Roman Reigns WWE RAW August 18

Why Roman Reigns Isn't One Of The Top 500 Wrestlers In The World Right Now

Originally posted on The Sportster | By Josh Coulson | Last updated Sep 24, 2025 6:23 AM ET

Pro Wrestling Illustrated has published its PWI 500 for 2025. A list of wrestlers that it has been curating annually since 1991 that runs down the 500 best active male wrestlers in the world. If you're anything like me, you will have been running through this year's list, checking out where all of your favorites placed, and in doing so, you might have noticed something strange - Roman Reigns didn't make the cut.

Roman Reigns Isn't In 2025's PWI 500

Reigns has been in the PWI 500 every year from 2011 up until 2024, and ranked among the ten best active male wrestlers in the world every single year for the past decade, except one. Since he hasn't retired or taken a year off, it might be a little surprising to see him omitted from this year's list. There's a simple explanation as to why Reigns didn't make the cut, though - he didn't wrestle enough.

There are certain criteria the PWI team takes into consideration when deciding who the 500 best wrestlers in the world are each year. For starters, it sets out parameters for its judgment period. The period being judged for this year's list began on August 1, 2024, and came to an end on July 31, 2025. That gives those compiling the list time to actually assess everything and then put the list together, ready for September.

Roman Reigns Only Wrestled Six Times In 12 Months

Roman Reigns throwing a punch in WWE

To qualify for a PWI 500, a wrestler needs to have competed in at least ten matches during that assessment period. That's why Reigns didn't make the cut this year as he only wrestled six times between the start of August 2024 and the end of July 2025. He isn't necessarily a worse wrestler, nor are there at least 500 male wrestlers better than him in the world right now. The OTC simply hasn't been active enough to be considered.

The good news for Reigns is he is already in a much better position to make next year's PWI 500 than he was at this time last year. Reigns didn't wrestle his first match during the prior assessment period until Bad Blood in October. This year, he already has two matches under his belt - his tag team match at SummerSlam, and the victory over Bronson Reed at Clash in Paris.

If Reigns can just wrestle at least eight more times between now and the end of July 2026, he will almost certainly make it back into the PWI 500 next year. There's no guarantee that'll happen, though. Reigns is currently taking a break from WWE to play Akuma in the upcoming Street Fighter movie. If that goes well, he will likely be wrestling even less moving forward as he transitions into Hollywood.

This article first appeared on The Sportster and was syndicated with permission.

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