Reacting To PWI's Top 250 Women's Wrestlers In The World

Hello there my very good friends! What are we doing at this time? Making a video in this studio? I have no idea

Well, it just so happens to be one of the best days in the calendar for arguing about wrestling

The PWI Women's 250 has just dropped as I'm recording this right now

And that means we're all going to be fighting about it for at least the next 12 hours or so

This is Pro Wrestling Illustrated's annual ranking of the top 250 women's wrestlers in the world

based on the judging period which runs from the first of for this for this year the first of august

to the 31st of july so that's august 2024 to july 2025 and it includes a number of different

criteria always gets people into it shall we say and it always gets people a little bit confused as

well when it comes to the category for the criteria for this stuff so a lot of people assume it's just

pure match quality or just pure ability or anything like that star ratings whatever whatever

it is not on your screen right now you see the criteria but i'm going to go through them one by

one as well uh in ring achievements so win loss records championship tournaments kayfabe stuff

push stuff right who's the most pushed uh who's winning the most who's got the most belts

influence meaning visibility and prestige within a promotion and or industry so yeah again push

related kayfabe related technical ability quality of moves matches and in-ring storytelling that's

very self-explanatory competition success against the most varied and highest quality opponents

yeah if you win 20 matches against a dustbin that's not as good as beating tony storm 20 times

in a row an activity so you need to have a minimum of 10 singles matches throughout the year

and a bunch of other stuff listed there as well. So now we know the criteria

how about we go through the top 10? I would do this in reverse order

but I think we'll just do it, we'll go from one, solid, we're going from one

Because I think this is the name that's going to get the most people talking. That being the number one ranked wrestler

in the PWI Women's Top 250 is Mercedes Money. And I think when you add all those criteria together

this is very hard to argue with. I think that the other person, honestly, the only other person I would make a strong case for to be number one is the person who's ranked two

But yes, in terms of Mercedes, look, she's lost once in singles competition to Toni Storm, right, for the AW Women's World Championship

She has won millions of titles. What are we on? 10, 11, 12 at this stage, right

These are all things that factor into the judging. she's continually gone into territories

and beaten the best wrestlers there be it working in AEW be it, you know, Tony's the

exception there in terms of wins but going to CMLL and wrestling Catalina and Persephone

going to, like, wrestling various other bits and pieces here and there as well

the match quality's high, that's the most subjective element of this but I think her match quality has been very high throughout the year particularly the Athena match I think that was her finest hour Mercedes But I thought the Tony match was tremendous as well and there plenty of other ones littered in there too

She fits all the criteria. She's been extremely active. She wrestles every other week

It's not just for AEW. She goes out to these indies and wins their title, which gets a lot of people going

And look, I know it's Mercedes. She attracts a lot of hate from people on the internet quite often

I think the majority of it is unwarranted. I think the majority of it is way overblown

And really, if you consider that a lot of this ranking is a kayfabe thing

I think it's very difficult to argue that she's number one on this list, honestly

I mean, look, if she beat Toni Storm for the AEW Women's World title

it would be a total no-brainer, not just a mostly no-brainer, which is what I currently think it is

the achievements just speak for themselves she's got four million titles man like nobody else has

that nobody else has done that nobody else has worked a variety of places while also staying

active in a major league promotion either in in the women's field of wrestling uh kind of had to

be mercedes and uh number two on the list was the closest challenge i think this is a good top i think

the top 10 is pretty good honestly tony storm's in here okay here we go aw women's world champion

for ages, ages and ages and ages. She had a tremendous run

opposite Mariah May. Excellent feud. Right near the top of the card. She's one of AEW's

franchise players. She's one of the most important people on that show. She's not the

champion anymore, but most of that would fall out with the judging window. She constantly delivers

in the ring. The character work is some of the best in the promotion. She's really over

hard to argue against Toni Storm as well. I mean, again, the subjective elements are always going to be up for debate

you can talk about match quality and enjoyment of the character and all that's fine

but when so much of this is based on achievement and accomplishments and push

Tony Storm being number 2 makes a lot of sense especially in a year

where if you look at WWE's candidates and we'll get through those

as we go along there's not really a standout WWE candidate to knock these two off the top

The main reason being, the person I consider one of the strongest WWE candidates

Stephanie Vaquer, half of her stuff was in developmental. And, you know

NXT is a weekly TV show, right? It's got about the same audience as AEW. But

you're talking about Mercedes-Money winning 11, 12 belts here and Tony Storm, like

running the show for long periods. It's crazy. Number three was Saya Kamatani of Stardom

She's had a very successful year establishing herself as the top dog of that company

Look, it's the leading Joshi group. It is the leading women's wrestling promotion in the world, as in promotions that do exclusively

women's matches. She going to have the opportunity to wrestle at the Tokyo Dome because of the New Japan partnership and all that stuff She has been the shining light of that promotion this year and it is absolutely earned that she would be high on the list

She's been pushed extremely well. The match quality is higher than anyone on this list

in terms of volume in particular. Very hard to... I mean, look, it's a more in-ring focused product even than AEW

definitely more so than WWE stardom. but the catalogue is absolutely insane

and I think, look, this is a really good top three. I think they've nailed it, personally

The first WWE person here is Tiffany Stratton. She's number four. She was SmackDown Women's Champion for ages

She was undefeated for ages until she lost, of course, like a couple of weeks ago, not so long ago

But she was consistently pushed atop SmackDown. Yes, she's had some wonky moments

like the Charlotte Flair feud and the ensuing match. But the strength of the push is right there

She is the strongest candidate from SmackDown. And number five is the strongest candidate, I think

naturally, I'm going to argue with myself a little bit. Stephanie Vaquer is number five

And she's a really interesting case. She's double champion in NXT. She's now a main roster champion as well

She's been pushed really strongly from day one. She came into the company and it felt like she won the belt five minutes later in NXT

and it was richly deserved because she's absolutely sensational. I think that the only thing that stops her charging into the top three here

is that her main roster push is relatively new and that there are simply not enough months on the board for her

to reasonably be considered like a number one contender for this list

Number six was Io Sky. And look, if we're talking quality, if we're weighing that highly

I think that she beats Tiffany and Stephanie in particular. I think she's been WWE's best wrestler this year in the ring

And I think that, look, the catalog, I mean, the WrestleMania Triple Threat match is the best PWG match I've seen in years

With Bianca Belair and Rhea Ripley. And yes, she was a women's champion for a period as well

So she's had that period on top. Other people have had it a bit longer

Other people reigned a bit longer than EO. So that's why I think that she's below them

Even though Stephanie's push is, you know, quite new as well. Number seven is Afina

She's been the Ring of Honor champion forever. She's the forever champion

That tells you everything you need to know. She has been more and more involved in the mainline AEW product

working with Mercedes in particular. She's eaten a couple of losses here and there

That does hurt her a little bit, I think. And I think that the fact that her push is taking place primarily on Ring of Honor

hurts her a little bit as well, because it's like, what, the sixth or seventh most popular wrestling product

that does matter when it comes to the influence category of the PWI 250

So look, Afina's great. We all love Afina and we're all hoping that she gets a bigger role somewhere in AW in the future

Number eight is Sari. She is one of the best freelance wrestlers in the world

She I mean every single time I sat down and watched Sari this year I been blown away by what she delivered shouldn be a huge surprise she was considered a massive prospect before she went to WWE that run got a little bit weird

with the schoolgirl outfit and stuff but she's now back doing what she does best

kicking ass putting on her own shows the Sari-ism shows are always a good time

really loved her Meiko Satomura match this year in particular but the Shuri matches

have a lot of buzz too she's tremendous like I'm very thankful for her because we don't have

as many non-contracted wrestlers out there beating ass these days Sari is doing it for the love of the game

she's tremendous, one of the best in the world not even 30 yet I don't think

good, glad to see her on the rankings number 9 is Naomi who has won a lot of things this year

money in the bank, women's title she had a Wrestlemania program with Jake Hargill, ok she lost

but it was spotlighted, she had the big spotlighted heel turn. She had the consistent push

on WWE programming. I think that if it had lasted a little bit longer

she would probably be higher. And look starting a family with your beloved husband is much more

important than finishing higher on the PWI 250. So there are priorities

here but I think it's an earned spot in the top 10 based on how consistently

she's been pushed and I cannot argue with her spot at all

Number 10 is Rhea Ripley and we're going to wrap this one up on number 10. We're not going to do the whole

250. We haven't got five hours here. Come on. Rhea Ripley, look, she's a star. She's an absolute star

I get, whenever I tell people I work in wrestling, they're like

oh, Rhea Ripley is one of the first people they recognize. That's anecdotal, so, you know

it's not much use. But she's a centerpiece of this division. It's not a case for her

of holding a title for, like, five months, six months, seven months this year, which hurts

her consideration in the top ten. but she will I mean it's Rhea Ripley

for as long as she's active she's probably going to be in the top 10 because she will always

be strongly pushed she will always be having good matches and she will always be

working with the biggest names in her division she's a star that's how it works

I imagine next year if she has a more prolonged title reign she will finish even higher

so there's your number 10 and there's your top 10 PWI Women's 250

look just remember the category when we're debating stuff like this it's not just in ring quality

it's not just my favourite it is better than your favourite or anything like that

they are trying to be a little bit objective right when they're trying to apply pushes and

they're trying to look at look at accomplishments and statistics and positionings and things like

that i think um there's room for that there is room for that uh in 2025 because a lot of these

awards like yeah the wrestling observer will do they'll do wrestler of the year which is different

but their most outstanding will be purely in ring and then the the flair fez will encompass drawing

ability and stuff this is a slightly different beast right this this is uh highly kayfabe focused

compared to some of these awards i think there's room for everything i think there is room for who

had the most good matches and i think there's room for who had the best push and the most good matches

as well i'll leave that with you folks you can you can chat away on this one till your heart's

content let me know what you think down below and i'll see you tomorrow goodbye