dean Malenko and it makes me shake my head too.

92. Jeff Jarrett

93. Ted DiBiase

94. Lex Luger

95. Dolph Ziggler

96. Zack Sabre Jr. 

97. Davey Boy Smith

98. Scott Hall (Razor Ramon)

99. Alex Shelley

100. Sabu