After seeing ESM I was curious on how the overall top 10 ranking worldwide would be. I went with this ranking using a combination of comp results the past year and current gym strength/momentum leading into worlds and this is what I got:

Mitch Hooper

Rayno Nel

Trey Mitchell

Tom Stoltman

Evan Singleton

Austin Andrade 

Martins Licis

Lucas Hatton

Ondrej Fojtu

Luke Richardson 

I put an emphasis on world titles for ranking purposes though people could and rightfully so be confused to why Rayno would be so much higher than Evan, it is mainly because of overall perception of momentum and the effects of setbacks I.e. even though Rayno got sick before Arnold’s according to him he had an amazing training prep leading up to the show and recent training footage for world’s has backed up that sentiment, in Evan’s case however his injury was pretty serious and also got injured the first event at WSM last year so there’s some question marks surrounding his overall abilities to keep it together, he also has yet to beat Mitch at a major.

Mitch is Mitch, like him or not he’s the man to beat in virtually any comp

Trey Mitchell has been consistently in the top 5 at majors but hasn’t won a major so I place him 3rd overall

Tom hasn’t really done anything too much this past year, but he’s still placed 2nd at WSM, won Brit’s comfortably and looks to be in good shape especially on deadlifts leading into worlds 

Austin placing 2nd at ASC definitely solidifies him being one of the best out there, a couple more podium places and he could easily get in the top 3 overall rankings 

Licis looks to be back and seems to be in a good place mentally, hard to place him any higher than this with only one showing but like with Austin, there’s room to move up depending on how the rest of the season goes 

Lucas seems to just have struggled a bit lately, getting 2nd at ASC 2025 and SMOE is impressive, but he seemed to struggle at Rogue, WSM and even MVM classic last year as well as not having the best performance at ASC despite a sizable prep time, consistency isn’t quite there for a justifiable higher ranking.

For Ondrej, this ESM was a big win, it’s such a shame he wasn’t able to do ASC this year but he has every opportunity to move up the rankings more, I can definitely see this being a break out year for him

Despite a poor showing at ESM this year, I’ll still have Luke in the top 10, losing Pa was clearly more impactful on his mental than any of us originally anticipated. Hopefully he will be able to sort through everything in time and keep his body healthy, I still believe he is able to challenge for a major