BustedQuad Reviews

2024 is set to come to a close, and for the first time in a decade, I spent the entire year thoroughly watching and reviewing a lot of wrestling. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much wrestling in my entire life between everything that happened in 2024, and all of the other matches and shows I’ve watched that take place between 1970-2023. I am burned out. I don’t even know why I’m writing this, it’s my first post on this site in like six months, but it’s whatever. I did all of this for a reason, and damnit, we will see it through to the bitter end. Over 700 matches reviewed, 450 wrestlers analyzed, and 1 vow to stick to only the good stuff next year…

It's your 2024 Year End Awards.

SHOW OF THE YEAR:

This is a fun one. I started really keeping track of this metric about half way through the year, and at first, it was changing A LOT. At one point, the list was a top 20 list, then I came to my senses and boiled it down to 10. In the last 4 months of the year, I don’t think I even clicked the Show of the Year tab on my google sheet for 2024 one single time until we got to the month of December. Something about this year was just really weird in terms of show quality, or maybe it speaks more to my tastes changing and evolving throughout the year. But when we were around June, it felt like I was finding 5-6 non-WWE/AEW/NJPW shows a MONTH that had multiple great matches on them, and then it just dried up sometime around labor day. For all I know, that’s the cycle that usually happens year after year in modern independent wrestling, but I don’t know. I’ve rambled long enough, who cares? Here are your TOP FIVE SHOWS OF THE YEAR.

#5: DPW Limit Break 2024 – May 19th, 2024

While this wasn’t my full introduction to Deadlock, it might as well have been. I only kind of combed through some of their catalogue when the year began, seeing a couple of matches I dug, but nothing really stuck out to me. I kept reading people I follow on Twitter proclaim how great Deadlock was, but I just couldn’t see it.

Then they went ahead and announced Roddy/Abe, and that got my attention.

This was the first full DPW show I watched the entire year, and while it’s not the strongest card they had all year, it’s one hell of a crowd pleaser. It was my introduction to a lot of wrestlers I had only heard of or maybe seen 1-2 matches of up until that point. People like LaBron Kozone, Adam Priest, Kevin Blackwood and Calvin Tankman, all mainstays of Deadlock shows. This show also had what felt like at the time was going to be MCMG’s last indie date, a pattern that felt like it repeated non-stop until their eventual WWE debut in the Fall. And they got to work their magic because it was the first time I wasn’t completely annoyed with an MxM match, since those are mostly not good (even if they are funny).

Priest/Blackwood is such a great undercard match, but the show is made off the backs of the double main event of Roddy/Abe and Tankman/Ku. Seek both of those out if you haven’t seen them yet!

#4: ROH Death before Dishonor 2024 – July 26th, 2024

This was a wild one. I had zero plans on a Friday in July except I took my nephew to go see Deadpool & Wolverine when I got done work. When that finished, all of my friends were away doing various things for the most part, so I was just going to stay in and channel surf. I was reminded this was on, I saw the card and really didn’t think much of it. In fact, other than Briscoe/Roddy, the card didn’t look good at all, and I figured it would just be another AEWROH show I would not watch. But at the very last second, I balked on that thought and I turned it on.

I don’t think I was alone in having a very similar thought, because the discourse online the entire night was: WOW, I cannot believe how much better this show was than it looked like it was going to be!

The night of the show, a lot of people including myself were suffering from recency bias and saying it was the best show of the year. Once that dust settled, it’s clear it wasn’t. Quite frankly, it’s probably even ridiculous it’s in somebody’s top 5 shows of the year. But that’s why this is my blog and not yours.

The show does rock, and it felt like such a happy accident that it rocked (especially considering how bad Final Battle ended up being 5+ months later). Mortos/Komander set such an excellent tone as the opener, you got your AEW-coded match in OGK against Kyle O’Reilly and the summertime loan of Tomohiro Ishii that exceeded expectations for all four men in 2024, Leyla Hirsch and Diamante have been floundering across AEW branded content for half a decade but they got a shot to steal the show and they did just that and Yuta and Moriarty had a killer Pure Title match. The show started with just hit after hit, and I think that led to a lot of the recency bias. It was one of AEW’s better constructed shows ever in terms of match placement, which is something I often criticize them greatly for, because well…they usually are bad at it.

Middle of the show brings everything back down to earth, and hey that’s okay. Velvet/Billie wasn’t awful, but at least it was memorable due to the somewhat controversial finish, Dustin & the Von Erichs against the Dark Order wasn’t a good pro wrestling match – but it was fun, and sometimes that’s okay too! And then you also had a six man SOTF match for the TV Title with Atlantis Jr, Brian Cage, Johnny TV, Lee Johnson, Lio Rush & Shane Taylor. It wasn’t some all-timer, but perfectly fine PPV filler.

The show wrapped up with two of the better matches in the entire promotion all year, wherein we saw the coming out party of Queen Aminata against Athena for the ROH Women’s Championship, something that angers me because it feels like they never really capitalized on Aminata in the summer, and then was lost in the shuffle and injured. And of course, the main event with Mark Briscoe up against Roderick Strong in a truly AWESOME match. It doesn’t pack the emotional weight of Briscoe/Eddie from Supercard of Honor earlier in the year, but it is a far better match.

#3: AEW Revolution 2024 – March 3rd, 2024

Such a far cry from the previous year’s show when it felt like the company was at it’s lowest point (post-Punk/MJF title reign just starting), and this show was also the tail end of a hot streak AEW was riding as 2024 began and the worst World Title reign in pro wrestling history ended on 12/30/23. We’re coming fresh off of AEW’s first-ever Continental Classic in December, which was such a great palette cleanser in between being forced to watch “The Devil” storyline, and this show packed one hell of a punch to cap that run off. They tickled our ass with a feather on the opener with Christian/Garcia, which was a good match, but the ending fell flat because at that point (along with many other in 2024), it felt like if they weren’t going to make Garcia then, they never were. In another example of AEW’s aforementioned bad/weird card structure, Bryan/Eddie was for some reason the second match on the show, and it became an early MOTY candidate for yours truly, and featured an absolutely beautiful, almost poetic post-match, with Eddie Kingston being validated after YEARS of inner turmoil by Bryan Danielson finally showing him the respect he deserves. One of the only two black marks on this show happened next, in a really weird, booked out of left field scramble match where an ice cold Wardlow won the #1 contendership of the AEW Title.

From there, we head into Roddy winning his first championship in AEW along with one of his first great matches in 2024 against Orange Cassidy, and a match that felt strangely polarizing at the time but I always liked as FTR did battle with Mox & Claudio. The second of two black marks happen as the always entertaining Toni Storm had one of her traditional very bad matches against a seemingly unenthused Deonna Purazzo. The story going into it was fine, but the problem with the AEW Women’s World Title scene for like 2 years now has been that the champions are quite entertaining, but they’re not good wrestlers, and they’re constantly beating much better wrestlers by forcing them into stinkers. It’s an AEW trademark, at this point.

The PPV ended on a very good crescendo, as we got Will Ospreay’s official AEW debut (as part of the actual roster, at least) against a surging Konosuke Takeshita. I’m not the biggest Ospreay guy, I’m sure I’ve made that evident online, but I didn’t HATE this, and it was only one of two times in the first like 8 months of the year I actually kind of liked an Ospreay match. I was more impressed with Take coming out of this, and thankfully this was a taste of things to come, as he went on to have a very good, if not great at points, 2024.

We then went to Samoa Joe defending the World Title against a supposedly injured Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland. Many people expected this to be the coronation of Swerve as AEW’s guy. As much as I agreed that probably should of happened, I’m such a Samoa Joe fan that I had a hard time dealing with him only getting a 9 week World Title reign. In retrospect, considering the trials and tribulations AEW creative has had all year, it probably would’ve been better to strap Swerve up here, and give him a longer reign heading into the Bryan match at All In. But much like I don’t have the ability to see into the future, AEW doesn’t have the ability (anymore) to do long term booking apparently, so that probably wasn’t even the plan at the time this show happened. So what’s the point in getting mad about it anymore?

And then finally, maybe the greatest retirement match of all time as Sting & Darby Allin defended the Tag Titles against the Young Bucks in Sting’s very last match ever. But more on that later!

#2: DPW 3rd Anniversary Show – December 8th, 2024

For a promotion that began the year as a complete afterthought to me, by the time this show aired, it fell into my normal rotation more than any other independent promotion out there. For me personally, in the DPW shows that I’ve seen, this was the first time that DPW both had a card that looked promising AND delivered across the board.

Sure, the BK/Drake and Hyan/Emi matches are incredibly forgettable, but it’s not like they were awful black marks on an otherwise stellar show. If independent wrestling was in a healthier state, and this show got the proper recognition that it deserved, those two matches would be similar to a random Justin Credible/Jerry Lynn match happening on Heatwave 1998 (no, I am not saying this card and Heatwave ’98 are on the same level, just the first example that popped to mind).

There’s a pretty decent Mad Dog/Blackwood match early on in the show, and while both are very firmly entrenched in being My Guys, it just felt like sort of a styles clash and it didn’t really hit the way it felt like it was going to hit. But it was great to see them on the show nonetheless.

This card’s bread and butter comes in the four match run to close the show. It started with a really good hoss battle between Manders and Luke Jacobs, one of a couple of encounters they had this year. That built nicely to the battle of long time friends Trevor Lee and Andrew Everett. I’ve never bee high on either man personally, but I went into this with an open mind, and it was much better than I thought it was going to be. And to a lot of normals out there, it was probably very good.

What came next was a bit of a shock to me. I’ve been high on Violence is Forever since the first time I saw them in 2022 or 2023, and in 2024, I made it my business to watch every match of theirs that made tape/that I could find. I had a feeling that this would be good enough based on that merit alone. The issue was: I’ve never been high on Speedball, and I had only recently started to get into some of Something/s work (mostly just his DPW stuff). What ended up happening was one of the biggest hoot’s of the year. It was very much one of my favorite matches of December 2024, and probably one of the best matches I’ve seen coming out of Deadlock.

The main event was a TINY step down. A good match, it just felt a little deflating happening after that awesome tag team match. But these two took that as a challenge and they delivered one of the more underrated matches in the year as LaBron Kozone defeated Adam Priest for the DPW National Championship in an awesome contest.

This, more than any other show *I’ve* seen of them, truly felt like Deadlock’s coming out party. I would leave to see them take a big step as a promotion in 2025-26.

#1: ACTION Wrestling Presents: DEAN~!! – April 4th, 2024

What can I say about this show that hasn’t been said numerous times throughout the last 3/4s of the year by people who are much better at these things than I am? I was supposed to be at this show, it took place 15 minutes from my house, and an unfortunate family tragedy kept me away, but I was so glad I at least got to watch it live on IWTV, because this show blew the roof of WrestleMania weekend. I don’t even have to get cute and dance around the idea of this being better than either night of WrestleMania, because it was. No bullshit. I wouldn’t have this at #1 if it wasn’t the best show of the year, let alone just that specific weekend.

The show was a beautiful tribute to Dean. I wasn’t an avid DVDR member, I had an account but never posted, but I was at least aware of him and his contributions, and it was nice to see a great night of remembrance for one of our own, and to see how much Dean and his work meant to so many people I know.

I don’t want to bastardize any of that emotion or any of the feelings people had by trying to put into my shitty little words how much the show rocked (it totally did). People better than me already took care of that, and did it better than I could. But I will say at least this:

This was, for my money, the best one-off Independent Wrestling show to ever happen.

TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR:

This wasn’t a good year for Tag Team Wrestling. WWE introduced two new brand new sets of tag team titles and Triple H seemed to want to make them focal points, but instead we got the two worst possible outcomes winning both sets of belts at WrestleMania, followed by months of no major show appearances, angles and even complete inactivity. In AEW, the promotion that seemed to have one of it’s foundations initially be tag team wrestling, we spent most of the year with the worst version of the Young Buck that we’ve ever seen as absentee champs, and an otherwise dreadful division working underneath. So, other than my #1 Tag Team in this ranking, the other four kind of got there just on having more TV reps than others. Just the way it is, I guess.

I should probably note that TTOTY, FWOTY and MWOTY are all based off ratings points (***ish is 1 point, *** is 2 points, etc.), so yeah. Also, I tried to variate the match recommendations the best I could so I didn’t repeat as much, and that they’re not always necessarily “best match of the year”, but more along the lines of my favorites.

#5: The OGK [Matt Taven/Mike Bennett] (AEW/ROH)

You know how gross this makes me feel? I used to be a fan of Mike Bennett just to annoy some online friends of mine, but that was like ten years ago, and the joke wasn’t funny anymore. And I always thought Matt Taven was an insufferable boob (he still kind of is). But somehow, coming out of the wasteland that was the Undisputed Kingdom era, these two got to go out and have some decent to good outings throughout the year. I really don’t have a defense for it other than that. They were inoffensive at worst, and pretty decent at best, and that’s that. Congrats.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Kyle O’Reilly/Tomohiro Ishii, ROH Death Before Dishonor 2024 (7/26)
w/ Roderick Strong vs. Orange Cassidy/Kyle O’Reilly/Mark Briscoe, AEW Collision (8/24)
vs. Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevera, AEW Collision (9/21)

#4: TIE – Blackpool Combat Club [Moxley/Castagnoli] / Blackpool Combat Club [Danielson/Castagnoli] (AEW)

Well this is another one of those happy little accidents! While the actual tag division, meaning teams competing for tag gold and Contendership in the actual division, did really fucking blow this year, what did NOT suck was the awesome amount of BCC tags we got in the first 6-7 months of the year. At one point, it was what was keeping Collision not only watchable, but probably the best of the four major weekly wrestling TV shows. We got a lot of them early on, and I think it’s a testament more to just how pitiful tag team wrestling was otherwise that they are still on the list. Not because they had bad matches, but I mean c’mon – they haven’t teamed for over half the year (except for one Mox/Claudio tag a couple of weeks ago).

Match Suggestions:

Mox/Claudio:

vs. Shane Taylor/Lee Moriarty, AEW Collision (1/27)
vs. Star Jr./Esfinge, AEW Collision (2/10)
vs. FTR, AEW Dynamite (2/21)

Bryan/Claudio:

vs. Eddie Kingston/Ortiz, AEW Collision (1/20)
vs. Kyle Fletcher/Powerhouse Hobbs, AEW Collision (4/13)
vs. Top Flight, AEW Collision (5/11)

BCC:

vs. Eddie Kingston/FTR, AEW Dynamite (2/28)
w/ Matt Sydal vs. Mistico, Volador Jr, Ultimo Guerrero & Blue Panther, CMLL (3/29)
w/ Wheeler Yuta vs. Esfinge, Magnus, Rugido & Volador Jr, AEW Dynamite (6/5)

#3: The Creed Brothers (WWE)

If you’ve ever read any of my old reviews on the old BQ board, you MAY be familiar with the tale of Rick Steiner in 1988. See, when I did the 1988 JCP review, Rick Steiner somehow was a favorite of Dusty Rhodes (who was booker), and because of that, Rick found himself wrestling on one of their three TV shows at least once a week, but usually more. Rick’s not a great singles wrestler, but he’s not a bad singles wrestler either (at least in 1988). He’s simply there. Well, when you’re getting Rick Steiner matches 1-2 times a week, every week, plus 4 PPV’s and 4-5 COTC’s, you wind up with weird shit like Rick Steiner winning (by points) my 1988 JCP WOTY. It felt WRONG, it still feels wrong, and I hate it.

That’s the Creed Brothers in 2024.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Dragon Lee/Joaquin Wilde, WWE Main Event (7/10)
vs. Otis/Akira Tozawa, WWE RAW (8/12)
vs. Rey Mysterio/Dragon Lee, WWE RAW (11/25)

#2: FTR (AEW)

I’ve made no qualms with being incredibly tired of Dax Harwood on an out of ring level. I think he’s a weird, shitty person who likes to try to manipulate wrestling fans by using his own mental health, among other things, into forgiving him for drinking wine and talking shit online to a fucking legend like Dustin Rhodes, or bitching about the era of wrestling he grew up with as a way just to take ANOTHER shot at his former employer (like yeah man, they suck, we fucking get it) all the while not realizing his own ignorance because HIS WHOLE FUCKING GIMMICK IS LOVING THE ERA OF WRESTLING HE GREW UP WITH. I think it’s weird that him and his gun-wielding, partner with hair seem to want to buddy up to whoever the newest WWE outcast is, before eventually turning on them in an unnecessarily public way.

But this isn’t abouy any of that, clearly. Strictly in ring, when they want to, FTR are still one of the best tag teams ever. In 2024, for the most part, it felt like they wanted to a lot, and that’s fine with me, because it’s good wrestling. They were dangerously close to me writing them off forever due to the piss poor build to and match at All In 2024, but they redeemed themselves with an incredible, long overdue match against Violence is Forever in the Fall that I feel like has been slept on by a lot of people.

Match Suggestions:

w/ Bryan Danielson & Darby Allin vs. The Elite, AEW Double or Nothing (5/26)
w/ Darby Allin & Mark Briscoe vs. Undisputed Kingdom/The Beast Mortos, AEW Collision (8/3)
vs. Violence is Forever, DPW Super Battle (10/13)

#1: Violence is Forever – (Freelancers)

I’ve said A LOT about Violence is Forever in this year end wrap up already, but I’m going to say some more. Right before WrestleMania weekend, these two went into the lead for Tag Team of the Year, and unlike any other “award” I have in this write up, they’re the only ones that never moved from that spot once they got there. Didn’t matter the promotion, if I saw they had a match coming up, I did whatever I had to do to ensure I saw it. GCW, AIW, DPW, you name it. I would really, REALLY like to see them get a shot in ROH, or even AEW. But more than anything, I’m greatly anticipating their teased upcoming match against The Workhorsemen, which may already be an early candidate for match of the year in 2025, and it hasn’t even happened.

What rules about these guys, too, is the fact that as great as they are as a tandem, they also had some great singles matches in 2024, including a fun lil’ 5 minute thing at the most recent Bloodsport. If these two dudes are on a card in ANY capacity, I will be watching, and you should as well.

It’s the same old theme, since nineteen sixteen.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Super Smash Bros, DPW Live 4 (1/20)
vs. Astronauts, JCW Jersey J-Cup Night One (2/9)
vs. Zilla Fatu/Juicy Finau vs. Bollywood Boyz vs. Los Macizos, PUNJABI PRISON MATCH, GCW Joey Janela’s Spring Break 8, Night 2 (4/6) [I’m not bullshitting]
vs. Close Personal Friends, DPW High Noon (8/18)
vs. FTR, DPW Super Battle (10/13)
vs. SpeedballxSomething, DPW 3rd Anniversary Show (12/8)

FEMALE WRESTLER OF THE YEAR

Is it WOKE of me to give women their own award? Or am I OWNING THE LIBS by giving them their own award?

It’s neither, it’s not even close to political. Shut the fuck up. It comes down to two things: availability and laziness, both on my part.

The majority of the wrestling I watch takes place in the United States, good or bad. And the bad that goes with that is, even after Stephanie McMahon rescued women everywhere by starting the women’s revolution single handedly, women still aren’t featured even as half as much as men in these promotions outside of maybe NXT. But I don’t fit into NXT’s current target demographic (teenage girls who like to tweet I’M SCREAMING and lonely men in their 50’s who sit in the dark, nothing else) so I have to wait until anyone down there who is truly good enough to break through to the main roster!

Yes, that is totally on me. If I was as dedicated to this project as some of my forepersons, then maybe this list would filled with a lot more of the joshi scene. Given how much I began to really enjoy that scene in the last few months, that very well may happen in 2025! But for now, this is what we’re stuck with, and if anyone is even reading this let alone feels like wanting to yell at me for it, I deserve it, I get it, I understand.

Anyway...

#25: Jade Cargill – WWE

#24: Utami Hayashishita – MARIGOLD

#23: Hikaru Shida – AEW

#22: Piper Niven – WWE

#21: Meiko Satomura – WWE/Freelancer

#20: Mayu Iwatani – STARDOM

#19: Chihiro Hashimoto – Sendai Girls

#18: Tiffany Stratton – WWE

#17: Lyra Valkyria – WWE

#16: Zoey Stark – WWE

#15: Kairi Sane – WWE

#14: Naomi – TNA/WWE

#13: Nanae Takahashi – MARIGOLD

#12: Giulia – STARDOM/MARIGOLD/WWE

#11: BOZILLA – MARIGOLD

#10: Athena – ROH: Would probably be #1 on this list if she was allowed on an actual TV show or at least took more indie bookings. I need more Athena squashes in my life.

#9: Shayna Baszler – WWE: Sneakily underrated year on the undercard. Good tags w/ Zoey; solid matches in various tournaments including Bloodsport.

#8: Kris Statlander – AEW: I will never forgive Anthony Khan for the mishandling of her heel turn and partnership with Stokely, but she had three of the best AEW women’s matches of the year. Issue is, because of the weak division, not much else.

#7: Willow Nightingale – AEW: Willow is a legit best in the world candidate, but she missed time at two points in the year, and was also given a cold title reign just to set up Mercedes, albeit, in a fantastic match.

#6: Bianca Belair – WWE: I, too, grow weary of WWE seemingly advertising Bianca as the only woman on the roster, especially on shows she’s not even on. But that anger immediately dissipates once she gets in the ring. She’s literally carried SmackDown! on her back the entire year.

#5: BAYLEY (WWE)

Bayley was a victim this year, pure and simple. Triple H was the guy that somehow booked her as the best babyface almost ever in her NXT days, and then just cannot seem to figure it out with her in his tenure on the main roster so far. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more freezing cold title run in pro wrestling history than Bayley’s run with the Women’s Title in 2024. But it’s not her fault. We were forced to believe Damage Control were full of bozo’s for what felt like years, so why should anyone be invested in their break up? It was a good angle, but it fell on deaf ears. It was a GREAT Mania match, but it happened before blind eyes. And it became quite clear shortly after WrestleMania that Bayley was there just to give Nia a credible win in the summer. Again, none of this is Bayley’s fault. She had great matches once she turned babyface and for the first time since the pandemic, felt like the cornerstone of the women’s division she’s supposed to be, in-ring at least.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Iyo Sky, WWE WrestleMania XL Night 2 (4/7)
vs. Meiko Satomura, WWE House Show (7/27)
vs. Nia Jax, WWE Summerslam (8/3)
vs. Nia Jax, WWE Bad Blood (10/5)
vs. Candice LeRae, WWE SmackDown! (11/8)

#4: MERCEDES MONE (AEW)

She was once the most lauded female wrestlers ever by both critics and fans alike. At some point this year, that partially changed because she chose one company over the other, and this industry’s fanbase, much like the country it’s based in, is extremely mentally ill. Admittedly, there were a few out of ring moments where ya had to stand back, shake your head and go “man, she loves her some her”, but also, who cares? She is still a mostly very good wrestler. My fears for her are what ended up happening: even though we saw her more than I thought we would, she didn’t have the ability to constantly hone her skills the way she did in WWE, and that’s because of both her lack of contracted dates in AEW, and AEW’s lack of live events. I’m still higher on her this year than a lot of other people who do write-ups like these, and I think that’s fine. I think if she keeps things closer to the way they were in the first Stat match versus the second Stat match, she’ll be much better off. And hey, if she’s able to keep things like the Willow match, then we’ll really be cooking with gas!

Match Suggestions:

vs. Willow Nightingale, AEW Double or Nothing (5/26)
vs. Hikaru Shida, AEW Dynamite (8/14)
vs. Emi Sakura, AEW Dynamite (10/8)
vs. Kris Statlander, AEW Full Gear (11/23)
vs. Hazuki, NJPW Strong Style Evolved (12/15)

#3: NIA JAX (WWE)

Wow, what a year! I dreaded the eventual Nia Jax return. I knew too much about her backstage to ever like her as a wrestler, and it didn’t help that in her first run with the company, she was also very, very bad. But in her time off, she not only lost some weight, by some accounts, there was also a major personality shift that lightened me up a bit. She started the year off with a helluva match against Becky Lynch on RAW, and just never looked back. She probably deserved to be the #1, but WWE does this weird thing now where when someone is really hot, they don’t let them wrestle for weeks, even months on end (see: Rhea, Gunther, Nia, Gable, I could go on). Much like her King of the Ring cohort Gunther, Nia won the Queen’s crown in June and was resorted almost to solely to segments until Summerslam. It’s a shame, because it would’ve been cool to give her this super meaningless award.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Bayley, WWE Summerslam (8/3)
vs. Bayley, WWE Bad Blood (10/5)
w/ Tiffany Stratton vs. Jade Cargill & Bianca Belair, WWE SmackDown! (11/8)
vs. Bianca Belair, WWE RAW (11/25)
vs. Becky Lynch, WWE RAW (3/18)

#2: IYO SKY (WWE)

I will gladly admit that I am extremely high on Iyo, I have been since her WWE debut, so maybe I am guilty of slightly overrating some of her matches. But also, I ask again, who cares? Iyo had a great year. She, too, was the victim of an ice cold title reign but her and Bayley had a terrific match at WrestleMania, and luckily her run didn’t stop there. She had great matches in the Queen of the Ring tournament, and even got a chance to go over and have a match in Marigold in July against Utami Hayashishita. In what could’ve been a dangerously low out put year, Iyo got bailed out (weird way of phrasing this) by injuries to both Dakota Kai and Kairi Sane that happened back to back. One of the best television wrestlers of the year, as well!

Match Suggestions:

vs. Bayley, WWE WrestleMania XL, Night 2 (4/7)
vs. Shayna Baszler, WWE RAW (5/13)
Women’s Money in the Bank Match, WWE Money in the Bank (7/6)
vs. Utami Hayashishita, MARIGOLD Summer Destiny 2024 (7/13)
w/ Kairi Sane vs. Jade Cargill/Bianca Belair, WWE RAW (10/14)

#1: SAREEE (STARDOM/MARIGOLD)

This is a fun one. I went into this year with my only real knowledge of Sareee being what the expectations of her in NXT were prior to Triple H’s heart attack, and what weirdo fuck fantasy Bruce Prichard was enacting on her during the early 2.0 days. I kept hearing people say she was beast, and she was best in the world, and I kind of thought it was just a meme. But, yo: Sareee can fucking RIP. One of the few wrestlers in this entire year’s project to not have a single bad match, and to have every match of theirs (that I saw) rated and logged! Seeing how 2025 is already booked to begin for her, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sareee high up on this list again next year.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Chihiro Hashimoto, Sareee Produce Sareee-ISM Chapter III (1/16)
w/ Mayu Iwatani vs. Chihiro Hashimoto/VENY, Sareee Produce Sareee-ISM Chapter V (9/2)
vs. BOZILLA, MARIGOLD Fantastic Adventure 2024, Night 7 (10/24)
vs. Nanae Takahashi, MARIGOLD Winter Wonderful Fight, Night 6 (12/13)
vs. Giulia, MARIGOLD Summer Destiny 2024 (7/13)

MALE WRESTLER OF THE YEAR

Alright, so this is the bulk of the project here. A ton of time was spent carefully viewing a lot of matches that I probably didn’t need to ever see let alone know exist just to get to *some* pretty obvious answers at the end. The cool thing about this project though was that, since this was my first year really diving into all of wrestling, it helped me discover a lot of people and promotions I never would’ve even considered watching before. And while I maintain I will not be watching anywhere NEAR the amount of wrestling I did this year, this year’s amount has let me see just who is worth my time in the future, and for that I can be grateful.

Once again, all of these have been based on review points (***ish = 1 point, *** = 2 points, etc.), so let’s go. This is also for singles wrestlers, so anyone who’s got like 75%+ output as solely a tag guy, I didn’t count them towards this. Also, once more, please note that I tried to variate the match recommendations the best I could so I didn’t repeat as much, and that they’re not always necessarily “best match of the year”, but more along the lines of my favorites.

#50: Swerve Strickland (AEW)

#49: Kevin Blackwood (Freelancer)

#48: El Barbaro Cavernario (CMLL)

#47: Titan (NJPW/CMLL)

#46: Ludwig Kaiser (WWE)

#45: Angel de Oro (CMLL)

#44: Eddie Kingston (AEW)

#43: Neon (CMLL)

#42: Ultimo Guerrero (CMLL)

#41: Komander (AEW)

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#40: Jeff Cobb (NJPW)

#39: Valiente (CMLL)

#38: Averno (CMLL)

#37: Lee Moriarty (AEW)

#36: Fuminori Abe (Freelancer)

#35: Chad Gable (WWE)

#34: Bron Breaker (WWE)

#33: Templario (CMLL)

#32: Timothy Thatcher (Freelancer)

#31: Soberano Jr. (CMLL)

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#30: PAC (AEW)

#29: Kazuchika Okada (NJPW/AEW)

#28: Sheamus (WWE)

#27: Volador Jr (CMLL)

#26: Euforia (CMLL)

#25: Esfinge (CMLL)

#24: Yota Tsuji (NJPW)

#23: Adam Priest (Freelancer)

#22: Wheeler Yuta (AEW)

#21: 1 Called Manders (Freelancer)

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#20: Konosuke Takeshita (AEW) – Started off the year hot coming off of some decent out put at the end of 2023. He seemed to finally “get it” fully by the time the G1 came around and a lot of people were begging for him to stay in NJPW as they desperately need someone like him at the top to help fill things out. I’d kill to see him away from Don Callis or anything Don Callis related but I doubt that happens anytime soon.

#19: Shingo Takagi (NJPW) – I am a big Shingo fan, and I am very guilty of overrating his stuff. Him being this high is largely from his output in the first 6 months of the year, because after I saw the not very great match he had with Bryan at Forbidden Door, I cooled off on present day Shingo a ton. But he’s still a legend, and fuck it.

#18: Mad Dog Connelly (Freelancer) – It breaks my heart it fell so far down this list after spending so much of the year in the top 10. But for some reason that hasn’t been made quite evident to me just yet, his bookings cooled off extremely once summer ended, and it’s felt like he’s largely been absent for most of the last four months of the year. Hoping for more continuous output in 2025, maybe even him getting signed somewhere like AEW or even TNA.

#17: Atlantis Jr (CMLL) – The kid got bogged down early with an awful Chris Jericho match, but after that, the sky was the limit for him in both CMLL and AEW/ROH. He’s got a lot of room to grow still, but keeping him around guys like Mistico in multi man tags has helped a lot. I expect 2025 to be really big for him.

#16: Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW) – Again, much like Shingo, Ishii is a deep, personal favorite of mine, so I am guilty of overrating some of his stuff. But I also think that him having those god damn’ers with Masa Kitamiya, as well as a solid AEW run in the summer kind of equates to him deserving to be here more than even Shingo. Woudn’t be shocked, though, if Ishii isn’t even in the top 50 next year, sadly.

#15: Hangman Adam Page (AEW) – I will pay any money I have to get them to wrap up this heel turn already. It’s not that he’s been bad as a heel. On the contrary, he’s been a lot of fun. But it’s not natural. Hangman is the “main character” of AEW, if you will, and I’m tired of pretending he’s not. Turn out anxious millennial cowboy babyface again, and keep him far away from the Young Bucks.

#14: Orange Cassidy (AEW) – I was up and down on OC this year. I really felt like his run as International Champion in 2023 was his peak and that time and injuries were catching up to him. But at some point in late summer, he felt rejuvenated and was helped a ton of by the initial molten hot Death Riders storyline (lol). We’ll see what 2025 has in store. Not too keen on OC vs. Hangman being like the last original AEW match possible and them running it on next to no build on a cold Dynamite, but whatever.

#13: Mark Briscoe (AEW) – All the love in the world to chicken. He spent a lot of the year in the top 10, but then got sucked into the Jericho Vortex and it was curtains for him. He had actually fallen much, much lower but another solid C2 run for him helped boost him back up closer to where he actually belongs. He also had the most emotional moment of the year at Supercard of Honor. Chicken deserves the world.

#12: Sami Zayn (WWE) – The MVP of WWE, as far as I’m concerned. Very rarely had a bad match. He was the only reason to get even remotely interested in anything Bloodline related again, if even only for a little bit. Both of his matches against Gunther and Gable would be MOTY candidates in most other years. I try not to care about stuff like this but I really need him to win the WWE Championship once.

#11: The Beast Mortos (AEW) – What started off as a meme turned into the biggest underdog run of the year. He’s not without his flaws, but he was such a welcomed addition to an otherwise sunken AEW midcard scene this year. Wish they gave him more to do in the C2 besides take pins, he deserved a better ending to his year than that. Since he’s on the outs with AAA, I’d love to see him have some matches in CMLL in 2025.

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#10: DARBY ALLIN (AEW)

It’s a title that gets bandied about a lot when describing him, but it’s one that’s completely deserved – far and away the best television wrestler of this generation. There’s such a specific way behind doing what needs to be done in order to get television matches to stick beyond just lazily advancing storylines, and Darby is the best at it. Whether it’s a big time spot against Claudio in defense of AEW, or a throwaway match against the Butcher, he brings his A-game every single time the bell rings. This year was a strange one for the first six months of the year, between saying he was going to climb Everest, to thankfully (???) breaking his foot on the Dynamite before he was supposed to leave, to getting hit by a bus, to getting hurt again at Double or Nothing, and then coming back in July and being on TV every single week thereafter. If he doesn’t miss a large part of the first half of the year, Darby may easily be in top 3, if not the top spot on this list.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Konosuke Takeshita, AEW Dynamite (1/3)
vs. The Butcher, AEW Rampage (8/9)
vs. Jon Moxley, AEW Dynamite Grand Slam (9/25)
vs. Brody King, AEW WrestleDream (10/12)
vs. Claudio Castagnoli, AEW Dynamite (11/20)

#9: GUNTHER (WWE)

The only WWE superstar to make it into the top ten, and honestly, it doesn’t even feel like a top ten year in his career. When he DID actually get to wrestle on TV or PPV, it was almost always good to great, hence why he’s so high. Matches against Dominick Mysterio, both members of the New Day and Sami Zayn on TV, as well as his PPV bouts with Sami and Randy Orton, made sure of his placement. Still, Gunther suffered from Triple H’s weird booking style of not letting his top wrestlers actually wrestle on TV or PPV’s, which is weird considering he ended the longest Intercontinental Championship run in history, and went almost right away into a lengthy World Title run. But Gunther was largely absent from WWE programming between his King of the Ring win and his Summerslam title match, much like Nia Jax. Not sure an end to that style is in sight with Triple H at the helm, but hopefully another string of awesome matches await the Ring General in 2025.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Sami Zayn, WWE WrestleMania XL, Night 1 (4/6)
vs. Dominick Mysterio, WWE RAW (3/4)
vs. Xavier Woods, WWE RAW (4/29)
vs. Randy Orton, WWE King & Queen of the Ring (5/25)
vs. Sami Zayn, WWE RAW (10/7)

#8: RODERICK STRONG (AEW)

One of the backbones of AEW programming, especially throughout the summer. It felt like the best possible thing to happen to Roddy’s AEW career was the multitude of injuries sustained by Adam Cole, no disrespect, but it allowed him to stay as the leader of the fledgling Undisputed Kingdom, have a ton of great TV matches, and do a lot of fun, unexpected stuff with guys like THE BEAST MORTOS. He was also the first guy in 2024 to make me not hate an Ospreay match, as they had a tremendous match at Double or Nothing in May. I would very much like to make big predictions for Roddy’s 2025, but if the last AEW show of the year showed us anything, it’s that Tony Khan is dependent solely on fantasy booking things way past their fresh date, and Roddy’s destined to be stuck in a rehash of the Undisputed Era. Oh well. Let’s hope we at least get a C2 run in 2025 from the Messiah of the Backbreaker.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Fuminori Abe, DPW Limit Break (5/19)
vs. Will Ospreay, AEW Double or Nothing (5/26)
vs. Timothy Thatcher, PRESTIGE Combat Clash PDX (7/12)
vs. Tomohiro Ishii, AEW Collision (7/20)
vs. Mark Briscoe, ROH Death before Dishonor (7/26)

#7: JON MOXLEY (AEW)

Started year still being firmly considered one of AEW’s top guys and fan favorites, and ended the year being a polarizing figure both on screen in storyline, and apparently off screen, because now a medium sized section of Twitter have decided Jon Moxley sucks, which is hilarious. But this isn’t a twitter recap, it’s a wrestling recap, and quite frankly, not many (actually only 6) did it better than Mox in 2024. Got to test his chops in Japan as usual, as well as working against a lot of the CMLL guys that came in, including a memorable trip to Arena Mexico. Finally got that long awaited vacation he was supposed to take like 3 years ago, and came back to set the wrestling world on fire with his turn on Bryan Danielson and formation of the Death Riders. Unfortunately, the year ended on quite the sour night with a less than stellar four way for the World Title and an absolute assassination of his new character and storyline by the returning Adam Copeland. Turns out the guy doesn’t steal girlfriends or wives anymore, just your momentum. But none of that can hamper an otherwise awesome year from Mox, including a few MOTY candidates.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Konosuke Takeshita, AEW Double or Nothing (5/26)
vs. Josh Barnett, Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport Bushido (6/22)
vs. Darby Allin, AEW Dynamite Grand Slam (9/25)
vs. Bryan Danielson, AEW WrestleDream (10/12)
vs. Orange Cassidy, AEW Full Gear (11/23)

#6: ZACK SABRE JR. (NJPW)

Now here’s a guy I really didn’t care a ton about heading into this year. From the few matches I had seen of his, they were good, but nothing really stood out. But between his incredible output in 2024, and having the ability to watch a lot of his older matches for the first time this year, it warmed me up to him, at least in-ring. Obviously the bulk of his work comes from his stuff in New Japan, but he had a lot of fun stuff in both AEW and RevPro this year, as well as a couple of shots in CMLL. He finally won the big one two times over, by becoming only the second gaijin to win the actual G1, and shortly thereafter win the IWGP World Championship. While it felt like New Japan did their best to hide him behind tag matches and bad opponents in the last few months of the year, ZSJ’s G1 output alone would’ve probably been enough to get him up high on this list, everything else was just a bonus.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Bryan Danielson, NJPW The New Beginning in Osaka (2/11)
vs. Daniel Makabe, PRESTIGE Roseland 8 (4/14)
vs. Hechicero, CMLL Sabados de Coliseo (6/22)
vs. Yota Tsuji, NJPW G1 Climax 34 Night 19 (8/18)
vs. Hechicero, RevPro 12 Year Anniversary (8/24)

#5: CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI (AEW)

Probably the only good example of the aforementioned 1988 Rick Steiner incident ever, as it felt like there was at least one Claudio match on television every single week, and he’s very clearly a favorite of TK, and that’s good for all of us who appreciate good wrestling. Claudio can absolutely still bring it, even if at times later in the year it looked like he was starting to loose maybe a half step. But that’s okay, time and tide wait for no man, even if he’s Swiss. Since the Death Riders angle is very clearly dead in the water, I wouldn’t mind seeing Claudio heading up a revamped ROH if it gets a TV deal, but that seems to be another pipe dream we’re led to believe is happening every 18-24 months. The best parts of Claudio’s year often times felt like they were happening outside of AEW’s main focus, including his run in the Texas residence in the summer which all largely felt non-canon, and of course all of his appearances in CMLL.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Hangman Page, AEW Dynamite (1/10)
vs. Bryan Keith, ROH on HonorClub (1/18)
w/ PAC & Wheeler YUTA vs. Kyle O’Reilly, Mark Briscoe & Tomohiro Ishii, AEW Collision (11/9)
vs. Darby Allin, AEW Dynamite (11/20)
vs. Darby Allin, AEW Dynamite (12/21)

#4: MASCARA DORADA II (CMLL)

What CMLL did with MDII in 2024, is what I hope they continue to do with Atlantis Jr. into 2025. MDII spent a lot of his year seemingly tied to the hip of Mistico, and it was able to not only carry him high up these specific rankings, but also help him break out in later singles bouts, or even trios matches where he kind of felt like the lead technico. Bare with me, I’m still learning a lot about actual lucha libre, so I may not have the exact science of it down yet, but this is what it felt like for MDII in 2024. It also helps that he was easily the most gif’able wrestler of 2024, breaking out spots at random times you wouldn’t ever expect a human being of actually being capable of doing. The most action figure federation wrestler of the year (complimentary).

Match Suggestions:

vs. Templario, CMLL Viernes Espectacular (1/5)
w/ Neon vs. Mistico/Brillante Jr, CMLL Super Viernes (2/2)
vs. Mistico vs. Atlantis Jr, CMLL Super Viernes (4/19)
w/ Mistico & Atlantis Jr vs. Los Infernales, CMLL Martes de Arena Mexico (5/14)
w/ Mistico vs. Zack Sabre Jr/Magnus, CMLL Domingos Arena Mexico (6/23)

#3: HECHICERO (CMLL)

My great wrestling awakening of 2024! Unlike a lot of other top or long time CMLL guys, when I first dove into CMLL this year, Hechicero was not someone I had ever heard of, to no fault of his. My knowledge of lucha libre drew the line at whatever Mike Tenay told me on TV in 1996 and whoever Vince signed to potentially feud with Rey and finally get his arena full of masked fans at a WrestleMania dream. To Hechicero’s benefit, not only did he have a career year that hooked me, but my very first exposure to him was against Bryan fucking Danielson. From the minute he made his entrance with the little fire wizardry gimmick he does in that match, through his rematch with Mistico two weeks ago, Hechicero went on to not only have a legitimate run at being the Best in the World in 2024, but has instantly become one of my favorite wrestlers of all time. Feels easily adaptable to a lot of styles on top of having already mastered his form of lucha libre. Give me more of the sorcerer in 2025!

Match Suggestions:

vs. Bryan Danielson, AEW Collision (2/3)
vs. Blue Panther, CMLL Martes de Arena Mexico (6/11)
vs. Esfinge vs. Euforia vs. Valiente, CMLL 91. Anniversario (9/13)
w/ El Barbaro Cavernario/El Terrible vs. Mascara Dorada II, Templario & Titan, CMLL Martes de Arena Mexico (10/15)
vs. Mistico, CMLL Super Viernes (11/29)

#2: BRYAN DANIELSON (AEW)

The greatest professional wrestler to ever live, and my favorite professional wrestler of all-time. The first part I’ve known to be true for many years now, but this year is when the second part came true. I don’t know if it was all of the awesome dream matches he managed to fit in the first six months of the year, or if it was the feeling that the end really was near, or maybe just because I had a chance to really step back and watch a lot of stuff of his I hadn’t seen before from the indies. Whatever the case, 2024 was so close to being a run away year with Bryan Danielson as my WOTY. Infact, he held the #1 spot from the time I started tracking my rankings in the third week of January, and did not move from that spot until THREE WEEKS AGO. The man hasn’t wrestled in EIGHT WEEKS, and it still take another five weeks for his spot to be overtaken. A truly special year, even if there were a few hiccups towards the end. Whatever is next for Bryan, I wish him nothing but the best – and maybe a few more matches when he’s healthy.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Kazuchika Okada, NJPW WrestleKingdom 18 (1/4)
vs. Yuji Nagata, AEW Collision (1/27)
vs. Eddie Kingston, AEW Revolution (3/3)
vs. Shane Taylor, AEW Collision (3/9)
vs. Katsuyori Shibata, AEW Collision (3/16)
vs. Blue Panther, CMLL Super Viernes (4/5)
vs. PAC, AEW Dynamite (7/3)
vs. Hangman Page, AEW Dynamite (7/10)
vs. Jeff Jarrett, AEW Dynamite (8/7)
vs. Nigel McGuinness, AEW Dynamite Grand Slam (9/25)

#1: MISTICO (CMLL)

And there you have it, much like summer of 2000, 2024 is the Era of the Mystical, and Mistico is your 2024 Wrestler of the Year. Maybe it’s popular, maybe it isn’t. But this is fact: the only truly bad match he had all year (and he had A LOT of matches) was when AEW began to sabotage their CMLL partnership by sending Chris Jericho to drag him to hell at 91. Anniversario. If Mistico’s name popped up one of the many cards CMLL put on throughout the week, you knew it was going to be varying degrees of good-to-great. He always delivered. The perfect mix of consistency and quality, something a lot of people may only ever achieve half of in a given year. Would’ve liked to have seen more of him outside of CMLL, but both New Japan and AEW are run by cowards who would never let him look good against anyone above midcard, which is a travesty. No matter, I expect another top tier year for Mistico in 2025. Let’s fucking go.

Match Suggestions:

vs. Matt Sydal, AEW Rampage (2/9)
vs. Averno, CMLL 20. Anniversario Mistico (6/17)
vs. Volador Jr, CMLL Martes de Glamour 20. Anniversario Mistico (6/18)
w/ Lucha Bros vs. Yota Tsuji/Titan/Hiromu Takahashi, AEW Forbidden Door: Zero Hour (6/30)
vs. Atlantis Jr, MLW Summer of the Beasts (8/29)
vs. Mascara Dorada II, CMLL Dia de Independencia (9/16)
vs. Hechicero, CMLL/Alto Voltaje Noche de Campeonatos (9/29)
w/ Atlantis Jr/Neon vs. Los Guerreros Laguneros, CMLL Super Viernes (10/18)
vs. Hechicero, CMLL Super Viernes (11/29)
vs. Hechicero, CMLL Lunes Clasico (12/16)

TOP 100 MATCHES OF THE YEAR

I originally wanted to go batshit crazy and do a full write up/review for all 100 matches, but yeah, that ain’t happening.

Nothing on this list is below 3.75 stars, and I tried to rank them as objectively as I could, but you’ll see a few subjective stragglers break through.

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100. Masa Kitamiya vs. Takashi Sugiura, NOAH Wrestle Magic 2024 (5/4)

99. Konosuke Takeshita © vs. Powerhouse Hobbs – AEW International Championship, AEW World’s End (12/28)

98. Shingo Takagi vs. Masaaki Mochizuki – DG Open the New Year Gate 2024, Day 4 (1/10)

97. Darby Allin vs. The Butcher – AEW Rampage (8/9)

96. Mayu Iwatani © vs. Sareee – IWGP Women’s Championship, STARDOM All-Star Grand Queendom 2024 (4/27)

95. Adam Priest vs. BK Westbrook vs. Kevin Blackwood – Vacant DPW National Championship, DPW Tag Festival 2024 (7/7)

94. El Barbaro Cavernario vs. Mascara Dorada II – CMLL Super Viernes (1/19)

93. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Orange Cassidy – AEW Forbidden Door (6/30)

92. Hechicero/Valiente vs. Esfinge/Euforia – CMLL Dia de Independencia (9/16)

91. The Beast Mortos vs. Hologram – AEW WrestleDream (10/12)

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90. Swerve Strickland © vs. Christian Cage – AEW World Championship, AEW Double or Nothing (5/26)

89. Blue Panther vs. Ultimo Guerrero – CMLL Sabados de Coliseo (11/30)

88. Bron Breakker © vs. Sheamus vs. Ludwig Kaiser – WWE Intercontinental Championship, WWE Survivor Series (11/30)

87. Jon Moxley vs. Konosuke Takeshita – AEW Double or Nothing (5/26)

86. Zack Sabre Jr © vs. Shingo Takagi – IWGP World Championship, NJPW Power Struggle (11/4)

85. Athena vs. Amira – PRESTIGE/WCPW/DPW Roseland 9 (9/29)

84. The Beast Mortos vs. Dralistico vs. Hologram – AEW Collision Grand Slam (9/28)

83. Wheeler YUTA © vs. Lee Moriarty – ROH Pure Championship, ROH Death before Dishonor (7/26)

82. Sheamus vs. Pete Dunne – WWE Raw (8/19)

81. Darby Allin vs. Konosuke Takeshita – AEW Dynamite (1/3)

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80. Kenoh vs. Minoru Suzuki – NOAH One Night Dream 2 (5/22)

79. Lee Moriarty © vs. Nigel McGuinness – ROH Pure Championship, ROH Final Battle (12/20)

78. Hangman Page vs. Claudio Castagnoli – AEW Dynamite (1/10)

77. 1 Called Manders © vs. Mad Dog Connelly – ACTION World Championship, Dog Collar Match, wXw Extreme Wrestling Party (10/4)

76. Calvin Tankman © vs. Kevin Ku – DPW World Championship, DPW Limit Break (5/19)

75. Iyo Sky vs. Utami Hayashishita – MARIGOLD Summer Destiny 2024 (7/13)

74. Gunther vs. Sheamus – King of the Ring 1st Round Match, WWE RAW (5/6)

73. New Day vs. Imperium – San Jose Street Fight, WWE RAW (2/26)

72. Darby Allin vs. Will Ospreay – C2 Gold League Match, AEW Dynamite (12/18)

71. CM Punk vs. Drew McIntyre – Hell in a Cell, WWE Bad Blood (10/5)

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70. Sareee vs. Nanae Takahashi – MARIGOLD Dream Star Grand Prix, Night 7 (9/23)

68. Sareee vs. Chihiro Hashimoto – Sareee Produce Sareee-ISM Chapter III (1/16)

67. Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr – NJPW The New Beginning in Osaka (2/11)

66. Bryan Danielson vs. Kazuchika Okada – NJPW WrestleKingdom 18 (1/4)

65. Sami Zayn vs. Chad Gable – WWE RAW (5/20)

64. Blue Panther vs. Hechicero – CMLL Martes de Arena Mexico (6/11)

63. Kaito Kiyomiya vs. Ryohei Oiwa – NOAH Star Navigation 2024 (9/14)

62. Sareee vs. Giulia – Vacant MARIGOLD World Championship, MARIGOLD Summer Destiny 2024 (7/13)

61. Daniel Makabe vs. Kevin Ku – Scenic City Invitational (7/12)

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60. Jon Moxley/Bryan Danielson/Claudio Castagnoli vs. FTR/Eddie Kingston – AEW Dynamite (2/28)

59. Naomi vs. Lyra Valkyria vs. Tiffany Stratton vs. Zoey Stark vs. Iyo Sky vs. Chelsea Green – Women’s Money in the Bank/CZW Tribute Match, WWE Money in the Bank (7/6)

56. Yuya Uemura vs. Konosuke Takeshita – NJPW G1 Climax 34, Day 4 (7/25)

55. Daniel Makabe vs. Timothy Thatcher – ACTION Wrestling Presents: DEAN~!! (4/4)

53. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hechicero – CMLL Sabados de Coliseo (6/22)

52. Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuinness – AEW Dynamite Grand Slam (9/25)

51. Bryan Danielson vs. Jeff Jarrett – Anything Goes, AEW Dynamite (8/7)

50. Gunther vs. Dominik Mysterio – WWE Raw (3/4)

48. Hidek Suzuki/Timothy Thatcher vs. 1 Called Manders/Thomas Stone – wXw World Tag Team Festival 2024, Night 1 (10/4)

47. Darby Allin vs. Brody King – AEW WrestleDream (10/12)

46. Iyo Sky vs. Shayna Baszler – Queen of the Ring Quarter Finals, WWE RAW (5/13)

45. Mascara Dorada II vs. Templario – CMLL Viernes Espectacular (1/5)

43. Bryan Danielson vs. PAC – Owen Cup Semi Finals, AEW Dynamite (7/3)

42. Bianca Belair vs. Piper Niven – WWE SmackDown! (12/6)

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39. Leyla Hirsch vs. Diamante – Texas Death Match, ROH Death before Dishonor (7/26)

37. Roderick Strong vs. Timothy Thatcher – PRESTIGE Combat Clash PDX (7/12)

35. Zack Sabre Jr vs. Hechicero – RevPro 12 Year Anniversary Show (8/24)

34. Timothy Thatcher vs. Fuminori Abe – wXw Inner Circle 16 (10/8)

32. 1 Called Manders vs. Mad Dog Connelly – Bullrope Match, SLA Circus Maximus (7/26)

31. Mistico/Mascara Dorada II/Atlantis Jr vs. Los Infernales – CMLL Martes de Arena Mexico (5/14)

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30. Claudio Castagnoli vs. Darby Allin – AEW Dynamite (11/20)

29. FTR vs. Violence is Forever – DPW Super Battle (10/13)

27. Roderick Strong vs. Fuminori Abe – DPW Limit Break (5/19)

26. Bryan Danielson vs. Hechicero – AEW Collision (2/3)

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25. Chris Brookes vs. El Phantasmo vs. MAO vs. Masashi Takeda – Hardcore Match, NJPW Despe Invitacional (6/10)

24. Tomohiro Ishii vs. Masa Kitamiya – NOAH One Night Dream 2 (5/22)

23. Randy Orton vs. Gunther – King of the Ring Finals – WWE King & Queen of the Ring (5/25)

19. Sareee/Mayu Iwatani vs. Chihiro Hashimoto/VENY – Sareee Produce Sareee-ISM Chapter V (9/2)

18. Sheamus vs. Pete Dunne – Donnybrook Match, WWE RAW (10/7)

16. Willow Nightingale vs. Kris Statlander – Chicago Street Fight, AEW All Out (9/7)

15. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Yota Tsuji – G1 Climax Finals – NJPW G1 Climax 34, Night 19 (8/18)

13. Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin – AEW Dynamite Grand Slam (9/25)

10. Hangman Page vs. Bryan Danielson – Owen Cup Finals, AEW Dynamite (7/10)

8. Hangman Page vs. Jeff Jarrett – Owen Cup Quarter Finals, AEW Dynamite (7/3)

5. Mistico vs. Hechicero – Torneo La Leyenda Azul 2024 Final, CMLL Super Viernes (11/29)

4. Hechicero vs. Esfinge vs. Euforia vs. Valiente – Mask vs. Mask vs. Mask vs. Mask, CMLL 91. Anniversario (9/13)

2. Jon Moxley vs. Josh Barnett – Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport Bushido (6/22)

1.Mad Dog Connelly vs. Demus – Dog Collar Match, ACTION Wrestling Presents: DEAN~!!

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So there you have it, my Year in Review for 2024. I worked/drank my ass off the last two nights to get this done for New Years since I had no more first-run wrestling to watch, and because I sincerely hope that someone, anyone, reads this and walks away with just one new thing to watch or enjoy. Wrestling rules, even though it’s the worst thing in the world and I hate it so god damn much. I could wax poetic for hours on my 5th Budweiser while “Used to Love Her” by GnR plays on my spotify about what wrestling really means to me and how, when it’s at its best, there’s no other entertainment medium like it, but also: I don’t want to, and shouldn’t have to, okay?

Even though this year brought to light (for me, anyway) a lot of very bad wrestling, I am still a diehard proponent of “like what ya like”, even it’s something that clashes with the recommendations of anyone who you read or listen to on the internet.

To anyone that's read the few things I've thrown on this website this year, thank you.

Happy New Year, or whatever.

Okay, you can stop reading now.

Thanks, Jeff.

All Photo/GFX credit to their original photographers/designers. I make no money off this site, and I respect your work, I am just incredibly lazy.

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

2024: THE YEAR IN REVIEW!

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