Roman Reigns tops this year’s PWI 500

Social media has been buzzing today with the release of the 26th annual PWI 500 list. This year, the folks over at PWI released a list of who they thought were the best professional wrestlers between July 1st, 2015 and June 30th, 2016. Roman Reigns earned the top spot on the list for the first time in his career; Reigns entered in at number four on the list last year behind Seth Rollins (1), John Cena (2), and AJ Styles (3).

Here’s this year’s top 50 of 500 from the folks over at PWI (you can find the full list in alphabetical form here):

1. Roman Reigns
2. Kazuchika Okada
3. Finn Balor
4. AJ Styles
5. Jay Lethal
6. Kevin Owens
7. Shinsuke Nakamura
8. Seth Rollins
9. Dean Ambrose
10. John Cena
10. Drew Galloway (tie)
12. Tetsuya Naito
13. Roderick Strong
14. Samoa Joe
15. Ricochet
16. Will Ospreay
17. Sheamus
18. Michael Elgin
19. Brock Lesnar
20. EC3
20. Chris Jericho (tie)
22. The Miz
23. Kenny Omega
24. Bobby Lashley
25. Kalisto
26. Bobby Fish
27. Hiroshi Tanahashi
28. Zack Sabre Jr.
29. Alberto Del Rio
30. Jay Briscoe
30. Ryback (tie)
32. Kyle O’Reilly
33. Matt Hardy
34. Rusev
35. Katusyori Shibata
36. Dolph Ziggler
37. Tomohiro Ishii
38. Big E
39. Kento Miyahara
40. Sami Zayn
40. Go Shiozaki (tie)
42. Kofi Kingston
43. Shingo Takagi
44. Takashi Sugiura
45. Adam Cole
46. Matt Jackson
47. Hirooki Goto
48. KUSHIDA
49. Nick Jackson
50. Mike Bennett
50. Matanza (tie)

If you’re like me, the first thing you look for every year is where Cheeseburger was ranked. In an effort to do everyone a favor and save us all some time – Cheeseburger came in at #377 this year. That’s 119 spots up from his ranking last year at #496.

Oh ya, for the record, Ryback was ranked above the following wrestlers this year: Kyle O’Reilly, Adam Cole, Cesaro, The Young Bucks, Johnny Gargano, Christopher Daniels, ACH, Apollo Crews, Johnny Mundo, KUSHIDA…. you guys get the picture…this list is a joke – but we all need a good hearty chuckle now and then. And in PWI’s defense, ranking professional wrestlers, to pull a quote from Jeffrey Lebowski himself, falls into the category of “Yeah, well, that’s just like, your opinion, man.”

I’m sure just as many folks will flame our Fight Booth PW Top 20 list at the end of this calendar year – it’s all for the love of the game. Whether or not darts were thrown to decide who was ranked where on this particular list remains unknown. How about you folks have some fun with us and tell us what you think about this year’s PWI Top 500 list in the comments section below or on Twitter @Wrestling Desk.