For 52 Sundays (plus one Monday for WrestleMania), Cageside Seats has asked you to tell us about your favorite performances in pro wrestling. In record numbers, you Cagesiders answered the call.
Ladies and germs, smarks and casuals, here's the full, final, official S3 for 2018 - 2019:
Wish I had time to do some fancy graphs like I used to back in the early days of this thing - if anyone wants to take a stab at analysis, let me know and I can email you the full spreadsheet I use to keep track of it week-to-week. UPDATE: Cagesider Ehtesham Siddiqui hooked us up with this sweet week-to-week movement chart for the top 21 (cause you can’t leave Ronda out!)
And here are some quick thoughts as we close the book on our sixth year...
11 on down
- It was the year of Evolution, and that shows up in our Standings. In addition to our first ever female winner, we had another woman in the top ten, two more in the top 20 and another three by the time we reach 26th place.
- While wrestlers from NXT are peppered throughout, and even a couple guys who were mostly members of the 205 Live roster show up in the top 20% of finishers, a non-WWE performer doesn’t hit the list until 29th. Will AEW change that this year?
- Every year, there's someone who has an early run which keeps them in the top ten most of the year, but whose push fades and they end up not getting a lot of votes later. Call it the Damien Sandow Award. This year, Shinsuke Nakamura gets that honor. His cocknocker routine was a hit when it was on TV and in the main event, but then it wasn’t on TV or in the main event anymore.
- Personally, one of my favorite things about this is the weird, coincidental (?) ties which either make perfect or no sense. This year has me fantasy booking a cross-promotional season of Mixed Match Challenge using the duos in 37th, 42nd, 46th and 48th place for starters.
- Yes, that’s
Big CassCazXL on the list down at 121. A lot can happen in a year, nowhudmsayin?
10 - Ricochet
He doesn’t have much of a character, especially on the main roster (NXT allowed him to play up some Rock-like earned cockiness). Even his biggest fans admit he’s learning how to be a WWE promo as he goes. But, damn if the One and Only can’t do things nobody else can do in the ring. That he got this kind of support from our voters with only a secondary title run on the third brand bodes really well for his future.
9 - Drew McIntyre
It was feast or famine for the Scot. On the six or seven weeks where Raw booked him like a badass, he finished at the top of the Standings. When he was a lackey in Baron Corbin’s Evil League of Evil, he didn’t even place.
8 - Kofi Kingston
Would it surprise you to know the current WWE champ wasn’t in the top 100, let alone the top 10, less than two months ago? Didn’t think so. You know what happened. And it was wonderful.
7 - Sasha Banks
The Boss has diehard supporters, and they’ve always been part of our band of Smarks. She didn’t get the week-in, week-out support she’s gotten in years past. Instead, there were three distinct peaks where Banks racked up points: whenever we thought she might feud with Bayley, when she was feuding with Ronda Rousey, and around the Boss ‘N’ Hug Connection’s historic title win. Should be an interesting year for this one...
6 - Samoa Joe
Joe’s year was similar to Drew’s, but the veteran was more likely to snag a point or two while he wasn’t being booked in a major program with a good promo or well-timed Coquina Clutch.
5 - Tommaso Ciampa
Get well soon, man. His reign as NXT champ should be used as a lesson on how to do a heel title run.
4 - Finn Bálor
The Extraordinary Demon was a male version of Sasha this year in many ways. There are voters who will vote for him, and many weeks award all the comment points to him, for picking up a win on TV (or sometimes just showing up on TV). In addition to those fans, he was prominent enough in Raw’s title scenes to really make some noise this year.
3 - Daniel Bryan
When he came out of retirement, many had him tagged as the ‘18 - ‘19 runaway winner even before the season started. But his babyface character didn’t wow us this time around. Then he became NEW and we remembered he’s one of the greatest to ever do it.
2 - Seth Rollins
The King/Beastslayer jockeyed for position with Finn and DB for much of the second half of the year, but much as it did when he won the Performer of the Year race over Dean Ambrose in our third season, Rollins used a big finish heading into and at WrestleMania to secure his bridesmaid status in our seventh season.
1 - Becky Lynch
Sure, I wish the race for Performer of the Year went down the wire like it did in 2014-15 more often. But I do think our little system picks deserving winners. Love or hate her, Lynch’s transformation from lovable steampunk loser to $#!+-talking champ champ dominated the conversation from last summer until... well, it’s still one of the hottest topics among wrestling fans even with ‘Mania in the rear view. The Man came around in a big way over the last 12 months, and she’s our Performer of the Year because of it.
For fun, use the poll below to make a prediction as to the 2018-19 winner. Last year, you predicted a big year for Braun Strowman. and... hey! It made sense at the time!
Can The Man overcome what six previous winners couldn’t and become our first repeat winner? Could Seth or Bryan keep their momentum going to become our first two-time winner? Let us know what you think!
Any other questions, concerns, screams or cries? Use the comments for those, too!
See you on Sunday for Season Eight of The S3!
Poll
Who will have the best year’s worth of performances between WrestleMania 35 and WrestleMania 36?
This poll is closed
-
30%
Becky Lynch
-
6%
Kofi Kingston
-
9%
Seth Rollins
-
3%
Daniel Bryan
-
2%
Charlotte Flair
-
3%
Roman Reigns
-
1%
Cody Rhodes
-
4%
Kenny Omega
-
1%
Kazuchika Okada
-
6%
Johnny Gargano
-
1%
Finn Bálor
-
3%
Adam Cole
-
0%
Sasha Banks
-
0%
Samoa Joe
-
3%
Drew McIntyre
-
6%
Ricochet
-
0%
AJ Styles
-
6%
Velveteen Dream
-
0%
Braun Strowman
-
2%
The Miz
-
0%
Jay White
-
0%
Baron Corbin
-
2%
Other (specify in comments)