Roode ranked No. 9 in world in PWI 500

Peterborough professional wrestler Bobby Roode has been named as one of the Top 10 professional wrestlers in the world.

Roode, who recently joined the WWE’s Smackdown brand, is ranked as No. 9 in the world in the recently released annual Pro

Wrestling Illustrated 500 list. The PWI 500 attempts to rank the WWE stars against those from all the other promotions and independents in the world, including New Japan Wrestling, GFW Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor.

PWI writers factor win-loss record, championships won, quality of competition, major feuds, prominence within a wrestler’s promotion and overall wrestling ability.

The latest rankings, available in a print or digital magazine that can be ordered at pwi-online. com, are for the year ending in mid-June, a period when Roode held the WWE’s NXT men’s championship after leaving the TNA Impact Wrestling promotion at the start of 2016 to join NXT last summer.

Roode dropped the NXT title to Drew McIntyre last month at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn 3 and then made his surprise debut with WWE Smackdown. Roode has been in the PWI

500 Top 10 once before: in 2012, he was ranked No. 2 in the world after holding the TNA Impact Wrestling men’s heavyweight title. He has also been consistently in the Top 70 of the PWI 500 for much of his career since joining TNA in 2004.

Kazuchika Okada, of New Japan Wrestling, topped the PWI 500 rankings this year.

Roode is one of three Canadians in the Top 10 this year. Kevin Owens, of Marieville, Que., is third and Winnipeg native Kenny Omega is fifth. NOTE: Bobby Roode will be a playable character in the video game WWE 2K18 which is being released Oct. 17. He was also in WWE 2K17.