Is there still a place for Pro Wrestling Illustrated in wrestling discourse? The real question, of course, is whether there’s still a place for print magazines in any discourse. PWI has been getting some talk this week, however, because they’ve released their Women’s 100, expanding what used to be the Female 50 into a longer list of supposedly the 100 best women wrestlers in the world. As with their list of 500 male wrestlers, the rankings seem to be determined by a somewhat unfathomable combination of kayfabe win percentages, popularity, and factors even harder to game out than those.
Here’s this year’s top ten:
- Ronda Rousey
- Alexa Bliss
- Charlotte Flair
- Io Shirai
- Asuka
- Shayna Baszler
- Carmella
- Nia Jax
- Mayu Iwatani
- Kairi Sane
It’s worth noting that the rankings are based on a period from October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2018. That means it makes sense for people like Alexa, Nia, Carmella, and Asuka to be in the top ten, because they did a lot during that year, even if they’ve been doing less lately. Ronda’s #1 spot is a little more surprising to a lot of people, considering how few matches she actually had during that year, but that’s where other factors like “Everybody in the world knows who she is” come into play. Mayu Iwatani’s inclusion is on the other end of the spectrum, but of course there are a lot of dedicated Joshi fans out there, and it’s hard to object to somebody like her getting a bit of extra attention.
The timeframe of the list may also have contibuted to the current best WWE wrestler of any gender not quite cracking the top ten. Becky Lynch came in at #11, and she had the perfect response:
https://twitter.com/BeckyLynchWWE/status/1058139732868136960
If things continue the way they seem to be trending for the Champ, she’ll almost certainly be higher on the list next year. In the meantime, her response kind of makes it all worthwhile.
Still, just to be direct with you, I didn’t originally want to cover this story. I saw people on social media arguing that Ronda shouldn’t be at number one, that Sasha (#14) should be higher, that Alexa should be lower, that Carmella shouldn’t be on the list (she should, for the record). It just seems like one of those things that only exists so we can argue about it, and I wasn’t keen to contribute to that.
But this morning I saw something that changed my mind.
Delilah Doom is a great wrestler with a really promising future, but she’s not exactly famous yet. She jobbed to Nia Jax and Carmella back when WWE was doing the “local talent” thing again for a while, but her home for now is the American indies, particularly Rise, Shimmer, and Bar Wrestling. So to see her so excited about being on the list made me feel a lot more positive about the whole endeavor. It’s easy for everyone to argue about what position each of the Top 15 should be moved to, but this is a list of 100 performers, and some people reading it are going to discover women they’ve never heard of, whose work they may look up, and whose careers they may decide to follow going forward. That’s a lot more exciting than another argument about whether Ronda Rousey belongs at the top.
