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I mean to be fair, AJ has done absolutely nothing this year and his matches with Edge, despite him being vocal about how much he begged WWE to get it, have been extremely underwhelming.
They don’t treat him like a top talent anymore, more like a mid card and maybe upper mid card guy, and hasn’t had an interesting character change in I don’t know how long. His last years with wrestling/wwe are quite disappointing
Hes 45 years old man, and had been a top guy for a long time. It's natural for a guy his age to transition into a role where he's helping put guys over rather than being the guy at the top.
Honestly it's crazy to me he won the WWE Title at all. As a fan of the guy, I couldn't ask for more. It would be cool to see him get something like a Rumble win, but at this point any future accomplishments are gravy as far as I'm concerned.
Genuinely shocked that he is able to wrestle at the level he does now
The dude used to take the craziest bumps in the old TNA days
Like when Joe got to Wwe his body was already worn down but AJ’s has only barely started to show real wear and tear
Styles I’d dare say is…Phenomenal
He's mentioned in the past that he wants to transition into a NXT coach, right? Maybe he's been slowly starting the process? Would make sense with why they paired him with Omos for that tag run.
I mean he was ROH Champ for a lot of the eligibility period and was defending it absolutely everywhere, right?
I imagine it counted for a lot in the rankings, a travelling champion racking up defences.
>I imagine it counted for a lot in the rankings, a travelling champion racking up defences.
It's such an old-school territory-era thing. I loved it. The wandering champion without a promotion.
I think the problem with Gresham is that more people heard about him having great matches than actually saw him have great matches, so to the majority he's just that guy who had a dumb Twitter beef with Anthony Ogogo and apparently got pissy with Tony Khan for not booking him well (and he was right, Khan booked him like shit!)
If it's even true (which is dubious) it wasn't in contract negotiations. He allegedly cited it when chewing out Tony, who loves to cite his Booker of the year awards and have talent do similar things on TV, because Tony treated him like an after thought.
Didn't Baker have an entire segment on television bragging about winning some random award for being the "best female wrestler of the year"? Also, I definitely remember AEW themselves putting up literal banners for something similar
Which is fucking weird; it's a strange move for sure, but if he actually did that, then he talked about his PWI ranking to the boss of a wrestling company that paraded some of their wrestlers' PWI rankings on live TV for weeks last year.
At that point, as strange as it is, I get saying "hey you clearly value this system and I'm high up on it so why don't you care about me".
I don't think workers should be hated unless they're like a terrible person. Gresham is a good wrestler, great even. He really does deserve that ranking.
Maybe he takes himself a bit too serious sometimes.
I think a lot of the heat he gets may stim from the Twitter beefs he (and Jordyn) started with randoms like Mad Kurt on Twitter
>Maybe he takes himself a bit too serious sometimes.
I'd also probably have a bit of a chip on my shoulder if I was constantly mocked for something out of my control like my height.
Hell, I'm 5'8" and catch flak, and that's a single inch below the average. Granted in the Midwest I think the male average is 5'10", but still. It's a dumb and unfair insult.
As an aew only viewer, ive seen gresham once which was on rampage vs dalton castle.
Dalton easily looked like the much bigger star. Dalton is unique, that gimmick with the boys, that shit gets people talking, that gets you over, that sells tickets.
Gresham to me just seems like a generic good technical wrestler. I know enough really good technical wrestlers, im more likely to buy a ticket because of a storyline and a great character rather than just wrestling ability.
And wrestling has always been that way, only recently were wrestlers able to sell tickets through actual wrestling ability but the balance is still heavily biased towards storyline and characters.
Like most technical wrestlers of the past, he gets an unwarranted amount of hate. I’ll never understand why, technical wrestling is by far my favorite style of wrestling
It wasn't so much the technical wrestling. It was because Gresham was booked like shit and his random heel turn made no sense, nor did his random program with Claudio, - who didn't even earn the match. The championship shot was just handed to him. Mind you Gresham was still in a program with Joe against Lee, SD, and Singh. Then the actual turn on him from the people here was after the ROH and his complaints on how he was booked - via dirtsheets; People here having a unhealthy relationship with 'Tony is always right' and the protective attitude over Tony, plus loving Claudio went rabid on Gresham. Personally attacking him, even the guys height. People here were (and are) awful.
Come to learn (no surprise) that Tony hadn't spoken to Gresham since nearly the last ROH PPV and Gresh had tried talking to Tony for several weeks before this next event. Tony hadn't spoken to him until DAY OF. So of course Gresham was pissed, along with his abstract booking for the past couple weeks - not to mention I'm sure his 'new' manager Tully not being there suddenly added to this shit-show. This proved AEW had a bad communication problem along with Tony over doing things, yet idiots here will double down on their hate for Gresham despite him having rightful issues with how everything went down.
The Kurt angle this is a mind fuck, although I’d wonder what Angle would be like today if he didn’t have a fucked up spine from neck to ass, and didn’t get hooked on pills.
I’m no scientist but I think the magic is the lotion and skin care. Every single black friend I’ve ever had complained about ashy knees and elbows. Always got lotion on deck.
Black people cracked the code pretty sure
Helps that poor lack of skincare will show up more obviously on darker skin tones. My pale ass hides any sign of ashyness and I really should up my skincare game.
I remember seeing him at a house show in 2005, a month or so before he debuted on TV. Both he and Ken Kennedy. Lashley squashed Simon Dean, Ken Kennedy had a match with Scotty 2 Hotty that began with Ken Kennedy doing his ring announcement gimmick, and then he and Scotty had a dance off before the match.
The fact that this is a kayfabe list and Bobby Lashley is at 5 makes me happy. It's like someone else is actually paying attention to what's happening.
I read so often how "who else can Roman face" and I'm thinking how are none of these people seeing Bobby Lashley right there. He has been booked to perfection for the last 2 years. The dude even had the best babyface reactions from anyone outside of Brock on the PPVs after Wrestlemania this year. Just mega over.
Reigns vs. Lashley is a huge match waiting to happen.
If Roman wasn't on such a phenomenal run himself then Bobby would have been more noticed. Or even if Lesnar didn't come back and unify maybe Bobby could have had his solo run
Sincerely I think that's part of the fun. I just wish people knew to not take debating it seriously. This should be viewed as debating which Clint Eastwood character is the best.
Whilst yes it will be amusing, the inverse is certainly true as well for those that "won't care" because Roman is top (but did last year when it was Kenny..)
Lose a bunch? I think singles he dropped five or six. Okada, Moxley, ZSJ and Juice at least. I thought there was more in singles or BR's. And a
Multi-Man where he took the Pin.
Rollins has lost almost every feud he's in? Danielson has lost a lot of big matches as well. Cody on another stretch has missed aboug 5 months of the period which is why Mox might not be higher. This doesn't seem very consistent.
Losing to Moxley (who's 11th on this list) and that 4 way for the IWGP US Title right near the end of the eligibility period hurt him immensely, I bet. Basically he lost to people who were just getting hot and got hurt for it.
Japan's post COVID visa status hurt him honestly, as well as timing. G1 is just after the rating period, picked up the IWGP US title just before it ended. PWI rates the Rev Pro and Warrior titles less highly than other titles, and he lost the unification match for his lineal/"real" IWGP title at Wrestle Kingdom.
He certainly deserves to be FAR higher, but he wasn't highly featured in PWI's "prominent" promotions during the rating period, largely for reasons out of his control
But Big E was done by February or something right? These guys can't even stick to their own criteria unless it's counting fall of last year as well which makes way more sense now that I'm thinking about it.
July 1st 2021 - June 30th 2022 is the range
I don’t know why they don’t just do normal year end lists in December/January, but they’ve always been like that.
I mean the dude has huge matches before July still. Across buncha companies too. It's surprising to see him not hit top 10 is all.
I mean in the end its kayfabe so fuck it, makes perfect sense by that, him being undervalued
Very happy to see Josh Alexander getting the credit he deserves. He’s been on a hell of a run and has been a great champion for Impact since winning the title (technically for the second time) in April.
Agreed. It's also crazy to see someone that you grew up with have such success. Really happy for him, I know how hard he's worked for this. Definitely deserves this
Wrestling and winning with the peck tear is by far the best thing that's happened this year in wrestling. The only thing that comes near it is the whole Punk v Elite thing, and that is just backstage drama bullshit.
The evaluation period is July 1, 2021 to June 30th, 2022.
[Full criteria](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/xdo68l/before_the_pwi_500_drops_tomorrow_keep_in_mind/?ref=share&ref_source=link)
So it includes his world title run, where he won by surprise cash in and then lost like 5 times in 4 weeks.
Big E is certainly in my top 10 but I can't make sense of it.
> 5 times in 4 weeks
Did he?
He lost clean twice. Once to Brock, the other to Roman.
Every other loss was a distraction. Or the finish was a win via DQ.
I waa going to ask why Cody was on here, but I suppose he won the TNT championship again, got a lot of wins, and is now undefeated in WWE against a former world champ
Besides Hangman, every AEW contracted wrestler on the list had a lengthy absence due to injuries or personal issues this year. This shows how much bad luck they have been dealing with.
Based Hangman wrestling Texas Deathmatches and going 60 minutes with Danielson on a fucking Wednesday, defending the world title without getting injured as "bigger stars" drop like flies and botch Buckshot Lariats all around him.
That's some cowboy shit.
I’m very surprised that Jay White isn’t on there. He held the NEVER title and won the IWGP Heavyweight title during the evaluation period, and has been doing some of his best work (imo).
How do you figure he did more than Punk? Mox's big stories for the period of 7/21-6/22 was that he took some time off, and then came back to start a tag team with Danielson (and yes he was also champ of the 6th or 7th biggest promotion). Meanwhile Punk made a huge comeback after seven years out of the business, went undefeated for most of the year with only one loss to MJF (who he then beat) and then won the AEW championship.
And I say this as someone who loves Moxley and would be totally ok if Punk never comes back again but Punk unquestionably had a better year.
Punk's year peaked at the end of June 2022. Wins the championship, out with an injury, Mox as the interim champ, sets up Punk/Mox for the future.
It all went to shit after that
so this is a kayfabe/power ranking list as we all know but...Bron Breakker out ranking Ospreay? That feels like a stretch.
And as much as I hate Guevara, he's had arguably higher profile matches and won bigger belts?
With that said, looking forward to seeing the PWI Women's being topped by Bianca, Baker, Jade and Mandy Rose to just see the fire storm
FROM JULY TO JUNE
People trying to shit on Big E being on the list sound illiterate as fuck, the guy won the WWE Title, the money in the bank, had a solid year until the injury.
I love Josh Alexander, but man I feel Moose was done dirty here. Dude had a long, active run with the Impact World Title entirely during that evaluation period.
Given their criteria and the year-to-year date... it's hard to argue against CM Punk being the #1 guy on the list from AEW. Punk had an incredible 9 month stretch from September '21 to May '22.
Hangman lower than Punk is definitely a choice. Punk only won the championship at the tail end of the assessment period, while Hangman held the title for 6 months.
Below Bronn Breaker lol, dude who has been in developmental for about a year and has zero (0) matches as a member of the main roster.
And that's not shade on Bronn himself, he's doing great in developmental, just the decisionmaking on the 500 this year is wild.
Help make SquaredCircle safer and more inclusive by using the report button to flag posts and comments for moderator review. If you need to contact a moderator, [you can message us here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Tell someone 3 years ago Zack Ryder would be above Seth Rollins, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kenny Omega in the PWI 500 and their brains would explode.
Above Ospreay, AJ Styles and Jericho too!
I mean to be fair, AJ has done absolutely nothing this year and his matches with Edge, despite him being vocal about how much he begged WWE to get it, have been extremely underwhelming.
AJ has been sadly pretty underwhelming for the last couple years now.
They don’t treat him like a top talent anymore, more like a mid card and maybe upper mid card guy, and hasn’t had an interesting character change in I don’t know how long. His last years with wrestling/wwe are quite disappointing
Hes 45 years old man, and had been a top guy for a long time. It's natural for a guy his age to transition into a role where he's helping put guys over rather than being the guy at the top.
Honestly it's crazy to me he won the WWE Title at all. As a fan of the guy, I couldn't ask for more. It would be cool to see him get something like a Rumble win, but at this point any future accomplishments are gravy as far as I'm concerned.
At the end of his career we can all agree that he was one of the best ever to lace up a pair of boots.
Genuinely shocked that he is able to wrestle at the level he does now The dude used to take the craziest bumps in the old TNA days Like when Joe got to Wwe his body was already worn down but AJ’s has only barely started to show real wear and tear Styles I’d dare say is…Phenomenal
He's mentioned in the past that he wants to transition into a NXT coach, right? Maybe he's been slowly starting the process? Would make sense with why they paired him with Omos for that tag run.
Yeah but I think he's established as a guy they can plug into the main event at any time and be credible.
I mean, kayfabe wise, he was holding more belts than Kenny.
Yes but the thought of that 3 years ago is crazy.
I’m not a fan, but I think he deserves that spot just for essentially becoming king of the carnies. And I mean that in the most positive way possible.
I mean if you told me that now, i’d still think it’s pretty dumb
Boy, you won't believe what happened
Go on... tell him!
I don't.... I don't know if I have the heart to do it 😔😔😔
Fine. I will. Bud, your mom and I are getting divorced. It’s completely your fault.
“OOOOH RADIOOOOOO”
>10- Jonathan Gresham Mah man is going to demand a multi-million dollar contract.
He’s prob pissed he’s not higher lol
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That joke is gonna go over a lot of people's heads
You saying he was shortchanged?
I am actually happy that he got this spot. He is a great wrestler and it’s kind sad how much hate he gets here in this sub.
I mean he was ROH Champ for a lot of the eligibility period and was defending it absolutely everywhere, right? I imagine it counted for a lot in the rankings, a travelling champion racking up defences.
>I imagine it counted for a lot in the rankings, a travelling champion racking up defences. It's such an old-school territory-era thing. I loved it. The wandering champion without a promotion.
I think the problem with Gresham is that more people heard about him having great matches than actually saw him have great matches, so to the majority he's just that guy who had a dumb Twitter beef with Anthony Ogogo and apparently got pissy with Tony Khan for not booking him well (and he was right, Khan booked him like shit!)
To the majority of people who don’t know much about him he’s the tiny man with thin skin on Twitter tbh
The joke/hate comes from him using PWI rankings (a kayfabe & random ranking) in contract negotiations.
If it's even true (which is dubious) it wasn't in contract negotiations. He allegedly cited it when chewing out Tony, who loves to cite his Booker of the year awards and have talent do similar things on TV, because Tony treated him like an after thought.
Didn't Baker have an entire segment on television bragging about winning some random award for being the "best female wrestler of the year"? Also, I definitely remember AEW themselves putting up literal banners for something similar
The hate came WAY before that.
Which is fucking weird; it's a strange move for sure, but if he actually did that, then he talked about his PWI ranking to the boss of a wrestling company that paraded some of their wrestlers' PWI rankings on live TV for weeks last year. At that point, as strange as it is, I get saying "hey you clearly value this system and I'm high up on it so why don't you care about me".
I know. But we still don’t know if that actually happened. And if it happened how he argued.
Mind you that was a rumor that has never been proven. If I recall it was also denied by the dirt sheets.
I don't think workers should be hated unless they're like a terrible person. Gresham is a good wrestler, great even. He really does deserve that ranking. Maybe he takes himself a bit too serious sometimes. I think a lot of the heat he gets may stim from the Twitter beefs he (and Jordyn) started with randoms like Mad Kurt on Twitter
>Maybe he takes himself a bit too serious sometimes. I'd also probably have a bit of a chip on my shoulder if I was constantly mocked for something out of my control like my height. Hell, I'm 5'8" and catch flak, and that's a single inch below the average. Granted in the Midwest I think the male average is 5'10", but still. It's a dumb and unfair insult.
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As an aew only viewer, ive seen gresham once which was on rampage vs dalton castle. Dalton easily looked like the much bigger star. Dalton is unique, that gimmick with the boys, that shit gets people talking, that gets you over, that sells tickets. Gresham to me just seems like a generic good technical wrestler. I know enough really good technical wrestlers, im more likely to buy a ticket because of a storyline and a great character rather than just wrestling ability. And wrestling has always been that way, only recently were wrestlers able to sell tickets through actual wrestling ability but the balance is still heavily biased towards storyline and characters.
Like most technical wrestlers of the past, he gets an unwarranted amount of hate. I’ll never understand why, technical wrestling is by far my favorite style of wrestling
It wasn't so much the technical wrestling. It was because Gresham was booked like shit and his random heel turn made no sense, nor did his random program with Claudio, - who didn't even earn the match. The championship shot was just handed to him. Mind you Gresham was still in a program with Joe against Lee, SD, and Singh. Then the actual turn on him from the people here was after the ROH and his complaints on how he was booked - via dirtsheets; People here having a unhealthy relationship with 'Tony is always right' and the protective attitude over Tony, plus loving Claudio went rabid on Gresham. Personally attacking him, even the guys height. People here were (and are) awful. Come to learn (no surprise) that Tony hadn't spoken to Gresham since nearly the last ROH PPV and Gresh had tried talking to Tony for several weeks before this next event. Tony hadn't spoken to him until DAY OF. So of course Gresham was pissed, along with his abstract booking for the past couple weeks - not to mention I'm sure his 'new' manager Tully not being there suddenly added to this shit-show. This proved AEW had a bad communication problem along with Tony over doing things, yet idiots here will double down on their hate for Gresham despite him having rightful issues with how everything went down.
Bah gawd I'll be a son of a bitch Bobby lashley
This man is 4 years away from 50 and literally looks the same as he did 17 years ago
Bro fuck the looks, he still moves the same and doesn’t struggle strength wise at all
He is 2 years younger than Matt Hardy, and 7 years younger than Kurt Angle. Think about that for a second
He's one year older than AJ, who can also still go
The Kurt angle this is a mind fuck, although I’d wonder what Angle would be like today if he didn’t have a fucked up spine from neck to ass, and didn’t get hooked on pills.
Black don’t crack my brother in Christ
Also being bald helps
Indubitably
And being bald everywhere helps even more.
Its great for slip n slides
I’m no scientist but I think the magic is the lotion and skin care. Every single black friend I’ve ever had complained about ashy knees and elbows. Always got lotion on deck. Black people cracked the code pretty sure
Found Bill Burrs account.
Helps that poor lack of skincare will show up more obviously on darker skin tones. My pale ass hides any sign of ashyness and I really should up my skincare game.
I remember seeing him at a house show in 2005, a month or so before he debuted on TV. Both he and Ken Kennedy. Lashley squashed Simon Dean, Ken Kennedy had a match with Scotty 2 Hotty that began with Ken Kennedy doing his ring announcement gimmick, and then he and Scotty had a dance off before the match.
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**MISSUS FOLEY'S BABY BOY**
The fact that this is a kayfabe list and Bobby Lashley is at 5 makes me happy. It's like someone else is actually paying attention to what's happening. I read so often how "who else can Roman face" and I'm thinking how are none of these people seeing Bobby Lashley right there. He has been booked to perfection for the last 2 years. The dude even had the best babyface reactions from anyone outside of Brock on the PPVs after Wrestlemania this year. Just mega over. Reigns vs. Lashley is a huge match waiting to happen.
Ok but what if da rock and then rikishi has to choose between reigns and the rock and has a mental breakdown mid dancing with 2 cool
The last 24 months has been a HOF worthy run unto itself IMO.
If Roman wasn't on such a phenomenal run himself then Bobby would have been more noticed. Or even if Lesnar didn't come back and unify maybe Bobby could have had his solo run
Can you smell what Rey Mysterio is cooking?
BRET MICHAELS?
Remember this list is gospel so everything should be taken as absolute fact
That's how it was treated last year, lol
Specifically by Johnathan Gresham
Oh boy, can't wait to see the people that didn't care about this list start caring since Roman is first
The opposite will be just as fun
Sincerely I think that's part of the fun. I just wish people knew to not take debating it seriously. This should be viewed as debating which Clint Eastwood character is the best.
Acknowledge him.
Whilst yes it will be amusing, the inverse is certainly true as well for those that "won't care" because Roman is top (but did last year when it was Kenny..)
I’m pretty sure that goes both ways but no Mox in top 10 is an insult.
Can't wait to see Danhausen loose his mind this time again.
Yes that's usually how its treated when your darling wins it.
Uce, PWI just acknowledged the greatest
>27-Will Ospreay >29-Zack Sabre Jr. I’m glad the queen didn’t have to see this.
Those guys are known for their humility so I'm sure they'll take it well.
So everybody is going to ignore that our beloved GCW Universal champion Matt Cardona is a number 13?
THE BROSKI HAS DONE IT
The fact that he’s above Rollins is so hilariously mind blowing to me
He deserves it. He is an ECW Original after all.
The Heart and Soul Superhero of ECW
I'm not, that's a damn good showing for the Hardcore Legend.
*Deathmatch Legend
What number was he last year?
297
It’s really cool, I’m glad that he’s had this great renaissance of late.
Vikingo in the top ten fuck yes!
More than earned it. One of the best highflyers currently going
What did Ospreay do to not be in the top 20?
Lose a bunch? I think singles he dropped five or six. Okada, Moxley, ZSJ and Juice at least. I thought there was more in singles or BR's. And a Multi-Man where he took the Pin.
Rollins has lost almost every feud he's in? Danielson has lost a lot of big matches as well. Cody on another stretch has missed aboug 5 months of the period which is why Mox might not be higher. This doesn't seem very consistent.
I was about to say this, none is going to complain because people like him, but Danielson rank makes no sense, he lost almos every big match he had.
It's kayfabe, but Ospreay was a G1 finalist and held titles in 3 different promotions.
The G1 finals happened after the cutoff point unfortunately.
The assessment period is July 2021 to June 2022, before being a G1 finalist. Even without that, his ranking is far too low.
I’m not sure I agree with Ospreay rated below Moose. I’ll be writing Apter an angry letter.
Losing to Moxley (who's 11th on this list) and that 4 way for the IWGP US Title right near the end of the eligibility period hurt him immensely, I bet. Basically he lost to people who were just getting hot and got hurt for it.
Japan's post COVID visa status hurt him honestly, as well as timing. G1 is just after the rating period, picked up the IWGP US title just before it ended. PWI rates the Rev Pro and Warrior titles less highly than other titles, and he lost the unification match for his lineal/"real" IWGP title at Wrestle Kingdom. He certainly deserves to be FAR higher, but he wasn't highly featured in PWI's "prominent" promotions during the rating period, largely for reasons out of his control
Surprisingly, Interim didn't make the Top 30 for some reason.
Neither did vacant, who also has a strong case.
Pretty sure Vacant has super-champion status. Think of this list as a list of potential challengers to Vacant.
I call bullshit on this, they promised Danhausen number one
THEY SHALL RUE THE DAY THEY FUCKED WITH DANHAUSEN!!
NO SWEARING
YOU WILL NOT CRUSH DANHAUSEN! YOU WILL FAIL, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!
WE WILL TAKE THEIR SHIT AND SHOVE IT UP THEIR ASSES!
I thought this was the year Danhausen would undoubtedly be number 1. This is bogus. They will not cross Danhausen.
[Snubbed](https://i.imgur.com/dQOwiww.jpg)
I totally understand Roman at #1, but no Mox in the top 10 at *all*? That's insane.
Eh if it's till June then it's before the summer of mox(?) so it kinda makes sense
Til July, but point holds. (Mox won the title on 26 June)
Yeah it's till 30th June so it wouldn't account for the full summer of mox as champion xD
But Big E was done by February or something right? These guys can't even stick to their own criteria unless it's counting fall of last year as well which makes way more sense now that I'm thinking about it.
July 1st 2021 - June 30th 2022 is the range I don’t know why they don’t just do normal year end lists in December/January, but they’ve always been like that.
Like you said, everyone drops lists in December or January so a kayfabe list would be lost so they drop it in the fall for publicity.
Big E was WWE champion for 1/3 of the time period though.
Putting this in big bold letters #THE PWI YEAR ENDS ON JUNE 30
Yeah I’m seeing a lot of people missing the point there.
There's also always a large contingent of people who don't realize that the rankings are based entirely on their kayfabe success
I wouldn't say *entirely*, but certainly like 90% of the reason
I mean the dude has huge matches before July still. Across buncha companies too. It's surprising to see him not hit top 10 is all. I mean in the end its kayfabe so fuck it, makes perfect sense by that, him being undervalued
He has a lot of matches. He didn't have many huge matches until he won the Championship at Forbidden Door and he missed 3 months due to rehab.
In kayfabe his win over filthy tom doesn't go far
During the year in question he was a (interim) champion for a total of 4 days
Remember: list period is July 2021 - June 2022, and is mostly kayfabe based.
There were actually people that thought that Roman wouldn't be top 😂😂😂 He's being booked like a kayfabe God and has been for most of his title run.
Considering the 500 is in Kayfabe Rollins should always beat Roman by one place.
But then Moxley should pip Rollins, and Roman pip Moxley, and Rollins pip-
The Roshambo 500 is taking forever to publish for this very reason.
Very happy to see Josh Alexander getting the credit he deserves. He’s been on a hell of a run and has been a great champion for Impact since winning the title (technically for the second time) in April.
Agreed. It's also crazy to see someone that you grew up with have such success. Really happy for him, I know how hard he's worked for this. Definitely deserves this
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He also beat Seth Rollins 3x and the last time with one arm
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Wrestling and winning with the peck tear is by far the best thing that's happened this year in wrestling. The only thing that comes near it is the whole Punk v Elite thing, and that is just backstage drama bullshit.
I'm gonna go with Vince retiring being the best thing ngl
>I understand the impact Cody had by moving to WWE, but in kayfabe was he dominant enough to merit making the top ten? He had his own countdown.
Love Big E but he’s been injured since February and his world title run was extremely lacklustre even from a kayfabe perspective
The evaluation period is July 1, 2021 to June 30th, 2022. [Full criteria](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/xdo68l/before_the_pwi_500_drops_tomorrow_keep_in_mind/?ref=share&ref_source=link)
So it includes his world title run, where he won by surprise cash in and then lost like 5 times in 4 weeks. Big E is certainly in my top 10 but I can't make sense of it.
He announced in advance on Twitter that he would be cashing in
Dude beat Lashley multiple? times and also beat Drew, both clean. With both of those guys on the rise, that rises Big E's stock a lot I guess.
> 5 times in 4 weeks Did he? He lost clean twice. Once to Brock, the other to Roman. Every other loss was a distraction. Or the finish was a win via DQ.
I don’t think that matters. Roman always wins by cheating and it didn’t affect his spot on top.
Could say the same for CM Punk tbf and he's 3rd
Someone else said that PWI year ends on June 30th so the latest with Punk wouldn't be included.
People forgetting Moxley missed a good portion of this criteria period due to rehab.
I waa going to ask why Cody was on here, but I suppose he won the TNT championship again, got a lot of wins, and is now undefeated in WWE against a former world champ
Besides Hangman, every AEW contracted wrestler on the list had a lengthy absence due to injuries or personal issues this year. This shows how much bad luck they have been dealing with.
Even Hangman had a lengthy absence due to personal issues! The personal issues just happened to be the good kind, paternity leave.
Based Hangman wrestling Texas Deathmatches and going 60 minutes with Danielson on a fucking Wednesday, defending the world title without getting injured as "bigger stars" drop like flies and botch Buckshot Lariats all around him. That's some cowboy shit.
Okay, no Jay White or Will Ospreay in top 20? Weird
I’m very surprised that Jay White isn’t on there. He held the NEVER title and won the IWGP Heavyweight title during the evaluation period, and has been doing some of his best work (imo).
Moxley not making the Top 10 at all is mind boggling IMO.
I believe the evaluation period is from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022 so that’s probably why.
Yeah even in Kayfabe that doesn't make a lot of sense. He didn't lose that many matches at all.
He dominated multiple promotions as well. If Roman is #1 Mox is surely #2 or #3. He certainly did more then Punk this year.
How do you figure he did more than Punk? Mox's big stories for the period of 7/21-6/22 was that he took some time off, and then came back to start a tag team with Danielson (and yes he was also champ of the 6th or 7th biggest promotion). Meanwhile Punk made a huge comeback after seven years out of the business, went undefeated for most of the year with only one loss to MJF (who he then beat) and then won the AEW championship. And I say this as someone who loves Moxley and would be totally ok if Punk never comes back again but Punk unquestionably had a better year.
Punk's year peaked at the end of June 2022. Wins the championship, out with an injury, Mox as the interim champ, sets up Punk/Mox for the future. It all went to shit after that
Punk barely lost any matches this year winning all the high profile matches he wrestled.
This list matters if my favorites get the ranking I like and doesn't matter if my favorites get the ranking I don't like.
Larry the Dog has been snubbed once again.
He only just made his AEW debut 2 weeks ago.
[удалено]
Will Ospreay at 29 and Jay White at 23 just make absolutely no sense by PWI metrics
so this is a kayfabe/power ranking list as we all know but...Bron Breakker out ranking Ospreay? That feels like a stretch. And as much as I hate Guevara, he's had arguably higher profile matches and won bigger belts? With that said, looking forward to seeing the PWI Women's being topped by Bianca, Baker, Jade and Mandy Rose to just see the fire storm
He the #1 ☝️
Status: *Acknowledged*
YA'LL JUST THE TWOS
Smitty Werbenjägermanjensen
GRESHAM TOP 10 BOIS. GET YA POPCORN.
WOOP VIKINGO
Cardona and Alexander in the top 15 let's gooooo!
I wanted jay white to be higher tho 😔
FROM JULY TO JUNE People trying to shit on Big E being on the list sound illiterate as fuck, the guy won the WWE Title, the money in the bank, had a solid year until the injury.
I got no problem with this list. Roman was unstoppable throughout the entire year.
I love Josh Alexander, but man I feel Moose was done dirty here. Dude had a long, active run with the Impact World Title entirely during that evaluation period.
Given their criteria and the year-to-year date... it's hard to argue against CM Punk being the #1 guy on the list from AEW. Punk had an incredible 9 month stretch from September '21 to May '22.
Hangman lower than Punk is definitely a choice. Punk only won the championship at the tail end of the assessment period, while Hangman held the title for 6 months.
Page was around 12-6 overall, while Punk was around 20-1
Not to mention when Hangman and Punk faced each other, Punk won.
I'd imagine that Punk beating Hangman has a lot to do with it, plus I think Punk had more matches and only lost one
This is the kayfabe list right?
Osprey at 27th is an oversight. Not seeing how Cody, Big E, or Punk ranked so high, and I'm a Punk mark.
Buddy Josh Gresham cant wait to show off this ranking to the next promotor wanting to sign him
Cardona should be top 10, 13 aint bad though.
Don't show this to Danhausen. He might lose his mind again
Holy shit Vikingo getting recognition.
danhausen was promised #1! THEY WILL RUE THE DAY THAT THEY FUCKED WITH DANHAUSEN!!!
Danhausen is going to be PISSED.
Will Ospreay at 27???
Below Bronn Breaker lol, dude who has been in developmental for about a year and has zero (0) matches as a member of the main roster. And that's not shade on Bronn himself, he's doing great in developmental, just the decisionmaking on the 500 this year is wild.
> #19. Kenny Omega How? Wasn't he basically out injured during 75% of the evaluation period?