Some great wrestling matches from the year that was

That time again. This year’s list feels a little more genuine, as wrestling (outside of Japan at least) was able to get out of the TV-studio era and back in front of the crowds it so desperately needs. Whether that was or is a really good idea at the moment, we’ll save for another time. Trying to judge matches in front of no one is a harder task, and you know how I feel about working hard. It’s easier to pick out the great matches with a crowd behind it and their excitement and anticipation is palpable.

Anyway, this isn’t a “Best Matches” list so much as my favorite. So no, there isn’t going to be some GCW match with Nick Gage hitting someone in the face with a lawnmower or something from NWA (but that’s just because I hate Billy Corgan. Can’t the Cubs have one cool musician fan? Like anywhere?). This is just from what I watch and have seen.

So let’s kick this pig:

Of course after making the opening paragraph about how this was an easier list to compile with wrestling returning to packed arenas again, the first match is one that still took place in a glorified TV studio at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville. And I’ll resist the urge to complain about how it didn’t really become the launch point for greater use of AEW’s women’s division as we’d hoped. Because it did launch Britt Baker into the stratosphere and start her eventual run to one of the most popular characters on AEW. It also proved that losing a match doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t come out of it with the bigger push.

We’d seen no-DQ and Hell in a Cell matches between two women before, but nothing like this as Rosa and Baker went full deathmatch, with spots and bumps that would have had Mick Foley either wincing or smiling delightfully in approval (both of which might be the same thing to him). The enduring image will be Baker awash in her own blood and smiling for the camera, and it didn’t oversell the brutality of this rivalry at all. Nine months later it still remains the high-point for AEW’s women’s division. Which could and should be better than it is, but then again, it’s so far up there that it’s not easy for anyone to match.

You could actually make this list completely out of Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan matches across both major companies if you want. But we’ll start here, with a match that seemed inconceivable just six months ago. What’s amazing is how good this 30-minute draw ended up being with both performers holding stuff back for return engagements down the line and still having everyone in the palm of their hands. The New York crowd at Arthur Ashe erupted at the opening lockup, such was their excitement and disbelief that it was actually happening.

The half-hour was a masterclass in telling a story about two wrestlers who simply can’t gain any sort of edge on each other, trying everything from acrobatics to brutality to technical expertise. There wasn’t one question asked that didn’t have an answer immediately. And as is their way, AEW just gave you this for free on TNT. It doesn’t have to be any harder than giving the people what they want.

All of these have admittedly been the chalk picks, but sometimes there’s a reason the chalk is the chalk. This was the crowning moment of the first two-night Mania (in front of a crowd at least), and that includes a card that had Daniel Bryan and Edge in a main event with Roman Reigns. But Sasha had been deserving of a Mania main event spot pretty much from the time she showed up in WWE, and in Belair had the perfect dance partner to show why.

Belair had risen to the top of WWE on what seemed like a bullet train, winning the Rumble straight from the call-up from NXT, and it was easy to see why. A supreme athlete with charisma just oozing from every pore. It was hard not to miss that it should have been the trajectory Banks was on when she first appeared, and Banks was acting as something of a gatekeeper against the hotshot rookie. The poignancy of Belair nearly breaking down at the opening bell at the enormity of the moment–the pinnacle of her career so far at the business’s biggest show, as well as the first main event between two Black women–only deepened the emotion for everyone.

Once Banks reeled her back in, it was a classic ring-general vs. superior athlete match, with Banks proving why she is one of the best in the business anywhere. The sight of Belair shoulder-pressing Banks while walking up the ring steps was certainly iconic, as was the sound of her whipping her hair into Banks’s ribs that echoed throughout Raymond James Stadium. For all the problems WWE has, it still is the only place for this kind of spectacle.

It was not a banner year for NJPW. The combination of half-filled arenas with only clapping and stomping allowed and some really shoddy booking just left the whole company feeling flat. Some summer events held in baseball stadiums with the lights on so everyone could see it was basically empty, just gave it a “What are we even doing?” aura. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t produce the goods on occasion. And there are no surer bets than Shingo or Okada.

After Will Ospreay had to vacate the title he never should have had in the first place because he’s a world class douche canoe and not that interesting of a character beyond that, NJPW made one of their few good decisions on the year and let their two best have it out for the vacant top spot. Shingo can get a good match out of an oil drum (and his matches with Tomohiro Ishii are never to be missed as Ishii is basically just a mobile oil drum. It’s way better than it sounds), and Okada specializes in the main event/classic style of 30-40 minute matches. These two got in up to the elbow, with stiff strikes and devilish slams while also showing off Shingo’s surprising athleticism.

It’s a shame that Shingo’s likely only title run was while Japan was still riven with COVID, as he’ll almost certainly lose to Okada in the rematch at Wrestle Kingdom next week (and Okada will probably lose to Ospreay the next night and we can just chuck the whole thing for a few months), because Shingo has done yeoman’s work in the hardest possible circumstances. He’s honestly been just about the only watchable thing, or consistently watchable, that NJPW has been able to produce all year. Maybe he and Hikaru Shida can go for a beer sometime and talk about what it’s like to drag a whole division through a pandemic.

They’ll come for you if you don’t list this match among any list of the year’s best. While I wasn’t as familiar with these two’s feud before it arrived on these shores (it had been NXT UK only until then), you didn’t need to know much to be transfixed/horrified at the amount these two absolutely beat the ever loving shit out of each other. Dragunov’s chest afterward basically tells the whole story. The exact opposite of a “spot fest,” where two guys who apparently can’t feel anything, or are just the biggest masochists to roam the Earth, simply lay into each other for 20 minutes. By the time this was over I had curled so much up on the couch I was a perfect sphere. Even my dog was covering her eyes after a few strikes.

It was hard to pick which Roman Reigns match should go on this list, because he’s had quite the year. His “Last Man Standing” match with Kevin Owens was wonderful, even with the handcuff botch in the middle (nothing worse than a handcuff botch, eh? You know, for like sex? It’s a sex joke). His singles matches with both Edge and Bryan were also excellent. Summerslam with John Cena was just about everything you’d expect, though a touch slow at times. I was heavily tempted to throw his match with Cesaro on here, because it was brilliant and may be the last time we see Cesaro in a prime spot he should always be in.

But hey, it’s wrestling, so pick the one with the most packed in it that was almost certainly overkill, but the whole business is overkill! There might not be a more enduring image in WWE this year than Roman stacking up Edge and Bryan to pin them simultaneously, and was a perfect illustration of how Roman ruled over the company. Even when the rest of it was trash, and most of it was most of the time, Roman couldn’t put a foot wrong. It’s hard to think of anyone who has ruled over the company for over a year in such an enjoyable fashion, and this was the ultimate example of it.

You can easily argue that either of the two matches between these two women that followed were better than this one, but the first set the stage for the rest of the trilogy. And the first one kind of came out of nowhere, which made it all the better. It was billed as Shida going for her 50th win in AEW, and while Deeb has always been the respected veteran who’s been around the block, no one expected much more than a good match that Shida wins. Instead we got an absolute banger that showcased the technical genius that Deeb is (you can’t watch her and not think about Bret Hart, and there is no bigger compliment). It was something of a heel-turn for Deeb, which she relished, and set her future as something of a gatekeeper for the women’s division. You’re not going anywhere in A-E-Dub without going through Deeb first.

It also gave Shida a reward for carrying the women’s division through the pandemic as champ, a hot feud while not having to be around the title scene. This was hard-hitting and fast-paced with a surprise finish, and it definitely wasn’t the plan before it to let these two have a months-long story with two more matches. It was so good AEW had no choice but to do so.

It was pretty hard not to put Eddie’s match against Danielson here instead, but I’m cheating as I was at this one. And it was my first view of just how big of a star Kingston is. It was also the pinnacle of Miro’s fantastic (and all too short) run as TNT champion, with its hilarious and brilliantly done video promos where Miro was the ultimate wife guy and a deranged apostle of whatever his lord is at the same time.

Kingston is basically the people’s champ, the guy who seemingly just climbed over the barricades and the powers that be just let him in the ring and he never left. From the moment he walks out you can sense his connection to the crowd. He’s one of us, raised on tape-trading and emulating moves in his living room and growing out from the bingo halls and basements until it just became his living

Which isn’t to disparage his abilities in the ring, as the dude can go. He’s never looked out of place with a beast like Miro or a technician like CM Punk or Danielson, and this match with Miro it really did feel like was going to be a crowning moment for the guy the rabble spit out. It wasn’t to be, but it was Miro’s best match as champ and Kingston’s coming out party as a genuine top of the card option.

Gonna get selfish on this one, as this is my home indie. And it marked the first time I had been to it in a year and a half, and didn’t realize how much I’d missed it. I do now, not knowing when I’ll feel comfortable going back, but at least I got this show. For any wrestling fan, I would urge you to go to an indie show at your first opportunity. It’s the best showing of the carny roots that the big companies sprang out of, and you can see the true heart of “The Business.” You haven’t really seen a wrestling show until you’ve seen someone’s grandmother yelling at his opponent from the front row, where everyone can hear her swear, and the room smells of some combination of booze and desperation about 20 minutes in, and COVID is only like sixth on the list of things you worry about catching. And man, does the Modelo taste even sweeter in that setting.

Craig Mitchell is basically the heart of Freelance Wrestling here in Chicago, coming through their school and being with the promotion since its inception. He doesn’t look like any wrestler you’d see on TV, as he resembles a fire hydrant they threw a singlet on, but he can seriously go, which is all anyone cares about at Logan Auditorium. This was part of the tournament to crown a new champ, and he and Trevor Outlaw put on a 20-minute clinic for a room full of people just so delighted to be back there again. And I was one of them. At a show like this you know the guys in the ring are just as big of a fan of it all as you are, and that energy gets passed back and forth. Maybe that’s why they feel more like “yours.”

If they had ended this match after the Lucha Brothers’ entrance, it probably would still be match of the year:

Why would you watch anything else?

Sometimes, matches with the Bucks or the Lucha Bros. get derided as just empty moves and spots, and on occasion that’s true. These two teams can do anything and frequently do, but sometimes in the race to fit it all in they forget story or flow.

This was not one of those times. The Bucks were in their full heel persona, which turned brutal as an Air Jordan with thumbtacks on the soles was introduced. When they finally did hit the gas after about 15-20 minutes, it had meaning, it had depth, and it was breathtaking. And it was cathartic, the Bucks finally knocked off their pedestal by a team that could go anywhere they could. You could hear the shock in the arena when the Luchas kicked out of the Bucks’ finisher. Just an awesome example of everything wrestling can be. So too was Penta hugging his young daughter after the match while his blood stained her dress. We are an odd lot, but we know true emotion.