Best of the rest: top 7 non-WWE wrestlers today
When it comes to the sport of professional wrestling, there are too many fans today who only know of who and what they see on Monday and Tuesday nights. While I'll agree that the top company in all of sports entertainment is and always will be WWE, it is important to understand that there is indeed some stellar performers working in other promotions, all around the world.
Pro Wrestling Illustrated recently released this year's edition of PWI 500, which is an annual publication that ranks the top 500 professional wrestlers in the world. Pretty much each and every single active WWE main roster Superstar and nearly all active NXT Superstars were all listed somewhere on that list. AJ Styles came in with the highest WWE ranking at number two. However, New Japan Pro Wrestling's mega-star Kazuchika Okada finished the list with the number one ranking. In fact, six of the top 20 included names that were not affiliated with WWE or NXT.
With this in mind, today we will take a look at seven of the best wrestlers in the world, that are not on any WWE roster.
#7 Eli Drake (GFW Impact)
2017 has been a year of drastic change for the Impact Wrestling family. In January, Jeff Jarrett returned to the scene and at that point, everything changed....for the better. Not only did Double J bring a renewed sense of enthusiasm to the company, but he also brought along an entire roster of stars from his upstart promotion Global Force Wrestling. When the dust settled, GFW was adopted as the new name promotional name for Impact Wrestling, which allowed for a break away from the seemingly doomed TNA brand name.
In 2015, Eli Drake made his way to TNA after not having much luck elsewhere. In fact, Drake even had a brief stint with WWE prior to joining the Impact roster as well. For whatever reason, no one was taking Drake as seriously as he truly deserved. Well, the tables have certainly turned and all it took was one opportunity to prove his worth and he has indeed done that.
Eli Drake is now at the top of the GFW ladder, as the current GFW Global Champion. Eli has also been the TNA King of The Mountain Champion.