La Zona Muerta

I was asked to participate in the Voices of Wrestling Top Ten polling (I guess whatever nebulous position I hold in wrestling media counted) last year, and while one of my comments actually showed up in the final thing, only a couple of people saw my actual list until now, so…

A word of caution; I am TERRIBLE at enumerating things that I enjoy so, take any actual “rankings” here with a dollop of salt:

VOW TOP 10 MATCHES OF THE YEAR

January 3, 2023 | NJPW

Kenny Omega defeats Will Ospreay (c)

Sometimes you were the top gaijin (I guess we’re not supposed to use that term anymore and instead use the less negatively charged gaikokujin, but the only people who care are dorks like me that have a couple of semesters of Japanese under their belts; I’m guessing native Japanese speakers couldn’t care less) and you come back to your break out promotion, looking for the crown you set down. Sometimes you come back and you show the world exactly who you are and this terrifying spectacle was all about that. Omega came in after a long lay off and was somehow the equal of his former self. It’s stuff like this that we stay up until 4 o’clock in the morning watching Wrestle Kingdom for.
MATCH OF THE YEAR

July 14, 2023 | NOAH

Katsuhiko Nakajima defeats Kento Miyahara

Superlative wrestling here featuring two men with more charisma than most of their respective rosters put together. Top notch work that looked dangerous but was safe, an emotional backstory… I don’t need much more in my rasslin’.
MATCH #2

June 24, 2023 | NJPW, AEW

Will Ospreay (w/Don Callis) defeats Kenny Omega (c)

It can’t be a surprise that, if the first match was top of my list, this one had to be on there, as well. While this match was perhaps slightly sullied by the Callis shenanigans, I didn’t find them as off putting as some seemed to. When the infamous Tiger Driver incident came to pass, I screamed out loud like it had just happened to ME. When my wife who had gone to the kitchen (and is no Ospreay fan) asked why I was screaming, I was so overcome that I yelled “Ospreay just killed Kenny with a SHOOT Ganso bomb!” I was so worked up by the destruction of Omega that I got my notorious Japanese super finishes wrong. Shame it wasn’t the end of the match.
MATCH #3

August 12, 2023 | NJPW

Tetsuya Naito defeats Kazuchika Okada

I know the prevailing wisdom is that Tetsuya Naito is washed, and indeed, he had his bell rung pretty severely the night before in his match with Will Ospreay, but if you think Okada passively carried him here… you’re out to lunch. Naito is not what he once was, sure, but is he at the stage where men like Keiji Mutoh and (I hate to say it) Hiroshi Tanahashi completely skate by on charisma alone? No. Is that in his future? His DESTINO? I’m not sure; possibly so, but he still has flashes of greatness and Okada is one of his very best dance partners.
MATCH #4

August 11, 2023 | NJPW

Tetsuya Naito defeats Will Ospreay (w/Great-O-Khan, HENARE & Jeff Cobb)

Now, when I put Naito / Okada above this match, I pointed out that Naito was not carried in that spectacle. Naito was definitely carried here, at least to the finish line. Is Will Ospreay the greatest wrestler in the world today? Yes; even I could probably have a passable match with him… but he drug something out of Naito here and, when Naito was accidently knocked out, Ospreay basically got Naito through the match the rest of the way. Bless his chavvy heart, bruv.
MATCH #5

September 2, 2023 | AEW

Bryan Danielson defeats Ricky Starks

Possibly the single greatest strap match of all time, and I’ve seen pretty nearly all the strap matches that are on tape. Ricky Starks perplexes me; he’s very much a wrestler who does not always deliver 100%, but he more than carried his end here, and Bryan Danielson is still, improbably, the GODDAMN AMERICAN DRAGON. Just pure brutality in the best way possible.
MATCH #6

November 17, 2023 | AEW

Swerve Strickland (w/Prince Nana) defeats Adam Page

Full disclosure; I skipped this show and finally ended up seeing this through the ever popular “other means” after hearing about it over and over again. Sure, the bad guy won, sure the build was kind of all over the place in tone, but, at it’s core, this is what AEW should be about; two young guns just absolutely killing themselves on the biggest stage possible in a life or death struggle. These guys gave us everything and then some, and it’s quite something to be in on the ground floor of what Swerve Strickland is going to become.
MATCH #7

April 1, 2023 | NJPW

Shingo Takagi (c) defeats Aaron Henare (w/Great-O-Khan)

I feel like a cat like Shingo Takagi gets a bit lost in the wash; people sort of take his greatness and adaptability for granted or just take it as read that he’s great. Shingo Takagi is on the short list of the very best wrestlers on the planet, and even here, with multiple drag factors (a baffling rule set, his opponent Aaron Henare’s seeming lack of ability to ever rise to the level of his opponent AND the fact that Henare was sick as a dog) potentially holding him back, he was still able to make this bout special. I should be nicer to Henare, here… he turned in a career best performance as well. This match looked like a STRUGGLE, in the best way possible.
MATCH #8

February 3, 2023 | NJPW

Will Ospreay (w/Great-O-Khan) defeats Taichi (w/TAKA Michinoku)

Guessing this match will not garner many (if any) votes but I think it deserved a shout out for being a love letter to mid 90s All Japan Pro Wrestling. Ospreay clearly said to Taichi “Hey, you be Kawada and I’ll fill in the rest,” and they savaged each other for twenty minutes. I really enjoy Taichi when he has his working boots on, and he put in the time in this match.
MATCH #9

May 27, 2023 | NJPW

Master Wato (w/Hiroyoshi Tenzan) defeats Titan (w/BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito)

For me, I’ve never seen Titan as anything special and, while I watched probably 99% of Master Wato’s foreign excursion, I well and truly thought that he was a guy who simply didn’t get it. So, of course they only go and have the best match of their respective careers against each other. Oops. While I’m probably never going to completely turn the corner on Wato (which sucks, as I was a fan of his pre excursion and thought he got burned pretty bad by his stay in CMLL), Titan 100% made a believer out of me. Not in mighty YESHUA, but in Titan el Immortal himself.
MATCH #10