The 2016 TWB 100 Announcement and Call for Ballots

Sasha Banks is the defending top dog in the TWB 100. Can she repeat this year? Photo Credit: WWE.com

All the fine humanoids around the wrestling world, the time has arrived for the TWB 100, 2016 Edition. This year will be the eighth year the exercise has taken place. For the uninitiated, the TWB 100 is a crowd-sourced, fan-voted, open-participation list that looks to rank wrestlers from the last calendar year (in this case, 2016) in terms of their performances in the ring as wrestlers/workers. That bolded part is important. It is not based on character development or promos or how much you liked that wrestler. It's based on the matches, the actual ability to tell a story in the ring. Participation is open to ANYONE who wishes to submit a ballot with few exceptions (if you have to ask if you're banned, you probably aren't). The following list are the criteria for voting, the rules if you will:

1. The TWB 100 is based solely on a wrestler's performance between the bells in any wrestling contest. This includes move variety, execution, workrate, selling, bumping, timing, pacing, protecting the opponent, trash-talking and anything else that happens within the course of a wrestling match. Anything that happens in promos or segments outside the confines of a wrestling match should NOT be considered for ballot entries. It is also advised against using match booking in deciding placement on the ballot (i.e. don't use "well he/she wins too much" as rationale against their placement).
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2. Content to be considered for ballots must have taken place between 1/1/16 at 12:00:00 AM to 12/31/16 at 11:59:59 PM inclusive, i.e. within the calendar year of 2016. Consideration should also be limited to matches either held on the soil within the United States and Canada, or by promotions that were based in United States and Canada (i.e. Chikara or WWE in the United Kingdom, televised NXT house show footage from Japan/Australia, etc.) only. For the sake of those who watch wrestling from Puerto Rico, yes, that island should be considered as part of the United States for this exercise. This means one must only consider matches by New Japan Pro Wrestling talent that took place IN RING OF HONOR or by luchadores in LUCHA UNDERGROUND OR AMERICAN INDIES or by British wrestlers IN RING OF HONOR, EVOLVE, SMASH, OR OTHER AMERICAN COMPANIES. Do not rank Kazuchika Okada on strength of his WrestleKingdom match against Hiroshi Tanahashi or in the G1 and so on and so forth.
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3. Matches should be considered by the date they were actually worked except in the case of Lucha Underground or Chikara season 17, where you are to consider the date the match was aired on El Rey Network or released on Chikaratopia respectively.
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4. Ballots shall have a minimum of 25 wrestlers named in order and a maximum of 100 wrestlers named in order. Ballots between those two numbers inclusive will be accepted with no questions, as long as they are ranked in order. Ballots with 24 or fewer and unordered ballots will be thrown out. Ballots with 101 or more will be pared down to 100.
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5. No demarcation shall exist between male or female wrestlers. For the purposes of this ballot, anyone who wrestled in an eligible promotion for the time period given shall be considered eligible regardless of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, size, weight class, or even species (I see you, Space Monkey, and I'm pouring one out for your year, Inter Species Wrestling).
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6. If you want to list a tag team,you must list the individual members and NOT the unit. So, if you want to include Roscoe Eat Lisa, then list Zakk Sawyers and Mikey McFinnigan as separate entries on your list, not "Roscoe Eat Lisa" as one entry. All entries for a stable or tag team will be ignored on said ballot (or at the very least, I will e-mail you for clarification).
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7. No eligibility requirements for submission of a ballot are in place. As long as the submitter likes and has watched wrestling in 2016, they're allowed to submit unless explicitly prohibited by TH. The list of people not allowed to vote is short and won't be publicized, but if you attempt to vote and are on my banned list, I will inform you privately.
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8. Ballots can be sent to me, TH, via any means necessary, either through e-mail (tom DOT holzerman AT gmail DOT com), Facebook messages, written letter (for those who know my address), Twitter DM or any other ways of private contact.
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9. The due date for ballots shall be Sunday, March 12 at 11:59:59 PM local time (i.e., if I have it in my inbox by Monday morning, March 13, you should be good).
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10. The final list will be disseminated via slow release on TWB with blurbs written by ballot submitters. If you are interested in writing for the release, please let me know with your ballot. Your blurbs should be at least one paragraph explaining why you voted for that particular wrestler.
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11. All ballots are subject to scrutiny by me, TH.

The above listed are the guidelines. They are simple, but one would be surprised how many people do not heed them and send in ballots that violate several rules. Last year, 68 voters submitted ballots. I would like that number to increase, even though that would mean more work for me. But nothing worth doing in life has been easy, right? The point is, the power is yours, in your opinions. Make it heard! Get the ballots up into triple digits. Tell friends. Pump up your favorite wrestlers so that maybe the list this year will have 500 or more wrestlers submitted. Your opinion matters, and I want to see it. VOTE AWAY!

For reference, the prior TWB 100 number one wrestlers are as follows:
2015: Sasha Banks
2014: Sami Zayn
2013: Daniel Bryan
2012: Daniel Bryan
2011: CM Punk
2010: Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson
2009: Chris Jericho