MJF Beats Out Two WWE Stars to Claim No. 1 Spot on PWI's Top 500

Get out your torches and pitchforks. The PWI Top 500 for 2026 has arrived.

The Pro Wrestling Illustrated Top 500 is an annual list of the top pro wrestlers in the world. The criteria are specific and the timeframe is mid-year to mid-year. The 2026 list dropped on Thursday morning and the winner is ... MJF.

Former AEW Men's World Champion MJF tops the list this year as the number one wrestler in the world. MJF was the world champion for much of the period covered by this list, so the move makes sense. MJF beat out not just one, but two of the top WWE stars to claim the spot.

PWI's Top 10 on the Top 500

The top 10 names on the list this year are as follows:

MJF
Cody Rhodes
CM Punk
Mistico
Konosuke Takeshita
Adam Page
Yota Tsuji
Trick Williams
Oba Femi
Gunther

Rhodes and CM Punk both wrestled in the main event of WrestleMania this year, so MJF beating them out is notable. Rhodes wrestled Randy Orton for the Undisputed WWE Championship in the night one main event and was victorious in that match, but got taken out by Orton at the end. Pat McAfee played a role in the match, but was universally dismissed by the WWE audience.

#andNEW: Congratulations to @The_MJF, the number-one wrestler on our 36th annual #PWI500 list. Find the full top 10 (along with links to buy the digital/print mag) in the comments 👇 pic.twitter.com/CxQSvufY2U
— PWI (Pro Wrestling Illustrated) (@OfficialPWI) September 24, 2026

As for Punk, he wrestled Roman Reigns in the night two main event. Punk walked into the match as the world champion and faced Reigns, who won this year's Royal Rumble. Reigns defeated Punk in the match to regain the world title, which he currently holds today.

Mistico finds his way into the PWI Top 5 wrestlers of 2026

The rest of the list is interesting. Mistico having a spot in the top five is a surprise, but sensible given the momentum that CMLL has built. Mistico is a top babyface in the company and also a regular for AEW.

Trick Williams and Oba Femi were both newcomers to the WWE main roster this year and both did the most with their short time there. Williams wrestled at WrestleMania and beat Sami Zayn for the WWE United States Championship.

Femi arguably has had the fastest rise to prominence of any NXT call-up in WWE history. Femi had a run-in with Brock Lesnar at this year's Royal Rumble and went on to have a trilogy of matches with The Beast. He won two of them.

Their first encounter was at WrestleMania. Femi defeated Lesnar in the first match in definitive fashion. After the match, Lesnar appeared to have retired but returned soon after for a Femi rematch. The duo wrestled at Clash in Italy, where Lesnar was victorious. The third and final match between the two men took place at this year's SummerSlam.

Oba Femi won inside Hell in a Cell and then was put over strongly by Lesnar afterward. Lesnar got on the microphone and called Femi the future of WWE. Safe to say this won't be the last time we see Femi on this list PWI list.

What do you think of PWI's list?

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