Ahead of the 2026 WON Hall of Fame voting season, it’s time to update the WON Award Shares!
As a refresher on Award Shares, here’s the Wikipedia article, and here is my last article regarding these awards that looked at wrestlers’ candidacy for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. Also, remember that Wrestling Observer Awards are voted on by newsletter subscribers.
The value of looking at these awards in this way is that it encapsulates how the past 40 years of wrestling has been viewed by fans. Using Award Shares neutralizes voting results against year-to-year changes in voter numbers by giving each vote recipient a percentage of the possible points they could have received that year. These votes represent what the so-called “smart” fans of each year thought regarding the industry, and does a fairly decent job of encapsulating what was successful in a year.
Award Shares can help make a strong argument for a wrestler’s place in the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame, though the full context of their careers should also be considered. Vickie Guerrero remains my primary example: she is a talented performer, but she’s not the fourth-best non-wrestler of the past four decades.
You can view the current all-time standings for the key awards here.
Flair/Thesz Award
This is the MVP award in the annual Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards, which attempts to cover drawing & working.
The 2025 winner of this award, Mistico, picked up the trophy in dominating fashion, more than doubling the vote total of the second-place finisher, Adam Page. Mistico jumped up to 16th all-time in the F/T award shares, putting him just ahead of Hulk Hogan.
Page jumped up to 54th all-time with his second-place finish, while Jon Moxley, who finished just behind Page at third, moved into 13th all-time. This is Moxley’s third top-three finish in this award since 2020, giving him a historically great six-year run.
Saya Kamitani exploded into the all-time rankings after her first finish in the Flair/Thesz award vote, taking fourth. She lands in the top 100 all-time at 67th. Among women, she already ranks behind only Manami Toyota and Akira Hokuto. Obviously, Kamitani will need more than just one year to warrant induction.
The other new additions to the all-time ranks were Konosuke Takeshita (136th all-time), Bandido (155th), and Toni Storm (181st).
Honestly, there was nothing else of note in terms of movement for the all-time ranks for this award. Will Ospreay and CM Punk both dropped one spot after being passed by Jon Moxley. Not every update can be exciting.
The top ten workers in this category who are not in the Hall of Fame yet are:
- Jon Moxley – 13th
- Will Ospreay – 15th
- Edge – 34th
- Samoa Joe – 36th
- Randy Orton – 44th
- Adam Page – 54th
- MJF – 58th
- Naruki Doi – 62nd
- Great Sasuke – 63rd
- Davey Richards – 64th
No, I didn’t expect Davey Richards to be here either, but his 2009-2011 years lead to him doing well in this award..
Most Outstanding
Konosuke Takeshita fairly easily won this award for 2025by about 240 first-place votes over Bandido. Kyle Fletcher took third. With all three guys being fairly young, they don’t threaten the very top of the list, but Takeshita is now 26th all-time (between Shinjiro Otani & Koji Kanemoto) while Bandido is 49th, falling between CM Punk and Akira Hokuto. Fletcher moved to 51st, just ahead of Curt Hennig.
The most notable movement at the top of the list if Will Ospreay taking second over Kenta Kobashi by a slim margin. The Brit now only trails Bryan Danielson, who holds a lead over him worth approximately two unanimous wins. The only other movement in the top 50 was Zack Sabre Jr. who stayed in 38th place but passed Chris Jericho.
Sareee moved up to 74th. Chihiro Hashimoto & Saya Kamitani debuted at 169th and 174th, in that order. Mistico got points in this award for the first time, debuting at 141st all-time.
Let’s look at the top ten non-inductees for this award:
- Will Ospreay, 2nd
- Davey Richards, 17th
- KENTA, 18th
- Samoa Joe, 20th
- Shinjiro Otani, 25th
- Konosuke Takeshita, 26th
- Koji Kanemoto, 27th
- Owen Hart, 28th
- Finn Balor, 31st
- Naomichi Marufuji, 36th
Tag Team of the Year
The Young Bucks edged FTR by 12 points in the voting for this award, the equivalent of four second-place votes.
Say the line, Bart: Are We Sure the Young Bucks Aren’t the Greatest Tag Team Ever?
The Young Bucks have extended their lead in the all-time standings for this category even further, now leading the #2 team, FTR, by more than 5.3 unanimous awards. If you give the Midnight Express credit for both Eaton & Lane and Eaton & Condrey, they’re in second by a mere 4.4 unanimous awards.
The top five non-inductee acts in this category are FTR (2nd), The Briscoes (3rd), the Steiners (5th), KENTA & Naomichi Marufuji (8th), and the Luchas Bros. (9th). It seems more than a little silly that three of the five all-time tag teams in this category are not inducted yet.
The next closest active acts are the Hardy Boyz at 13th all-time, the Motor City Machine Guns (14th), and then The Usos at 23rd. If the Usos aren’t full enough time for you to give them credit for that, you’d have to go all the way down to Edge & Christian at 34th, and then Axiom & Nathan Frazer at 52nd. When you get down to a tag team WWE’s already mostly forgotten about after about 1.5 years of greatness, the pickings are slim.
Match of the Year
This was a tight vote, with Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd from the 1/5 Tokyo Dome show taking first place by 141 points over Bandido vs. Konosuke Takeshita from 7/11 and 311 points over Adam Page vs. Jon Moxley on 7/12.
The Omega-Kidd win put Omega narrowly behind Mitsuharu Misawa for third all-time. Given some of the highlight matches Omega has already had in 2026, it feels inevitable that he’ll pass him next year. Will Ospreay, with several matches finishing down ballot, moved up to sixth all-time, passing Shawn Michaels and Bryan Danielson. If Ospreay vs. Omega does well this year, it’s very possible Ospreay passes Ric Flair in the all-time rankings.
With some of his retirement run matches getting recognition (vs. Cody Rhodes & vs. AJ Styles), John Cena moved up one spot to 19th all-time, passing Kurt Angle.
Other movement in the top 50 included the Young Bucks moving up one spot to 25th, Adam Page jumping from 44th to 26th, and CM Punk moving up a spot to 28th. Seth Rollins broke the 1.0 barrier to move into 53rd, between Randy Savage and Naoki Sano.
Here’s the top ten non-inductees for this award:
- Will Ospreay, 6th
- KENTA, 14th
- Adam Page, 26th
- Naomichi Marufuji, 27th
- Edge, 29th
- Samoa Joe, 30th
- Davey Richards, 33rd
- Kerry Von Erich, 41st
- Naruki Doi, 49th
- Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers, 50th
Other awards
- The top 11 of Best on Interviews was unchanged year over year. Jon Moxley moved up from 16th to 12th. John Cena moved up to 14th and Cody Rhodes up to 18th.
- For most charismatic, MJF moved up to 20th all-time. The top non-inducted person in this category is The Ultimate Warrior at 17th.
- Jon Moxley passed Samoa Joe for fifth all-time in Best Brawler.
- Don Callis is up to sixth all-time in Best Non-Wrestler, though he still trails the unstoppable Vickie Guerrero by a large margin.
- No interesting movement at the top of Best Technical, Best Flyer, or Best Announcer.
