Seth Rollins Tops PWI 500 List for 2019
WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins has topped the Pro Westling Illustrated’s PWI 500 2019 ahead of Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles and Kofi Kingston.
Every year, Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine publishes their PWI 500 list where the writers and editors of Pro Wrestling Illustrated attempt to rank the best pro wrestlers of the year from a complete kayfabe perspective. Earlier this week, PWI released PWI 500 list for the year 2019 which took the period of July 2018 to June 2019 in consideration.
This year’s ranking saw Seth Rollins topping the chart for the second time in his career. During the eligibility period, Rollins has held WWE RAW Tag Team Championship, WWE Intercontinental Championship, won the 2019 Royal Rumble match and defeated Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 2019 to become WWE Universal Champion. The first instance when Rollins topped the chart came in 2015 when he became a double champion by winning WWE World Heavyweight Championship and WWE United States Championship.
Seth Rollins will be joining John Cena, Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Bret Hart as the only superstars to top the PWI 500 list twice. PWI also shared Rollins’ comments on receiving the accolade:
Those guys obviously are elite. They are in a class all their own. They are Hall of Famers. So, to be mentioned amongst them is pretty special. As difficult as it can be, this is all I ever wanted to be in this position, to be having this conversation with you talking about being the absolute best wrestler on the entire planet. I don’t think there is a single part of me that would trade any second of it.
Seth Rollins on topping PWI 500 2019
Rollins is followed by his WWE mates, Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles and Kofi Kingston for the next three positions in the list. All three of them have been WWE Champions during the eligibility period. Current IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada(from NJPW) completes the top 5. The top 10 from the list is as followed:
- Seth Rollins
- Daniel Bryan
- AJ Styles
- Kofi Kingston
- Kazuchika Okada
- Johnny Gargano
- Roman Reigns
- Kenny Omega
- Hiroshi Tanahashi
- Will Ospreay
