The 2009 A1W 100

The A1W 100 slow release finally finished up at A1 yesterday, and like I promised, I'm going to unveil it here as well, although in its entirety instead of a slow release. Anyway, unless you're a poster at A1, you probably don't know what it's all about, so here goes:

• This is a workrate-based list. Only in-ring qualities such as workrate, match quality, selling, psychology, storytelling et al. were considered for ballots.
• Wrestlers were only to be considered for their work between 1/1/09 and 12/31/09
• Ballots could be sent in with as few entries as 25 but no more than 100
• Ballots were weighted (100 points for a first place vote, 99 for 2nd, etc.)
• Wrestlers were to be considered for their work in feds based in the United States and Canada only.
• Twenty-one ballots were submitted from posters at A1.
• The first tiebreaker was the higher highest vote.

Just out of posterity, here's a list of the posters that submitted ballots:

Jericoholic_Anonymous (me), Dylan Hales, KoppoKick, TitanTron, Brandon, Zandrax, Eldest_Son, GesusKriest, Vomikronnoxis, lucius, MrCableAccessTV, FreebirdSTF, tillrules, Linus, Padje, Murphys_Law, Heathen, dj unstable, SupTool, BOOGIE, The Dark Knight

So, now that that's out of the way, here's the list. The format will be Wrestler Name (first place votes) - total points. Here goes:

The 2009 A1W 100

1. Chris Jericho (1) - 2025
2. Rey Mysterio (7) - 2019
3. Christian (3) - 2003
4. CM Punk (1) - 1922
5. John Cena (2) - 1830
6. Randy Orton (1) - 1793
7. Evan Bourne - 1672
8. AJ Styles (5) - 1642
9. The Miz - 1620
10. The Big Show - 1464
11. Nigel McGuinness/Desmond Wolfe - 1455
12. William Regal - 1399
13. Shawn Michaels - 1350
14. Jeff Hardy - 1335
15. Bryan Danielson - 1295
16. Kofi Kingston - 1235
17. Goldust - 1214
18. Undertaker - 1157
19. Samoa Joe - 1126
20. Ted DiBiase, Jr. - 1114
21. John Morrison - 1056
22. Jack Swagger - 1045
23. Mark Henry - 1017
24. Triple H - 997
25. Kurt Angle - 979
26. MVP - 937
27. Edge - 930
28. Mike Knox - 856
29. Sheamus - 832
30. Austin Aries - 824
31. Christopher Daniels - 807
32. Finlay - 723
33. Davey Richards (1) - 718
34. Dolph Ziggler - 717
35. Shelton Benjamin - 714
36. Batista - 699
37. Cody Rhodes - 606
38. Claudio Castagnoli - 605
39. Hernandez - 602
40. Ricky Steamboat - 593
41. Chris Hero - 566
42. Kane - 519
43. Tyson Kidd - 504
44. El Generico - 494
45. Mike Quackenbush - 476
46. Jeff Jarrett - 475
47. Yoshi Tatsu - 473
48. Kevin Steen - 464
49. Pope D'Angelo Dinero - 464
50. Primo Colon - 447
51. Doug Williams - 412
52. Roderick Strong - 398
53. Sting - 385
54. Tyler Black - 385
55. Alex Shelley - 376
56. Matt Hardy - 355
57. James Storm - 352
58. THE Brian Kendrick - 336
59. Frankie Kazarian/Suicide - 336
60. Robert Roode - 331
61. Scott Steiner - 318
62. R-Truth - 311
63. Ezekiel Jackson - 297
64. Homicide - 289
65. Chris Sabin - 282
66. Delirious - 275
67. JTG - 265
68. Zack Ryder - 263
69. Naruki Doi - 252
70. Jay Lethal - 251
71. The Amazing Red - 243
72. Eddie Kingston - 239
73. Matt Morgan - 234
74. Nick Jackson - 207
75. Jigsaw - 207
76. Eddie Edwards - 203
77. Jimmy Wang Yang - 198
78. Carlito Colon - 192
79. Matt Jackson - 191
80. Shingo Takagi - 191
81. BxB Hulk - 191
82. Brother Ray - 186
83. YAMATO - 186
84. Drew McIntyre - 185
85. Vladimir Kozlov - 180
86. KENTA - 179
87. Chavo Guerrero - 175
88. Kenny Omega - 172
89. Chris Masters - 165
90. Paul Burchill - 159
91. Johnny Saint - 157
92. Necro Butcher - 151
93. Awesome Kong - 151
94. Sami Callihan - 149
95. CIMA - 147
96. Gran Akuma - 147
97. Festus/Luke Gallows - 145
98. Masato Yoshino - 142
99. Cody Deaner - 135
100. Eric Young - 129

A few notes about the proceedings. Jericho got the number one spot despite only having 1 first-place vote because his lowest vote was 13th place, whereas Rey Mysterio had one 22nd place vote that brought him down. AJ Styles, despite getting the second most first-place votes, finished in 8th place mainly because he was left off three ballots. The way the voting worked was that being left off ballots hurt more than getting a high placement on the ones you were on. As a testament to that, the top three finishers - Jericho, Mysterio and Christian - were the only ones who were included on all 21 ballots.

If you want to take a look at the original thread where this all was announced, which includes blurbs written by the voters and discussion as the results were announced, check it out here. You don't need to be a member to view it, but you do need to be a member to reply at the site. Also, you'll be unable to view the site in Google Chrome, so if that's your browser of choice, you'll have to fire up IE, Firefox or whatever other browser is on your computer to view it.

As you can see by the glut of WWE guys at the top, most of the wrestling watched by the average A1 wrestler is the WWE. TNA is up there too, and only a few select indie guys made high enough impacts. But that is to be expected given the audience makeup of wrestling nowadays, and I think A1 is a great microcosm of that larger audience, which is why I wanted so much to share this list with everyone.

And just for posterity, here's my ballot. No, I didn't give Jericho his only first-place vote. I did rank him at #4 though:
My Ballot

1. Christian
2. Rey Mysterio
3. John Cena
4. Chris Jericho
5. Bryan Danielson
6. CM Punk
7. Nigel McGuinness/Desmond Wolfe
8. Goldust
9. Evan Bourne
10. Mike Knox
11. The Miz
12. Kevin Steen
13. Davey Richards
14. Austin Aries
15. The Big Show
16. Mark Henry
17. Dolph Ziggler
18. Claudio Castagnoli
19. Mike Quackenbush
20. Jack Swagger
21. Roderick Strong
22. Finlay
23. Eddie Kingston
24. Jeff Hardy
25. Jigsaw
26. AJ Styles
27. El Generico
28. Randy Orton
29. Undertaker
30. William Regal
31. Delirious
32. Sheamus
33. Yoshi Tatsu
34. Chris Hero
35. MVP
36. Tyson Kidd
37. Kurt Angle
38. Naruki Doi
39. Hallowicked
40. CIMA
41. Jorge Rivera/Skayde
42. Tommy Dreamer
43. Zack Ryder
44. Matt Jackson
45. Nick Jackson
46. Fire Ant
47. Shawn Michaels
48. Ted DiBiase, Jr.
49. Cody Rhodes
50. John Morrison
51. Chuck Taylor
52. Ricky Steamboat
53. Scott Steiner
54. BxB Hulk
55. Kofi Kingston
56. Player Dos
57. Gran Akuma
58. YAMATO
59. Carpenter Ant/Pinkie Sanchez
60. Necro Butcher
61. Frightmare
62. Paul Burchill
63. Doug Williams
64. Dasher Hatfield/Create-A-Wrestler
65. Eddie Edwards
66. Festus/Luke Gallows
67. Primo Colon
68. Kenny Omega
69. Ophidian
70. Susumu Yokosuka
71. Jay Briscoe
72. Colin Delaney
73. Hernandez
74. Robert Roode
75. D'Lo Brown
76. UltraMantis Black
77. Shingo Takagi
78. Kenny King
79. Tyler Black
80. Dragon Kid
81. JTG
82. Ezekiel Jackson
83. Arik Cannon
84. Mark Briscoe
85. Soldier Ant
86. James Storm
87. Shad Gaspard
88. Player Uno
89. Chris Masters
90. Shelton Benjamin
91. Dave Taylor
92. Grizzly Redwood
93. Brodie Lee
94. Johnny Saint
95. Amasis
96. Samoa Joe
97. Tim Donst
98. The Hurricane/Gregory Helms
99. Colt Cabana
100. Bobby Dempsey

I was pretty compatible with guys in the top 10, but after that, there was some wild divergence. Some of the guys I voted for got their only votes from me, from as high as Chuck Taylor to as low as Bobby Dempsey. I definitely think my list is way more in tune with the indies than other ballots. Do I overrate Chikara? Comparatively speaking to the rest of A1, yes, but honestly the fed is so damn fun that I make no apologies for rating many of their wrestlers highly or at all.

Christian being atop my list is no surprise given that he won my Bloggie for Worker of the Year. After that, it was kinda tough. I gave Rey the second place vote because of his high-end matches, his versatility and the fact that he's doing it on no knees whatsoever. Cena's third as I feel he gets the WWE main event style better than nearly anyone in history, and last year, he had a really, really good year of free TV matches (HBK, Jericho, Punk, Swagger twice, Miz). Jericho gets the fourth spot as he had great TV matches with the three guys ahead of him as well as some of the best tag team performances, some nice tilts with Ricky Steamboat and hell, he even carried the shit out of Piper and Snuka and made them look half-way decent at WM. Rounding out my top five was Danielson, as the dude was just money whenever he stepped into a Chikara or ROH ring.

Again, feel free to comment and critique here, or even at A1. I had two goals with this project. One was to see what my home message board so to speak thought about wrestlers in-ring, and two was to spur discussion. So... discuss!

Photo Credit: WWE.com

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!