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Still, despite the drop, I am pleased with the number and breadth of ballots received. While the total number was lower, this year set the high-water mark for ballots with 100 wrestlers. In fact, while 28 ballots did have 100, that number could have been higher if not for duplicate votes and/or ineligible wrestlers on at least two big ballots. While larger ballots are a bit harder to process, the effort needed to tabulate is far exceeded by the value in data and uniformity that they provide. So pat yourselves on the back, voting public.
Anyway, as is tradition, I shall name everyone who submitted a ballot along with any project with which they are associated as well as fun facts about them. Please give a round of applause to this year's TWB 100 voters:
TH - Caretaker of no fewer than four dependent, carbon-based lifeforms, three-quarters of which are warm-blooded
Rich Thomas - Amateur photographer, third-string goalie for the 1986 Detroit Red Wings
Andrew Smith - TWB fanatic, still nursing hangover from Super Bowl L party
Charles Humphreys - Freelance amateur writer and podcast guest, fetches Triple H's coffee and receives one lash for every degree over 165°F it is
Okori Wadsworth - TWB staff writer, can tell the difference between a llama and an alpaca
Brian Brown - Mysterious Philadelphia man-about-town, will never learn what the elusive and unadvertised 12th secret herb and/or spice is in the Colonel's Original Recipe Fried Chicken no matter how hard he searches
Nick Malone - TWB connoisseur, caught a totally legit Mew in Pokémon Blue by throwing sodium hypochloride at a Zubat and using a net instead of a PokéBall
Rich Fann II - Football writer at Buffalo Wins, is actually a sequel
Bill Bicknell - Twitter bon vivant, teacher, is still really mad Nintendo removed Roy from the Super Smash Bros. series
David Kincannon - Thespian, once overcame crippling agoraphobia by taking bath salts and chasing whom he thought was David Alan Grier through an open meadow (it was really Charles Nelson Reilly)
Antonio Cruz - TWB sommelier, currently working on an Eddie Vedder-singing-voice-to-English translator
Elliot Imes - TWB staff writer, must live with the shame that Chris Christie roots for his favorite football team
Jamie Girouard - First man to pay his way onto The Wrestling Podcast, actually lives in Teddy Roosevelt's nostril on Mount Rushmore
Greg Johnson - Freelance amateur writer, spearheading drive to get the Chargers to move not to Los Angeles but to Pocamoke City, MD for no other reason than it would be a ripping good laugh
Willow Maclay - Cinephile and movie blogger, is for some reason jealous of Spider-man villain Sandman on account of his beach body
Jeff Stormer - Chikarmy foot soldier, once bet a man a beer that Dalton Castle couldn't fit 50 gumballs into each of the earholes of The Boys (he lost)
Alex Torres - Occasional reviewer at Free Wrestling, wasted all three of her genie wishes on new hats for her siblings
Henry Casey - TWB savant, favorite Tame Impala song is "Nangs"
Matthew Hollinger - Professional pro wrestling show attendee, will slice a man's Achilles tendon for blood sausage and a cold beer
Bob RT - Philadelphia Twitter occupant, is currently on his 20th year of being angry at Alanis Morrisette because rain on your wedding day without any further context is NOT ironic
Chris McGibbons - TWB devotee, also has retired from the Detroit Lions this offseason
Nick Ahlhelm - TWB disciple, has producer credits on three of the first five Police Academy movies under the name "Jus le Boeuf"
Chris Harrington - The man behind Wrestlenomics, currently raising awareness that the grass is NOT greener on the other side of the fence if you're colorblind
Rene Sanchez - Former TWB staff writer, played for Chip Kelly at Oregon
Joey O. - Y-Not Radio DJ, is actually the next-to-last Son of Krypton
Sean Orleans - Honest-to-God professional wrestler, is planning on going back in time to change history and be the man to bodyslam Yokozuna because forget Lex Luger, that's why
Ryan Kilma - TWB partisan, now comes in five flavors, including savory pork and cucumber-cilantro-lime
Frank McCormick - Twitter wrestling icon, still cannot decide whether Drew Gulak or Soldier Ant has the finer set of buttocks
Mat Morgan - Chikarmy consigliere, is working on a Twitter bot that corrects people who incorrectly identify a "golazo" from a regular goal
Bill Hanstock - SB Nation, Cageside Seats, and Progressive Boink bigwig, keymaster of Gozer
Butch Rosser - TWB staff writer, is on eternal probation for mocking the East Coast office with his fish tacos and balmy weather in December
Sean Williams - Lawyer and former e-fed standout, has successfully gotten two tens for a five
Francis Adu - Twitter court holder, still trying to talk himself into the Giants paying all that money for Janoris Jenkins a year after Giants fans ruthlessly mocked the Eagles for the Byron Maxwell contract
Kris Zellner - Lucha whisperer and podcaster, is owed 50,000 pesos from Mil Mascaras for bullfighting debts
Brandon House - Chikarmy reconnaissance, once threw a party just so he could have an excuse to fire Skyline Chili at Cleveland from a high-powered cannon
Bob Godfrey - TWB habitue, has never paid market price or above for shock absorbers
Joey on Earth - Proprietor of Wrestling On Earth, is not the Big Dog but has given the Big Dog snacks
Andrew Hewitt - Former e-fed icon, considering dropping his cache of nuclear warheads on Villa Park on grounds no one would blame him outside of struggling BPL teams looking for an easy win to avoid relegation
Joe Ellis - Philly resident, has never been owned despite taking on the appearance of a corncob
Angelo Castillo - TWB's resident reader from the Philippines, still waiting to send me a goddamn good recipe for lumpia, dammmit
Dylan Hales - Freelance amateur writer and podcast host/guest, broke the Fifth Seal of the Apocalypse by not deadlining his ballot this year
Tanner Teat - Freelance amateur writer and podcast host/guest, hides a secret shame of being an Ole Miss fan despite his status of undergrad studies at Alabama
Devon Hales - Twitter wrestling pundit, has ghostwritten every Kanye track since "Gold Digger"
Scott Raychel - Twitter sage, will never, ever Heart Powerviolence again, EVER
Jesse Dlugosz - TWB superfan, the rarely-publicized sixth member of the Teen Titans
Mike Pankowski - Emissary from Strong Island, was once pulled over by Officer Warren Barksdale for doing a piledriver in a lucha match
Sam Clarke - TWB well-wisher, recently re-did 11 of Hercules' 12 Labors on a larf, omitting only the Augean Stables (would you wanna clean up that much shit for kicks?)
Keith Campbell - Twitter cognoscente, cannot tell the difference between eggshell and mother of pearl
Christopher Zinn - Philly Twitter indweller, is heading up Nick Gage's legal defense team
Jesse Powell - TWB appreciator, once caught a swim-training Brock Lesnar while ice fishing
Ryan Foster - Twitter occupier, learned how to waterbend from Avatar Korra, but forgot how when he got hit in the head with a cabbage
Joe Drilling - Co-host of the What A Maneuver podcast, was the touring flautist for The Replacements on their infamous Saturday Night Live performance that got them banned
Brock Lutefisk - Former TWB staff writer, Horb Flerbminber's only friend
Scott Holland - TWB staff writer, sold Triple H his first shovel
Patrick Kay - Twitter cohabitant, is the only person in the state of Arkansas who's licensed to give eye transplants
Andrew Rosin - Writer at Bucky's Fifth Quarter, will only play Monopoly if he's allowed to bring along a dart gun with horse tranquilizers in it
Cam Is Like - Twitter boarder, you know the guy who blocks your path in Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow in Viridian City because he hasn't had his morning coffee yet? Yeah, Cam has nothing to do with that at all
Courtney Rose - Wrestling With Makeup proprietor, currently is co-holder of the WCW World Tag Team Championships
Hayley Erin - Sister of the above voter, is mad at aforementioned sister for picking Scotty Riggs to be her tag team partner instead of her
Brandon Rohwer - Cinephile, has on more than one occasion served hors d'oeuvres on porcupine quills
David Murphy - TWB observer, once flew from Claymont, DE to Provo, UT without his arms ever getting tired
Bill DiFilippo - Staff writer at UPROXX Sports, once saw me belly-laugh while watching a now-deleted Trill Ball Ins video at Pica Pizza (this one's true!)
Matt Conley - Twitter participant, is going on a hunger strike until Big Daddy is put in the Observer Hall of Fame
Joshua Browns - Chikarmy covert ops, does a killer Adele in karaoke
Stacey Costabile-Wenslauskis - Part of the Wrestling Librarian Clan, has won a gold medal in shushing in the Library Olympics for the last three games
Kevin Newburn - Twitter townsperson, Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS. Now you're a toad, just like Kevin likes it
Kenn Haspel - Twitter scion, hasn't met a cut of meat he won't throw in the smoker, and that includes unicorn shoulder
Brandon Kay - Cosplay fanatic, is angry no one likes his Ted Arcidi cosplay, although that may have something to do with subject matter
And before I get to the people whom the above voted for, just a note about the process. This year, each day will have 25 wrestlers listed, not 20, except for the top quartile. Numbers 6-25 will be listed and each of the top five will have their own entry. Also, the tiebreakers are as follows:
- FIRST - Who has the higher high vote?
- SECOND - Who was on more ballots?
- THIRD - Were they blurbed?