La Zona Muerta

Another year, another Voices of Wrestling Top Ten Matches of the Year list. 2024… look. Obviously there were plenty of good matches… but as my watching, my interest flag, I found coming up with ten matches that I’d genuinely recommend to be a bit of a challenge.

Anyway, I recruited a friend, Tye, er… no, uh… Shawn no, no… dammit… uh… TEN GUY to help me introduce my top ten picks of the tear. Please to enjoy:

Match #10
Kazuchika Okada defeats Will Ospreay
December 28, 2024
AEW

Return of the mack? Return of the king? A return to being the best? I know a lot of people were disappointed with Kazuchika Okada’s output this year. I get it to a degree, but I genuinely don’t think it was as bad as some people seemed to have made it out to be… it just wasn’t a remarkable year in ring. I think this match showed us all that Okada can turn it on when he wants to, that he’s the arbiter of when he has a balls to the wall classic. This was a tremendous match and exactly what Okada needed to show the world… he’s still the Rainmaker, still the best in the world when he wants to be. Will Ospreay was incredible in this as well, cutting a very spirited promo asking the crowd to help carry him through the match, and coming out wrapped up in bandages like John Cleese on Fawlty Towers. Pro wrestling at it’s primal best.

Match #9
Zack Sabre Jr. defeats Shingo Takagi
August 17, 2024
NJPW

What a year for Zack Sabre Junior. Not a shabby year for Shingo Takagi, either, but Sabre finally saw his true elevation as the gaijin ace of NJPW, a wrestler that could be counted upon. This match was the G1 A Block final, a bit longer than their previous match in the tournament, so it afforded them a little more time to feel each other out before shifting into that second gear high level NJPW matches have to reach. It told a pretty classic story… Sabre, the grappler, Takagi the power wrestler with the speed, the strikes and the raw strength to power out of Sabre’s holds. Takagi would have answers for the holds ZSJ would sink in and Sabre would have to try to keep his composure and shift to new strategies. I believe they’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of seven singles matches together all told… it’s difficult to keep things fresh with an opponent you’ve faced that many times, and this match probably doesn’t quite hit the lofty heights of their meeting tin the New Japan Cup from a couple of years back… but this was still a really fine example of the hard hitting action New Japan is known for.

Match #8
Darby Allin & Sting defeat The Young Bucks
March 3, 2024
AEW

You can look at Sting’s overall AEW run as righting a wrong, you can look at it as an homage to an all time great who never quite got his due, or you can look at it as one kickass final run for a legend. All are right; there is no one answer. To say AEW did right by Sting is not hyperbole; in a time where the term legend is thrown around far too easily, they allowed a legend to retire with grace, dignity and most importantly, a spectacular match. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the Young Bucks and what it is that they do in ring, but I would never deny their talent or their ability to cast themselves as natural foils. They were perfect opponents on the perfect night… and that doesn’t even start to get into the life and verve Darby Allin brought to the match or indeed the Sting character in general. A template for future genuine retirements to hopefully follow.

Match #7
Hechicero defeats Zack Sabre Jr.
June 22, 2024
CMLL

Was 2024 the year my favorites from CMLL like Hechicero and Templario finally broke through to North American audiences? Seemingly so. Both have been great for years, and although ZSJ and Hechicero had a match several years ago in PWG, both men are better equipped now to make a struggle like this work. I saw some griping about this match as being sloppy in places… I guess that particular viewer wants clockwork-like precision in the exchanges and escapes of holds… but to my mind, a little sloppiness in a match like this is a good thing that adds to the realism. It makes it seem as though they are trying to apply holds or escape and having a hard time doing so. I like that, I think it reinforces the quality. The third fall in this match is as good as a technical wrestling sprint as I think you’re likely to find. Also, a big shout out to the atmosphere in Arena Coliseo and the leaky roof, which threatened more than once to distract me, but ultimately could not dampen my love for this match.

Match #6
El Desperado defeats Kosei Fujita
May 13, 2024
NJPW

El Desperado remains one of the most versatile wrestlers I think I’ve ever seen. His ability to hang with luchadores, do death matches, grapple credibly, execute speedy junior heavyweight spots… he has so many strings to his bow. That he had a great match in this tournament is no surprise… what really shone through here was young Kosei Fujita who was able to hang with Despe on the mat and sell credibly, pulling a lot of sympathy out of the audience and making them think he could win, which is what wrestling should be all about. I truly think Fujita is destined for big things in New Japan and Desperado was the right man to draw this performance out of him.

Match #5
Jay White defeats Adam Page
October 12, 2024
AEW

Two hungry young men looking to mess each other up, to knock the other out of title contention. This is really what wrestling should be; an attempt to establish dominance and a fierce rejoinder when your opponent attempts to hurt you. If you told me that White and Page didn’t like each other in real life and wanted to take out actual aggressions on each other and then you showed me this match, I’d probably nod in understanding. Both men wanted to hurt their opponent and that’s the sort of thing I want to see, that level of viciousness, of escalation, of stakes. This has to be one of the better matches to ever open a show. I hope both men get a lot more chances to steal the spotlight in the year to come, individually or together.

Match #4
Adam Page defeats Swerve Strickland
September 7, 2024
AEW

What have been the biggest keywords for the last year on the Flagship Podcast? “Hate and heat.” While you could complain about suspension of disbelief or the fact that this match probably should have been the main event of All In and not All Out (an endless, circular debate that will never end but probably needs to be taken a bit more seriously in light of AEW cooling off), it would be hard to not buy this spectacle as a brutal fight that capped off the latest part of Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland’s storied rivalry. Their story is one of hate and heat, full of alignment changes, home invasions, arson (!) and violence writ large. This match was gruesome. I still recall screaming out loud when Strickland landed on a real, honest to God cinder block spine first. Not a technical showcase, not a pretty match, not a fun match, but a tough, violent one that cements the rivalry of the two men I think AEW should be revolving around even now and proves the importance of real heat.

Match #3
Swerve Strickland defeats Will Ospreay
June 30, 2024
NJPW
AEW

For whatever reason, I recall a lot of teeth gnashing about this match, what it represented and ultimately, who should come out on top. You couldn’t stall the progress of Will Ospreay but what about the organic groundswell of support around Swerve Strickland? There was a lot of debate… and all of it needless. The correct outcome was Swerve Strickland winning and being elevated to Ospreay’s level… being shown to be someone who could not only hang with Ospreay, but overcome him as well. A masterclass in working a big match for a big room. You could maybe knock it a little for the manager run ins and shenanigans, but I think those lesser sins were fairly overshadowed by the quality of the work. Just writing about it makes me want to watch it again.

Match #2
Will Ospreay defeats Konosuke Takeshita
March 3, 2024
AEW

In this day and age, the term “dream match” is thrown around far too often. What used to be the dominion of WrestleMania weekend super indy type shows now has been co-opted to just describe matches that have some hype about them.

Will Ospreay versus Konosuke Takeshita was a dream match, and it exceeded the hype that it generated when it was announced. It may have even been a last minute addition to the card if I remember correctly! It had everything you could want, explosivity, athleticism on an unmatchable scale, ridiculously well timed counters and the very best examples of fighting spirit on my list. Fighting spirit doesn’t mean no selling, or kicking out of big moves, it’s about breaking your opponent’s will to continue. Ospreay and Takeshita clashed, struggling to break the other down. The match featured so much emotion and frustration and raw physicality. It’s stuff like this that makes me continue to be a wrestling fan.

You know what the very best part of all of this is? They have a better match in them. There’s plenty that’s been left on the table for a rematch. This was a match I can’t recommend highly enough.

Match #1
Kyle Fletcher defeats Will Ospreay
November 23, 2024
AEW

I’ll admit it. I didn’t see it with Kyle Fletcher. I was never particularly wowed by Aussie Open and I really felt like Fletcher had modeled himself too closely after Will Ospreay. While Ospreay is undoubtedly the greatest wrestler in the world, I didn’t think we needed an outright clone of him.

As I say, I’m willing to admit it. I was wrong. The Kyle Fletcher heel turn was well executed, logical and, like all the best heels, had enough storyline justification to make the turn plausible. And then the man only goes and has the best match of his life on the biggest night of his career. You could literally not ask for anything more out of Fletcher on this night. The perfect match, the perfect opponent.

As for the other half of this equation, I worked very hard to not make this list a top ten Ospreay matches of 2024. I probably could have listed a couple more of his exemplary performances… (the bout with Danielson comes to mind) but nothing he did this year was a personal as this bout with the treacherous Fletcher. Sometimes I just sit back and watch great matches with a dopey grin on my face and this was definitely one of those times. Ospreay is such a generous performer and serves the audience the match, his opponent… I don’t know that he and I would have much if any common ground beyond a love of wrestling, but it’s clear the man thinks about it, lives it, breathes it all day long, every day. The best wrestlers, and therefore the best match.