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Wrestling March Madness (Men's)
Submitted by Damn Fine Wrestling on 02/26/2021 at 01:43 PM


Many years ago, I would hold an annual tournament to decide the best wrestler of the prior year through the spring. This would be determined by votes, and would coincide with the March Madness basketball tournament. It would pit the 64 (now 68) best wrestlers against each other in brackets voted individually by readers. This would include a men's and women's bracket.

It's been about 10 years or so since I've even thought about this, but perhaps it's time to bring it back? Of course, the major question would be how to determine the field of 68. It's actually quite simple...

The Formula

The NCAA Tournament allows for 31 automatic bids, with 37 at-large bids. These automatic bids are historically awarded to the conference tournament champion that year, but rules have changed as of 2021 allowing conferences to select their own representative. I'm not going to worry about that, but instead keep it as I have done in the past -- with automatic bids represented by current WORLD champions. This means a number of automatic bids (I count NXT/NXTUK/RAW/Smackdown as their own brand) plus at-large wrestlers to be included. I then seed them accordingly based on W-L records from Cagematch.net.

However, finding that many worthy promotions won't be enough for automatics. Not every ma-and-pa Indies promotion can have a "world" champion. So I have widened the automatic bids to include secondary titles in larger promotions. The rest of the at-larges will be primarily "Power 5" wrestling promotions, much like in NCAA Football/Basketball. These are WWE/AEW/New Japan/Impact/ROH

So let's do this, eh?

Automatic Bids (in no particular order)

WWE -- Roman Reigns - Universal Champion | The Miz - WWE Champion | Finn Balor - NXT Champion | Walter - NXTUK | Riddle - U.S. | Big E - I.C. | Johnny Gargano - N.A. |
AEW -- Kenny Omega - World | Darby Allin - TNT
Impact -- Rich Swann - Impact Wrestling | Moose - TNA World Heavyweight Champion | TJP - X-Division
ROH -- Rush - ROH | Dragon Lee - ROH TV
NWA -- Nick Aldis - NWA World | Elijah Burke - NWA TV
MLW -- Jacob Fatu - MLW World | Lio Rush - MLW Middleweight
New Japan -- Kota Ibushi - IWGP Champion | Jon Moxley - U.S. | Hiroshi Tanahashi - Openweight
All Japan -- Suwama - World
DDT -- Jun Akiyama
RevPro -- Will Ospreay - World
Progress -- Cara Noir - World
AAA -- Daga - Latin American (Kenny Omega is current AAA Mega Champion)
CMLL -- Ultimo Guerrero - World

Total: 27
At Large Bids Remaining: 41


At-Large Bids

At least 20 Wins with 66% Winning Percentage or higher, OR 15 Wins with 80% Winning Percentage or higher. The REST of the field was by ranked through where they stand in the 2020 PWI 500.


AEW:
Cody Rhodes
MJF
Matt Jackson
Nick Jackson
Adam Page
Luchasaurus
Jungle Boy
Rey Fenix

WWE:
Pete Dunne
Drew McIntyre
Matt Riddle
The Fiend
Keith Lee
Aleister Black
Angelo Dawkins
Braun Strowman
Tomasso Ciampa
Mansoor

New Japan:

Great O-Khan
Shingo Tagaki
SANADA
Tetsuya Naito
Hiromu Takahashi
Satoshi Kojima

Impact: Rhino

Ring of Honor: Jonathan Gresham (only 10-wins, but the highest winning percentage and wins on the roster overall)

PWI 500 Best of the Rest:

Kazuchika Okada
Adam Cole
Seth Rollins
Kofi Kingston
A.J. Styles
Brock Lesnar
Kento Miyahara
Shinsuke Nakamura
Andrade
Jay White
Roderick Strong
PCO
Daniel Bryan
Bandidio
Kaito Kiyomiya
Kevin Owens


Official Tournament Brackets

Anyone is welcome to look up W-L records on Cagematch, but for now, I'm going to keep those separate to save on some work. Here are the brackets, broken into four territories:

Florida Region

1) Kenny Omega
16) PCO

8) Jacob Fatu
9) Shingo Takagi

5) Cody Rhodes
12) Roderick Strong

4) Moose
13) Jay White

6) Ultimo Guerrero
11) Mansoor vs. Daniel Bryan (Play-In)

3) Drew McIntyre
14) Rhino

7) Elijah Burke
10) Tomasso Ciampa

2) Jon Moxley
15) Andrade

Stamford Region

1) Roman Reigns
16) Bandido vs. Kaito Kiyomiya (Play-In)

8) Jungle Boy
9) Luchasaurus

5) Rush
12) Adam Page

4) MJF
13) Great-O-Khan

6) Seth Rollins
11) Kevin Owens vs. TJP (Play-In)

3) Matt Riddle
14) Rey Fenix

7) Lio Rush
10) A.J. Styles

2) The Miz
15) Keith Lee

U.K. Region

1) Finn Balor
16) Angelo Dawkins

8) Matt Jackson
9) Nick Jackson

5) Will Ospreay
12) Kofi Kingston

4) Big E
13) Pete Dunne

6) Johnny Gargano
11) Kazuchika Okada

3) Rich Swann
14) Braun Strowman

7) Cara Noir
10) Adam Cole

2) WALTER
15) Brock Lesnar

Japan Region

1) Kota Ibushi
16) Jonathan Gresham

8) Jun Akiyama
9) Daga

5) Hiroshi Tanahashi
12) Hiromu Takahashi

4) Nick Aldis
13) "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt

6) Dragon Lee
11) Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kento Miyahara (Play-In)

3) Darby Allin
14) Satoshi Kojima

7) Suwama
10) SANADA

2) Tetsuya Naito
15) Aleister Black

HOW TO VOTE

I'll be taking votes via Facebook, comments on this article, and on Twitter at @JDBWrestling. Mind you, I will only be taking votes for ONE ROUND AT A TIME. So telling me who will win the entire tournament as a vote won't work. I'll be updating results every week with fresh brackets.

There will be a women's bracket sometime next week. So be on the look out for that as well.

Notes: There were some notable wrestlers left off that didn't meet the winning percentage criteria (I had to set the standard somewhere) and didn't make it high enough on the PWI 500. this includes Randy Orton, Riccochet, KENTA, Lance Archer, and likely many more. This is supposed to be fun -- just roll with it!

Next Week: The top 68 women's wrestlers in the world PLUS results from the first round.







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