The 2014 CRL 100 – Part 1 (100 – 51)

Welcome, one and all, to part one of the unveiling of the most important list of wrestlers you’ll read all year, the 2014 CRL 100! To those of you who are new to the project this year, the idea of the CRL 100 is very simple: determine the 100 wrestlers who accomplished the most, (in terms of both quality of performance and achievement in general,) and then rank them accordingly. If this sounds like an incredibly difficult and exhaustive process, that’s because it is. All year long, we here at Cewsh Reviews make a point to seek out the best of every wrestling promotion in the world so we have a strong idea of who the top dogs are, and hours and hours were spent nitpicking ranking choices and trying to figure out if Rusev reeeeeeeally deserved to be ahead of ECIII. The result of all that hard work is a list of the best of the best, and something that we will proudly hold up next to any other rankings list that may be more popular but has no credibility whatsoever. You know, if something like that exists. In a magazine perhaps.

It’s a big undertaking, but luckily this year I had help, as my Cewshcast compadres, Artie and Julius, joined me in making this list up. So as you read the first 50 members of this esteemed list, just remember: they’re just as much to blame as I am.

Now then, this is the bottom 50. So just like last year, i’ll be doing write ups for the top 50, to give you some insight into everything they accomplished this year, but the bottom 50 get no such distinction. So we’ll start with the big list and then break the top 50 into two parts of 25 over the next week, leading to the crowning of Mr. 2014.  But before we get to the list, I’m going to post the traditional FAQ to hopefully clear up some questions that may arise from this list.

Q: What goes into deciding these ratings?

A: Everything. This isn’t just a list of who had the best matches this year, (though that plays a major part,) it’s also a list of who was the most valuable to their promotion, and to wrestling in general over the past year. Think of this list as representing where everyone in the wrestling world stood in 2014 in relation to everyone else. But to be clear, this is not a popularity contest. Nobody in contention for the status of “Cewsh’s Favorite Wrestler” even made the top 10. This is meant to be an objective look at who was top shit in 2014. Keep that in mind.

Q: Why 100?

A: Because 500 forces you to include people who aren’t really worthy of consideration, and 276 wasn’t symmetrical enough.

Q: What do all the numbers mean?

A: The first number is their rank this year, the number next to it in parenthesis is their ranking on this list last year.

Q: So where are you going to rank the Undertaker/Brock Lesnar/ etc?

A: We’re not going to. In order to make things as fair as possible across the board, we require that in order to be eligible for this list, you have to have wrestled at least 5 matches in the past calender year. Any less than that and there just isn’t a fair sample size to base an educated opinion on.  Adjust your expectations accordingly.

Q: John Cena’s not on here, is he?

A: Oh yeah, he totally is.

Q: Why are you combining the men and women on one list? That’s not fair to the women, is it?

A: Judging by some of the women you’ll find on this list, it might not be fair to the men. 

Q: But why did *insert my favorite wrestler* rank below *insert wrestler I don’t like*?
A: Because I said so.

Q: But you can’t possibly think…
A: Yep.

Q: But that’s ridic…
A: Nope.

Q: …
A: That’s right. Never argue with science.