It's that time of year where I like many people look back at the past year and make lists or hand out superlatives My reason for doing this is to provide a guide for people looking for new or different wrestling especially starting out. All the different lists people made helped me either get started in watching old wrestling or helped me decide where to go next.  HR stands for Highly Recommended or honorable mention... near classic match, stars denote an all time classic...these are the front runners. Every thing else is a classic.. right around that ****1/2 range. I definitely recommend checking all of these out! Also I am going to use show titles/event names for American promotions since they are easier for you & me to track down than using the dates. If you're looking for reviews then, go back and take a look at the associated blog post from this year

1980's

Tatsumi Fujinami & Kantaro Hoshino vs Dynamite Kid & Steve Keirn 01/18/80 - HR
Tatsumi Fujinami vs Dynamite Kid 02/05
Antonio Inoki vs Stan Hansen 02/08/80 - HR
Tatsumi Fujinami vs Ashura Hara 04/03/80
Tatsumi Fujinami vs Chavo Guerrero 05/09/80 - HR
Kengo Kimura vs Tatsumi Fujinami 09/25/80
Kengo Kimura vs Chavo Guerrero 11/03/80
Riki Choshu vs Tatsumi Fujinami (11/04/82)
Kobayashi & Hiro Saito vs Shiro Koshinaka & Naoki Sano (05/25/89) - HR

1990's

Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs. Perry Saturn & John Kronus (ECW Cyberslam 1997 Feb. 1997) HR
Taz vs. Sabu / Franchise vs. Taz (06/06/97 Wrestlepalooza '97) HR 
Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Sabu (ECW World Title) 1997 HR
Mike Awesome vs. 2 Cold Scorpio (ECW Wold Title - 12/02/99) HR on the fan cam footage

2000
Tajiri vs Super Crazy (ECW on TNN 01/21/2000) - HR

2001
Akira Hokuto & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura (03/11) GAEA - HR
Akira Hokuto vs Meiko Satomura (04/29) GAEA
Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Meiko Satomura & Toshie Uematsu (05/13) GAEA
Akitoshi Saito & Jun Akiyama vs Takao Omori & Takashi Sugiura (06/16/01) NOAH
Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jun Akiyama (07/27/01) NOAH
Vader vs. Jun Akiyama (12/09/01) NOAH - HR

2002
Takeshi Morishima & Takeshi Rikio vs Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori (02/17) NOAH
Jun Akiyama & Yuji Nagata vs Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa (02/17) NOAH - HR
Jushin Liger/Minoru Tanaka vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi - (8/29) NOAH
Takeshi Morishima & Takeshi Rikio vs. Akitoshi Saito & Jun Akiyama (09/23) NOAH
Mitsuharu Misawa vs Yoshihiro Takayama (09/23) NOAH - HR

2003
+Elix Skipper & Christopher Daniels vs Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red (09/04) TNA+

2006
Motor City Machine Guns vs Jimmy Jacobs & Tyler Black (All Star Weekend IV 2006 night 1) PWG
No Remorse Corps vs. Kings Of Wrestling vs. MCMG vs. Super Dragon & B-Boy (All Star Weekend IV night 2) PWG

2007
El Generico vs. PAC (All Star Weekend V - Night 1) PWG
Low Ki vs Samoa Joe - PWG All Star Weekend V - Night 2 - PWG - HR

2008
Beer Money vs LAX - (Hard Justice) TNA
*AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle (Hard Justice) - TNA*
Davey Richards Kota Ibushi (ROH Bedlam in Beantown 2008)

2009
+KENTA & El Generico vs Nigel McGuinness & Davey Richards (Steel City Clash 2009) +
+Davey Richards vs KENTA (Supercard of Honor IV 2009) +
+KENTA & Tyler Black vs Austin Aries & Katsuhiko Nakajima (Take No Prisoners 2009) +
Shingo vs Naruki Doi (Open the Historic Gate) DGUSA - HR
Davey Richards vs. SHINGO (Open the Ultimate Gate) DGUSA
Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) vs. Real Hazard (Genki Horiguchi & Ryo Saito) (Open the Ultimate Gate) DGUSA
Naruki Doi/Masato Yoshino vs Shingo/Dragon Kid (Open the Freedom Gate) DGUSA - HR

+ These matches have been watched this year for an in progress project. Reviews will be published after this list. 

2010
CHIKARA Sekigun (Hallowicked, Jigsaw & Mike Quackenbush) & Masato Yoshino vs. KAMIKAZE USA (Akira Tozawa, Gran Akuma, Jon Moxley & YAMATO) Enter the Dragon -DGUSA
*Bryan Danielson vs. SHINGO (Enter the Dragon) DGUSA *
Bryan Danielson vs. YAMATO (Untouchable 2010) DGUSA
Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw vs Naruki Doi/Pac (Uprising 2010) DGUSA
Shingo/YAMATO vs CIMA/Dragon Kid (Uprising 2010) DGUSA - HR
BxB Hulk vs Masato Yoshino (Uprising 2010) DGUSA 
BxB Hulk vs Shingo (Bushido 2010) DGUSA

2011
Austin Aries vs Akira Tozawa (United Philly 2011) DGUSA
Akira Tozawa vs BxB Hulk (United Finale 2011) DGUSA
YAMATO vs Austin Aries (Mercury Rising 2011) DGUSA
Masato Yoshino/Pac vs YAMATO/Akira Tozawa (Fearless 2011) DGUSA
Akira Tozawa vs. Ricochet (Open the Ultimate Gate 2013) DGUSA - HM
Akira Tozawa vs Shingo (Mercury Rising 2013) DGUSA - HM

Best Match Watched of 2024: Bryan Danielson vs. SHINGO (Enter the Dragon) DGUSA

It looks like it's a toss up between Bryan Danielson vs. SHINGO (Enter the Dragon) DGUSA 2010 & AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle (Hard Justice) - TNA 2008. But I'm going to put Tatsumi Fujinami vs Ashura Hara - NJ 04/03/80 & Kengo Kimura vs Tatsumi Fujinami - NJ 09/25/80 in the mix. Any of this is a toss up honestly. Danielson vs SHINGO is your quintessential late 2000's technical, yet stiff with bombs & big spots match. AJ vs Kurt is toned down just a little bit for TNA but still has everything you want along with the drama of a great story. Then you've got the Fujinami matches which are excellent representations of wrestling as sports combat - Hara is a bit more mean & Kimura is technical throughout. You can't go wrong with any of these. I'm going to say Danielson vs Shingo though. One time only Dream match fulfilled and that's why it beats out the others this year.

Best Project: ECW 

I think I knocked some long time projects off my "to watch" list. Dragon Gate USA was a good one which I was really surprised by. Again, I don't always like the go-go action match so often but damn! these guys know how to do it! I dipped my toe into PWG again and watched a couple DVDs & some YouTube videos. Getting to finally watch 1980 New Japan especially Dynamite vs Fujinami was pretty awesome. Again very, very surprised I would love it. So much more modern feeling than I thought it would be. Early 2000's NOAH and AJPW was pretty good too. I think I prefer early NOAH as it's trying to push forward while early 2000's AJ relied upon old stars too much...we get some great matches and it's very fun but it just doesn't hit the same way as NOAH. ECW was my favorite though. Totally could blame that on a recency bias. And you could apply nostalgia to it a bit as well but I will say I haven't seen like 95% of the matches I watched... so while I may have be familiar with the characters and stories (where applicable), this wasn't a trip down memory lane. It's the one project that I didn't get burnt out on until the very, very end (was going to watch another match or two and I was forcing it so I stopped myself). Usually, I hit a rut with most projects where it's just too much of the same thing over the course of a few weeks. ECW since it was  briefly covering start to finish of the company, offered enough variety in matches and wrestlers along with some actually entertaining storylines. 

Best Wrestler: Kuniaki Kobayashi

This is a tough one. I could say Tatsumi Fujinami as he was lights out fantastic in 1980 and beyond. I could say Keiji Muto for his quality matches in early 2000's as well and moreso for invigorating the promotion with his take puro, booking foreign talent etc. Just his overall presence. I could say Jun Akiyama for his performance in early 2000's NOAH and really helping make it something different than AJPW with a new name. I also could put Shingo & Davey Richards there too. Their work in the late 2000's and early 2010's was amazing. Perhaps the peak of that type of junior wrestling? I'm going to say Kuniaki Kobayashi though. Some part is because he passed away this year. But another part is that while doing a post looking back at his work (some new-to-me), I really appreciate what he did and the longevity of his quality despite not ever being a headliner. If you look at lists of Great Matches (including mine), he fades in the late 80's. His career seems to matter against Tiger Mask I & II and a little bit against Takada & Koshinaka and poof! But that's not the case. And even between those big time matches, he delivered in tags, 6 mans, and under card singles matches. So although it is a extremely small honor, I name him my wrestler of the year. Check out my post if you haven't:
https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/blogs/entry/949-thank-you-kobayashi/

Surprise of the Year: Dragon Gate USA

A quick one is that Madusa's matches in AJW were really good! I have to check more late 80's AJW out. Another is that ECW aged pretty well as long as I didn't try to compare it to NJ or AJ of the time. If you look at it as a complete package - ring action, storylines, characters, holy shit spots, sleaze etc., It's a damn good time! It's over the top escapism for the MTV generation... and it holds up for me at least Another surprise is that 1980 NJPW wasn't slower paced wrestling like I have seen in AJPW at the time. No, things were quick and combative. If I'm talking quality matches alone, Tatsumi Fujinami and his work in 1980 and later is off the chain! If you're looking for that technical Inoki wrestling as fighting sport Strong Style stuff But the surprise of 2024 (wrestling wise!) is Dragon Gate USA. I had a few DVDs that I bought during the pandemic lock down and was very skeptical other than a couple matches. Boy was I surprised! This was badass... not everything but the matches with the big names from ROH that came over along with the actual Dragon Gate guys (including PAC) were sweet! Again, perhaps the peak of that style of junior wrestling. I'm going to say if you're interested, stick with 2009-2011. It does have a short shelf life as it becomes more Indie darling wrestling than Dragon Gate action beyond then.

Worst Wrestler: Johnny Gargano

Ugh, I'm pretty much just saying it's him because I think his work in Dragon Gate was such a letdown. It was just so bush league and cosplay wrestling with all of the over the top (for wrestling!) facial expressions and mannerisms & special movez. I'm going to copy/paste from my review of his match versus Shingo. "He's "play wrestling" like many people of that generation of pros (Young Bucks were some of the first I remember). He doesn't always seem like he's in a fight, in a competition etc. He looks like he's the main character in TV show or movie with exaggerated facial expressions and hand gestures & posing. He is hamming for the camera and crowd way too much." This was in 2013...Ricochet had gotten his shit together by then... what's wrong with Johnny? (Not that Ricochet is the gold standard but you can see improvement in DGUSA). I've got an NXT Best of DVD with a few of his matches so we'll see. Not to be a jerk, I did like these matches of his:
DGUSA Fearless 2011 - Austin Aries vs Johnny Gargano - Very good
DGUSA Untouchable 2010 - Drake Younger vs. Chuck Taylor vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Rich Swann - Great

What is in store for 2025?

I want to watch more joshi. I had a whole DVD of AJW 1999 that I was planning on watching but don't have it available at the moment. So I'm going to get back to GAEA as well as 80's Bull Nakano. I've been wanting to push a little farther with GAEA to see if it's got some life past 2001. The Bull project is one I've wanted to do for awhile... just looks like fun. I've got a couple projects in progress. One on Jerry Lynn post ECW...mainly TNA stuff. Another is a maybe 4-6 post look into ROH 2009. Both of these projects have bouts that made the BMW list above. If you've read other posts, I'm trying to work through my DVD backlog so another one is Big Japan 2006. I got a set from Highspots right before they stopped selling DVD-R stuff. I'd also like to watch more stuff from Puerto Rico...drawn to Savio Vega, Miguel Perez Jr. so that might guide me a little. Probably will see what other stuff Tajiri & Super Crazy did for IWA as well. After that we'll see!

Thanks for reading! Let's hope 2025 is better for everyone!