Tag: NJPW

As we close out another year, it’s always fun to look back at what some of the best stuff we got to see from the previous year was. The world of wrestling had no shortage of great stuff this year, both inside and outside the ring, so I can’t wait to run down these matches that I loved the most.

A quick disclaimer, while I do talk a bit about matches outside of WWE I liked, I didn’t watch enough non-WWE wrestling this year to make a full list, although I intend to broaden my horizons as much as possible next year, so hopefully, that will change in time for next years list.

11 – Tag Team Gauntlet Match – Smackdown 3/26

Perhaps the biggest storyline to come out of this year is Kofi Kingston’s ascension to the WWE Championship for the first time in his career and, trust me, this isn’t going to be the last time we talk about it on this list.

This was a match that came towards the end of his storyline, but is one of the most important and one of the best, which is weird when you consider that Kofi wasn’t even in it. Vince had declared that just two weeks out from Wrestlemania, Kofi had been given more than enough chances to earn himself a title opportunity, so the onus was now on his partners in The New Day, Big E & Xavier Woods to do it for him. They had to face off against Gallows & Anderson, Nakamura & Rusev, The Bar, The Usos and Bryan & Rowan in a gauntlet match and if they won, Kofi would go to Wrestlemania.

The action in the ring was great stuff, but it’s the story and the way it was told that makes this great. Big E & Woods gave the impression that they were fighting with all their hearts and souls in order to give their best friend the opportunity he deserves, amplified by Kofi watching from the back, with a slowly growing number of Smackdown wrestlers joining him to cheer E & Woods on to victory.

The pacing was perfectly done, with New Day getting solid victories early on in the match until disaster struck when The Bar put Big E through a table following their elimination. This led to what may very well be my favourite storyline moment from the whole year as The Usos came out, as Big E laid there and Xavier Woods stood ready to fight alone, before The Usos told them that Kofi had already earned their respect and refused to fight, forfeiting their spot in the match.

The whole final sequence of that match was nailbiting, after being disappointed so many times over the past couple of months it still felt like Kofi getting his shot was impossible, but when it finally happened it was wonderful. The celebration after the fact with The New Day and most of the locker room was one of the most feel-good moments of the year, but it wouldn’t be the biggest for Kofi, that was still to come.

10 – Women’s Royal Rumble Match – Royal Rumble

As a whole, this wasn’t one of the best Rumble matches and it certainly won’t go down as one of the greats, but I still get choked up at Lynch’s insertion into the match and eventual victory, so it’s earned a spot on this list.

The space between Survivor Series and Wrestlemania 35 this year was a very tense time for any Becky Lynch fans. Everyone knew that Lynch was such a huge star by this point that her spotlight at Wrestlemania should’ve been undeniable, but this is WWE and they’ve disappointed us plenty of times before, however, this was the night where it became clear that we were going to be getting what we wanted and it felt amazing.

After putting on a fantastic match against Asuka earlier in the night, Lynch wasn’t originally given a spot in the Rumble match, however, an injury sustained by Lana on the pre-show gave her an opening. I remember being on the absolute edge of my seat as she stood there, desperately pleading her case to Finlay and the moment where she gets the green light and her music hits is the kind of moment in wrestling that’s going to stay with me for a very long time.

The final 10 minutes of that match told a fantastic story that kept the emotional moments coming. There were plenty of tense “almost” eliminations as the match entered its final moments, including a potential injury from Becky that threatened to hand Charlotte the victory, which led to the fantastic line as Becky pushed the doctors away and got back in the ring and screamed at Charlotte, “You’ve taken enough from me, you’re not taking this”.

Everything Becky did in this match was the perfect encapsulation of why we all fell in love with her as a performer mid-way through 2018 and why she’s still THE biggest star in all of the wrestling industry to this day.

9 – Velveteen Dream(c) vs Roderick Strong vs Pete Dunne – NXT Takeover: Toronto
(North American Championship)

Unsurprisingly, this won’t be the last NXT match on this list.

NXT Takeover events are shows that usually only feature one on one (or two on two, in the case of tag teams) matches and it’s understandable why. The kinds of stories NXT tells only tend to work with two people and these singles matches tend to be the overall highest in quality. So a triple threat in this era of NXT in quite a rarity. However, after seeing this match I’d love to see a lot more in future.

The three men in the match are easily among the best pure wrestlers in WWE today and both Dream & Strong have very clear and powerful characters to them as well, so a clash like this was always going to be amazing. This match had everything you’d expect from it, a lot of quick action early on with all three men jockeying for position before things began to focus on technical prowess and great look dives.

The match as a whole was paced to perfection, there was very seldom a moment where nothing was happening as all three men seemed to appear in just the right place at just the right time. There wasn’t a great deal of the classic triple threat trope where one man peters out while the other two fight, instead, all three men were more or less constantly involved in the action that made for a fast-paced match that built and built all the way to the finish.

Speaking of the finish, it was rather shocking and great fun. The camera work was spot on to make me believe that Strong was about to win before Dream quite literally dropped out of the sky to break it up and steal the victory. While this match didn’t tell any kind of revolutionary story, it’s been an absolute blast to watch every time I’ve gone back to it.

8 – Kofi Kingston vs Daniel Bryan vs  Jeff Hardy vs
Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles vs Randy Orton – Smackdown 12th February
(Gauntlet Match)

We’ve already spoken a bit about Kofi’s story and now it’s time to go back to when it started.

This was a gauntlet match that took place just 5 days before the Elimination Chamber match between all 6 participants and it’s incredible to think that Kofi wasn’t even supposed to be a part of it. Mustafa Ali was originally set to take the final spot in the match but suffered an unfortunate injury the week prior to this match taking place, so Kofi was brought in as a reliable performer who could get the job done. Little did WWE know what would happen next.

What happened next was Kofi went out to the ring and put on the performance of a lifetime. The match opened with a 25-minute back-and-forth between Kingston and Daniel Bryan, during which Bryan pulled out every little bit of skill and knowledge he had in his body to make Kofi look like an absolute superhero, climaxing when Kofi pinned Daniel Bryan – The WWE Champion – clean. Kofi wasn’t done.

Kofi continued his roll, putting on three more great matches against Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe and AJ Styles, falling at the final hurdle to Styles after a star-making showing. People had always thought Kofi was deserving of recognition for his 11 years of hard work for WWE, but it was this match that made the fanbase put it’s foot down and DEMAND it. Without this match, Kofi never would’ve had the amazing year that he did and it was an absolutely fantastic bout bell-to-bell to boot.

7 – Shayna Baszler(c) vs Rhea Ripley – NXT 18th December
(NXT Women’s Championship)

A late addition to this list, but a worthy one nonetheless, it’s time to talk about Rhea Ripley.

When Rhea Ripley showed up on US NXT in the summer, it was quite exciting, I wasn’t massively familiar with her stuff in NXT UK but I’d liked what little I’d seen, then not a lot happened with her for a few months. It seemed like she was going to be Shayna’s next big challenger but plans changed and Mia Yim got that spot instead. However, eventually, November came around and more or less overnight turned Rhea into an absolute star.

For one thing, she kicked ass in the build to WarGames & Survivor Series, being put over as the strongest women’s wrestler in NXT time and time again, even beating both Charlotte & Sasha on Smackdown one Friday. Then WarGames came about and she more or less carried the match for her team and came out victorious, the roll continued into Sunday where she put on an excellent showing and won the elimination tag match for her team, the crowd were so into everything she did it was wonderful.

Then this match came about and after spending most of the year feeling like Shayna could never lose that title, I could not think of a better successor to that throne. The Full Sail crowd were white-hot for this match and both competitors made sure to play up to it as much as possible. Shayna is one of the best heels in all of wrestling at the best of times, but when she’s got a crowd like this to play to her performance is transcendent.

The action was a lot of fun too, with both women going back and forth at such a nice pace and the overall flow of the match came together so nicely to form one of smoothest matches I’ve seen in quite a while. Like I’ve said though, what really made this match something worthy of this list was the atmosphere around it, this feeling that a champion who has seemed invincible for so long could finally have met her match created such a tense and exciting feeling to every moment of this match.

It all paid off too, with Ripley getting the win and taking her place at the top of NXT’s women’s division. The celebration after the match with all of the fans in the ring was a nice touch too and it elevated Ripley from a star to a mega-star as far as I’m concerned and I can’t wait to see where she goes from here.

6 – Adam Cole(c) vs Johnny Gargano – NXT Takeover: Toronto
(3 Stages of Hell)

Look, I know it wasn’t branded as 3 stages of hell, but that’s literally what the match was, so I’m sticking with it.

Gargano and Cole had arguably one of the best feuds of the year when it comes to match quality, so I don’t think it’ll surprise anyone when I say that there’s one more match between these two later on the list. This match was designed to be the climax of the feud, so it had a lot to live up to, especially when a large portion of the audience was getting a little bit tired of the feud by this point.

The key to what made this match so great was it’s pacing. In a heavily weapons-based match like this, it would’ve been so easy to go too big too soon and the whole thing would’ve fallen apart, but each stage of the match was filled with callbacks to earlier points in their feud and some great character work. You could feel the energy in the ring as both wrestlers knew they were more or less evenly matched and watching these two brilliant wrestlers trying to outthink each other was such a joy to watch.

The first two stages kept me on the jook just long enough so that by the time the ridiculous cage filled with weapons lowered, I was all in and hyped to see how things ended. From there onwards, things went crazy in just the right way, as each new weapon upped the intensity just enough to that it didn’t kill the pace, meaning I didn’t even notice the slightly slower action and spot set-ups, which are normally the main things that totally kill any weapons match for me.

It was a match that managed to capture all the elements of the Gargano/Cole feud that came before it while still adding to the story in its own right, making for an extremely satisfying conclusion to one of the best feuds of the year.

5 – Daniel Bryan(c) vs Kofi Kingston – Wrestlemania 35
(WWE Championship)

I’ve talked about the beginning, I’ve talked about the middle, now let’s talk about the end.

Personally, this was the match I was the most excited for going into Wrestlemania 35, with the fantastic build and quality of the wrestlers involved – not to mention the fact that I genuinely had no idea who was going to win – I just knew this one was going to be a killer match.

I’ve mentioned it once or twice already, but Daniel Bryan worked his ass off in this match to make Kofi look like the most worthy champion WWE’s ever seen. The two men gelled so well in the ring and it made for an extremely tense match, where Bryan was pulling out everything he could to keep Kofi grounded but Kofi kept pushing back and breaking free.

I was hooked on absolutely every near-fall, desperate to see Kofi win the title, despite the fact that I’m a die-hard Daniel Bryan fan. This was one of those matches where everything came together exactly how I’d hoped it would as all of the story elements came to a head in a technical masterpiece of a match that gave the saga of Kofi’s rise to the top the conclusion it absolutely needed.

I was on the edge of my seat all the way up until the final moment and the celebration after the match was over was perhaps the greatest feel-good moment of the entire year. No matter what happens to Kofi in the remaining years of his career, we’ll always have this moment to remind us that he’s absolutely one of the best of this era and he got his due in the end.

4 – Seth Rollins(c) vs AJ Styles – Money in the Bank
(Universal Championship)

With all of the problems Rollins has had this year, it’s easy to forget that he’s an incredible wrestler, so this match served as a wonderful reminder of that match.

As I talked about during my predictions for Money in the Bank, Seth Rollins vs AJ Styles was the one match that I’d desperately wanted ever since AJ first showed up in WWE and the two men had always managed to just miss each other whenever they came close to facing off. It’s safe to say I was very excited for this match and I was very happy with what I got.

There’s no special story or atmosphere to this match, the story going into it was basically non-existent, this match was just two of the best wrestlers doing some of the best wrestling. Both men were face at the time which meant they held nothing back in terms of speed & offence and that made for a match that was so much fun to watch from start to finish. Neither man stayed on offence for too long and the whole match just kept on rolling through at the kind of pace that I adore from my wrestling.

This was Rollins’ first title defence after winning it at Wrestlemania and it set the idea that this is exactly what his title reign was going to be full of. Unfortunately, he then faced Baron Corbin for 3 months straight, but let’s not focus on that. Let’s instead focus on the fact that one of my personal dream matches happened this year and it was everything I’d hoped it would be and more.

3 – Johnny Gargano(c) vs Adam Cole – NXT Takeover: XXV
(NXT Championship)

That’s right, my favourite match from this trilogy is the only normal singles match of the bunch, I’m sure that’s a real surprise.

While I do think the first encounter between these two at Takeover New York was brilliant, it had some pretty big pacing issues that ultimately meant it dropped off of the end of this list; this match, however, had no such issue.

Much like the previous match, the main reason I like it is very simple it’s just fast-paced pure wrestling from bell-to-bell. What elevated this above Rollins vs Styles though is that there was a substantial amount of story going into this match and with it being the mid-point of the feud, it was able to start taking their story in a new direction.

Cole knew that he and Gargano were equally matched, however, he also knew that getting the Undisputed Era involved only ruined things for him last time around. So instead he had to find a different way to out-think Gargano. This came in the form of Adam Cole seemingly doing what Gargano was expecting him to do and very obviously calling out the Undisputed Era to come and help him, only for it to turn out to be a bait and he stole the title from Gargano.

This was such a clever wrinkle to add to the story and one that saved Gargano for looking like a chump in losing to a guy he’d already beaten once before. Not only was it an excellent match but it allowed Adam Cole to win the NXT title in the most Adam Cole way possible and built the story and spectacle to its peak for their final encounter.

2 – WALTER(c) vs Tyler Bate – NXT UK Takeover: Cardiff
(United Kingdom Championship)

Forty-Two goddamned minutes of top-level wrestling. Amazing.

WWE has told the “David vs Goliath” story many, MANY times before, but I honestly don’t think it’s ever been done quite as well as it was in this match. After Tyler Bate lost the UK titles in 2017, I feel like the fanbase at large generally forgot about just how amazing of a wrestler he was. Thanks to the UK division’s relative lack of exposure for the better part of a year and a half, Tyler Bate seemed to be one of those performers who faded into the background slightly in favour of guys like Pete Dunne and Trent Seven.

Then he came out and had this match and reminded us all that he’s no-one to sleep on. Bate & WALTER have two very different styles but they were able to mesh them so perfectly here to create an epic-length match that never felt dull or like it dragged on at any point. The focal point being in Tyler Bate’s surprising level of strength in the face of a guy as huge as WALTER was such a great tone to set as it meant that myself and the crowd in attendance were on their feet for just about every spot where Bate looked to have hope of toppling WALTER.

WALTER got a chance to show his more brutal side here too, it’s no secret that his chops can cave a man’s ribcage in, but WOW those were some chops. The whole match flowed so perfectly for the whole length, which is something that absolutely blows my mind because it’s something we very rarely see in the modern era of wrestling.

As we’re about to discuss at even greater length, UK wrestling is better than it’s ever been this year and I would’ve loved to see this match in person, however, I was somewhere else that night…

Non-WWE Match of the Year:
Kazuchika Okada(c) vs Minoru Suzuki – NJPW Royal Quest
(IWGP Heavyweight Championship)

I’ve only been to a handful of wrestling shows in my life, but this is easily the best match I’ve ever seen live.

These two men had all the great chemistry you’d expect them to have and those feelings were amplified by the fact that I was watching from about 10 feet away from the ring in the 4th row. I’ve believed for a long time that Okada is the best in-ring storyteller in the business and I think that was absolutely on full display during this match because the two men in this match clearly identified who the crowd was siding with and played into it perfectly.

I’ve never felt more on the edge of my seat than when Suzuki kept almost getting the Piledriver off, I was able to entirely suspend my disbelief for 20 minutes and think that maybe I really was going to see Suzuki win the title right before my eyes. I’m well aware that from a pure wrestling standpoint there were plenty of better matches out there this year (Kenny Omega vs Hiroshi Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom 13 and Cody vs Dustin at All Out, come to mind) but nothing from this year is going to beat that amazing feeling of seeing that match happen right before my eyes.

1 – Pete Dunne(c) vs WALTER – NXT Takeover: New York
(United Kingdom Championship)

I’m telling you guys, UK wrestling was REALLY good this year.

From a technical standpoint, I’d put this match on par with WALTER vs Tyler Bate, however, the reason I’m ranking this match higher is because it opened my eyes to a style of wrestling that I previously didn’t care very much for. I’ve never been a fan of the “mat-based” style of wrestling, I’ve always thought it was quite slow, with not much happening of great interest to me. This match proved that I was an idiot for thinking that because slower, mat-based offence can be just as good as anything else that I love from wrestling

I’ve gotten so used to be being enthralled by the flashy, fast-paced style of wrestling that I didn’t realise how a slow, hard-hitting affair could be as good but the way this match played out not only gave me an enjoyable ride but gave me an understanding of what makes it so great. It built slowly, the whole way through, the whole match felt like it was this gruelling back-and-forth fight where neither man was going to let up for a second as they kept hitting each other as hard as humanly possible.

Dunne and WALTER took all of the classic, traditional tropes of these kinds of matches: Constant lock-ups, the test of strength, a big guy beatdown before the small guy comeback; and they executed all of them to perfection. They had me at home and the audience in attendance hanging on every single move, to the point where I heard several gasps from the live crowd when Dunne would suddenly have a burst of offence against the bigger WALTER.

All of this made it so that when the big spot finally came at the end, it felt like a huge deal and it just highlights the fact that throughout the whole match, ever move mattered and every move had an impact.

Not only was this match a technical masterpiece from bell to bell, but it opened my eyes to a style of wrestling that I’d never been able to appreciate before, which is why I think it’s the best of what WWE had to offer in 2019.

So there you have it! Those were my favourite WWE matches (and one from outside WWE) that took place in 2019. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this article, please let me know what some of your favourite matches from this past year were in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure you come back on Tuesday where I’ll be ending the year with my Game of the Year list for 2019!