9 Reasons Roman Reigns Topped PWI's Top 500 Wrestlers 2016
He Superman Punched his way too the top!
There are about 90 wrestlers under contract to WWE right now, there's an additional 60 or so who have deals with TNA and Lucha Underground, Ring of Honor has a few as well, and there are dozens more in Japan. Out of all of them, Roman Reigns is the best.
Well, that’s according to Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s 2016 Top 500 ranking, a feature that they've done every year going back to 1991.
This news with Roman has already angered a lot of fans, but if you take a step back, it does make some sense. This is because PWI’s ranking is a bit of a work. Roman isn’t actually considered a better in-ring performer than Shinsuke Nakamura by them. He doesn’t deliver bigger ratings than John Cena, and he doesn’t have the best promos. But the way WWE presents him on TV makes him one of the biggest stars on the planet.
PWI lays out the criteria for their ranking system which is based off of a few things: win-loss record, championships won, quality of competition, major feuds, prominence within a wrestler's individual promotion(s), and overall wrestling ability. The time frame they use is between 1 July, 2015 to 30 June, 2016.
So how did Roman perform in those areas during that time? We'll look at each category of their criteria, as well as a few other factors to see why they chose him.
And, while most people will disagree (most of them quite strongly) about the choice of Roman as the number one wrestler in the world, here are 9 reasons why PWI feels otherwise.