The 25 wrestlers who most often beat what the pre-match numbers expected of them.
Every result is measured against the win probability the model held before the bell. Beating someone who never loses pays. Beating someone who always loses does not.
Wins above expectation is the component of this model that most resembles an argument. Every result gets compared with the probability the ratings held before the bell, so a win over someone who never loses is worth a great deal and a win over someone who always loses is worth almost nothing. Do that for all 385,908 decisive results in the corpus and what accumulates is a measure of how often a wrestler beat the booking pattern rather than fitting it.
The list it produces is not the list of the best wrestlers, and that is the point. Toru Yano is second on it with a 50.4% career win rate and an all-time rank of #704. Yujiro Takahashi is fifth having lost more than he won, at #1,725 overall. YOH tops the board on a 43.7% return. What they have in common is a decade of being placed against people the model expected to beat them, and beating them often enough that the expectation kept being wrong.
Six of the top ten wrestled primarily in Japan. That is partly a real feature of how New Japan and Dragon Gate book their undercards, and partly a coverage effect worth naming: the model sees the full spread of those rosters meeting each other, which is exactly the condition under which an expectation can be violated in a measurable way.
A 43.7% win rate, 464-571-27, sitting at the top of a board about winning. The measure is #1 in the corpus while the overall rank is #361 among the qualified, three hundred and sixty places apart, and the mechanism is in the opposition column: 91 documented matches with Tetsuya Naito at a mean pre-match rating of 1820.0, 29 of them won, plus 181 with SHO. The biggest single upset is a 2015 win over Jay White worth +0.97. Eight recorded reigns, most of them the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, and the singles belt arrives off DOUKI in June 2026.
Career K-WAR of -19.3, #2,210, alongside a measure that ranks #2. Those two are not in conflict: the model pays for beating people who do not lose, and 237 documented matches with Hiroshi Tanahashi produced 86 wins, one of them the Wrestling Dontaku main event in 2010 at +0.76. A 0.5 star win over Hirooki Goto in the 2014 G1 is worth +0.82, which is this board's argument in a single line. Quality ranks #2,194. 2,560 of 2,680 matches are New Japan's, and the archetype the model assigns is the Kingmaker.
Third here and #30 overall, so unlike most of this board the rest of the row agrees. 828-551-15 across 1,396 documented matches, with 113 title-match wins and 51 of them top-decile. The upsets are recent and heavy: Braun Strowman on Smackdown in November 2022 at +0.91, WALTER for the Intercontinental Championship in March 2023 at +0.79, Samoa Joe for the United States Championship at Stomping Grounds 2019 at an importance of 1.91. Twenty-nine recorded reigns run back to a CHIKARA Young Lions Cup in 2007 and the Dragon Gate tag belts.
One hundred and eighty-five documented matches with Kazuchika Okada, 136 of them won, and the biggest of those is Sakura Genesis 2023 and the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at an importance of 2.18. Before New Japan there was TNA: the X-Division Title off Austin Aries in March 2014, +0.91, then a two-out-of-three-falls defence against him six weeks later. Fourth on the measure, #99 overall, on a 57.3% return from 1,966 matches. The big-match figure ranks #56 and Titles #287.
Quality ranks #3,947 and the measure ranks #5, which is the loudest disagreement anywhere in this file. Career K-WAR is -23.8, #2,586, on a 46.1% return across 2,166 documented matches. What the model is paying for is early and specific: a 2005 win over Masayuki Naruse worth +0.99, another over Funky Billy Kim at +0.98, Minoru Tanaka in the 2008 Best of the Super Juniors at +0.91. The NEVER Openweight Championship came off Tomohiro Ishii in June 2014. 2,062 of the career is New Japan's.
Sixth here, #5 overall, #6 on career K-WAR: three measures inside a place of each other, which almost nothing else on this board manages. 973-573-56 over 1,602 documented matches, 185 title-match wins with 157 for a top-decile belt, and 17 elite seasons. The William Regal match in Memphis in 2001 is worth +0.94 and the SummerSlam 2013 win over John Cena +0.92 at an importance of 2.13. The big-match figure ranks #15 and network prestige #7.
A 76.3% career win rate and still seventh on a measure built to ignore easy wins. Dominance, championship value and network prestige all rank #1 in the corpus, so the expectation he was beating was his own. The two Chris Jericho wins in July 2002 are worth +0.95 and +0.94, and the WrestleMania 41 win over Cody Rhodes in 2025, at an importance of 2.18, comes in at +0.88. 1,186 wins from 1,554 documented matches, and 288 of the 295 title-match wins carry a top-decile belt.
Three thousand one hundred and ten documented matches over 36 years, every one of them carrying matches, and 18 good seasons against 5 elite ones. The upsets are early: Yuji Nagata in 1992 at +0.95, Koji Kanemoto six months before that at +0.94, Manabu Nakanishi in 1993 at the same figure. The heaviest week arrives in February 2005, the AJPW Triple Crown Title off Toshiaki Kawada in a 4.75 star match and a defence four days later against Hiroyoshi Tenzan with the IWGP Heavyweight Championship on it as well. The big-match figure ranks #8 and career K-WAR #47.
Ninth on the measure and #3,945 on its big-match cousin, which is as far apart as that pair gets in this file. The everyday wins are the ones paying: Taku Iwasa in Dragon Gate in 2005 at +0.96, Konosuke Takeshita in the 2026 G1 at +0.87, rated 4.75 stars. The title nights run the other way, with the NEVER Openweight Championship off Tama Tonga in 2023 returning +0.55 at an importance of 2.18. A 61.3% career from 2,712 documented matches, and a 2020s ledger of 47.0 that ranks #13 for the decade.
204 of 210 title-match wins are for a top-decile belt, on a championship value of 141.0 at #25, and the measure ranks #10 against an overall #76. Alberto Del Rio supplies the two biggest upsets, eight days apart in May 2013, each worth +0.93. The NXT Championship came off Seth Rollins in December 2012 at an importance of 1.82, the United States Championship off Dean Ambrose inside Hell in a Cell in 2013 at +0.86. Quality ranks #384. Fourteen documented years, 2009 to 2022, 627 wins from 1,068 matches.
1176-1171-19 across 2,366 documented matches, which is five wins from an exactly even career, and the measure ranks #11 against an overall #902 among the qualified. Just one title-match win in 41 is for a top-decile belt, worth 10.6 in championship value. What the model pays for happened early and in New Japan: TJP in 2003 at +0.94, Hirooki Goto two months later at +0.93. The IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title came off Minoru Tanaka in 2007 and off KUSHIDA at Destruction in Kobe in 2014, a 4.0 star match at 1.69 importance.
The two biggest upsets are both from the 2007 Best of the Super Juniors, Gedo at +0.99 and El Samurai a fortnight later at +0.98, and nothing since has beaten them. Since then: the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship off SANADA at Wrestle Kingdom 18 at an importance of 2.18, and off Dean Ambrose at Forbidden Door 2024 at +0.78. 338 of 2,177 documented matches are rated, 15.5%. Thirteenth on the measure, #55 overall, and the two largest quality lifts are G1 wins over Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay.
298-379-4, a 43.8% return, and twelfth on a measure about winning. 180 of 681 documented matches are rated, 26.4%, across only 12 years. The IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship came off Kenny Omega in Sapporo in January 2018, +0.88, and the Intercontinental belt off Tetsuya Naito in Kobe the following year at +0.73. Fifteen of 17 title-match wins are top-decile. Both best-rated matches are losses to Kota Ibushi, the 5.5 star G1 final in 2019 and a 5.25 star double-title match at Wrestle Kingdom 15.
Fourteenth here and #12 overall, two places apart, with Dominance also at #14. The submission win over The Undertaker at Breaking Point in 2009 is the biggest upset at +0.84 against an importance of 1.98, and the World Heavyweight Championship off Edge on Raw in 2008 is next at +0.83. Sixteen years later the WWE World Heavyweight Championship came off WALTER at Summerslam 2025, +0.71 at 2.11. 217 title-match wins, 173 of them top-decile, on a championship value of 200.1.
Two wins scored at +1.00, the ceiling of the measure: Hiroshi Hase in an arm-wrestling match in Tokyo in April 1993, and Norio Honaga at a G1 Climax Special two years later. El Samurai in June 1996 comes in at +0.98. Career K-WAR is -54.2, #3,708, on a 44.3% return across 1,042 documented matches, and the measure still ranks #15. Quality ranks #108 off only 50 rated matches. 18 title-match wins, none of them top-decile, and the belts are the GHC Junior Heavyweight Title in 2006 and a UWA junior belt in 2021.
A 40.4% return, 582-842-15, and one thousand three hundred and ninety-eight places between the measure at #16 and a qualified-pool rank of #1,415. The wins are small rooms and big odds: Chad Toland in New Japan in April 2004 at +0.99, Masayuki Naruse in December 2005 at +0.96, Jack Swagger on an ECW taping in 2009 at +0.75. 25 title-match wins with none top-decile, and only 30 of 1,439 matches carry a rating. Dominance ranks #689, seven hundred and twenty-five places above overall, and Quality #2,016.
Seventeenth here against #7 overall, which on this board counts as a career in agreement with itself. The CM Punk win on Raw in January 2014 is worth +0.96, and SummerSlam 2018 and the Universal Championship off Brock Lesnar is +0.92 at an importance of 2.18. Eight years later the WWE World Heavyweight Championship came off Punk at WrestleMania 42, 5.0 stars and +0.68. A 69.0% career, 809-329-34, and 173 of the 179 title-match wins carrying a top-decile belt. Dominance ranks #5.
Ten documented years and 556 matches, all of it after 2016, and the measure ranks #18 against an overall #72. Becky Lynch supplies the two heaviest wins, Extreme Rules 2021 at +0.72 and WrestleMania 38 and the Raw Women's Title at +0.80. WrestleMania 37 the year before took the Smackdown Women's Title off Sasha Banks at an importance of 2.18. 80 top-decile belts among 98 title-match wins, and a championship value of 89.8. The largest quality lift is the 2025 Elimination Chamber at +2.03.
Eight documented years, 2011 to 2018, and nothing since. Inside that span the measure ranks #19 while the overall rank is #863 among the qualified, a gap of eight hundred and forty-four places, and Dominance sits #484, three hundred and seventy-nine places above overall. The wins that pay are 2017 Raw matches: Bray Wyatt at +0.77, The Miz at +0.68. 59 title-match wins with 29 top-decile, the NXT Tag Team Titles off Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson at TakeOver: Dallas, the Smackdown tag belts in 2017. Only 18 matches are rated.
Twentieth here, #11 overall, #3 on career K-WAR at 171.7, and Quality at #20 as well: four measures inside nine places. The 1999 Nitro wins over Lex Luger and Kevin Nash are worth +0.97 and +0.94, which is a cruiserweight beating two of the biggest men the promotion had. WrestleMania 22 and the World Heavyweight Championship came out of a triple-threat at an importance of 2.10. 942 wins from 1,467 documented matches over 34 years, and 110 of 121 title-match wins are top-decile.
WALTER twice inside four months of 2023, +0.94 on Raw in August and +0.95 in December, both with the Intercontinental Championship on the line and neither of them a title change. The belt itself arrives at Summerslam 2026, off Pentagon Jr. in a 4.25 star match at an importance of 2.09. Twenty-first on the measure and #95 overall, on a losing record of 352-385-6. Quality ranks #51, forty-four places above overall, helped by a 5.75 star mask-versus-mask defeat by Axel Dieter Jr. in May 2026 worth +2.01.
Nine hundred and twenty-eight places between the measure at #22 and #950 of the qualified pool, on a 56.3% return across 583 documented matches. The Big Show accounts for two of the four heaviest wins, on Raw in July 2017 at +0.72 and at SummerSlam a month later at +0.63 with Enzo Amore hanging over the ring in a shark cage. Before that, Rusev on Raw in 2016 at +0.85 and PAC in an NXT house show in 2012 at +0.87. Only 5 title-match wins, and Quality ranks #1,818 off 40 rated matches.
The board closes on a 32.7% win rate: 213-415-24 across 652 documented matches in nine years. Gabe Kidd in January 2020 is worth +0.98 and Clark Connors four months earlier +0.97, both young-lion matches nobody was watching for the odds. Later, Konosuke Takeshita in the 2024 G1 at +0.83, rated 4.75 stars, and Mike Bailey at Bloodsport in 2022 at +0.97. One title-match win in the whole record. Quality ranks #140 and the largest lift is a 5.5 star G1 defeat by Ryohei Oiwa at +2.27.
Twenty-third here and #24 overall, a single place apart, which on this board is the exception. The upsets are WCW television: Randy Savage in July 1996 and Diamond Dallas Page in May 1999, each at +0.91. The heaviest are the two world title changes, Sid Vicious at Souled Out 2000 and the WrestleMania XX triple-threat with Shawn Michaels and Triple H, both at an importance of 2.18. Quality ranks #2 in the corpus and Dominance #51. 769 wins from 1,301 documented matches, 78 top-decile belts among 81 title-match wins.
Quality ranks #3,354 and the measure #24, one thousand five hundred and ninety-two places above #1,618 inside the qualified pool. Dean Malenko supplies two of the biggest wins, the 1994 Best of the Super Junior at +0.99 and a Tokyo show in May 1996 at +0.95. The belts are All Japan's junior division, the World Junior Heavyweight Title off Masanobu Fuchi in April 2002 at an importance of 1.93 and a defence against Gran Hamada that July. Thirty-one documented years across four decades, 622 wins from 1,072 matches, and not one of the 21 title-match wins is top-decile.