The following article was originally published at 1Wrestling.com. You can view the original piece by clicking here.
Ray's 'Rasslin' Rankings - Period Ending June 5th 2011
Each week 1Wrestling.com's resident rankings expert, Ray Mullan, will scouting the major north american wrestling promotions in order to bring you an in-depth rankings report for the top championships in Pro Wrestling as statistics and analysis. Find out where your favourite wrestler's ranked this week...The Top 10 and Tag-Team rankings are based on television and Pay-Per View win-loss records over the course of the month, quality of opposition, and inherent skill of each wrestler or team. All other rankings are based on the official current positions of challengers to the Top Title in each category (I.E. Should a wrestler win a number 1 contenders match, he will automatically be afforded that ranking regardless of current win-loss record).
The number in parentheses indicates a wrestler's position in that category in the previous rankings report; (-) indicates that the wrestler was not rated in that category in the last report. (C) indicates the wrestler was champion in that category last report.
Without further ado, ladies and gentleman, the inaugural Ray's 'Rasslin' Rankings:
| # | Top 10 Rankings: Singles | # | Top 10 Rankings: Tag Teams | |
| 1 | John Cena WWE Champion | 1 | Beer Money TNA World Tag Team Champions | |
| 2 | Sting TNA World Heavyweight Champion | 2 | Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin ROH Tag Team Champions | |
| 3 | Randy Orton World Heavyweight Champion | 3 | Michael McGillicutty & Dave Otunga WWE World Tag Team Champions | |
| 4 | Mr. Anderson #1 Contender to TNA World Championship | 4 | Big Show & Kane #1 Contenders to WWE World Tag Team Championships | |
| 5 | Sheamus #1 Contender to WWE Championship | 5 | Chris Hero & Claudio Castagnoli #1 Contenders to Tag ROH Team Championships | |
| 6 | Eddie Edwards ROH Heavyweight Champion | 6 | Dark City Fight Club NWA Tag Team Champions | |
| 7 | Kurt Angle #2 Contender to TNA World Championship | 7 | The British Invasion #1 Conteners to TNA World Tag Team Championships | |
| 8 | Kofi Kingston #1 Contender to WWE World Championship | 8 | AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels (-) | |
| 9 | The Sheik NWA Heavyweight Champion | 9 | Justin Gabriel & Heath Slater (-) | |
| 10 | Davey Richards #1 Contender to ROH Heavyweight Championship | 10 | Mexican America (-) |
| # | Top 10: WWE RAW | Top 10: WWE Smackdown | Top 10: TNA IMPACT Wrestling |
| C | John Cena (-) 240, West Newberry, MA | Randy Orton (-) 245, St. Louis, MO | Sting (-) 255, Venice Beach, CA |
| 1 | Kofi Kingston (-) 221, Ghana, West Africa | Sheamus (-) 280, Dublin, Ireland | Mr. Anderson (-) 243, Green Bay, WI |
| 2 | CM Punk (-) 222, Chicago, IL | Ezekiel Jackson (-) 309, Harlem, NY | Kurt Angle (-) 240, Pittsburgh, PA |
| 3 | R-Truth (-) 235, Charlotte, NC | Christian (-) 240, Toronto, ON | Crimson (-) 252, Brooklyn, NY |
| 4 | The Miz (-) 231, Cleveland, OH | Sin Cara (-) 170, Mexico City , Mexico | Eric Young (-) 225, Vancouver, BC |
| 5 | Rey Mysterio (-) 175, San Diego, CA | Kane (-) 323, Hell | Abyss (-) 350, Parts Unknown |
| 6 | Dolph Ziggler (-) 221, Hollywood, CA | Mark Henry (-) 392, Silsbee, TX | Jeff Jarrett (-) 235, Nashville, TN |
| 7 | Evan Bourne (-) 183, St. Louis, MO | Daniel Bryan (-) 190, Aberdeen, WA | Rob Van Dam (-) 237, Battle Creek, MI |
| 8 | Alberto Del Rio (-) 240, San Luis Potosi, Mexico | Wade Barrett (-) 265, Manchester, England | AJ Styles (-) , Gainesville, GA |
| 9 | Jack Swagger (-) 263, Perry, OK | Tyson Kidd (-) 195, Calgary, AB | Christopher Daniels (-) 224, Los Angeles, CA |
| 10 | Drew McIntyre (-) 252, Ayr, Scotland | Cody Rhodes (-) 223, Marietta, GA | Sangriento (-) 147, Tijuana, Mexico |
Putting together a Top 10 is never easy, but thanks to number 1 contendership victories for both Mr. Anderson and Sheamus, the first slots for TNA and Smackdown were relatively easy to fill in this week. John Cena keeps taking a beating and keeps on coming back, say what you want about the "Super Hero" comebacks, i'll not criticise - with a 5/1 Win/Loss record he earned the top spot.
The RAW number one contendership goes to United States Champion Kofi Kingston. The West African superstar is a US champion that fans can be proud of, someone no one can say is unworthy of holding the belt. Kofi appears to be a fighting champion, defending the belt with regularity. Despite the non-title loss to CM Punk, Kofi gets the nod this week.
This month was certainly one for surprise rankings, with Ezekiel Jackson, Crimson and Eric Young all cracking their respective Top 10's. Young in particular is on an uncharacteristic roll with a tag victory on Xplosion, singles victories over Robbie E and Mr. Anderson (or should that one go to the "Not So Great Muta"?), not to mention a Television Title win over Gunner. Crimsons undefeated streak is impressive and the number of top names left in his wake over the past month is impressive, with the likes of Samoa Joe, Abyss and Matt Hardy all on the receiving end of the Red Sky. Similarly Ezekiel Jackson has racked up five wins without defeat this month, including a DQ victory over IC Champion Wade Barrett. Could we have another Goldberg on our hands with one of these two?
Also on the up are the two newest "Luchadors" in North American wrestling with Sin Cara and Sangriento both with impressive consecutive wins since their debuts, watch out for these two.
Beer Money sit at the top of the Tag-Team rankings despite the events on IMPACT Wrestling this past thursday. Few would argue that there is a better Tag-Team in wrestling today than Beer Money, but with Roode on the shelf and seemingly with one eye on a singles career this may be the last we see of Beer Money atop the rankings for some time. With the defacto number 2 team, TNA's Motor City Machine Guns, also lost through injury the number 1 spot appears to be wide open for a hungry tag-team to snatch, and the World's Greatest Tag-Team (Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin) have certainly been living up to the name of late, stay tuned.
You may be surprised to see the inclusion of AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels in the tag-team rankings. Fortune's finest ae certainly no slouches in the ring but full time Tag-Team wrestlers they are not. Two impressive tag wins over Bully Ray and tag partners Tommy Dreamer and Gunner, both in matches with differing stipulations more than deserved mention.
That's all for now. If you have any comments or questions pertaining to the rankings, feel free to drop me a line at raymullan@gmail.com or tweet me via @raymullan. Thanks for reading, see you next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment