Eating is a vital function of humanity, but it’s not something humans do in a uniform matter or for consensus reasons. Some people eat merely to fuel an active lifestyle. Their diets are rigorous and standardized — high protein, low fat, carbs only before heavy activity. It might seem boring to some people, but it’s respectable. Some people eat to survive. These people are have food scarcity, and they’re people that would have different habits if they had money or time. In a just society, no one would fit in this category. There are people who eat to enjoy themselves, a group to which I belong. I admit that this group enjoys privilege, but again, in a just society, more people would be able to sniff out great little eateries, follow Guy Fieri’s path laid out on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and every once in awhile hit up a fancy steakhouse or brasserie and eat like they were kings.

Then, there’s another group for whom I have no idea their purpose of eating. They always seem to rear their ugly heads every once in awhile to tell everyone that they are totally blind to the cultures and mores of people who actually eat for reasons other than they have to. I guess this class of people only eats because if not, they couldn’t have the energy to brown-nose their way around Washington or whatever, but it’s so puzzling the attitudes they espouse. Take for example, the latest person who decided he’d show he’s got no idea what the world of food entails is Jonathan Turley:

Jonathan Turley on Twitter

The most popular uber eats orders in Oklahoma is spicy tuna roll and in both Missouri and Wisconsin crag Rangoon? California is chicken tikka masala? I don't even know what that is beyond the chicken. If true, we have an outbreak of the panpompous. https://t.co/42bRnUQTD0

Turley is both a Constitutional Law Professor at George Washington U. and a jackass. He’s not the first person to open his mouth ignorantly about food — a certain “Radio Free” Resistance personality trashed an entire country’s food culture because the spiciest thing he’s probably ever eaten was a McNugget — and he won’t be the last. Spicy tuna roll and “crag” Rangoon — which I can’t mention without linking to David Roth’s Stephen A. Smith tweet — and chicken tikka masala are all the basic entry-level foods into the cultures which they represent. In fact, crab Rangoon have no real origin in China; they’re wholly a creation of American restaurateurs, which explains why cream cheese is the base ingredient when it’s nowhere to be found in the Far East.

It’s all notable because it’s a symptom of the greater ill suffered in America, mostly on the right but creeping into the center. The link Turley chose is from Fox News. His attitudes might as well be straight from the Tucker Carlson Propaganda Hour. Some of y’all don’t want to make the leap, but the attitude that these “foreign” (and fucking delicious) dishes are somehow apostate to what this country stands for isn’t too far from justifying the concentration camps at the border. I’m sure there are ICE agents who live ethnic food so it’s not a total one-to-one comparison here. These things aren’t an equation to be solved, but there are trends that happen first by saying Indian food as a whole is bad and snowball into xenophobic sentiment that gets people detained at the border and ships full of refugees sent back from whence they came.

Again, good food really doesn’t know political boundaries. There’s a reason why it has to be propaganda outlets that says not to eat the dirty foreigners’ foods, because most people who try new foods like them, no matter what. Republicans still dine at Mexican restaurants while legislating the immigrants back across the Rio Grande or worse. Food tells such a rich story. It more than anything else is an expression of culture, because what’s more telling of a people than what they eat, how their mothers and grandmothers and fathers spend time in the kitchen giving them the thing that helps them continue life? Eating at an ethic restaurant doesn’t change attitudes immediately, but if you keep going to these restaurants, you start to see the value of immigrants and what they bring to the place they settle. To a fascist, that’s dangerous.

So people like Turley develop baby-level palates by design. He belongs to the worst group of people, those who eat as an extension of their shitty politics. They order chicken fingers and fries anywhere so they don’t have to see the flavor they’re missing and thus the value of the people who make it. They’re dangerous. They’re the ones who flock to Chik-fil-A whenever someone calls them out on their anti-gay donation record because it’s a validation of their worldview. I mean, CFA is good, but there’s so much other chicken out there that is made by people who at least aren’t as brazen with their bigotry. The refusal to branch out is at the heart of conservatism.

When people like Turley lash out against good food, they aren’t being proud of their shitty palates. They’re propagandizing. It’s not just a White people thing, it’s a fascist White people thing. Be careful how you mold your tastes. It’s one thing if you avoid certain foods because of allergy. It’s okay to be picky if you’ve tried a lot of things and just don’t like them. Just don’t be the kind of person who doesn’t try anything new out of principle. You might just agree with a dipshit who uses Fox News to form his opinions.

Even if the XFL didn’t have a morass of mediocrity at best at quarterback, I’m not sure I’d be inclined to watch the league. QB is the most important position on the field for a reason, and when the only signal caller who can probably make it in the NFL if the league folds like its predecessor did after one season is Cardale Jones, then you’re in trouble. Even if Oliver Luck got his son Andrew to defect and somehow poached at least three other NFL-grade QBs, I probably wouldn’t watch the XFL for the same reason why I don’t watch WWE: Vince McMahon. The huckster-turned-wrestling magnate has made his living busting unions and befriending genocidal oligarchs in Saudi Arabia, and he only started the league to give his buddy Donald Trump a place where he could see young, mostly Black men standing at attention to the flag and the Anthem. Much like in WWE, the players don’t make what they’re worth. Even in the NFL, the players don’t make what they’re worth, but in the XFL, it’s worse.

That being said, I come not to bury the XFL but to, in a word, hand it to them. McMahon has made a lot of mistakes in his adult life, but hiring Luck to run his league has been perhaps the best thing he has ever done in a business venture, at least the best thing since giving the ball to Steve Austin and doing anything he personally could to maintain his overness. Luck and his team have brought something to football that the NFL hadn’t done since it poached the two-point conversion from college. They reinvigorated the game itself with tweaks to the rules that have looked as good on the field as they were on paper.

The kickoff rule, for example, has been the league’s most stunning success. For years, the NFL has tried to “fix” its kickoff rule by trading off excitement for safety. Moving the line for kicking up, changing the touchback yardage value, and banning wedge formations for the cover team put a bandaid on the dam-crack that was the league’s brain trauma epidemic and effectively neutered the kick return game. Yes, there were still returns for touchdowns, like the one that effectively gave the Lions a win over the Eagles in week three this past season, but more often than not, the receiving team took a touchback and the offense started at the 25 yard line.

The problem with kickoffs is that the cover team always had a 50-yard head start at least and all the momentum that comes with it before the return team even starts to move. That momentum crashing into a stationary target that weighs at least 200 lbs. (with pads!) can cause serious damage to said stationary target and maybe also to the person initiating the collision. The touchback rules didn’t protect anyone trying to come out of the end zone or who was returning a short kick, and banning the wedge formation didn’t stop single runners from careening into a blocker or a ballcarrier at top speed. The NFL’s solution was to try eliminating the kickoff altogether, and they tried it in the Pro Bowl. It was a boring solution, which is par for the course for the Roger Goodell-era.

Where the XFL tried to compromise between safety and excitement, it found a solution that unlike most compromises satisfied both sides better than even the original rules could. Here’s the explanation from the rules page:

The kicker kicks from the 30-yard line and must kick the ball in the air and in play between the opponent’s 20-yard line and the end zone.

The coverage team lines up on the return side 35-yard line and the return team lines up on the 30-yard line. Each team must have exactly 3 players outside the hash marks on both sides of the ball and cannot move until the ball is caught by the returner.

Out of bounds kicks and kicks that fall short of the 20-yard line will result in an illegal procedure penalty, taking the ball all the way out to the kicking team’s 45 yard line.

Players can move when the ball is touched by the returner or 3 seconds after the ball touches the ground (when the official waves his hand down).

If the ball is kicked into the end zone and is downed it is a “Major” touchback and the ball is placed at the return side 35-yard line.

If the ball bounces in bounds and then out of the end zone or is downed in the end zone, the ball is placed at the return side 15-yard line.

If a player on the return team touches the ball and it goes out of bounds, the ball is spotted where it went out of bounds.

If a team wishes to run an onside kick, it must indicate this to the official before the play and the two teams will be permitted to line up using traditional NFL rules (i.e. 10 yards apart from the kicking team). There will be no surprise onside kicks.

On paper? That rule sounded really good. In action, well, take a look at this play, the first-ever XFL kickoff returned for a touchdown

Nate Tice on Twitter

awesome https://t.co/XfmsU15MkE

You’re never going to make football 100 percent safe, but the way this played out showed that you can keep excitement in the exciting parts of the game while still keeping and ear out for safety. The coverage and return teams engage like an offensive and defensive line. The runner still has room to move, and the play is now no longer at heightened risk, but it’s the same risk as you have for a play from scrimmage. It’s, in a word, genius. Oliver Luck and his team fixed the kickoff.

The other rules, like the double forward pass, increased and modified point-after-touchdown options, and modified overtime have made the league must-watch for football fans even with players who can’t stick on NFL practice squads. Imagine what they’d look like with the best in the league, hell, the world playing under them. Imagine Patrick Mahomes capping off a comeback by tying the game on a three-point PAT pass to Damien Williams, or Carson Wentz throwing a screen to Mile Sanders, who then connects with DeSean Jackson for a 40-yard score. The league came off a second year in a row where the home team lost a big playoff game without touching the ball in overtime. Rather than subjecting teams to another long drive, why not use the XFL model?

The three-point shot didn’t come about until the American Basketball Association used it as a hook when it started. Competitive leagues in every major sport left their marks whether it be through rule changes or outright mergers like with the American League, the American Football League, and the World Hockey Association. Competition breeds innovation, especially when the stalwart being challenged has stagnated.

I’m not sure if the XFL will last past this first season. All indications seem to say it will. Cities are talking about taking on expansion teams. Ratings seem good, and the league at least won’t run out of money mid-year like the AAF did last year. But even if it lasts, the XFL was never meant to be anything but a spur for rule changes in the NFL, no matter what delusions Vince McMahon had about competing with the NFL. Having football in the doldrums of February and March is nice, and I’m sure the players enjoy having a paycheck playing again. But unless the NFL fails bigtime, other leagues will always serve to push it forward, and that’s okay.

Mock drafts are boring. Most of them aren’t accurate anyway, especially if they try to do trades. Do you know how many teams have GMs that have no idea what they’re doing when making trades? Mock drafters put way too much time into trades when you get some dude like El Hijo del Matt Millen giving away two first round picks for a fullback.

Do you know how many teams deserve mockery in the National Football League? ALL OF THEM. Pro sports are silly in and of themselves in that they’re multibillion dollar industries based on games you and I played on the street or at the park when we were young. That’s not the part that deserves mockery; it’s the self-serious industrial complex surrounding them. So do the cities that hold the teams. Hell, everyone and everything on the planet needs mockery. How is anyone or anything so serious that it can’t have, as the Brits would say, the piss taken out of them?

That’s why a good mock draft should involve actual mockery. That’s why this mock draft will mock the teams that are drafting. Buckle up.

1. Cincinnati Bengals — I know what you’re thinking; skyline chili is the punchline. My mother told me not to diss anything I’ve never tried. I mean, why knock the local food when the team came off a season where the only teams they beat were the Jets and Browns. There was a gag in Married With Children where Al Bundy remarked that if the Bears didn’t beat the Rams, they’d be kicked out of the league. In the 2010s, that’s true of the Jets and Browns. Is it karmic retribution for firing one of the few Black coaches in the league? Could it be they plucked an assistant from a rotten tree? Or is it that God just hates Ohio? The answer is yes.

2. Landover Racial Slurs — Speaking of racism, it’s the literal team that has it embedded in the name! Whenever anyone says they have it rough, let them know the people who lived on this land first got genocided and herded onto reservations and then as thanks, sports teams use their imagery and names for fun. It shouldn’t be surprising given how the current ruling party is racism incarnate. Fun. Unless Danny Snyder snorts an eight-ball before the draft, expect this team to fall ass-first into a powerhouse pass rusher from the puppy mill for NFL-pedigreed studs, Ohio State. Life is never fair, but thankfully, this team has been impotent since their last Super Bowl. It feels like Snyder is an owner the likes of the post-Los Angeles Raiders or the Dallas Cowboys after they shitcanned Jimmy Johnson. As long as the owner is there, the team isn’t going to be much of a threat. Snyder is way younger than either the late Al Davis was when his team went south and Jerry Jones as well.

3. Detroit Lions — The Lions lucked into two generational players that breathed hope into a desolate ghost town after Ronald Reagan’s trickle down economics trickled all the automotive jobs down to Mexico. Of course, that hope was fleeting because the team hired dipshits like Matt Patricia to run the team. In case you forgot, Patricia’s defense gave up 41 points to a backup quarterback in the Super Bowl. It was the most Lions hire; you fire a qualified Black coach who got a Super Bowl season out of JOE FUCKING FLACCO to get a guy it took two years to equal the amount of wins he had in his worst season. Yup, Jim Caldwell might be incapable of showing emotion, but the only real bad season he had was when Peyton Manning’s neck forgot how to work. But anyway, I’m sure the Lions won’t fuck this pick up this time.

4. New York Giants — Speaking of fucking picks up, it’s hard to say Dave Gettleman fucked up his first round pick in 2018 from a talent standpoint. Yes, running backs only last a few seasons on average in the NFL, but Saquon Barkley is what anthropologists would call an entire-ass man. The problem is Danny Dimes, god I hate that nickname, may or may not be a professional quarterback who can read a defense. Would the Giants have been better off with, say, Sam Darnold and Ito Smith or Tony Pollard or Miles Sanders? I guess you have to give Jones some time but I mean, Dave Gettleman, man.

5. Miami Dolphins — You could say that the Dolphins couldn’t even tank right, but it is so asinine to tank in football anyway. Football is insanely violent, and one injury can totally wreck a season for a contending team. Would I trust a general manager that decided to hire an actual good head coach who refused to lose and thus was only in a position to draft Tua Tagovailoa because he broke his hip in the world’s most dangerous internship? They may be good on accident. Anyway, I hope they’re either Bernie or Bust or they have an escape plan for when Miami is underwater.

6. Los Angeles Chargers—The Philip Rivers Era is finally over in Los Angeles, which is sad for locals since his cadre of children will deplete the area of potential Republican voters by at least 200. Quiverfull: Fuck Yo’ Overpopulation Myths. Anyway, the little brothers in LA will be looking for a quarterback, and as a team that was in the AFC Divisional Round two years ago, you’d think they’d be all in on Teddy Bridgewater. Nuh-uh son, it’s time to reach on Oregon Project #2389. The history is deep on this; remember Joey Harrington? I’m insanely old, so I certainly do. To be fair though, whomever the Chargers draft might be the best QB playing in that stadium, but I don’t wanna let the Rams schadenfreude leak too much out of their own entry.

7. Carolina Panthers — The Panthers have moved on from Patient Zero on analytics Ron Rivera and gone onto college phenom Matt Rhule, who resuscitated both Temple and Baylor through the power of running the damn football. The fact that the Giants were all in on him however should be a red flag seeing that if Dave Gettleman says Mount St. Helens is fine and not going to erupt, I’m taking shelter. If any team is suited to pound the rock this year after the Niners and Titans exploited that market inefficiency deep into the playoffs, it’s a team that employs both Cam Newton and Christian McCaffrey. That being said, the team has a big problem in that it has a talisman of erectile dysfunction and sexual harassment out front of their stadium. Yes, Jerry Richardson sold the team but his bronze likeness will be a reminder that this team was founded by a racist malcontent forevermore.

8. Arizona Cardinals — The Cardinals shocked the world by hiring wunderkind and human sex bomb Kliff Kingsbury as head coach after his tenure as the greatest offensive coordinator in USC’s last decade. So what if he never coached a game for them? Have you SEEN that program since Pete Carroll left? Anyway, he went for field goals so many times inside the five that I wanted a refund for all the hype around him. Didn’t this guy light up scoreboards at Texas Tech with Pat Mahomes at quarterback? He contracted NFLitis with record quickness.

9. Jacksonville Jaguars — Did you hear Shad Khan is gonna play two home games in London next year? It’s almost like he wants to own TWO eternally shamed football teams in England along with Fulham. Honestly, when there’s more concern over whether All Elite Wrestling will remain in Jacksonville when the Jags eventually move, well, your footprint as a team will never grow out of being the eight (well this year, six) game sideshow for the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

10. Cleveland Browns — Cleveland gets a bum rap as a town. I’ve been there before, and it’s got plenty to eat and to see. You’d think the sports would keep up with the culture, but man, you don’t know how strong the stink is on the expansion Browns. The former Browns were actually a respectable franchise. Sure, Art Modell must have disturbed an ancient Aztec gravesite somewhere for them to have so much misfortune in the AFC Championship Game in the ’80s, but they weren’t moribund. That doesn’t explain how these Browns are so putrid. It’s inexplicable. I almost feel bad until I realize Jimmy Haslam defrauded a bunch of truckers, and really, they have it rough enough already.

11. New York Jets — The Jets beat the Cowboys but lost to the Bengals, and their funny-faced head coach talked major shit on their big ticket free agent running back. For any other team, this would be a scandal, but for the Jets, well, it’s standard operating procedure. Usually, New York fandoms file into Jets/Mets/Islanders or Yankees/Giants/Rangers. All of them like the Knicks, which has been a historical means of keeping New Yorkers humble. Anyway, the former grouping is almost categorically funnier to follow on social media because years of being beaten down have caused them to have the best self-deprecation. I guess that’s the one positive of being a Jets fan, especially after their biggest time to shine has been taken away from them now that the draft is mobile. They can’t gather in one place and boo the shit out of their first round draft pick.

12. Las Vegas Raiders — The Raiders going to Las Vegas is so on the nose that I thought Al Davis never died. What better fate for the team than being the Sunday opener for Wayne Newton or Celine Dion. I mean, Jon Gruden’s contract almost counts for a Vegas residency at this point. The Raiders were almost good by accident this past season, which seems hilarious since Gruden almost operated them like a baseball franchise. If you think about it the Red Sox were just copying the newly minted Las Vegas team by trading Mookie Betts. At least Gruden got three first round picks for Khalil Mack. The imitation is always paler than the original.

13. Indianapolis Colts — Eagles fans have been wistful for Frank Reich ever since he left and the bottom dropped out on the offense, but worry not! Reich showed he’s just like Doug Pederson with his incestuous hires! Disgraced former offensive coordinator Mike Groh found a job in Indy as the Wide Receivers Coach. I guess you could note that when he was in that position here, Nelson Agholor had his only year where he wasn’t a waste of space. But I will never miss an opportunity to note about how much of a meritocracy the NFL isn’t.

14. Tampa Bay Buccaneers — God, I hope Jameis Winston comes back, because no other team could handle his chaos like the Bucs. It would be hilarious if Winston replaced Tom Brady in New England, but nothing is more reliable than him killing a drive because he threw across his body to a triple-covered Mike Evans. Not even reaching for Jordan Love or Jacob Eason at 14 would be as funny as Bruce Arians filling his diaper on the sideline because Winston threw his third touchdown pass to Jalen Ramsey. Really though, Tampa won its Super Bowl. It’s basically Philly South. It deserves pain.

15. Denver Broncos — Honestly, it’s fitting that John Elway rode Terrell Davis’ legs to two titles and then as a GM is just the most bumbling dipshit this side of Jerry Jones. Pure MAGA chud. It only makes sense he’d have time to write a letter endorsing the sexual harassing Supreme Court justice and not to build a decent offensive line. I mean, Joe Flacco may not be good enough to deserve a starting job in the NFL, but he deserved to live, dammit. The shitty thing is he gets to coast off the Super Bowl title as if Von Miller going supernova and Peyton Manning, who while gimpy is still one of the greatest minds ever to play his position, weren’t just standing there. Elway isn’t nothing but the most opportunistic mind in sport since Edge in 2006.

16. Atlanta Falcons — The good news is that with this past Super Bowl, the problem was Kyle Shanahan, not the Falcons themselves. The bad news is they didn’t fire Dan Quinn, who is the kind of NFL head coach who speaks in shitty Lombardi-ese in an attempt to seem tough but who is soft as baby shit when the going gets really tough. I mean, you saw that between week 2 against the Eagles up to them beating the Saints. If you’re not gonna have someone smart head coaching, you might as well have a people person doing it. I don’t think Quinn is either. But I guess being free of 28–3 counts for something.

17. Dallas Cowboys — You havin’ team problems? I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but the cap ain’t one. Seriously, good luck trying to re-sign Byron Jones, Amari Cooper, AND Dak Prescott while having Jason Garrett’s eldritch prehistoric form in Mike McCarthy coaching the team. God, it’s a good thing the Cowboys are still gonna be a clownshow, because the Slurs might actually be good this year. Only one of those teams can be good at a time, you know.

18. Miami Dolphins, via Pittsburgh Steelers — The Steelers are so goddamn boring. They got rid of their two most electric skill position players, their rapist Trump friend quarterback got injured, and they traded this pick for Minkah Fitzpatrick and almost made the playoffs. That is some shit that makes your old father sit up and say “Defense wins championships! Fundamental football!” Granted, Antonio Brown is a loose cannon who is possibly also a rapist or abuser, but there can be situations where both parties are probably wrong, y’know?

19. Las Vegas Raiders, via Chicago Bears — To be completely fair to the Bears, nine out of ten times, I make that trade to get Khalil Mack. He’s a gamechanger. He’s a monster, unless he’s going one-on-one against Andre Dillard. There are maybe two other edge rushers in the league like him, and one of them, Von Miller, is getting up in years. You know what trade didn’t work out for them? Trading up one spot to grab a system quarterback whose only two achievements were torching the Dallas Cowboys a week after Thanksgiving this past season and professing love for tittiess. I’ll be as bold to say Matt Nagy coaching Deshaun Watson wins Super Bowl LIII and at least wins the North in 2019. But I guess that wound is too fresh. Anyway Bears fans, enjoy lusting after Dak Prescott and getting Andy Dalton this year!

20. Jacksonville Jaguars, via Los Angeles Rams — Sports in general have a big problem in that the people running the teams prefer to have potential instead of players. Would the Jags be better off with Jalen Ramsey or with the picks they got in return? That remains to be seen, but as someone with deep seated insecurities about sports in general, the trade didn’t work out for the Rams, at least in the short term. Nothing gets me like Sean McVay schadenfreude, because he’s supposedly the genius of the new breed of coaches, yet Doug Pederson owns him and scored more than three points against the Patriots in his Super Bowl. People are impressed that McVay can remember the names of everyone he’s coached or played against. You know what else is great at aggregating names? The Stanley Cup. McVay’s names are the winners of the Cup engraved upon it. Unlike hockey’s top trophy, you can’t drink a liter of Grey Goose out of McVay’s brain without suffering serious legal consequences. So who’s to say that his intellect is all that impressive?

21. Philadelphia Eagles — I have images of Devante Parker leaping over both Ronald Darby and Jalen Mills seared into my brain, all while Jim Schwartz looks sassily into the camera during his press conference to tell you everything went to plan. The last good cornerback the team had that it drafted was Bobby Taylor. Howie Roseman can’t draft them and Schwartz can’t develop them. It’s a horrific waking nightmare that only let up the one year the team won the Super Bowl. I could go on and on about the rest of the team, which at times has made me look like every stereotype that people on Twitter say we are, but I value my mental health.

22. Buffalo Bills — Josh Allen threw a low-leverage deep pass into double coverage to a fullback in the playoffs. There’s nothing else I could say that could top that true fact.

23. New England Patriots — You could say the defense failed the team after Bill Belichick was caught ONCE A-FUCKING-GAIN taping someone else’s practice in preparation for a game, but it’s slightly funnier to pin the playoff loss on Tom Brady, whose arm now makes Peyton Manning’s in 2015 look like Patrick Mahomes’. How many times did the defense outscore the offense this past season? You take Gronk away from Brady and all of a sudden, James White or Rex Burkhead or Ratface McButtegieg can’t get to the first down marker and not an inch further anymore. It’s so delicious. When Belichick finally retires to become a full-time MILF hunter (the most dangerous game!), this team is fucked and maybe Boston will be humble again…

…nah, they’ll never be humbled. That’s why they’re the villains.

24. New Orleans Saints — Whining over bad officiating excessively is annoying, but not really anything to get excited over. Bountygate is pro wrestling heel-levels of organizational malfeasance. But aiding the Catholic Church in covering up their years and years of pedophilia is supervillain shit. Really, the Saints shouldn’t exist anymore, but because the NFL is limper than an overcooked spaghetti noodle, they’ll continue to win the NFC South by three games and blow the playoffs at home until Drew Brees is too old to do anything but hate gay people.

25. Minnesota Vikings — “How you like that?” Me to the Vikings two years into a Kirk Cousins contract guaranteed for $84 million. If the Vikings played the Eagles and Saints exclusively, that contract might be worth it, but you’re always going to get him shrinking against a defense that’s anything “bend but don’t break” or better. But as much as I love dunking on that dork of a quarterback, can you really blame any of the Vikings’ woes on that contract? Their history of losing in heartbreaking fashion is longer and deeper than Cousins choking against the Bears in week 17 in 2018 or facing a legitimately elite Niners defense in 2019. 38–7 in 2017. 41–0 in 2000. Gary Anderson’s perfect year ending on a missed game-winning kick in 1998. 0–4 in the Super Bowl. I don’t know what ancient deity the Vikings pissed off when they were founded, but man, they are just the most accursed franchise in NFL history.

26. Miami Dolphins via Houston Texans — Well, the Dolphins got one part of rebuilding correct in accumulating high draft picks. But the Texans maybe did the opposite of the right thing. They saw Bill O’Brien coach like ass in the last three quarters vs. Kansas City in the Divisional Round and decided to give him even MORE power in the organization. The Texans have always had Big Loser Energy as a franchise no matter who the coach, and they can only beat traditional laughingstocks like Cincinnati and Buffalo in the playoffs. Put them against a real team, and they fold like a house of cards. Their success also fits the pattern that when a team leaves town, it has some success while the replacement team is futile. Maybe karma isn’t real! Just a thought.

27. Seattle Seahawks — I initially wrote about my bad feelings on Jadaveon Clowney ending Carson Wentz’s season, but honestly, is it really mockery if you’re just mad? Not really. It feels like the Seahawks exist just to be this outlet of highly embarrassing people doing things that make them inherently targets of mockery, but all that ground is well-traveled. Pete Carroll is a 9/11 truther and invited Macklemore and the Lobster Doctor himself Jordan Peterson to talk to the team. Russell Wilson is a stereotypical volcel parody of himself who likes snake oil such as nanobubbles. It’s almost like they’re the corniest team possible just so that the slings and arrows don’t hurt them. I guess you can go to the curse Darrell Bevell put on them in the Super Bowl against the Patriots, but even that’s old news. God, I hate this team.

28. Baltimore Ravens — Remember when the Ravens had a good defense? God, those were the days. Now, they have to hope Lamar Jackson’s receivers don’t drop a billion passes or they don’t play a team that can stop the run. The NFL is still a passing league, which is why the Ravens were able to just paste so many teams. Matthew Judon could get home super quick and their cover team could stay in coverage, especially after the Marcus Peters trade. But then Tennessee came into their house, decided they weren’t going to do foolish things like having Ryan Tannehill drop back to pass, and Derrick Henry just gashed their front line that was ill-equipped to do anything but speed rush past an offensive lineman. An identity as a run-stopping team and only a run-stopping team is an obsolete philosophy, but it’s not like you can only defend the pass or the run. Teams are never going to stop running the football, and it’s doubly stupid for the Ravens because they RAN THE FOOTBALL ALL THE GODDAMN TIME.

29. Tennessee Titans — You kinda have to expect Bill Belichick to do dickish bullshit like continuing to run down the clock on fourth down and take penalties on punts to play keepaway. There’s a certain satisfaction of the student hoisting the teacher by his own petard, but goddamn, if that sequence wasn’t the most boring and frustrating sequence in an otherwise satisfying game. I mean, do you want to bring the game back to before 1970 when there was no play clock? I hate that you have to make these rules, and the fact that former Belichick players and coaches take his worst traits with them when he leaves really dampens the Titans’ likeability.

30. Green Bay Packers — I think Raheem Mostert just ran for another touchdown on them. Seriously, I guess you can thank the Packers for one thing and that’s highlighting how much defenses have lagged against the run. It’s never good to be the example, but as Bears fans will quickly chime in, the Packers were at the top of the correlation for favorable calls vs. unfavorable. While it’s still criminal Mike McCarthy wasted so much of Aaron Rodgers’ prime, he’s still an elite QB. Unless you root for the team he’s on, you’re SUPPOSED to wanna feel schadenfreude when he fails.

31. San Francisco 49ers — Kyle Shanahan didn’t run the ball enough against the Patriots and blew a 28–3 lead in the Super Bowl. Kyle Shanahan didn’t pass the ball enough and blew a 20–10 lead against the Chiefs. I’ve seen this before. It’s a supervillain origin story. Next thing you know, he’s going to acquire Infinity Stones, snap his fingers, and perfectly balance every NFL coach’s playbook so that it’s half run plays and half pass plays. You might think that he’s a sympathetic figure but since he got his first job in the NFL due to nepotism, well, he deserves the Nelson Muntz laugh.

32. Kansas City Chiefs —Thanks a lot for winning a Super Bowl with another team, Andy. All it took was two domestic abusers and the most talented QB of all-time. Goddammit.

Joe Rogan is a transphobe, a birther, and has given platforms to the worst of the alt-right. He’s not the first person one might think of as a leftist thought leader. When he endorsed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Presidential primary, it didn’t register a blip on the radar, even as Sanders was a guest on his show. When Sanders’ team boosted that endorsement, however, the knives came out again as they do whenever the first viable Jewish candidate for President does anything but sit in a corner and remain silent.

Rogan endorsing Sanders isn’t really the issue here, although if you listen to some of the mouthier talking heads like Neera Tanden or Tom Watson, it’s a sign that Sanders has been racist and sexist all along, just like everything he does that isn’t loudly and superficially appealing to idpol is a sign and everything else he does doesn’t exist. Joe Rogan can think what he wants. It’s a free country, after all. It’s the signal boosting of the endorsement that has stuck in more reasonable craws. It’s that part that I’m more sympathetic to. Why should Sanders take that endorsement with pride?

The answer has less to do with Rogan and more with the people he podcasts for. Sanders believes in his movement existing under a big tent. It’s why he governed Burlington, VT as a haven for trans people during his time as mayor there, and if you don’t think that’s big, I suggest you take to corners of liberal Twitter where whenever trans rights are brought up, people like JK Rowling and Graham Linehan start howling about how trans people are actually misogynist. That’s today. Sanders’ time as Mayor of Burlington spanned most of the decade of the 1980s.

Is the demographic of Rogan’s podcast as marginalized as the people that Sanders has taken to fight for? The answer plainly is no. That being said, their vote counts the same as mine does, as yours does, as anyone’s does who is registered to vote. At the very least, it’s a smart strategy, albeit opportunistic until you start to look at YouTube comments on Rogan’s videos or in the Joe Rogan Experience subreddit. You see comments from people who only knew Sanders from Republican smear attacks react to what he had to say, and there were epiphanies. If Sanders can change minds and make people see what he’s been preaching for well over 60 years now, then isn’t that worth the attention? If not, and he dupes a transphobe into helping him win an election, that’s still the kind of delicious irony that even the best fiction authors have trouble formulating.

That’s all still not enough for the Tandens and Watsons of the world. The fact that Sanders courted and amplified the endorsement of a dude who has said nasty shit about trans people in the past means he didn’t pass a purity test for them and cannot be trusted. You can bring up the fact that every Democratic nominee wanted on that show, even Elizabeth Warren, and they were denied. Rogan said bad things about trans people, so Sanders is invalidated. Of course, don’t tell them that Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying trans women were “a legitimate concern” to cis women, phraseology straight out of the TERF playbook. They won’t hear it.

Don’t mention to them that Clinton courted the endorsements and donations of Henry Kissinger, who bombed neutral nation Cambodia during the Vietnam War, used chemical weapon Agent Orange against the Viet Cong, and aided cruel Indonesian dictator Suharto in his attempts to commit genocide. Kissinger is responsible for more deaths of trans people than Rogan could ever dream of. Clinton also accepted donations from accused rapist Harvey Weinstein or Ed Buck, who was arrested in connection to the young Black men who died after he lured into his condo to pump full of meth and have questionably consensual sex. They’ll scream about whataboutism run amok. Nevermind that Weinstein and Buck and Kissinger do not speak to anyone but their incestuous circles of 1 Percent voters and that Rogan’s outreach is massive and blue collar. After whining about the online left holding Clinton to a purity test in 2016, they are selectively applying their own to Sanders’ endorsements.

You’re not going to get those people to see the good in Sanders, because they’ve already made up their minds. Tanden, Watson, The Hoarse Whisperer, so many of these online surrogates for Clinton who have never stopped fighting a war that they should be taking internally are well-off and if not in the guillotine class are close enough that they can aspire to be in it. They are scared that Sanders will take their money, so they lash out at him in favor of candidates who share their optics with no viable way to implement them. They’re one step away from joining their counterparts on the right in smearing Sanders as a Marxist, even though his platform doesn’t include universal basic income, let alone radical redistribution of wealth to the elimination of class. To them, free healthcare for poors in West Virginia is as bad breadlines and gulags.

If Elizabeth Warren had gotten Rogan’s endorsement, none of this hullaballoo would’ve happened, but the fact that Warren didn’t get it should tell you something. The fact that the New York Times endorsed her and not Sanders should tell you something, and not good for her. The endorsement game can tell you a lot of you know what to look for. Rogan may not have endorsed Sanders because he 100 percent believes in his platform, but because he’s sick of the same old shit in Washington. It’s how Trump was elected. He positioned himself as an outsider even though he’s slave to whatever the GOP congressional body tells him to do.

What would happen if Sanders, a true outsider with a rigid and moral belief system, were to take office, someone whom you know won’t fall in line behind Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi because he’s already battling against them? That’s why the Rogan endorsement isn’t a big deal at worst and a net positive at best. Sanders’ history suggests that he won’t fall in line behind Rogan’s ghastly and repugnant views from the past. In fact, history suggests Rogan is more likely to come around to Sanders. If you can convert anyone to believing in good things, it’s a plus.

Honorable Mentions — EPs!
Surfbort — You Don’t Exist
Charly Bliss — Supermoon
Jeff Rosenstock and Laura Stevenson — Still Young

The LPs!

63. The Mountain Goats — In League with Dragons
Song Picks: “Doc Gooden” “Sicilian Crest”

62. One Step Closer — From Me to You
Song Picks: “The Reach” “One Step Closer”

61. Zig Zags — They’ll Never Take Us Alive
Song Picks: “Fallout” “Nothing to Do”

60. Andy Human and the Reptoids — Psychic Sidekick
Song Picks: “Autism 4 2” “Cherubic Nil”

59. The Paranoyds — Carnage Bargain
Song Picks: “Girlfriend Degree” “Courtney”

58. Hash Redactor — Drecksound
Song Picks: “In the Tank” “Open Invite (to the Caves)”

57. The Gotobeds — Debt Begins at 30
Song Picks: “Slang Words” “On Loan”

56. Boy Harsher — Careful
Song Picks: “Face the Fire” “Come Closer”

55. Baroness — Gold and Grey
Song Picks: “Throw Me an Anchor” “”

54. Yak — Pursuit of Momentary Happiness
Song Picks: “Bellyache” “Pay-off Vs. the Struggle”

53. Dead Bars — Regulars
Song Picks: “Freaks” “Producto Toxico”

52. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard — Fishing for Fishies
Song Picks: “Real’s Not Real” “Cy-Boogie”

51. Silversun Pickups — Widow’s Weeds
Song Picks: “Freakazoid” “We Are Chameleons”

50. The Black Keys — “Let’s Rock”
Song Picks: “Shine a Little Light” “Tell Me Lies” “Under the Gun”

49. FIDLAR — Almost Free
Song Picks: “Get Off My Rock” “Can’t You See” “Scam Likely”

48. Korn — The Nothing
Song Picks: “Idiosyncrasy” “Finally Free” “This Loss”

47. Mudhoney — Morning In America
Song Picks: “Vortex of Lies” “Kill Yourself Live Again” “Snake Oil Charmer”

46. RIDE — This Is Not a Safe Place
Song Picks: “RIDE” “Jump Jet” “In This Room”

45. Lizzo — Cuz I Love You
Song Picks: “Like A Girl” “Juice” “Tempo” (f/ Missy Elliot)

44. Prince Daddy and the Hyena — Cosmic Thrill Seekers
Song Picks: “Lauren (Track 2)” “Ursula Merger” “Trying Times”

43. Chastity Belt — Chastity Belt
Song Picks: “Elena” “Effort” “Drown”

42. Olivia Jean — Night Owl
Song Picks: “Night Owl” “Brush Fire” “Jaan Pehechaan Ho”

41. The Amazons — Future Dust
Song Picks: “25” “End of Wonder” “Dark Visions”

40. BABYMETAL — METAL GALAXY
Song Picks: “DANCE DANCE DANCE” “Oh! MAJINAI” “Distortion”

39. Torche — Admission
Song Picks: “Submission” “Admission” “Changes Come”

38. The Raconteurs — Help Us, Stranger
Song Picks: “Bored and Razed” “Help Me Stranger” “Don’t Bother Me”

37. Opeth — In Cauda Venenum
words
Song Picks: “Garden of Earthly Delights” “Dignity” “Charlatan”

36. Radkey — No Strange Cats… PAW
Song Picks: “Junes” “St. Elwood” “Basement”

35. Leggy — Let Me Know Your Moon
words
Song Picks: “Not What You Need” “Prom Date” “Already Gone”

34. Mannequin Pussy — Patience
Song Picks: “Drunk II” “High Horse” “In Love Again”

33. Diva Sweetly — In the Living Room
Song Picks: “Cult” “Wax on My Candles” “The Floor Caved In (New Lang Syne)”

32. White Reaper — You Deserve Love
Song Picks: “Saturday” “1F” “Might Be Right”

31. Sturgill Simpson — SOUND & FURY
Song Picks: “Sing Along” “Mercury in Retrograde” “Fastest Horse in Town”

30. Amyl and the Sniffers — Amyl and the Sniffers
Song Picks: “Starfire 5000” “Angel” “Monsoon Rock” “Shake Ya”

29. Sleater-Kinney — The Center Won’t Hold
Song Picks: “Hurry on Home” “Can I Go On” “RUINS” “The Dog/The Body”

28. Martha — Love Keeps Kicking
Song Picks: “Heart Is Healing” “WrestleMania VIII” “Love Keeps Kicking” “Orange Juice”

27. Orville Peck — Pony
Song Picks: “Dead of Night” “Big Sky” “Hope to Die” “Nothing Fades Like the Light”

26. Sir Babygirl — Crush on Me
Song Picks: “Flirting with Her” “Cheerleader” “Haunted House” “Pink Lite”

25. Frankie and the Witch Fingers — ZAM
Song Picks: “Dracula Drug” “Realization” “ZAM” “Cobwebs”

24. PUP — Morbid Stuff
Song Picks: “See You At Your Funeral” “Full-Blown Meltdown” “Bare Hands” “City”

23. Strand of Oaks — Eraserland
Song Picks: “Hyperspace Blues” “Visions” “Eraserland” “Forever Chords”

22. Fresh — Withdraw
Song Picks: “Withdraw” “Going to Brighton” “Punisher” “Nothing”

21. Pure Bathing Culture — Night Pass
Song Picks: “Thin Growing Thing” “Black Starling” “Ad Victoriam” “Remember”

20. The Coathangers — The Devil You Know
Song Picks: “Bimbo” “F The NRA” “Stasher” “Lithium”

19. Sum 41 — Order in Decline
Song Picks: “Out for Blood” “The New Sensation” “45 (A Matter of Time)” “The People Vs.”

18. Dinosaur Pile-up — Celebrity Mansions
Song Picks: “Thrash Metal Cassette” “Back Foot” “Stupid Heavy Metal Broken Hearted Loser Punk” “Professional Freak”

17. Alex Lahey — Best of Luck Club
Song Picks: “I Don’t Get Invited to Parties Anymore” “Am I Doing It Right?” “Interior Demeanour” “I Need to Move On”

16. Tacocat — This Mess Is a Place
Song Picks: “Grains of Salt” “The Joke of Life” “Little Friend” “Crystal Ball”

15. Filthy Friends — Emerald Valley
Song Picks: “Emerald Valley” “November Man” “Angels” “The Elliott”

14. The Spielbergs — This Is Not The End
Song Picks: “Five On It” “Distant Star” “4 AM” “Forevermore”

13. How I Became Invisible — U N I D E N T I F I E D
Song Picks: “Entropy and Disorder” “This Glorious Chaos” “The Emancipation of Becky Lynch” “What Comes Around We Go Around”

12. Otoboke Beaver — Itekoma Hits
Song Picks: Just listen to the whole album, it’s like 20 minutes long.

11. Heart Attack Man — Fake Blood
Song Picks: “Fake Blood” “Out for Blood” “Cut My Losses” “The Choking Game”

10. Priests — The Seduction of Kansas
Song Picks: “Jesus’ Son” “The Seduction of Kansas” “Good Time Charlie” “Control Freak” “Texas Instruments”

9. Screaming Females — Singles Too
Song Picks: “I Do” “Ancient Civilization” “Let Me In” “Hopeless (Demo)” “Take It Back”

8. Black Mountain — Destroyer
Song Picks: “Future Shade” “Horns Arising” “Pretty Little Lazies” “Boogie Lover” “FD’72”

7. Desert Sessions — Volumes 11 and 12
Song Picks: “Noses in Roses Forever” “Far East for the Trees” “If You Run” “Chic Tweetz” “Something You Can’t See”

6. Black Midi — Schlagenheim
Song Picks: “Speedway” “Reggae” “Western” “bmbmbm” “Ducter”

5. Pkew Pkew Pkew — Optimal Lifestyles
Song Picks: “Drinkin’ Days” “The Polynesian” “Skate 2” “I Wanna See a Wolf” “Adult Party”

4. Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders — Get the Money
Song Picks: “Crossed the Line” “Don’t Look at Me That Way” “Get the Money” “Middle Child” “Kiss the Ring”

3. Ex Hex — It’s Real
Song Picks: “Tough Enough” “Good Times” “Another Dimension” “Radiate” “Talk to Me”

2. Charly Bliss — Young Enough
Song Picks: “Blown to Bits” “Capacity” “Young Enough” “Chatroom” “Hard to Believe”

1. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard — Infest the Rats’ Nest
Song Picks: “Planet B” “Mars for the Rich” “Superbug” “Venusian 1” “Hell”

Hillary Clinton has a lot of gall. One could say the reason is showing her face after blowing what should’ve been the easiest campaign to win the Presidency ever. Hell, the DNC boosted Donald Trump in order to get a favorable opponent, not knowing his brand of strong promises spoken loudly would galvanize the Republican voter base. Honestly, even though she’s a public figure who should know better, she’s got a right to make appearances and speak, at least in theory.

However, when one of those opportunities to give her opinions is to compare staying with a philandering pedophile with raising a trans child, maybe that backlash should be loud enough to keep her in whatever mansion in the Hamptons she’s living nowadays. Yeah, she said that to the Washington Examiner, which somehow is now the biggest clown car of a newspaper in Washington, eclipsing the Post and the right-wing rag the Times.

I really shouldn’t need to explain why comparing leaving Little St. James’ most notable VIP to raising a child who needs nurture and support to get through this world that is programmed to hate them, but honestly, there are so many fucking TERFs on Twitter and in the general webspace that yelling and screaming with animation why that comparison is bullshit is not only necessary but futile. Seriously, you try engaging with Graham Linehan on Twitter and explaining to him that science supports the idea that the gender binary is a work and that people whose nervous system is hardwired to the binary gender that is opposite the body parts they were born with. You’ll want to go swimming in a vat of hydrofluoric acid within five minutes.

Whether or not Clinton supports trans rights feels immaterial with this statement because if she does, then it shows it’s not a deep or understanding support. But that’s been her entire MO for her political career. She says something ghastly and then has to cover for it to gain political points with a legion of sycophants who will do her bidding, paid or as a volunteer. She’ll say in the ’90s when she supported the crime bill her husband signed into law by claiming Black youths were “superpredators,” and then decades later have her toadies pen things like “In Africa, they call her Sister Hillary.” It’s all political opportunism.

It might have been fine in 2008 when Barack Obama pantsed her for the Democratic nomination despite her deploying every smear she could to try and bring him down. She tried the same smears with Bernie Sanders in 2016, but she didn’t really need them thanks to the Democrats’ utterly laughable “superdelegate” system that allowed people to ignore the popular votes in individual states. It clearly flew then, but in three years, more and more people, including former sycophant-turned-jaded leftist Peter Daou, have realized it doesn’t fly. You have to at least pretend to walk the walk. It’s how dipshit libertarian-in-leftist’s clothing Andrew Yang can fool his way into poll numbers by promising a bastardized form of UBI. It’s why Kamala Harris, despite checking off several diversity boxes, is underperforming in polls. It’s why Sanders continues to be a viable candidate, and it’s why Elizabeth Warren shot up to a leadership position (even if I don’t trust her, but she at least talks a good game) in the polls.

Candidates like Harris and Corey Booker and Beto O’Rourke aren’t cutting muster in the primary race because they don’t even pretend to care about important issues. Clinton is their avatar, and she still doesn’t know when to be quiet. Something about wealth just coaxes dumb shit to come out of insanely rich people’s mouths, and if you’re rich enough to have been able to fly on the Jeffrey Epstein Direct Flight to the Virgin Islands, you’re rich enough to think that a trans child’s harrowing experience is anything close to having to stay with a man who if called a pig would be an insult to all pigkind (you can’t kill Bill Clinton and put him in your smoker… well you could, but he’d probably taste awful and you’d go to prison).

Clinton will always have her supporters. People with fame and money never run out of those. Writing this post, or any other plea to abandon Mother, is as futile as, well, trying to convince Graham Linehan that trans men are men and trans women are women. But sometimes, you just have to scream into the abyss. It’s all one can do, especially when the abyss is all you have and Clinton can scream into someone’s tape recorder and probably get an interview fee in the process. The world is fucked, but that’s why we fight.

All sports fans are the same.

Well no, that’s not true at all. Some sports fans are boorish slobs. Some are refined racists. Some are me. That being said, what I mean to say is everyplace that has sports fans has a similar makeup of them. There’s no functional difference between fans in Chicago and Jacksonville except that the former had about a century head start in establishing its reputation.

Yet, people who are otherwise seem to know what they’re talking about will swear that some places have DIFFERENT fans. It’s mostly reserved for fans of Philadelphia teams, who are somewhat more boorish and slovenly than people in other places. It started with a dissatisfied Eagles crowd booing some drunk shithead dressed up as Santa Claus and snowballed to include such things like “booing ‘Philadelphia’ native Kobe Bryant at the All-Star Game,” despite the fact Bryant wants nothing to do with Philly, is an accused rapist, and also is an eccentric egomaniac. Go figure.

Anyway, it would be pretty disingenuous to say that Philly fans’ reputation is wholly unearned. Booing Michael Irvin as his career ended after taking the business end of Tim Hauck’s unrelenting momentum was a black eye, as was the late Pukemon vomiting on an innocent girl for no reason at a Phillies game. People will make excuses for them. I won’t explicitly. You should call out sociopathic behavior, honestly.

That being said, it’s Philly that gets shit for things deserved and undeserved. What other city has the rap sheet that we (disclosure, I’m a four-for-four Philly sports fan and have been my whole life, hence, using the word “we” is not really royal here) do? White Sox fans ran onto the field to beat the shit out of a Royals third base coach. A Dodgers fan put a San Francisco Giants fan in a coma. A Niners fan SHOT a Raiders fan at a PRESEASON game. A New York Giants fan was caught on camera for throwing snowballs onto the field of play. Hell, that doesn’t even bring into account football (soccer) fans around the world and their hooliganism. The rap sheet is long everywhere. Philly is the only place where the reputation sticks.

Is it fair? Probably not. I’ve railed about it online, probably because something vestigial inside of me wants to say “hey, not all of us.” Even if it isn’t all of us, it’s something we should be calling out, right? Right. That being said, it gets me because it happens everywhere, not that I really want Chicago or Los Angeles or Oakland to get the “tsk tsk tsk BAD FAN” treatment. It’s that I want sports fans to be better, to realize this shit is a game and the only people they should be doing violence to are the owners.

That being said, it’ll probably never happen. Sports inspire passion in people that make them do stupid things, and I’m not sure sports work without that passion. It doesn’t mean you stop trying to end the needless violence at sporting events, but it does mean that maybe you should temper your expectations of how well those measures work and be surprised if they can reel in the violence without extinguishing the passion. So, in the absence of alleviating the problem, people around the country want to look for a scapegoat. It’s natural. “These people are the worst offenders, so we can concentrate on them while ignoring our own problems.” Hence, Philly fans are American sports’ Great Satans.

That reputation is strong, and it won’t ever erode because villains are convenient to have around. Everyone loves a heel, whether they like to admit it or not. If Philadelphia disappeared off the map tomorrow, and the Eagles, Flyers, Sixers, and Phillies disbanded immediately, the country would have major problems figuring out which fans were the worst. Boston fans might have the edge, but then there’d be big pointing at New York or Chicago, and no one would agree on any city like they would Philly.

But none of the above really answers why Philly, or any strong villain, sticks in this way. The reason is that rooting against a Philly team and thus rooting for their fans to suffer is silent validation for people who ignore their fans being shitheads. The team with the “good” fans wins out. It’s a pressure release in seeing the evil vanquished. And to them, Philly fans are the evil. They are the only boors and slobs and ruffians in sport. Their fans? They’re justified. They root the right way, no matter what reports come out to say otherwise. When Philly teams win, the bad guys win. It’s Darth Vader cutting off Luke Skywalker’s hand and getting away with Han Solo in carbonite. It’s Steve Austin aligning with Vince McMahon to beat The Rock in the main event of WrestleMania. It’s Thanos snapping his fingers. The bad guys win, and because their team won, the fans’ behavior is justified.

Yes, that logic passes no smell test. No fanbase is truly good or evil completely, although every stadium or arena on game day has a bunch of people who have done or who have the capacity to do heinous shit in the name of flimsy reasons. But that doesn’t fit into a narrative, and a good bit of people like narratives. Philly fans are the heels because it’s neat and tidy.

Jason Kelce in his epic Super Bowl parade speech now 18 months ago shouted the line “WE DON’T CARE” over and over again, and it resonated with a huge part of the fanbase, who seemed to be ready to take on the mantle of sports villains. Yet, I’d bet the only ones who followed through were the ones who didn’t care before. Again, sports fans all over are a sensitive lot, no matter what they say. That’s why a good bunch of us continue to complain everytime ESPN rolls out a report on how bad we as fans are. It would be awesome if everyone who rooted for a Philly team just shut up and stopped caring and starting adopting swagger. Embrace it, love it. But we won’t. Because like I said above, sports fans are the same, no matter where they are.

Something happened in the wide world, and Donald Trump had a bad tweet about it. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It’s my long-held belief that Trump, though awful, is not the worst president in history (he’s not even the second-worst of my lifetime thanks to the tag team of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush), but it seems like he is because he has a Twitter and is not afraid to use it. Posting with the stream of consciousness style of a Redditor with something stupid to say, Trump will chime in on anything that floats into his open sewer of a brain, no matter how wrong his take on it is. Bush was a monster, no doubt, but there wasn’t a Twitter to jump on for him to claim everyone criticizing him was a hater or a loser. It doesn’t make Bush better at all; in fact, in reality, I’d say the fact that he didn’t bitch and moan at his critics made him worse because it emboldened more than his worst supporters. Still though, the optics of Trump’s incessant whining can be oppressive to those who see hit after hit of hit of Apocalypse-signifying news. When climate scientists give Earth a decade to live and social media is more vigilant at regulating critics of TERFs than it is of Nazis, the last thing one needs is Our Big Dumb Wet President saying some ignorant shit about the Kentucky Derby.

So I propose that Trump finally gets the ban from Twitter, like right now. This is not an original idea, at all. People much smarter and timelier than me have suggested this before, and after tweets over much more serious matters than the fucking Kentucky Derby. He really should have been banned after he dog-whistled his supporters to assassinate Rep. Ilhan Omar or after he said he’d have his Secretary of State look into the mass murders of White farmers in South Africa (that weren’t happening) or after he stoked war with North Korea before he and Kim Jong-Un became besties. That being said, each tweet about how political correctness is ruining the Derby or about how Nick Bosa is going to be a great player while ignoring the only player taken before him or about PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT or about how firefighters need to use flying tankers to put out the Notre Dame Cathedral fire is just another 10-ton weight dropped on the vast majority of the country that just can’t take his bullshit anymore.

So yeah, both of Trump’s accounts should get the boot. He doesn’t need Twitter to spout his bullshit. He’s the fucking president for fuck’s sake! He could fart into a microphone, and even the most ~*~*~*~ReSiSTancE~*~*~*~ of publications will cover it, probably with some degree of positivity. I hear the New York Times already has Bret Stephens penning a column on how alpha and leaderlike Trump’s flatulence is already. You don’t need to give him 24/7 access to spewing toxic waste into a public forum where not only his supporters will boost it, but so will liberals and leftists alike in attempts to dunk on him. The presidency is an important office, but it shouldn’t be monoculture, and Twitter allows him to become THE conversation. The Founding Fathers sucked shit and were mostly racist, but their best idea was that the president shouldn’t be a monolith. The Republican Party abused this when they made everything about Barack Obama when he was in office, and then now they have a guy who does the same in their favor.

Banning Trump from Twitter will never happen because Jack Dorsey is a Nazi himself. He’ll never admit it, but the lengths to which he protects Nazis on Twitter under the guise that if he banned them, he’d ban Steve King among other heavy right-wing GOP pols too show he’s more than just a sympathizer. I mean, his bullshit rich-person “find yourself” retreat was in a country actively committing genocide against a mostly Muslim minority.

But if someone who wasn’t a Nazi ran Twitter, the first thing they should do is ban Trump. He’ll scream and cry about it, sure, but all it would do is cause a bunch of right-wing weirdos and some centrists who think it’s good to listen to fascists like we didn’t listen to what they had to say in the ’30s and then saw the fruition of their speech to leave for Gab or whatever. Either way, it’s just too oppressive to see him spout off about whatever wrong bullshit he’s on, and the block/mute tools are useless because people screenshot him. The only way is to ban him and give everyone at least one reprieve from their otherwise hellish days in a land with sick people with no access to healthcare, poor people with no access to money, and a living people with no access to a biologically viable planet.

Well, the time has arrived to unveil the 2018 TWB 100. You voted on it, and now, those votes have decided who the best in-ring workers… in the world were in calendar year 2018. A few notes before beginning:

• As noted before, the points system is weighted towards top-five votes. First place gets 125 points, second gets 110, third 105, fourth 100, and fifth 98. After that, the scale slides one point per vote, i.e. 95 points for a sixth place vote, 94 for a seventh, all the way down to one point for a 100th place vote.
• The first tiebreaker is high vote. I value quality over quantity. After that, it’s the number of votes received, and finally, the number of high votes received.

And with that, we move into the TWB 100, going in reverse order, because I like to keep y’all in suspense.

100. Tessa Blanchard
Points: 479
Total Ballots: 9
High Vote: 10th Place (Duncan Parker Newton-Gaines)
Last Year: Not Ranked

99. Katsuhiko Nakajima
Points: 513
Total Ballots: 8
High Vote: 16th Place (Emily Newsom)
Last Year: Not Ranked

98. Naomichi Marufuji
Points: 516
Total Ballots: 8
High Vote: 2nd Place (Kyle Kensing)
Last Year: Not Ranked

97. Darby Allin
Points: 525
Total Ballots: 8
High Vote: 3rd Place (Chris Gibbons)
Last Year: Not Ranked

96. EVIL
Points: 527
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 34th Place (Kyle Kensing)
Last Year: Not Ranked

95. Oney Lorcan (is here for porkin’)
Points: 527 (ranked ahead of EVIL because of a higher high vote)
Total Ballots: 8
High Vote: 14th Place (Andrew Smith)
Last Year: 38th Place

94. Shuji Ishikawa
Points: 540
Total Ballots: 6
High Vote: 2nd Place (Chris Gibbons)
Last Year: Not Ranked

93. Joey Janela
Points: 545
Total Ballots: 11
High Vote: 11th Place (Dylan Hales)
Last Year: Not Ranked

92. Shinsuke Nakamura
Points: 557
Total Ballots: 12
High Vote: 13th Place (Joshua Browns)
Last Year: 52nd Place

91. Shane Strickland/Killshot
Points: 557
Total Ballots: 10
High Vote: 1st Place (Mat Morgan)
Last Year: 64th Place

90. Juan Francisco de Coronado
Points: 572
Total Ballots: 8
High Vote: 10th Place (Mat Morgan)
Last Year: 51st Place

89. Speedball Mike Bailey
Points: 573
Total Ballots: 11
High Vote: 23rd Place (Chris Gibbons)
Last Year: Not Ranked

88. Dasher Hatfield
Points: 578
Total Ballots: 8
High Vote: 2nd Place (Mat Morgan)
Last Year: 67th Place

87. Ember Moon
Points: 586
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 15th Place (Willow Maclay)
Last Year: 16th Place

86. Masashi Takeda
Points: 596
Total Ballots: 7
High Vote: 2nd Place (Skylar, John/ToshanshuinLA)
Last Year: Not Ranked

85. Juice Robinson
Points: 606
Total Ballots: 12
High Vote: 20th Place (Jony P)
Last Year: Not Ranked

84. KUSHIDA
Points: 618
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 11th Place (Dan Brookes)
Last Year: Not Ranked

83. Nikki Cross
Points: 622
Total Ballots: 10
High Vote: 16th Place (Andrew Smith)
Last Year: 19th Place

82. Cody
Points: 627
Total Ballots: 11
High Vote: 6th Place (Bob from Online)
Last Year: Not Ranked

81. Kevin Owens
Points: 630
Total Ballots: 11
High Vote: 9th Place (Nicholas Reed)
Last Year: 14th Place

80. Keith Lee
Points: 643
Total Ballots: 12
High Vote: 13th Place (Duncan Parker Newton-Gaines)
Last Year: 24th Place

79. Sheamus
Points: 646
Total Ballots: 10
High Vote: 20th Place (Joshua Browns, Scott Raychel)
Last Year: 12th Place

78. Trent Seven
Points: 649
Total Ballots: 12
High Vote: 13th Place (Henry Casey)
Last Year: Not Ranked

77. Xavier Woods
Points: 660
Total Ballots: 12
High Vote: 21st Place (Rene Sanchez)
Last Year: 17th Place

76. Rusev (Day)
Points: 664
Total Ballots: 12
High Vote: 20th Place (Bobby Godfrey)
Last Year: 36th Place

75. Marty Scurll
Points: 669
Total Ballots: 11
High Vote: 6th Place (Stefanie Hampton)
Last Year: Not Ranked

74. Takashi Sugiura
Points: 690
Total Ballots: 9
High Vote: 6th Place (Emily Newsom, John/ToshanshuinLA)
Last Year: Not Ranked

73. Zeus
Points: 693
Total Ballots: 10
High Vote: 1st Place (Skylar)
Last Year: Not Ranked

72. Nick Gage
Points: 698
Total Ballots: 12
High Vote: 2nd Place (Jarrett Seidler)
Last Year: 79th Place

71. Hirooki Goto
Points: 704
Total Ballots: 12
High Vote: 13th Place (Kyle Kensing)
Last Year: Not Ranked

70. Jey Uso
Points: 731
Total Ballots: 13
High Vote: 15th Place (Joshua Browns)
Last Year: 9th Place

69. (nice!) Jordynne Grace
Points: 735
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 6th Place (Chris Hale)
Last Year: Not Ranked

68. Jimmy Uso
Points: 738
Total Ballots: 13
High Vote: 14th Place (Joshua Browns)
Last Year: 8th Place

67. Chris Jericho
Points: 738 (Ranked ahead of Jimmy Uso because of higher high vote)
Total Ballots: 13
High Vote: 1st Place (Patrick Kay)
Last Year: 70th Place

66. LA Park
Points: 742
Total Ballots: 9
High Vote: 4th Place (Skylar)
Last Year: Not Ranked

65. Shingo Takagi
Points: 744
Total Ballots: 11
High Vote: 9th Place (JP Thrice)
Last Year: Not Ranked

64. SANADA
Points: 767
Total Ballots: 14
High Vote: 15th Place (JP Thrice)
Last Year: Not Ranked

63. Kento Miyahara
Points: 771
Total Ballots: 8
High Vote: 1st Place (Chris Gibbons)
Last Year: Not Ranked

62. Kofi Kingston
Points: 796
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 20th Place (Rene Sanchez)
Last Year: 37th Place

61. Toni Storm
Points: 805
Total Ballots: 16
High Vote: 10th Place (Chris Hale)
Last Year: 81st Place

60. Bandido
Points: 821
Total Ballots: 13
High Vote: 5th Place (Chris Hale)
Last Year: Not Ranked

59. Drew Gulak
Points: 827
Total Ballots: 16
High Vote: 6th Place (Francis Adu)
Last Year: 77th Place

58. Fire Ant
Points: 835
Total Ballots: 10
High Vote: 1st Place (Bobby Godfrey)
Last Year: 97th Place

57. Hangman Page
Points: 842
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 5th Place (Adam Blount)
Last Year: Not Ranked

56. “The Knife Pervert” Jay White
Points: 848
Total Ballots: 14
High Vote: 6th Place (Brian Gang)
Last Year: Not Ranked

55. “Hot Sauce” Tracy Williams
Points: 863
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 4th Place (Chris Hale)
Last Year: Not Ranked

54. Drew McIntyre
Points: 881
Total Ballots: 13
High Vote: 6th Place (Bryan Heaton)
Last Year: 74th Place

53. David Starr
Points: 891
Total Ballots: 13
High Vote: 2nd Place (Brock Jahnke, Dylan Hales)
Last Year: 78th Place

52. Jeff Cobb/Matanza Cueto
Points: 914
Total Ballots: 18
High Vote: 15th Place (Brandon Kayla)
Last Year: 32nd Place

51. Timothy Thatcher
Points: 919
Total Ballots: 13
High Vote: 3rd Place (Francis Adu)
Last Year: 95th Place

50. Big E
Points: 923
Total Ballots: 16
High Vote: 19th Place (Rene Sanchez)
Last Year: 11th Place

49. Cedric Alexander
Points: 1,038
Total Ballots: 21
High Vote: 9th Place (TH)
Last Year: 53rd Place

48. Cesaro
Points: 1,040
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 6th Place (Joshua Browns)
Last Year: 4th Place

47. The Miz
Points: 1,041
Total Ballots: 19
High Vote: 11th Place (Rene Sanchez)
Last Year: 27th Place

46. Will Ospreay
Points: 1,079
Total Ballots: 16
High Vote: 3rd Place (Jony P)
Last Year: 83rd Place

45. Pentagón, Jr./Penta El Zero M
Points: 1,082
Total Ballots: 20
High Vote: 9th Place (Dan Brookes)
Last Year: 50th Place

44. PCO
Points: 1,087
Total Ballots: 18
High Vote: 4th Place (TH)
Last Year: Not Ranked

43. Finn “The Hog” Bálor
Points: 1,139
Total Ballots: 20
High Vote: 15th Place (Bob from Online)
Last Year: 33rd Place

42. Orange Cassidy
Points: 1,172
Total Ballots: 15
High Vote: 1st Place (Andrew Rosin)
Last Year: Not Ranked

41. Io Shirai
Points: 1,176
Total Ballots: 21
High Vote: 10th Place (Dan Brookes, Dan Pierce)
Last Year: Not Ranked

40. Jonathan Gresham
Points: 1,181
Total Ballots: 16
High Vote: 3rd Place (Brock Jahnke)
Last Year: 86th Place

39. Samoa Joe
Points: 1,207
Total Ballots: 18
High Vote: 5th Place (Gratliff)
Last Year: 10th Place

38. Ronda Rousey
Points: 1,222
Total Ballots: 19
High Vote: 1st Place (Stefanie Hampton)
Last Year: Not Ranked

37. Adam Cole, BAYBAY
Points: 1,312
Total Ballots: 22
High Vote: 2nd Place (Rene Sanchez)
Last Year: 80th Place

36. Nick Jackson
Points: 1,319
Total Ballots: 21
High Vote: 5th Place (Stefanie Hampton)
Last Year: 60th Place

35. Matt Jackson
Points: 1,324
Total Ballots: 21
High Vote: 4th Place (Stefanie Hampton)
Last Year: 59th Place

34. Roman Reigns
Points: 1,354
Total Ballots: 23
High Vote: 11th Place (Bryan Heaton)
Last Year: 5th Place

33. Minoru Suzuki
Points: 1,374
Total Ballots: 22
High Vote: 3rd Place (Henry Casey)
Last Year: Not Ranked

32. (Rey) Fénix
Points: 1,487.99999999999999999999999999999999999
Total Ballots: 24
High Vote: 8th Place (Mat Morgan)
Last Year: 47th Place

31. Roderick Strong
Points: 1,526
Total Ballots: 24
High Vote: 12th Place (Andrew Smith)
Last Year: 54th Place

30. Hiromu Takahashi
Points: 1,538
Total Ballots: 19
High Vote: 1st Place (John/ToshanshuinLA)
Last Year: Not Ranked

29. Tyler Bate
Points: 1,574
Total Ballots: 25
High Vote: 8th Place (Bryan Heaton)
Last Year: 13th Place

28. Buddy Murphy
Points: 1,574 (ranked ahead of Tyler Bate because of higher high vote)
Total Ballots: 25
High Vote: 2nd Place (Scott Raychel)
Last Year: Not Ranked

27. Kyle O’Reilly
Points: 1,575
Total Ballots: 26
High Vote: 8th Place (Brandon Rowher)
Last Year: 91st Place

26. Meiko Satomura
Points: 1,659
Total Ballots: 19
High Vote: 1st Place (Willow Maclay, Chris Hale)
Last Year: Not Ranked

25. Tomohiro Ishii
Points: 1,726
Total Ballots: 21
High Vote: 1st Place (Kyle Kensing)
Last Year: Not Ranked

24. Asuka (WWE)
Points: 1,759
Total Ballots: 27
High Vote: 3rd Place (TH)
Last Year: 2nd Place

23. Tetsuya Naito
Points: 1,763
Total Ballots: 24
High Vote: 4th Place (Gratliff, John/ToshanshuinLA)
Last Year: 87th Place

22. Hiroshi Tanahashi
Points: 1,769
Total Ballots: 21
High Vote: 1st Place (Dan Brookes, Brock Jahnke)
Last Year: Not Ranked

21. WALTER
Points: 1,792
Total Ballots: 20
High Vote: 1st Place (Francis Adu, Jony P)
Last Year: 55th Place

20. Aleister Black
Points: 1,942
Total Ballots: 27
High Vote: 2nd Place (Nicholas Reed, Andrew Smith)
Last Year: 23rd Place

19. Kairi Sane
Points: 1,965
Total Ballots: 27
High Vote: 4th Place (Brandon Kayla)
Last Year: 34th Place

18. Charlotte Flair
Points: 1,968
Total Ballots: 29
High Vote: 4th Place (Adam Blount)
Last Year: 26th Place

17. Matt Riddle
Points: 2,030
Total Ballots: 29
High Vote: 4th Place (Duncan Parker Newton-Gaines)
Last Year: 25th Place

16. Zack Sabre, Jr.
Points: 2,135
Total Ballots: 27
High Vote: 1st Place (Adam Shinder, Henry Casey)
Last Year: 15th Place

15. AJ Styles
Points: 2,136
Total Ballots: 26
High Vote: 3rd Place (Bryan Heaton)
Last Year: 1st Place

14. Velveteen Dream
Points: 2,151
Total Ballots: 27
High Vote: 1st Place (Kevin Newburn)
Last Year: 68th Place

13. Tommaso Ciampa
Points: 2,188
Total Ballots: 24
High Vote: 2nd Place (Brian Gang, Josh Browns, Gratliff, Brandon Rowher, Bob from Online, Brandon House)
Last Year: 40th Place

12. Andrade Cien Almas
Points: 2,194
Total Ballots: 29
High Vote: 3rd Place (Joey Odorisio, Andrew Rosin)
Last Year: 21st Place

11. Mustafa Ali
Points: 2,227
Total Ballots: 28
High Vote: 1st Place (TH)
Last Year: 63rd Place

10. Kota Ibushi
Points: 2,279
Total Ballots: 27
High Vote: 1st Place (JP Thrice, Dan Pierce)
Last Year: Not Ranked

9. Seth Rollins
Points: 2,303
Total Ballots: 27
High Vote: 1st Place (Brandon Rowher)
Last Year: 28th Place

8. “Lil’ Kazu” Kazuchika Okada
Points: 2,348
Total Ballots: 28
High Vote: 1st Place (Brian Gang, Gratliff)
Last Year: Not Ranked

7. Shayna Baszler
Points: 2,385
Total Ballots: 31
High Vote: 1st Place (Andrew Smith)
Last Year: 62nd Place

6. Kenny Omega
Points: 2,395
Total Ballots: 29
High Vote: 1st Place (Adam Blount)
Last Year: 49th Place

5. Ricochet
Points: 2,445
Total Ballots: 32
High Vote: 1st Place (Rene Sanchez)
Last Year: 18th Place

4. Pete Dunne
Points: 2,462
Total Ballots: 32
High Vote: 1st Place (Nicholas Reed, Scott Raychel)
Last Year: 6th Place

3. “The Man” Becky Lynch
Points: 2,596
Total Ballots: 31
High Vote: 1st Place (Jarrett Seidler, Bob from Online)
Last Year: 35th Place

2. Daniel Bryan
Points: 2,828
Total Ballots: 34
High Vote: 1st Place (Bill Hanstock)
Last Year: Not Ranked

1. Johnny Gargano
Points: 2,921
Total Ballots: 33
High Vote: 1st Place (Joshua Browns, Brandon Kayla, Joey Odorisio, Bryan Heaton, Brandon House)
Last Year: 7th Place

So, that’s the list this year. Honestly, I don’t see very many surprises, maybe except for AJ Styles dipping so far. However, you have to admit he fell off this year. It’s also interesting to note that weighting the votes helped Gargano a ton. Had the top 5 votes not been weighted more than in prior years, Daniel Bryan would have garnered his fourth TWB 100 number one ranking. Interesting!

Anyway, to everyone who is reading this, thank you for looking at our labor of ranking love. For everyone who submitted a ballot, thank you for helping out with this endeavor! I will see you all next year to do this all over again! Watch that wrestling and most importantly, enjoy it, even if you enjoy it analytically.

Yesterday, I introduced you to the voters and the straggling few wrestlers who didn’t make the top 500 (well, 502). Today, I will reveal wrestlers who placed between 101 and 500, well, 498 (there was a five-way tie at the end). This portion of the list will make up the greater TWB 500. While I won’t definitively say this attempt at list-making is better than the storied PWI 500, I will say that it’s more transparently crafted, and I assure you that no one voted for a wrestler who has been inactive in the last calendar year. And hey, if you’re an indie wrestler who wants to try and get bookings by including THIS ranking instead of the PWI one, well, I’ll be flattered. Please do that for sure and if you don’t get laughed off the e-mail chain by the promoter in question, let me know!

In case you forgot from the intro post, points are given on a weighted system, where first place votes are worth 125 points. You can read the intro post for a bigger breakdown (or hell, just wait for tomorrow where I’ll break it down again). One more thing to note, I didn’t figure in tiebreakers here, because I just don’t have the time, which is why you have a bunch of jam-ups at various slots. It’s okay though, because honestly, it’s funny to see things like two Awful White Vegans in Kimber Lee and Austin Aries in the same ranking among other oddities. Anyway, here goes:

101. Travis Huckabee — 490 points

102(t). Marko Stunt — 479 (1 FIRST PLACE VOTE, De O’Brien)

102(t). Ilja Dragunov — 479

104. Taiji Ishimori — 479

105. Solo Darling — 476

106. Sasha Banks — 470

107. Braun Strowman — 445

108. Sami Zayn — 442

109. Daniel Makabe — 439 (1 FIRST PLACE VOTE, Dylan Hales)

110. Ruby Riott — 439

111. Rey Mysterio — 436

112. Chris Brookes — 428

113. Brock Lesnar — 424

114. El Barbaro Cavernario — 422

115. Daisuke Sekimoto — 413

116. Bianca Belair — 402

117. Mayu Iwatani — 392

118. Dragon Lee — 389

119. El Desperado — 388

120. SHO — 380

121. ACH — 375

122. Jun Akiyama — 369

123. Jordan Devlin — 366

124. Chris Dickinson — 363

125. Eddie Kingston — 359

126. Hideki Suzuki — 356

127. Kazusada Higuchi — 356

128. Dolph Ziggler — 349

128(t). Danny Burch — 349

128(t). Lars Sullivan — 349

131. Dalton Castle — 347

132. YOH — 344

133. Mike Quackenbush — 341

134. Konosuke Takeshita — 340

135(t). Ortiz/Angel Ortiz — 339

135(t). Santana/Mike Draztik — 339

137(t). Ophidian — 337

137(t). “Mr. Touchdown” Mark Angelosetti — 337

139. Dominic Garrini — 336

140. Takuya Nomura — 328

141. Rhea Ripley — 325

142. Rush — 323

143. Kenoh — 318

144. Kagetsu — 307

145. Flip Gordon — 303

146. HARASHIMA — 300

147. Stokely Hathaway — 299

148. Mercedes Martinez — 297

149(t). Fred Yehi — 294

149(t). Jay Lethal — 294

151. Wheeler YUTA — 294

152. AR/Dante Fox — 289

153. Momo Watanabe — 288

154. Toru Yano — 286 (2 FIRST PLACE VOTES, Emily Newsom and Duncan Parker Newton-Gaines)

155. Green Ant — 278

156. Bayley — 270

157. Jimmy Havoc — 268

158. Kassius Ohno — 261

159. Ricky Marvin — 258

160. Masaaki Mochizuki — 252

161. Flamita — 251

162. Hallowicked — 246

163(t). Corey Hollis — 240

163(t). Scorpio Sky — 240

165. Razerhawk — 234

166. Anthony Henry — 232

167(t). Madison Eagles — 231

167(t). Chad Gable — 231

169(t). Dakota Kai — 226

169(t). Naoya Nomura — 226

171. Trevor Lee — 225

172. Christopher Daniels — 221

173. SUWAMA — 220

174. Low Ki — 216

175. Fuminori Abe — 213

176. Chuck Taylor — 209

177. Alexa Bliss — 208

178. Brody King — 204

179. Nia Jax — 203

180(t). Hiroyo Matsumoto — 201

180(t). Killian Dane — 201

180(t). Kyle Fletcher — 201

183. Tony Deppen — 200

184. Jun Kasai — 197

185. Frankie Kazarian — 195

186. Hechicero — 192

187. Taichi — 187

188(t). CIMA — 185

188(t). Deonna Purrazzo — 185

190. John Silver — 181

191. Masato Yoshino — 180

192. Kalisto — 177

193. MAO — 176

194. MJF — 174

195. Gran Metalik — 172

196. Mia Yim — 170

197. EC3. — 169

198. Rey Horus/El Dragon Azteca, Jr. — 168

199.(t) Johnny Impact/Mundo/Hennigan — 167

199(t). Arik Royal — 167

201(t). Kevin Ku — 166

201(t). Mark Davis — 166

201(t). LuFisto — 166

204. Cuatrero — 164

205(t). Miyu Yamashita — 163

205(t). Icarus — 163

207(t). Slim J — 160

207(t). Filthy Tom Lawlor — 160

207(t). Jaka — 160

207(t). Go Shiozaki — 160

207(t). Yuji Hino — 160

212. Soberano, Jr. — 159

213. Kaito Kiyamiya — 154

214. Aramis — 154

215(t). Keisuke Ishii — 153

215(t). AC Mack — 153

217. Kota Umeda — 152

218(t). The Whisper — 150

218(t). Hanson — 150

218(t). Gary Jay — 150

218(t). Utami Hayashishita — 150

222. Thief Ant — 149

223. Ashley Vox/Oceanea — 148

224(t). Rowe — 147

224(t). Travis Banks — 147

224(t). Session Moth Martina — 147

224(t). Akira Tozawa — 147

228. YOSHI-HASHI — 146

229. Rina Yamashita — 145

230. Yukio Sakaguchi — 144

231. Eita — 142

232. El Hijo del Vikingo — 140

233(t). Boomer Hatfield — 137

233(t). Elias — 137

235. Penelope Ford — 136

236. Chihiro Hashimoto — 135

237(t). Dean Ambrose — 133

237(t). Nick Aldis — 133

239. Airwolf — 132

240(t). BUSHI — 131

240(t). Brian Cage — 131

242(t). Callux the Castigator — 129

242(t). Lucas Calhoun — 129

242(t). Joey Lynch — 129

245. Zack Gibson — 124

246. PAC — 123

247(t). Yoshiko — 122

247(t). The Proletariat Boar of Moldova — 122

249. Hazuki — 121

250. Millie McKenzie — 120

251. Sammii Jayne — 119

252(t). Scott Dawson — 116

252(t). Jack Gallagher — 116

254(t). Joe Coffey — 115

254(t). Mark Briscoe — 115

254(t). Jay Briscoe — 115

254(t). Artemis Spencer — 115

254(4). Mark Andrews — 115

259(t). Jungle Kyona — 114

259(t). Carmella — 114

259(t). Otis Dozovic — 114

259(t). Luke Harper — 114

263. Brett Ison — 112

264(t). Daisuke Sasaki — 111

265(t). Sansón — 111

266. Trent?/Barretta — 109

267. Forastero — 107

268. Bobby Gunns — 106

269(t). Effy — 105

269(t). Kzy — 105

271(t). Dragon Bane — 103

271(t). Volgar — 103

271(t). Viper — 103

271(t). Arisa Nakajima — 103

271(t). Matt Cross/Son of Havoc — 103

276(t). Bobby Fish — 102

276(t). Robbie Eagles — 102

278. Taya Valkyrie — 101

279(t). Lewis Girvan — 100

279(t). Hideo Itami — 100

281. JD Drake — 98

282(t). Cheeseburger — 97

282(t). John Cena — 97

284(t). Kerry Awful — 96

284(t). Aerostar — 96

284(t). Yuki Ueno — 96

284(t). ASUKA (Joshi) — 96

288(t). Nick Iggy — 93

288(t). Danjerhawk — 93

290. Joe Doering — 92

291. Montez Ford — 90

292(t). Allysin Kay/Sienna — 88

292(t). Mike Verna/Sloan Caprice — 88

294. Billy Buck — 86

295(t). Kay Lee Ray — 85

295(t). Logan Easton Leroux/Race Jaxon/BLANK — 85

295(t). Chris Ridgeway — 85

298. Yuu — 84

299(t). A-Kid — 83

299(t). Abdullah Kobayashi — 83

301(t). Carlos Romo — 82

301(t). Hikaru Shida — 82

301(t). YAMATO — 82

301(t). Daisuke Harada — 82

305(t). Ben-K — 81

305(t). Yuji Nagata — 81

307. Isami Kodaka — 80

308(t). B-Boy — 79

308(t). Tyler Bateman — 79

308(t). Allie Kat — 79

308(t). Curt Stallion — 79

312(t). Jeremy Wyatt — 78

312(t). Lacey Evans — 78

312(t). Drew Parker — 78

315(t). Spyder Nate Webb — 77

315(t). DJZ — 77

317(t). Lince Dorado — 76

317(t). Lio Rush — 76

319(t). Aaron Echo — 75

319(t). Charlie Morgan — 75

319(t). Ethan HD — 75

319(t). Josh Briggs — 75

319(t). Oleg the Usurper — 75

324(t). “Bad Bones” John Klinger — 74

324(t). Mike Santiago — 74

324(t). Nina Samuels — 74

324(t). James Drake — 74

324(t). T-Hawk — 74

329. Randy Myers — 73

330. Faby Apache — 72

331. Chase Owens — 71

332(t). Naruki Doi — 70

332(t). Gringo Loco — 70

334. Mil Muertes/Ricky Banderas — 69

335(t). Liv Morgan — 68

335(t). Shotzi Blackheart — 68

335(t). Tetsuya Endo — 68

335(t). Hermit Crab — 68

339. DASH Chisako — 67

340(t). Shinya Aoki — 66

340(t). Willie Mack — 66

342(t). Aspen Faith — 65

342(t). Marty “The Moth” Martinez — 65

342(t). Willow Nightengale — 65

345(t). Schaff — 64

345(t). Nicole Matthews — 64

345(t). Frightmare — 64

348(t). Turbo Josh Terry — 63

348(t). Ike Cross — 63

350(t). Nanae Takahashi — 62

350(t). Sugar Dunkerton — 62

352(t). Joe Hendry — 61

352(t). Kazuki Hirata — 61

352(t). Kyle Matthews — 61

355(t). Templario — 60

355(t). TJP — 60

355(t). Jeff Hardy — 60

358. Chuck Mambo — 59

359(t). Negro Casas — 58

359(t). Shazza McKenzie — 58

361(t). Demus — 3:16. — 57

361(t). El Lindaman — 57

363(t). BxB Hulk — 56

363(t). Cassandra Miyagi — 56

363(t). Rickey Shane Page — 56

363(t). Yuya Aoki — 56

367(t). Allie — 55

367(t). Kazuki Hashimoto — 55

367(t). Cam Zagami — 55

370(t). Satoshi Kojima — 54

370(t). UltraMantis Black — 54

372(t). James Davis — 53

372(t). Josh Alexander — 53

372(t). Toxin — 53

372(t). Silas Young — 53

372(t). KTB — 53

377. Billy Avery — 52

378(t). Angelikal/Myzteziz, Jr. — 51

378(t). Francis Kaspin — 51

380(t). Jay Skillet — 50

380(t). Kris Stadtlander — 50

380(t). Rika Tatsumi — 50

380(t). Cajun Crawdad — 50

384(t). Chris Sabin — 49

384(t). Puma King — 49

384(t). Susumu Yokosuka — 49

384(t). Candice LeRae — 49

384(t). Merlok — 49

389(t). Candy Lee — 48

389(t). Ethan Page/Chandler Park — 48

389(t). Jack Bonza — 48

392(t). Andy Wild — 46

392(t). Austin Aries — 46

392(t). Kimber Lee — 46

392(t). Caristico — 46

392(t). Kylie Rae — 46

397(t). Antonio Honda — 45

397(t). Christopher Saynt — 45

397(t). Mizuki — 45

400(t). Sumie Sakai — 44

400(t). Yuka Sakazaki — 44

400(t). Darius Lockhart — 44

403(t). Jack Evans — 43

403(t). Kenny King — 43

403(t). Natsu Sumire — 43

403(t). Shigehiro Irie — 43

407(t). Rosemary — 42

407(t). Ultimo Guerrero — 42

407(t). Tucker Knight — 42

407(t). Naomi — 42

411(t). Reika Saki — 41

411(t). Shoko Nakajima — 41

413(t). Brandi Rhodes — 40

413(t). Koji Iwamoto — 40

415(t). Kaden Talbain — 39

415(t). Titan — 39

415(t). Yuma Aoyagi — 39

418(t). Kohei Sato — 38

418(t). Kotaro Suzuki — 38

418(t). Mickie James — 38

418(t). Cain Justice — 38

422(t). Black Destiny — 37

422(t). Blanche Babish/Skylar — 37

424(t). Masa Kitamiya — 36

424(t). Micro Man — 36

424(t). Yuko Miyamoto — 36

424(t). Tyler Breeze — 36

428(t). “Mr. Juicy” Gino Gambino — 35

428(t). Joey Ryan — 35

428(t). Yuji Okobayashi — 35

431. Los Federales Super Santos, Jr. — 34

432(t). Britt Baker — 33

432(t). Lucky Kid — 33

432(t). Mick Moretti — 33

432(t). Apollo Crews — 33

436(t). DCT — 32

436(t). El Hijo del Fantasma/King Cuerno — 32

436(t). Jinny — 32

436(t). Tajiri — 32

436(t). Arez — 32

436(t). Rory Gulak — 32

442(t). KLD — 31

442(t). Takao Omori — 31

442(t). Yuki Iino — 31

442(t). Zachary Wentz — 31

442(t). Dash Wilder — 31

442(t). Ciclope — 31

442(t). Noam Dar — 31

449(t). Desmond Xzavier — 30

449(t). Eddie Dennis — 30

449(t). Natalya — 30

449(t). Tama Tonga — 30

449(t). Erick Rowan — 30

454(t). Aja Kong — 29

454(t). Big Daddy Yum Yum — 29

454(t). Sonico — 29

454(t). Mark Haskins — 29

458(t). Rachel Ellering/Evers — 28

458(t). Kris Wolf — 28

460(t). Alicia Fox — 27

460(t). Atsushi Aoki — 27

460(t). Dan Severn — 27

460(t). Pagano — 27

464(t). Dave Mastiff — 26

464(t). Sammy Guevara — 26

464(t). Veda Scott — 26

464(t). Jake Parnell — 26

468(t). Isla Dawn — 25

468(t). Flash Morgan Webster — 25

470(t). Grim Reefer — 24

470(t). Tamina Snuka — 24

470(t). Killer Kelly — 24

473(t). Jake Lee — 21

473(t). Shun Skywalker — 21

473(t). Teagan Nox — 21

473(t). Shota Umino — 21

477(t). Akito — 20

477(t). Big R Shimizu — 20

477(t). Moose — 20

477(t). Yoshiaki Fujiwara — 20

481(t). Brandon Cutler — 19

481(t). Terry Thatcher — 19

481(t). Bray Wyatt — 19

484(t). Police Man — 18

484(t). TK Cooper — 18

484(t). Virus — 18

487. Sonny DeFarge — 17

488(t). Bobby Lashley — 16

488(t). Gene Munny — 16

488(t). Karl Anderson — 16

488(t). Spike Trivet — 16

488(t). Hype Rockwell — 16

493. Paul Robinson — 15

494(t). Dragon Kid — 14

494(t). Jeremy Leary — 14

494(t). Kurt Angle — 14

494(t). Rex Lawless/Rick Roland — 14

498(t). David Finlay — 13

498(t). HAYATA — 13

498(t). Lana — 13

498(t). Niebla Roja — 13

498(t). KAI — 13

So yeah, that’s a hell of a lot of wrestlers to have ranked. I give major props to the ballotists this year for their wide diversity in wrestlers polled and viewed. Also, condolences to Travis Huckabee, who *just* missed getting into the top 100, and to Marko Stunt, Daniel Makabe, and Toru Yano, who got first place votes but didn’t place in the top 100. Yano is especially of note since he got two first-place votes and then no other votes higher than 83rd place. That’s what I like to call variance!

Alright, check back tomorrow for the main event, which is the TWB 100 main list. I hope you’re as excited to read it as I am to post it!