Here are the current rankings for TNA’s Top 10 Contenders and some thoughts. To vote yourself, click here.
Desmond Wolfe 26%
Jeff Hardy 23%
Mr. Anderson 11%
Sting 8%
The Pope 8%
AJ Styles 7%
Kurt Angle 5%
Rob Terry 5%
Jeff Jarrett 3%
Abyss 2%
It is probably telling that the guys with the biggest pushes in the Hogan regime are near the bottom. Abyss and Rob Terry are just not being bought by the audience yet and hopefully this ends their experiment. TNA fans are also seemingly sick of Jeff Jarrett or Kurt Angle atop every card and since one or the other has been atop nearly every TNA show ever, it’s hard to blame them.
AJ Styles low ranking is a bit surprising, but ultimately makes sense. He’s getting backlash from being a heel, backlash from fans already having seen him vs. RVD, and backlash from the Flair push. Sting vs. RVD is a dream match to many, keeping him above water in the voting, though, at this point, without much chance of victory, while The Pope, with this strong showing, seems to be getting over well. Not quite as well as Kennedy who Angle just destroyed though. The difference in voting there can likely be seen by the fact that Kennedy got a far stronger WWE push and any casual voters might hold that in his favor.
It is an utter shock that Jeff Hardy, with all of his world-wide legion of fans, isn’t dominating this. But then, this is an internet voting and Desmond Wolfe is internet darling Nigel McGuinness. It probably doesn’t hurt things that he’s almost unarguably the most talented guy on the roster closest to his prime and capable of the best matches possible with RVD. Knowing TNA, however, I’d expect Wolfe’s match to go on an Impact unannounced, while Jeff gets the PPV spot, ignoring the fact that their top PPV draw ever was Samoa Joe, an indy guy, not a WWE guy.
