Wrestling in 2024: A Review - Top 20 Wrestlers of the Year

This is Part 3/3 of Wrestling in 2024: A Review. If you are yet to read the previous parts, click here for the introduction, or here for the top 100 matches of the year.

Top 20 Best Wrestlers of the Year:

Honourable Mentions:

Basically everybody who made my shortlist before I narrowed it down to a top 20. All of these guys had great years, but just missed out due to issues of either quality or quantity in terms of great performances. Still, their work in 2024 was very much worth checking out.

-           Darby Allin (AEW)

-           Atlantis Jr. (CMLL)

-           El Desperado (NJPW)

-           El Hijo del Fishman (Freelance)

-           Jon Moxley (AEW)

-           Nanae Takahashi (MARIGOLD)

-           Ryohei Oiwa (NOAH)

-           Hangman Page (AEW)

-           LaBron Kozone (DPW)

-           Kaisei Takechi (DDT)

-           Hirooki Goto (NJPW)

-           Claudio Castagnoli (AEW)

-           Alex Shelley (Freelance)

-           Euforia (CMLL)

-           Randy Orton (WWE)

-           Roderick Strong (AEW)

-           Sheamus (WWE)

-           Aja Kong (Freelance)

-           Templario (CMLL)

-           El Barbaro Cavernario (CMLL)

-           Bron Breakker (WWE)

-           Villano III Jr. (CMLL)

20. Ultimo Guerrero (CMLL)

Recommended Viewing:

-           w/Blue Panther, Volador Jr. & Mistico Vs. Matt Sydal, Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Bryan Danielson (29/03)

-           Vs. Templario (12/07)

-           Vs. Blue Panther (30/11)

Consistency is a very powerful factor when it comes to having a great year in wrestling. While it could very strongly be argued that plenty of guys from the honourable mentions – the likes of Ryohei Oiwa, Jon Moxley, Euforia or Hirooki Goto being the clearest examples – had higher peaks than Ultimo Guerrero, none of them can claim to have been more or less guaranteed to have great matches more or less every week the way that he can. I’ve already showered praise on Los Guerreros Laguneros in the tag team section, but it’s more than deserving of reiterating that this team was the absolute best at CMLL’s favoured 6-man 2/3 falls style, which I would argue is as consistently high quality a match type as there is nowadays, constantly delivery great action, drama and clever, unique match-structuring with greater regularity than anything else in the business. Guerrero was at the heart of that unit as its most complete member, not only famously being one of the best bases in wrestling – capable of making sure that the increasingly crazy tecnicos of CMLL are able to do just about every single ridiculous feat of athleticism that they try both beautifully and safely – but also being the key to the Guerreros’ personality. His baffled confusion at why the crowd aren’t absolutely thrilled to see him and his heavies cutting off their heroes and ripping away their satisfaction at seeing their death-defying offence has never and will never cease to delight me. Very few people in wrestling have a more enjoyable annoyed face than Guerrero, and he’s turned that into a massive strength of his work.

Beyond the tag work that makes up the bulk of Guerrero’s case, I think he has an underrated amount of variety over the course of the year. His singles work was stellar, peaking with his brilliant heel showcase against Blue Panther, where he pulled every nasty trick in the book to earn the crowd’s loathing, making his undoing by a little bit of cheating at the hands of Panther feel richly earned. He’s also got plenty of extremely good face performances over the year that go under the radar, from a really fun Rev Pro title match against Michael Oku, to, most notably of all, his brilliant face in peril showing in the CMLL vs BCC match, where he stole the show with his excellent selling of the brutal beatdown he got, and his fiery comebacks against Mox in particular making it clear just how many strings he has to his bow. Guerrero is held back from really making a dent in the top 20 thanks to a lack of really top quality matches beyond his CMLL vs BCC performance, but he’s more than deserving of making the list on his consistency and variety. Definitely among the most underrated wrestlers of the year.

19. Yurika Oka (Sendai Girls)

Recommended Viewing:

-           w/Mio Momono vs Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu (11/02)

-           Vs. Aja Kong (08/03)

-           w/Mio Momono vs DASH Chisako & Meiko Satomura (14/10)

The lower reaches of this list are dominated by wrestlers who had great years, but a fatal flaw prevents them from reaching any higher. Yurika Oka is perhaps the shining example of that: a wrestler who likely had more great matches in 2024 than anybody else from the 11-20 range, and yet she’s landed in 19^th. As many fantastic matches as Oka was a part of in 2024, when it comes to being one of the best of the year, your individual performance in those matches has to be weighed up, and the question to ask is how many of those great matches was she truly the best part of? Yurika Oka’s greatest strength in making this list is probably the same thing that stops her from rising any higher: she’s in the best tag team in the world, but she is not its best member.

That, for the record, is not a damning criticism. For one thing, Mio Momono is better than 99.9% of wrestlers, and, for another, Yurika spent most of 2024 at 20 years old. I actually do believe she has the potential to be something close to an equal of Mio’s with time and experience, and she is getting better with every match, but, with the majority of her case being made up of excellent tag matches in which she is often overshadowed by the ball of charisma, energy and passion she’s teaming with, it’s hard to rank her any higher.

None of this is to stay that Yurika fails to bring her own edge to the best BBMB matches of the year. Over 2024, she’s gotten better and better at setting herself apart using her strength, making brilliant displays of battling and struggling to hit difficult but impressive suplexes on women twice her weight. As the year has gone on, she’s learned to better emote throughout the beatings she takes, making her more and more easy to root for, and, having often been given the closing stretches of BBMB matches, she’s excelled at hanging on for dear life and barely etching out a win, or suffering a heartbreaking loss. Her singles case is fairly thin, but she was absolutely excellent in a heart-filled but ultimately hopeless squash against Aja Kong, and the development of her rivalry with fellow very young Sendai Girls wrestler with boatloads of potential Manami was a great touch throughout the year too. As much as it can be difficult for Yurika to stand out as her own woman, her tag work has been stellar all year, and, for as young as she is, she’s bound to get better and better with time. There’s an ace in there, this year demonstrated that, she just needs the time to develop.

18. Yuya Uemura (NJPW)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Yota Tsuji (24/02)

-           Vs. Hirooki Goto (21/07)

-           Vs. KONOSUKE TAKESHITA (25/07)

There was no wrestler I was less confident in including on this list than Yuya Uemura. That’s not a comment on his talent – he’s clearly, staggeringly, the best of New Japan’s great hopes for the future – but rather on the structuring of his year. To go back briefly to 2023, Yuya Uemura returned to New Japan after a miserable TNA excursion with his confidence obviously shot. His World Tag League run with Taichi was poor, with the two just not appearing on the same page at all and Uemura struggling to put himself across. As such, the beginning of 2024 was more about recovery for Yuya than thriving. That’s not to say there’s nothing worth looking at in this period – I rate both of his early year matches with Yota Tsuji higher than most, and he even managed to get some quality out of Great O-Khan during his turgid KOPW run – but it’s safe to say that it’s not the reason he makes this top 20. No, Uemura’s case for being here begins and ends with his G1 Climax run, in which, seemingly out of nowhere, he remembered who he was. Suddenly, there was the guy who had people (myself included) fully buying into him as New Japan’s next world class babyface hero when he was a young lion, fully formed, comfortably the best wrestler in the company. It almost didn’t make sense, the way he completely came out of his shell, but I didn’t care. Finally, Yuya Uemura had arrived.

He wasn’t just putting on the best matches of the tournament against great wrestlers like Hirooki Goto and KONOSUKE TAKESHITA, he was dragging shitters like El Phantasmo and HENARE to by far their best showings of the year, because his skillset brings the best out of just about everybody. It’s easy to compare Uemura to Ricky Steamboat because of his gorgeous arm drags, but beyond that, he’s the modern Ricky Steamboat because he’s a perfect face: a technical marvel, a master of the basics, who will sell his fucking heart out to make the audience cry for him before screaming for him as he fights back. Those were his strengths as a young lion, and they’ve only been amplified with time. When Uemura reaches out to the crowd for their support as he powers through the pain, it’s a call to action that is answered every time. Uemura is a throwback in his ability to make people care about the connective tissue of his matches as much as the big moments. The struggles for him to land the Deadbolt suplex are excellent, but so too is him simply fighting to maintain a wristlock so that he can work up over the course of the match to having damaged that arm enough to win. It’s magical, and the G1 allowed him to show the effectiveness of the Little Things night after night.

And then his year ended, because he was injured in what was supposed to be his second to last G1 match against Yota Tsuji. As I said, his case quite literally starts and ends with the G1. How much weight can you realistically put behind a month-long tournament? The reality is that having a good July-August wouldn’t typically be enough, but for that period, Yuya Uemura was quite possibly the best wrestler in the world. A fuller year would’ve certainly let him reach greater heights, but, for what it was, that G1 Climax was something seriously special.

17. Mad Dog Connelly (Freelance)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. 1 Called Manders (26/01)

-           Vs. Demus (04/04)

-           Vs. Kevin Blackwood (08/12)

I want my wrestlers to feel real. In some senses, it’s a strange request of the most famous fake industry on the planet, but it is also an industry built on selling us reality as best as they can manufacture it. Whenever a wrestler is obviously acting, obviously being something that they’re not, failing to put forth that masquerade of reality, it does take away from their performances. Mad Dog Connelly is the exact opposite of that. I don’t know anything about who he is as a person outside of wrestling, I don’t want to know anything about who he is as a person outside of wrestling, and he will never, ever show me who he is as a person outside of wrestling. Instead, he has only ever shown me that he is a man who could’ve only ever been a professional wrestler or a serial killer. He’s that kind of deranged, that kind of psychotic, that kind of violent, and he has me fucking hooked.

It's in the eyes, man. They can be such a giveaway on lesser performers, failing to hide the act no matter what the rest of the face and body is doing. Mad Dog Connelly’s eyes are full of crazed violence. They’re wide, strangely soulful, and deeply unnerving, and he uses them to his advantage all the time. Above all else, they’re eyes absolutely full of conviction, refusing to even suggest that this is an act to him. It reminds me of Dusty Rhodes, the way everything he did suggested that he fully, 100% bought into everything he did and said, erasing the idea that you were watching a character and instead presenting you with the man himself. Mad Dog is like a dark mirror of that, a man who also fully buys into everything he does, except, in this case, everything he does is to cause as much hurt and pain as possible. Mad Dog at his best is flat out disturbing to watch, fucking mauling guys without any of the preplanned movements or spots that stifle wrestlers who fail at what he’s going for. Obviously the Demus match is the ideal example of that. It feels like Mad Dog entered that match with the soul purpose of inflicting pain in whatever way happens to come to his mind at any given time, and it is a fucking disgusting thing to behold as a result. The way he drags Demus around by his shirt, punching his head in, has stuck with me from the moment I saw it for the first time. It’s a one-sided mauling, and my god what a fucking perfect one-sided mauling it is.

The problem that keeps Mad Dog from getting higher on this list is that, honestly, there aren’t enough of those one-sided maulings in his catalogue. About 95% of Connelly’s matches should be him fucking eating a guy alive, but it feels as if either most promotions or most wrestlers just aren’t willing to give him that, always insisting on having the other guy get way too much shit in whether they’re actually worthy of it or not. Connelly should make an effort to be less giving in this regard, a wrestler like him shouldn’t be going 50/50 often. When he does, it should be earned, like his matches against 1 Called Manders – a guy who is comfortable giving as much as he gets and fighting just as hard as Connelly – not against random indie scrubs who don’t deserve it. Simply put, the industry isn’t quite ready for Mad Dog Connelly, but, after having his breakout year, it’s having to change around him, because a guy operating on the level he is can’t be held down for long.

16. Zack Sabre Jr. (NJPW)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Bryan Danielson (11/02)

-           Vs. Jake De Leon (26/05)

-           Vs. Hechicero (22/06)

There’s little debating that 2024 was the best year of Zack Sabre Jr.’s career professionally. After 7 years of grinding as a highly dependable upper mid-carder in New Japan, occasionally trusted to have world title matches while never really threatening to win anything of any major consequence, he smashed through the glass ceiling, winning the G1 and the IWGP World Championship just a couple of months apart to establish himself as the new ultimate obstacle to the next generation. I’m sure that it must’ve been deeply satisfying to Zack to finally reach that true main event level in the eyes of his home promotion.

Absolutely none of that is the reason he’s made my top 20.

Despite being where the bulk of his work comes from nowadays, I think the New Japan style – and particularly the main event New Japan style that the world champion is expected to embody – stifles Zack Sabre Jr. Eventually in this environment, he’ll just completely abandon his stellar catch-as-catch-can, hold-for-hold style to do the checklist of things expected of him, abandoning his personality to fit a mold. Of course, Zack had plenty of really good matches in New Japan this year, but his Bryan match which didn’t really fall into that trap was comfortably the best of them for a reason: it let him play to his strengths. I’d rather watch Zack freestyle counters against a likeminded technical master than watch him pretend to be, like, 2020 Kota Ibushi for the last 15 minutes of big matches any day of the week.

Zack is a wrestler who makes me yearn for the territory days, because his travels across the globe in 2024 made it quite clear to me that, if he is to be a main event talent in a major promotion, his ideal situation would be as a travelling heel champion, fighting home-promotion heroes and somehow finding a way to escape with the belt by the skin of his teeth. His best work this year was when put in front of an audience that was deeply pro his opponent, and, as a result, deeply anti him. Zack Sabre Jr. the technical marvel is excellent, doing shit that very few wrestlers could even imagine with a smoothness that just about nobody can match, but it was Zack Sabre Jr. the troll who really won me over this year. I’ve already detailed his wonderful dickishness in his CMLL match with Hechicero, acting like a complete and utter tool to stoke the flames of the hostile audience before letting himself take the beating that the fans knew he deserved, but he was just as good in his trip to the Philippines, where his failure to control and dominate Jake De Leon saw him grow more and more cruel and more and more irritated with the crowd until, eventually, a time limit draw felt like a deeply cathartic win for Jake, largely built off the back of Zack treating the prospect of not winning easily as a failure. It was a brilliant showing and a sample of where his strengths truly lie.

Zack Sabre Jr. simply is not what New Japan wanted him to be. The man is not a foreign babyface ace. He’s a fucking dickhead, and his best work of the year demonstrates it. Throw in his purely technical bouts with the likes of Hikaru Sato and Daniel Makabe, and it’s obvious that there’s a world where, if the house style in New Japan was better suited to his strengths, he'd have a serious shout at being one of the best in the world.

15. Bozilla (MARIGOLD)

Recommended Viewing:

-           w/Sareee vs Utami Hayashishita & Giulia (20/05)

-           Vs. Nanae Takahashi (16/09)

-           Vs. Sareee (24/10)

Before May I hadn’t even heard of Bozilla, and neither had basically anybody else. Getting a giant foreign monster in to your joshi promotion tends to be a winning formula, one tried and tested for pretty much the entire history of the style, but grabbing a 20 year old with barely any experience to fill that void on MARIGOLD’s roster, then instantly throwing her into their first ever main event, felt like a massive risk. Fortunately for Rossy and the gang, they found one hell of a gem, because Bozilla started out damn good and only got better from then on.

Pretty comfortably the rookie of the year, Bozilla brings me a level of joy wrestlers with far more experience than her could only dream of. There have been a lot of giant fuckers who destroy the tiny losers who are put in the ring with them, but very few who do so with anywhere near the smugness that Bozilla has. She’s basically constantly wearing this confident smirk on her face, mocking her opponents and displaying personality at a level that, honestly, no other wrestler as young as her is capable of. She has so much charisma and is just infinitely watchable. Even outside of her bigger matches, she made a consistent point of being the one and only wrestler worth watching in lower card matches on MARIGOLD shows, because seeing her be the biggest, meanest, proudest bully was a joy to watch. MARIGOLD’s non-main eventers are universally underwhelming, but Bozilla gets the best out of them by simply eating them alive. When she’s positioned against the small group of elite talent MARIGOLD had, Bozilla always rose to their level. Her title match with Sareee is, given her experience level, and absolute triumph and proof of concept of her at the top of the card, just brutalising the champion with pure, smug contempt written across her face, before, eventually, being overwhelmed and outwrestled.

If there’s anything keeping Bozilla out of the top 10, it’s the fact that she wasn’t presented as the monster she should be well enough by MARIGOLD itself. They seemed to push her down the card fairly quickly after the first show, and, frankly, having her first pinfall loss come against a Miku Aono who had already wrestled MIRAI in the previous match should constitute promotional malpractice. Bozilla does have to take some of the blame here, though. Although she overall improved as a wrestler with experience, she became more giving, taking more offence, bumping around more than she had before. She shouldn’t feel the need to do that. She’s a monster, any offence she takes should feel special and earned.

Still, Bozilla was an absolute joy to watch, and a truly wonderful discovery. Watching her gleefully murder women half her weight for many years to come will continue to be just as fun as it is right now.

14. Soberano Jr. (CMLL)

Recommended Viewing:

-           w/Neon & Mascara Dorada vs Angel De Oro, Brillante Jr. & Atlantis Jr. (23/02)

-           w/Barbaro Cavernario & Angel De Oro vs Templario, Mascara Dorada & Mistico (09/08)

-           w/ Barbaro Cavernario & Euforia vs Templario, Mascara Dorada & Mistico (25/10)

Soberano Jr.’s late 2023 switch from tecnico to rudo initially, was kind of a mess. He instantly had the personality for the role – a cocky, insincere womaniser with a penchant for being obnoxious – but he struggled to make that come across in his matches, still fixating on the impressive moves that made him work as a tecnico, but now felt out of place and disruptive to CMLL’s beautiful tecnicos vs rugged and cruel rudos. The transition wasn’t helped by him immediately having to work the World Tag League in New Japan as a tecnico, teaming with his biggest rival in Atlantis Jr. In short, it was a bit of a mess, and it felt like Soberano Jr.’s obvious potential was being stifled.

By the end of 2024, I think Soberano Jr. was probably the single best rudo in the company, and honestly it didn’t take him long to reach that point. Rather than his moves being the most important part of his game, he happily embraced the fine art of being a fucking douchebag coward, constantly avoiding contact with his enemies, making the story of his matches ‘when the fuck will somebody make him pay for being such a piece of shit’. Obviously it’s extremely important to make that payoff hit, and Soberano Jr. was as excellent at taking a beating as he was at being obnoxious in the runup. Rather than relying on his athleticism during his heat segments, he allowed himself to have a much more rudo-friendly style of sneak attacks, cutoffs, and ugly, crowd-riling beatdowns. Speaking of the crowd, he is one of the best in the business at constantly playing to them inviting them to boo as he taunts them, truly making them feel like part of the match.

With Soberano Jr. being a CMLL lifer, his battlefield is 6-man tags more often than not, and he uses that environment to his advantage as a heel better than just about anybody. His cowardice shines as he hides behind his partners, constantly avoiding being the legal man, only to sneak in to attack his enemies only when they’re already down, or when he has a numerical advantage over them. It’s infuriating, and it’s supposed to be infuriating, because it makes him finally getting caught in the act and punished feel so much better. Sticking to how well he uses CMLL’s match structures to further his own character, he was probably the MVP of another of their favourites: making faces and heels team with one another. He was brilliant at making sure that, even when ‘helping’ his teammate, he’s doing it in the shittiest, most obnoxious way imaginable, while constantly making a nuisance of himself. When his teammates inevitably take a little revenge on him, it always gets a big reaction, and that’s off the back of Soberano’s work.

The turnaround of Soberano’s rudo turn has been legitimately brilliant to see, and it’s only been possible because of the sacrifices he was willing to take. He took the risk of highly limiting the more visually appealing offence in his arsenal to make his personality the be all end all of his matches, and it’s massively paid off. May he continue to be a fucking asshole and get taught a lesson for it for a long, long time.

13. Fuminori Abe (Freelance)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Hikaru Sato (28/03)

-           Vs. Roderick Strong (19/05)

-           Vs. w/Yuki Ishikawa vs Takuya Nomura & Kazunari Murakami (23/10)

This is a weird one, because, before sitting down and compiling wrestlers’ cases for making this list, I had convinced myself that Fuminori Abe’s 2024 was something of an off year. I think that came from comparing it directly to his 2023, which was fucking ridiculous. Between his run of incredible Astronauts tags in BJW and his stellar singles work, peaking with his masterpiece against tag partner Takuya Nomura, I wouldn’t bat an eye at anybody who called Abe the best wrestler of 2023, but the same case can’t really be made for 2024 in either consistency or peak.

Then I really started digging into his year, and thinking ‘Oh yeah, he had that match! That was awesome!’, repeating that thought over and over again until it became clear that, no, Fuminori didn’t have an ‘off year’, he still spent basically the entire year more than earning a place on this list. As he’s one to do, he worked all over the place, putting on great matches with a wide variety of opponents in front of audiences with wildly varied amounts of knowledge of him. He could put on the single most ridiculously stiff match of the year in front of a captivated crowd with Hikaru Sato, or win over fans largely there to see his opponent in DPW against Roddy Strong. He once again wrestled Takuya Nomura, this time at Bloodsport, and they were excellent again. It was rather clearly dumbed down for a less knowledgeable audience but it was deserving of the praise it got all the same.

Where last year it was his team with Nomura that really made the backbone of his case, this year, I found his work against him constantly compelling. Whether they were teaming with young wrestlers in Kozo Hashimoto & Kosuke Sato, or legends of the game like Yuki Ishikawa & Kazunari Murakami, they just work together incredibly well, wrestling intricately but smoothly, and always, inevitably throwing a shot so hard that I’m left convinced that it actually knocked the other guy out. Abe’s stiff styles are a thing of beauty, and his work on the mat is supreme, again especially against Nomura. Those who know him are well aware that Fuminori Abe loves throwing Bits and comedy into his work, and while it can occasionally be to his matches’ detriment, I tend to find his humour charming more often than it’s irritating. In comedy, I will always prefer the wrestler to be the butt of the joke rather than wrestling itself, and that’s what Abe aims for. His match teaming with Kozo Hashimoto against Nomura and Kosuke Sato was great specifically for the comedy of Abe trying to push his young boy into brutalising Sato, up to and including literally just throwing a near lifeless Hashimoto at his opponent. His sense of humour amplified that match into something deeply fun to watch, and that’s I think the crux of what makes Abe great. He is incredibly fun to watch, whether he’s going for something complex and layered like his match last year with Takuya Nomura, or just lobbing a young boy at another young boy for his own amusement. This year might’ve lacked the highs of the last, but that fun factor was still there, and made him great to see against just about everybody he faced.

12. Mascara Dorada (CMLL)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. El Barbaro Cavernario (19/01)

-           w/Mistico Vs. Soberano Jr. & Templario (06/04)

-           w/Star Jr. & Neon vs Averno, Mephisto & Euforia (27/09)

Contrary to the image I put out, I am not anti-flips in my wrestling. I’m anti-watching guys doing the exact same shit as one another until all wrestling is one homogenised blob of emptiness, I’m anti-forcing your opponent into positions that look stupidly unnatural for the purposes of pulling off your moves, I’m anti-flips as a substitute for substance in matches, but I am not anti-flips. I just need them to make sense within the style and to actually, genuinely impress me rather than simply doing the same shit that has been the norm in wrestling for, like, 15 years, hence why the single most insane flippy guy currently working has made the 20 best wrestlers of the year.

Mascara Dorada was 22 years old in 2024, and as an ancient, likely dying soon 24-year-old, that sickens me to my very core. As has been the case since he debuted a couple of years back, the things that he can do with his body are frankly fucking insane. This guy hits topes, rans and Tijeras that nobody in wrestling before has ever even thought to try with a shocking degree of consistency, and, importantly, is constantly changing up what he goes for to keep you on your toes, to surprise you with whatever new shit he's learned that he’s capable of. You’ll see this guy hitting clotheslines on two guys over the top rope while simultaneously diving over the tope rope to hit a flipping hurricanrana onto the guy below, then he’ll simply not do that again because, hey, he’s shown you he can do that, he doesn’t want the diminishing returns of that being a spot he does in every match, so if he does bring it back, it’ll feel special.

Dorada’s style simply fits what a modern CMLL tecnico is: smooth, flowing, and athletically incredible. Indeed, with admitted competition from the also sick as hell Neon, he is probably the smoothest, best flowing, most athletically incredible wrestler in the world right now. That, admittedly, has been the case for his entire career so far. What made his 2024 his best yet was everything else. For one thing, he’s put his athleticism to use not just for his own offence, but to be one of the biggest bumpers in the industry. This guy will take a HELL of a beating and throw his whole body into it all to get the most out of getting his ass kicked by shithead rudos. For another, there’s his crowd work. It’s been obvious more or less from debut that CMLL are setting Mascara Dorada up to be the next Mistico, the next ace of the promotion, but there’s much more to being Mistico than simply being an impressive athlete. Mistico is a master at making the crowd feel like they are willing him through matches, and well Dorada is hardly experienced enough to match that, he’s putting more effort into it than ever before, consistently taking the time to signal to the crowd, encouraging them to get behind him as a man rather than as a human stunt show, and that is going to be crucial to his development as the next top guy.

Like a fair few wrestlers in the bottom half of this top 20, it’s peak that held Dorada back from reaching the top 10. He’s been a part of as many great matches as almost anybody this year, but none of them were at the absolute highest level the way that it could easily be argued that his matches with the likes of Rocky Romero or Templario last year were. Still, I think this was an improved year all around for Dorada where his development has been clear, an intent to transform into more of a sympathetic character through his new focus on crowd work and selling without abandoning his USP of being the most insane athlete in the sport today. He’s not Mistico yet, but this year was the first where it truly felt like that was in his locker, and that’s high praise indeed.

11. Daniel Makabe (Freelance)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Edith Surreal (04/04)

-           Vs. Timothy Thatcher (04/04)

-           Vs. Nicole Matthews (06/07)

Let me tell you, it’s a weird experience to first start watching a wrestler while they’re on their retirement road. Don’t get me wrong, I had heard of Daniel Makabe before 2024, but the wrestling that I was watching meant that I didn’t check out the indie scene that he tended to tour. As such, I jumped into the end of the journey without having experienced the beginning or middle, and that’s a damn shame, because Daniel Makabe was absolutely fucking brilliant, and a deeply me-coded wrestler. Watching his last year in the sport won me over completely. 2024 might’ve been the year that Daniel Makabe broke, but he went out in an absolute blaze of glory.

The obvious highlight to Makabe’s game is his grappling, and it really is wonderful. I always find the most compelling grappling to be technically impressive, but not necessarily smooth, and Makabe has one of the best styles of that I’ve got to witness, with his focus on unique, genius counters joining together with an honest effort to make everything he does look as uncomfortable as humanly possible. He’s always pressing and grinding against his opponents in ways that really make me feel the unpleasantness of wrestling him. There’s almost a claustrophobic feeling to how he just won’t stop grappling guys, never taking a break until it’s absolutely necessary. Having mentioned his counter work, his subtle but awesome escapes and setups have left me in awe so many times this year, whether it be freeing himself from Tim Thatcher by simply resting his weight on his bad leg until he has to relent, or, in what honestly might just be my highlight of the entire year, by headbutting Nicole Matthews in the thigh to free himself from her grip and apply the Makabe Lock Pi. These aren’t flashy, but they make total sense and you just don’t see anybody else doing stuff like this.

Makabe is also an extremely expressive wrestler. The way he twists and contorts his face to show the pain of being locked in a hold, or the effort of trying to maintain them, really brings you into the emotion of his matches, which makes them feel more involved and personal than they otherwise would. He talks a lot in the ring too, not in the cringeworthy Cinema sense, but in what feels like a very realistic and natural muttering to himself, putting over the fear ending up in certain positions or, again, the exertion of keeping control of an opponent constantly trying to escape his grasp. This all helps him get his personality across in the ring, making him feel more like a real person, while making it easier for him to adapt himself to the different roles asked of him. He maintains his highly grapple-focused style consistently, but manages to be different things for different people, be it a bamboozled heel struggling to deal with Edith Surreal’s llave-leaning approach to technical wrestling, a clever survivor against the crazed and cruel Timothy Thatcher, a bullying veteran to Trish Adora, or a highly competitive combatant in a sparring contest with Nicole Matthews that went too far. That adaptability while never flinching on what makes him special in the ring counts for a lot, and makes each of his performances this year feel unique to one another.

Similarly to Zack Sabre Jr., I do think Makabe loses something when his matches venture too far from the grappling he excels at. I came away somewhat disappointed when his matches would escalate into King’s Road tributes rather than into meaner and nastier wrenching on limbs, but the majority of his work was the latter rather than the former, and, at its best, it was among the highest-level wrestling of the year. Daniel Makabe may be retired* now, but that’s okay. The positive of being so late to the party when it came to him is that I now have a hell of a backlog to look into.

*Do the match, Dragon.

10. Mistico (CMLL)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Atlantis Jr. Vs. Mascara Dorada (06/04)

-           Vs. Templario (19/05)

-           w/Heddi Karaoui Vs. Freelance & Virus (16/06)

Being a company’s ace is probably the single biggest responsibility a wrestler can be given. It makes a wrestler more than himself, becoming the living representative of what the promotion is trying to be. Many wrestlers have tried and failed, either struggling with the star power requirement, feeling forced and shoved down the audience’s throat, or simply not fitting the role. There is no doubt in my mind, though, that the best ace in wrestling today is Mistico. He is CMLL and CMLL is him. He embodies the experience the company is trying to put off, being the ultimate flowing, beautiful tecnico and the perfect victim to ugly, rugged rudo beatdowns. When he’s in full flow, it’s impossible to take your eyes off of him. Is he the most athletic wrestler on the CMLL roster? No, not now that he’s in his 40s, but the airtime he gets is so graceful, and his movements are absolutely captivating. Everything he does is full of such incredible charisma, a trait in which he is completely unmatched in lucha, and quite possibly in the entire world. He just feels like the biggest deal in every arena he enters, because of his presentation yes, but mostly because he carries himself like the biggest star in the universe.

It wasn’t until I actually got to watch him live, however, that I really understood Mistico’s truest, most powerful strength, and that is the connection he has with the fans. Mistico is the best in the world at orchestrating an audience, constantly making them a part of his matches. When I watched him wrestle Templario, I felt what so many fans in Arena Mexico must’ve felt: like he was fighting for me, surviving for me, coming back for me, all because he’s constantly signalling and working towards the crowd, encouraging claps, chants and applause even when he’s getting his ass kicked because the audience’s love is his ultimate power source. As I said when discussing the Templario match, it’s a trait I can only really compare to Hulk Hogan. Perhaps the best example of that fan worship for Mistico, his complete control over an audience, came not in CMLL but on his appearance at a Lucha Memes show against Freelance and Virus. When he made his entrance, he was literally swamped with the audience as if Jesus Christ himself was walking to the ring. Seeing Mistico on the apron literally signing autographs for kids mid-match was unlike any other experience in wrestling. He’s the people’s ultimate avatar, their hero in the same way Hogan was in the 80s. And I felt it, man. The effect Mistico had on me in the crowd was the effect Sting had on me at All In, and I don’t make that comparison lightly. When you’re in the crowd for a Mistico match, you’re a part of it, a part of him, and when he wins, you win.

Beyond that incredible fan connection, his in-ring work as stellar this year. Of course, his ability to orchestrate an audience is a crucial part of that work, making him vital to the main event scene in CMLL, acting as the heart among the chaos. Perhaps he’s not Mascara Dorada when it comes to sheer athleticism anymore, but Mascara Dorada isn’t him when it comes to getting the fans to live and die by his actions yet, and that’s more important in wrestling. His beatdowns in 6 man tags were beautiful, filled with that signature Mistico reaching out and calling to the fans, begging for their help and receiving it through their chants and cheers. He got to show off more variety than usual, of course enjoying his usual match structure of throwing everything he has at heels in singles matches, but getting to show his surprisingly fun llave chops against Hechicero and Zack Sabre Jr.

It might sound harsh to say Mistico’s ability to climb this list was stunted by one bad match, but in a wrestlers of the year list, you do have to count the bad with the good, and that Jericho match was probably the single worst of the entire year, a total embarrassment on a massive stage. It’s a shame, because other than that, Mistico’s record is pretty much spotless. He wrestled tons of incredible matches this year, and had enough that were in that truly elite category. Above all of that, though, it’s about how Mistico makes me feel. When wrestling is at its best is when you really, truly, deeply care about who wins and loses, and Mistico made me desperate for his victories more than anybody else this year. He’s my football team and I’ll cheer him for as long as he keeps going.

9. KONOSUKE TAKESHITA (NJPW/AEW)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Minoru Suzuki (19/05)

-           Vs. Yuya Uemura (25/07)

-           Vs. Ren Narita (14/08)

I was wrong about KONOSUKE TAKESHITA.

What I had seen of his DDT work followed by his AEW run told me that he was very much your modern Meltzer scale star rating worker, an Ospreay-type wrestler more than anything else. Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was one of the best of this group – his Cool Moves are cooler than just about anybody else’s, he’s much more physical and violent than most in that category, and he had an invincible presence and aura that made him feel worthier of the constant fighting spirit no-sells than the skinny white guys who embody the style – but ultimately a wrestler of that ilk would be unlikely to make my top 20, they’re simply not for me. My knowledge of his DDT work is too limited to make a judgement call, but I think his AEW run has seen him boxed into the Good Wrestler mold, where creativity and outside the box thinking is replaced with doing the same thing every time and being told that it’s amazing no matter how frequently it isn’t.

But TAKESHITA’s AEW work isn’t what finally made me realise that he’s great, it was when he went elsewhere that he truly unlocked his full potential. Obviously DDT is already a home for him, but returning to wrestle Minoru Suzuki was much more interesting than him going back to fight one of his old compatriots. Suzuki isn’t what he used to be, far from it, but TAKESHITA brought what will likely be the last great match out of him not by defaulting to norms, but by fighting from beneath, expertly selling his arm, and making his biggest moves really count, and treating Suzuki not like an exact equal as so many checklist wrestlers do, but by making him an absolute mountain to overcome, so that, when he finally knocked him out, it felt as cathartic for the audience as it did for his character.

He expanded on that range in the G1, which is easier said than done. Great wrestlers like Eddie Kingston have ended up having boring G1s by limiting their own styles to wrestle the way they think New Japan matches are supposed to be wrestled, but TAKESHITA manages to do the opposite. Here, he leaned on his presentation as an invincible bully to make the homegrown New Japan talent fucking earn victory over them, smugly brutalising them and making them earn any offence they manage to get. In a way, he makes himself what he made Minoru Suzuki throughout much of the tournament, and, as previously discussed, it makes wins for the likes of Yuya Uemura and Hirooki Goto feel absolutely fucking glorious when they get him. They deserve credit for their own work in those matches, but it’s TAKESHITA, giving them exactly the right amount and making his matches an ugly struggle rather than clean, beautiful move-doing, who turns them from good to truly great. He even makes an excellent valiant babyface in his match against Ren Narita, where he decides, seemingly out of nowhere, to put on the single best leg-selling performance of the year. It is staggeringly detailed, and, for somebody who is extremely critical when it comes to limb-targeting matches, every time that he did something where I thought I’d have a complaint about it – trying for a tope on his bad leg, hitting moves where he’d land on his knees – he made me eat my words – collapsing while attempting to run to get momentum for the dive and instantly falling to the ground in pain after jamming his knee into the mat. Ren Narita is not a very good wrestler, but TAKESHITA decided at will to show off a ridiculous skill that he apparently just possesses to drag him to his career best match.

That all demonstrates exactly how wrong I was about TAKESHITA. I boxed him into being just one thing based on his work in one particular territory, only for him to establish that he was capable of being anything but. His AEW work, which I’m generally not the biggest fan of, limits his potential to go any higher, but I came away from 2024 with a massive appreciation for TAKESHITA and his willingness to adapt his style to his environment and his opponents. I’d always rather be happy than right.

8. Adam Priest (DPW)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Slim J (04/04)

-           Vs. 1 Called Manders (07/09)

-           Vs. LaBron Kozone (08/12)

One of the happier developments in 2024’s wrestling scene was the slow return of real, actual heels to mainstream wrestling. For a long, LONG time now, ‘heels’ have been, essentially, edgy babyfaces, guys who commentators would say you ‘don’t have to like, but you have to respect their talents’. Sure, they’d cheat, occasionally, but they’d still outwrestle their opponents, show bravery, and ultimately end up getting applauded by crowds. It absolutely fucking sucked. Finally, AEW at least appears to have discovered the wonder and joy of shitty, cowardly stooge heels – guys who never ever get the advantage fairly, are complete and total assholes, constantly stealing control without earning them, and are confident enough in themselves as performers to be made fools of regularly to make the beatdowns they suffer for their crimes as satisfying as possible. Both Kyle Fletcher and Ricochet turned themselves from wastes of a roster spot to two of the most compelling, interesting and fun to watch guys on the roster by embracing the art of the stooge heel, while even MJF – for whom every big match’s story felt like it had to be ‘he’s an asshole but he’s so talented look how good he is at wrestling!!! – has reverted very successfully to a better, more hateable kind of villain. None of them are the best heel in the business, though. That’d be the guy who’s been doing this on the indies the entire time, before it became cool.

Adam Priest is a shit wrestler. That’s the entire point, and he shows incredible skill and self-confidence in presenting himself as such. Throughout the entire year, I could count the number of times that Adam Priest managed to get control of a match fairly on one hand, and I’d still probably have a fair few fingers to spare. Everything about him is bullshit. When he’s not in control, he’s an absolute fucking coward, flinching from fake lunges from LaBron Kozone, constantly running away and stalling, yelling at fans. When he’s in control, it only ever comes from either cheating – be it an eye poke, a closed fist, a hair pull, or any number of irritating tricks – or the sheer luck of his opponent getting caught in the ropes or injuring himself on a missed move. From there, his whole heat segment is designed to make him all the more obnoxious, grinding down on limbs, barely maintaining control with continued fouls, until, eventually, he gets the beating that he deserves in the comeback, bumping and stooging as his crimes come back to bite him. Adam Priest turns being a bad wrestler, a coward and a cheat into an artform. When he somehow gets away with it – and he got away with it a LOT in 2024 – I was never left with the feeling of ‘well, he’s a shitty guy but you have to respect the talent. It was always ‘fuck this guy, he fucking sucks, how has he won AGAIN?’, in the vein of a peak travelling champion Ric Flair, where he’s content enough in who he is to happily make himself look completely beatable, only to get away through both luck and cheating.

Priest has been excellent for a good while now, but 2024 was his breakout primarily thanks to his work in DPW, and the run that they gave him to work with. They let him get away with his shit for an entire year, before giving the ultimate catharsis of LaBron Kozone finally teaching him a lesson, and it was absolutely glorious. Priest let himself get the everloving shit kicked out of him because he knew that that was the entire point of his character: make seeing him lose the draw, so he lost spectacularly. The bravery of being willing to play a wrestler with genuinely no redeeming qualities is something that most are simply not capable of putting their ego aside enough for, and even if they are, plenty aren’t smart enough to lay their matches out with the mindset of ‘I can never take control impressively or fairly’. That’s what makes Adam Priest unique. In an environment where proper heels are making their long awaited return, nobody is quite as willing to give up all semblance of being a good wrestler for the sake of being hated as he is, and it made him the best bad guy of the year by some distance.

7. Bryan Danielson (AEW)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (11/02)

-           Vs. Blue Panther (05/04)

-           Vs. Swerve Strickland (25/08)

Pro wrestling can be so easy sometimes. It turns out that letting one of the best wrestlers in history do basically whatever he wants for 10 months results in some fucking fantastic wrestling. Bryan Danielson is one of the absolute best to ever do it, and with 2024 being his last full time year of wrestling, he was essentially given free reign to make his dreams come true. Put on a purely technical masterclass with Zack Sabre Jr. in Osaka? Go for it. Wrestle your lucha idol Blue Panther in Arena Mexico? Sure, dude. Fight two of the best Japanese wrestlers in recent memory in Yuji Nagata and Jun Akiyama one after the other? Fight Jeff Jarrett in an old school Memphis-coded hardcore match? You shouldn’t even have to ask. Fight your iconic ROH rival Nigel McGuiness for the first time in 15 years? Live your best life friend. All these matches and more actually happened, and every single one of them, without exception, kicked ass. Far from simply presenting dream matches on paper, Bryan was able to reach the lofty expectations his bouts had and regularly surpass them.

For the last 20 years, Dragon has been both one of the best babyfaces in the industry and one of the best heels, playing both roles seamlessly without ever betraying his character at its core throughout the year. Bryan was outstanding at just being a smug asshole for the first quarter or so of the year, ruthlessly bullying Eddie Kingston, beating his heroes (and kicking them in the dick for shits and giggles), before moving on to Arena Mexico and hiding behind his BCC buddies to get cheap shots in on Blue Panther, relishing in the role of the invading force. All of his work as a heel was tremendous fun, making himself wonderfully obnoxious only to ultimately be punished. He was never evil, that would’ve hindered the second half of his final year in the ring, just a dickhead whole, ultimately in the case of the Eddie feud, apologised and admitted his wrongdoing – something that is too often missed in face turns. With his career on the line in the pursuit of the AEW title, Bryan put on one of the best face runs of his entire career, surviving brutal tests from Hangman Page and Jeff Jarrett while selling his ass off, using the audience’s knowledge of just how truly fucked up his body is to terrify them into thinking that the next bump he takes could be his last, selling his ass off to appear as broken as possible on route to his masterpiece against Swerve Strickland. That ultimate title win really was one of the most cathartic things in wrestling this year, both on first viewing and then again following the passing of my dad. The joy of seeing a legend win a final world title, a father fight through it all for his kids, was fucking moving, built to perfectly through his Owen Hart tournament run.

If there’s one thing holding Bryan back despite his crazy match output and powerful main story through the year, it’s the actual title run itself, which was…underwhelming. I actually don’t mind how it ended – the match with Mox was very good and was a strong way of establishing just how cruel and evil the Death Riders were, emotionally affecting in the exact opposite way to how the title win itself was. I am…less enthused about the reign itself, in which Bryan’s only pre-Mox rival was a deeply unprepared, clearly not good enough Jungle Boy, still trying to make his utter failure scapegoat gimmick work. Bryan’s only bad match of the year being his one successful title defence is a real shame, but it does have to be marked against him.

Still, when I remember Bryan Danielson’s last full time year in wrestling, I won’t think about a bad match with a bad wrestler. I’ll remember the impossible matches that actually happened with Blue Panther and Jeff Jarrett. I’ll look back fondly about his delightfully cowardly performance in Arena Mexico, or his bravery against Hangman Page. I’ll remember how his title win made me feel, but most of all I’ll remember my dad, who I could feel through his performance. Bryan will be back in a wrestling ring, he’s too much of an addict to stay away and I’ll welcome him back when he’s ready, but as a final long term run, they don’t come much better than this.

6. Blue Panther (CMLL)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Bryan Danielson (05/04)

-           Vs. Hechicero (11/06)

-           Vs. Ultimo Guerrero (30/11)

This should be impossible. That’s obvious, right? Do you understand how insane it is for a 64-year-old man to be the 6^th best wrestler of a calendar year? This is an industry that, up until recently, would pretty much destroy 99% of guys in it by the time they’re in their mid-forties, and even now, when more wrestlers than ever are able to go at an impressive level into their fifties, the list of guys to have gone at a genuine best in the world level in their 60s is a list that reads ‘Blue Panther’. I truly believe that nobody else in wrestling history can match what he’s been able to do at an age where most of his peers are either retired or working basic, feel-good legends matches.

The fact of the matter is that Blue Panther being in his mid-sixties does not have to be a negative. It is the informed wisdom that a wrestler of his age would not be capable of having as good matches as he would’ve in his younger years, but Panther defies that by using his age to his advantage, as a tool to make everything he does feel all the more impressive, and to make him all the more sympathetic as one of the best babyfaces on the planet. When the rudos he faces get the advantage over him, they’re irredeemable assholes beating up a beloved old man, and Panther enhances that by taking stilted, painful bumps which make him look less mobile than he actually is. Wrestling is all about using what the audience knows about you to get the response you want out of them, and obviously the crowd know that Panther is old. That not only makes every beating that he takes feel more despicable, improved by his dedication to never fully being out of a fight, always trying to throw punches or chops no matter how hopeless a situation might seem. It’s not wonder that he’s struggles back into battles with Danielson, Guerrero and Hechicero earned some of the loudest reactions of the year: he knows how to give the fans enough to cling onto hope before finally rewarding their patience better than anybody.

Having talked about how Panther uses his age to garner sympathy, he once again turns the idea of being in his sixties as a disadvantage on its head with his offence. His llave style isn’t the most physically demanding, which is likely why he’s still able to practice it at a staggeringly high level. His brain is still as sharp as ever when it comes to catching people in crazy, impossible submission holds, and finding clever, creative counters to what his opponents are doing. That’s the work that makes up the bulk of many of his matches, and it’s consistently among the very best submission work in the world, but then there’s his big, athletic high spots, and holy fucking shit. The stuff Blue Panther can still do with his body at his age is incredible, and Panther knows it. Seeing him hit crossbodies, topes to the outside, dives off the ramp, Tijeras and ranas is unlike anything in wrestling today, because it just doesn’t physically make sense that he can still do this stuff, leaving the crowd in awe every single time. But the real genius of his high spots isn’t the moves themselves, however impressive they might be, it’s how Panther reacts to landing them. He doesn’t just move on from the ridiculous display of athleticism for a man in his sixties. He looks out into the crowd in as much awe as they’re experiencing, unable to believe that, yes, he actually just did that, as if he’s saying ‘Wow, I can still do that!’. It makes him infinitely more likable, and the spots themselves stick in my head so much more because of it. That shocked expression on Panther’s face after pulling off what should be impossible is true joy, and something I can’t help but get caught up in.

I haven’t even discussed here Panther’s mastery of the 2/3 falls match structure that CMLL favours, making each fall feel both unique in characteristics while logically following up what just happened in the prior fall, nor how much fun he was in a 6 man tag environment, putting on a series of great, fun bouts with both his fellow legends like Atlantis and Octagon, as well as his own sons. His workload this year is consistently at a ridiculously high level – not just for his age, but for any wrestler – in a variety of environments, all across the year. Blue Panther is a total impossibility, but this ridiculous man has continued to be as great, if not actually better, into 2025. We should treasure him for as long as this miracle run lasts.

5. Shinya Aoki (DDT)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Chihiro Hashimoto (07/04)

-           Vs. Yuki Ueno (25/08)

-           Vs. HARASHIMA (20/10)

Shinya Aoki is probably the best wrestler in the world. That might seem like a strange thing to say about a guy who is notably Not at the top of this list, but when he’s put in the position to wrestle a big match, there is nobody in the world more consistently great than him.

‘When he’s put in the position to wrestle a big match’ is what keeps him from rising any higher in this list. Ultimately when determining a wrestler of the year, it does have to be about quality and quantity, and while I truly believe that nobody in wrestling had a more consistently high quality level than Shinya Aoki…it’s not like he was finding himself in the position to show it all that often. After his match with Chihiro Hashimoto, one of the very best of the year, he simply disappeared for 3 months. Upon his return, he immediately picked up on being the best in the world, but with his reign contained to about two and a half months, he had to fit most of his case for being this high on the list in a very short span. The fact that he managed to get into the top 5 despite working a fairly irregular schedule with limited major opportunities to deliver is a testament to him probably being the best wrestler in the world.

There was nothing in 2024 more satisfying than watching Shinya Aoki’s brand of shoot-influenced technical wrestling. Nobody more consistently made their fights look like a miserable struggler than Aoki, his wrestling feeling oppressive and dangerous, with the air that, yes, he’s actually trying to win at all times enhanced by his constant shooting for dangerous holds regardless of what stage of a match he’s in. He isn’t the kind of wrestler to give unnecessarily, and that makes his matches feel unique. When he’s up against somebody less technically proficient than him, like Yuki Ueno, he will gladly eat them alive, but when he meets a serious match like Chihiro Hashimoto, he will make them look utterly unstoppable, like nothing he’s trying is working. That, my friends, is hierarchy in wrestling, one of those great elements of the sport that have gone to the wayside because everybody wants to be exactly as good as their opponents for some reason. Aoki will give and take when it makes sense, and it makes his matches feel unique and charged, with the guys he eats alive feeling easier to support than ever thanks to the fact that they’re having to fight for every little thing they get, while those he is more giving to feel stronger than ever for it, because they’re beating a guy capable of just crushing dudes with his sheet technical ability.

The differences between his major matches and how much he allows his opponents to get over him – from basically nothing with Ueno to about 80% of the match with Hashimoto – show the diverse ways in which he’s able to make his style work, without sacrificing the sensibilities of what he does. He doesn’t intentionally make himself worse or better for his opponents, it’s just how much they’re able to rise to him, forcing him to become more desperate, be it sneaking up behind HARASHIMA for the pin, or flat out fleeing from Hashimoto for the last minute of their match to reach a time limit draw. None of this betrays his character, he always wants the best result for himself, and none of it betrays his style of constantly seeking the win either. Everything Aoki does makes sense within what he is, and that is a staggering rarity in modern wrestling.

Beyond that, the actual, physical wrestling is just…perfect man. Everything he does feels incredibly painful, smothering and torturing step by step, like he’s showing every single little bit of pain he’s causing to the audience. His methods of getting into holds and counters have to be seen to be believed (his cravat pinning combination is my personal favourite, the GASPS when he busted that out against Ueno were very much replicated in my home). His style is, quite simply, my favourite in modern wrestling. I just wish that I got to see it at the top level more often. His work in tag matches is good – very good, in fact – but it’s some guys really shine in main events and he’s probably the best example of that in the world. Let’s get him a longer title reign soon, DDT.

4. Mio Momono (Marvelous/Sendai Girls)

Recommended Viewing:

-           w/Sareee Vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata (07/01)

-           Vs. Mayumi Ozaki (28/04)

-           w/Yurika Oka Vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Yuu (27/10)

I love Mio Momono with all of my heart and want her to win absolutely every single wrestling match she competes in, and that is the strongest evidence of just how good of a job she’s doing. There is, quite simply, no better pure babyface in the world than her at the moment, no fighter easier to empathise with and get behind, nobody who makes their beatings feel worse and their comebacks feel more euphoric. The art of being a good babyface is quite literally what the industry is built on, it’s what makes people lifelong fans, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Mio Momono will make plenty of those, because Jesus fucking Christ, she is incredible at this.

When I think of Mio Momono, the first word that comes to mind is ‘passion’. There are plenty of wrestlers who feel like they’re running through what they do in the ring like it’s a preplanned dance – which, of course, it often is – and as impressive as that can be physically, it often leaves an emotion disconnect. Mio never causes that disconnect, because she is a fucking ball of emotion, throwing herself into everything like it’s the most important thing in the world. It’s easy to believe in her because she believes in her, eyes full of absolute conviction in what she’s doing and a loud fiery energy that makes her utterly lovable. She’s an absolutely brilliant, emotive seller, famously taking huge, terrifying bumps directly onto her head, but anybody can do that. She’s the only one who goes viral for them because she sells them in such a way that makes you fear that something has gone horribly wrong. People thought she’d died off of that Mayumi Ozaki piledriver, and that was down to her. Beyond huge bumps like that, she is excellent at making the crowd feel like a part of her survival, coming to life under the sound of her chants. And her comebacks, man, they feel fucking good, because she puts her everything behind them. There were few better feelings in wrestling this year than her taking an ungodly beating at the hands of Yuu, before exploding and just headbutting her over and over again until she finally dropped…and then simply continued to headbutt her more from there. As much as that is simply a beast thing to be doing, it’s the emotional connection that Mio builds that makes it feel good, earned, and righteous.

Oh, and she’s also the best tag team wrestler in the world too, and it isn’t particularly close. Her track record this year is just ridiculous. The entire Team 200kg rivalry, in which I would argue she is the main highlight overall, her other BBMB work with teams like Ryo Mizunami and Manami, Mika Iwata and Miyuki Takase, and Meiko Satomura and DASH Chisako, and even her work outside of BBMB, such as the Netflix tag and her amazing match with Sareee against big Hash and Iwata, in which she, bafflingly, puts on one of her best performances of the year as the obnoxious weaker heel tag partner. Her instincts are just flawless, from the way she and Yurika Oka are more or less constantly working in tandem to gain and maintain advantages, to her incredible energy as the illegal partner, keeping the crowd into matches during heat segments on Oka with her energy alone, to even something as small as her making it a serious battle to break up pins during matches, ducking and weaving past her opponent to save the day. Most wrestlers, particularly in Joshi, will just sit there being held by their opponent until it’s time to get involved, but not Mio. She makes a point of adding drama to everything she does, and that’s included. She even lets herself get cut off regularly during hot tags, forcing her to work extra hard for something that is usually presented as coming easy to wrestlers. It’s another unique and great touch, and things like that are what made her tag work head and shoulders better than everybody else in the wrestling world in 2024.

Mio’s strengths are being the best at what matters most. Being energetic, passionate and easy to like are important to being a great babyface, so naturally she’s the most energetic, most passionate, and easiest to like. The moment that I saw her, I was pretty much convinced that she could easily be a giant star in the industry if that’s what she wants, but if she wants to keep doing the best wrestling in the world in the Sendai Pit, hey, that’s more than okay with me.

3. Sareee (Sareee-ISM)

Recommended Viewing:

-           w/Mio Momono Vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata (07/01)

-           Vs. Chihiro Hashimoto (16/01)

-           w/Mayu Iwatani Vs. Chihiro Hashimoto & VENY (02/09)

-           Vs. Bozilla (24/10)

-           Vs. Nanae Takahashi (13/12)

To be completely honest with you, the majority of this top 20 came together relatively easily. The names who made the list and the order of their ranking felt natural enough that I didn’t have to put a tremendous amount of thought into it. That was not the case with the top three. I think the three names at the top of this list are in a bracket of their own, the three wrestlers who I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at anybody calling the best that 2024 had to offer. I’ve gone back and forth and this order constantly, with all of them having been at number one at various points, Before finally settling on their positions. Even now, as I’m writing, saying Sareee was only the third best in the world last year almost feels wrong.

Had I made this list at the end of 2024, without bothering to do the extensive rewatched which I believe were necessary for making this year end review complete and thorough, Sareee would’ve been number one. There was just an air about her, a feeling that only the best of the best inspire that she could do absolutely anything, and it’d be fucking great. Truth be told, rewatching the year’s best work hasn’t lessened much of Sareee’s output to me – to the contrary, there are matches she had last year that raised dramatically in my estimation on repeated viewings – it’s just that my goodwill towards the two above her grew at a rate that outpaced her. That shouldn’t be read as an insult to Sareee, because there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that 2024 was the best year of her career.

Perhaps the right place to start when discussing Sareee’s greatness is in her best work: her run as Marigold’s anti-ace heel, existing as a living obstacle to the company and its signed stars earning legitimacy in kayfabe, while ironically being the main thing carrying their 2024 shows to being worthwhile viewing in reality. She played an absolutely phenomenal bully, arrogantly acting above the promotion throughout her run while adapting that depending on her opponents. She could perfectly fit her character while hiding behind Bozilla against major names like Utami and Giulia, horrifically murder rookie wrestlers in probably the best jobber vs star matches of the year, and, in her absolute best work, simultaneously come across as a sadistic monster trying to break Nanae Takahashi’s neck, while playing the outmatched coward as her emotional disconnect whenever she fought back. Their ability to convince the world that they really, genuinely hate each other in a wrestling landscape that is convinced it shouldn’t even bother trying to work its audience anymore was one of the biggest achievements of the year, and while more or less everything Sareee did in Marigold was must watch stuff, her rivalry with Nanae is a peak that the company hasn’t yet come close to matching in its admittedly brief existence. Sareee’s anti-Marigold gimmick was so good and so effective that, upon bringing her in this year, Stardom have basically had her do the exact same thing but on a bigger stage. I can’t even blame them for that; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Beyond her excellent Marigold work, there was her rivalry with Chihiro Hashimoto, which played out in Sendai Girls and her own (consistently excellent) Sareee-ISM shows. There, casually, she decided to have an outstanding singles match with big Hash, the best all star tag of the year with Mayu Iwatani against Hashimoto and VENY, and the best non-Sting tag of any kind with Mio Momono against Hash and Mika Iwata. She didn’t even spend the majority of the year working for the same promotion as Hashimoto, so to have that level of greatness with her each time they met demonstrates the incredible chemistry that the two have, and the way they match up so well, with Sareee taking on the entirely different role of a brave face fighting from underneath against an opponent that both she and her work to make feel absolutely unstoppable, allowing Sareee’s triumphs to feel all the more earned.

In terms of her in ring style, she was highly adaptable throughout the year, be it battling for whatever she could get against two very different monsters in Hashimoto and Bozilla, relentlessly bullying rookies or just flat out violently fighting against Nanae. Sareee is excellent at making herself fit into whatever environment it needs to, while keeping her fundamentals of big, brutal bombs that feel earned towards the end, fast and frantic offense through the middle, fun and targeted submission work throughout, and some of the best strikes in the business. Her forearms to the chest are head and shoulders above anybody else trying the same thing, looking and sounding like absolute hell to take, and she’s able to use them as a way of monstrously bullying poor tiny women, or battling her way back into matches with beasts. She fit every environment she was placed in this year and elevated them with her incredible presence. Seriously, no wrestler screamed ‘I’m a big deal who should be no lower than the main event of every card I’m on’ like Sareee did. Few wrestlers have that level of star aura nowadays, but she stands out head and shoulders regardless of what she’s doing.

Like I said before, putting Sareee in third feels wrong, like it’s an injustice not to have her at the very top, but that just goes to show the sheer quality of those above her. Sareee’s level in 2024 was just fucking ridiculous, from propping an entire company up on her back to warring with Hashimoto to casually turning up and putting on great matches in Stardom, nobody felt more must-watch than her. Simply put, this has probably all been better for her career than being a racial stereotype schoolgirl in NXT.

2. Hechicero (CMLL)

Recommended Viewing:

-           Vs. Atlantis Jr. (19/02)

-           Vs. Blue Panther (11/06)

-           Vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (22/06)

-           Vs. Valiente Vs. Euforia Vs. Esfinge (13/09)

-           w/Angel de Oro & Soberano Jr. Vs. Atlantis Jr., Mascara Dorada & Mistico (08/11)

I can’t exactly claim to have been early to the Hechicero train, but I did make it before it left the station. I believe my first time seeing him would’ve been at the 2023 Fantastica Mania, where, pretty immediately, my mind was blown. His weird but immense charisma captivated me, the way he moved like no other wrestler I’d ever seen kept my attention constantly, his awesome, smooth, creative and thoroughly unique style of llave had me in awe…and he also hit this fucking incredible knee in the corner. That helped too. I posted something on Twitter (currently known as X) about how incredible this dude was, and how he clearly deserved so much more attention than he was getting from the wider wrestling world. Little could I have known that 2024 would be the year that he got all of the major opportunities that he deserved, grabbing each and every one of them to be comfortably the best male wrestler of the year.

Hechicero’s big year in terms of notoriety outside of the lucha sphere began with his AEW bout with Bryan Danielson – a match which, while not being among the best of either man’s work this year, was still pretty fucking great – which began a streak of AEW and New Japan appearances. He made for an extremely good TV wrestler, enjoying weird and wonderful little matches in AEW, while saving his best for his biggest opponents. The pseudo triangle-feud for best technical wrestler in the world between Bryan, Hechicero and Zack Sabre Jr.’s best bout ended up being the first between the luchadore and ZSJ, demonstrating Hechicero’s wonderful ability to play the home country hero in the face of a foreign invader. Their styles meshed wonderfully, but then you’d expect that to be the case. Where Hechicero really shines is in his ability to get the best out of everybody without bending to the will of others in abandoning his super unique style in favour of something easier to grasp. Yes, obviously he had fantastic matches with Zack Sabre Jr. and Bryan Danielson, but he could also put on delightful little things with somebody totally different, like Lio Rush in a rare worthwhile New Japan of America fight.

Still, despite the massive growth in his name value outside of CMLL, his best work came from within it, where his name being on a marque match essentially guaranteed something fantastic. The biggest matches, I’ve already discussed – I really cannot say enough good about his Mask Vs. Mask with Euforia, or his stunning effort against Blue Panther – but it cannot be stressed enough that this guy was fucking great at basically everything he did. Shove him in a classic CMLL six man tag and he would come out of it the most compelling wrestler by far, able to adapt a style which you would think would be better suited for singles competition thanks to the focus on submission work rather than tag offence into something more effective, happily leaning into nasty rudo roughness, with some lovely stooge bumps in his arsenal for when it’s time to bump and sell for the tecnicos. While Hechicero spent most of his year working rudo as always, his efforts on the more heroic side were perhaps his best of the year, with that Euforia match standing out as just being an absolute masterclass in the selling of exhaustion from both men, with Hechicero in particular just barely hanging on to life. CMLL suits him so well because he’s one of the masters of the 2/3 falls format, similarly to Blue Panther, fully understanding how to make the actions of the first fall have direct consequences in the approaches of the wrestlers in the next, logical and clear to see. His pacing and structuring of that particular format is masterful, worth studying for anybody who wants to learn about how it should be approached.

The consequence of finding yourself as a much bigger name than before is, of course, that it can end up limiting where you end up working. AEW is fine and good but being on TV and having to adhere to all that, while also accepting the promotion’s largely all-action and impatient house style, can mean sacrificing something unique and special. Hechicero got by that by ignoring conventional wisdom and just turning up wherever the fuck he wanted. It didn’t matter how random or small a lucha indie might’ve been, he'd inevitably show up to have intensely, proudly complicated llave matches with the likes of Xelhua, Heddi Karaoui, and the legendary Negro Navarro. He doesn’t need to do them, he’s making his money elsewhere, and yet he does, and that, my friends, is the love of the fucking game. As thrilling as it was to see Hechicero in epics as a true CMLL main event talent, the charm of watching him go anywhere and everywhere to wrestle whoever the fuck he wanted was just an absolute delight, and does a lot to add to his case. It’s not just about the quality of his best matches, it’s about how enjoyable he was to watch throughout the entire calendar year, wherever the hell he decided to turn up, the joy he could bring me against whoever he ended up in the ring with, whether it was one of the biggest stars in the industry, or just some llave freak he wanted to tie up in knots. Hechicero’s style is something wholly his own, his love of wrestling is pure, and I love pretty much everything about him. All I can hope is that his AEW deal doesn’t rob him of too much of what makes him so special.

1. Chihiro Hashimoto (Sendai Girls)

Recommended Viewing:

-           w/Mika Iwata Vs. Sareee & Mio Momono (07/01)

-           Vs. Sareee (16/01)

-           w/Yuu Vs. Mio Momono & Yurika Oka (11/02)

-           Vs. Shinya Aoki (07/04)

-           w/Yuu Vs. Mio Momono & Yurika Oka (18/05)

She’s always had this in her. Chihiro Hashimoto has absolutely kicked ass for a good long while now. While obviously I wasn’t clued in for much of her career, seeing her for the first time on a GLEAT card in 2020 pretty immediately had me hooked. She was this wholly unique, terrifying musclebound fridge of a woman who was more than happy to murder anybody she came across however she wanted to, and in 2024, the rectangular monster reached a level of consistent quality that nobody else could hope to match.

As previously discussed, quality and quantity are both important when it comes to putting forth a wrestler of the year case, and what big Hash achieved in both is, frankly, ridiculous. Be it her feud with Sareee, her brilliant rivalry alongside Yuu with BBMB, or her important role in Meiko Satomura’s then-ongoing retirement road, she was basically always up to something, and that something was always extremely fucking good, with her regularly being the highlight of each.

Against Sareee, she was in what could be considered her most natural element: the unstoppable force against an extremely moveable object, doing just enough to appear barely, vaguely beatable while dominating and brutalising in captivating fashion. Her mixture of shoot style mat work, agonisingly painful looking strikes, and suplexes surgically designed to drop a bitch directly on her neck, makes her long periods of utter dominance some of the most fun wrestling to watch of the year. Her Team 200kg work, while allowing her to portray a deeply lovable pure meathead with Yuu, let her show off a rarely praised part of her game: her selling.

With Yuu as the most brutish of brutes, Hashimoto was often left as the one being overwhelmed by teamwork from Mio Momono and Yurika Oka, and she made their work feel like an honest to god breakthrough, knowing exactly how much to give and when to give it, when to give hope and when to take it away, while allowing herself to be outsmarted. That might’ve been where the bulk of her best selling work came from, but the absolute best of it, and quite possibly the best selling of the entire year, came in her match with Shinya Aoki. The way she sold the several danger of his holds, making it clear exactly which submissions had the chance of beating her, up to and including panicking so much in an armbar that she ends up literally kicking a likely very expensive and very sad camera in her desperate attempt to reach the ropes, was absolutely masterful, and kept the crowd in the palm of her hands.

While her battle with Meiko Satomura obviously reached its climax in 2025, her tag work against her was excellently emotional and hard-hitting, ensuring that she didn’t fall off towards the end of the year, once her BBMB feud concluded in October. In terms of consistency, this was as complete a year as anybody had; not the most matches by any stretch, but a constant stream of insane quality that made her stand out from the rest of the crowd, with no real lull period in her work. She was just excellent, always excellent, and often in different environments. She was one of the best tag wrestlers of the year, one of the best singles wrestlers of the year, she even just casually decided to have the best shoot style match of the year on a DDT one-off, because why the hell not? When you’re Chihiro Hashimoto, you can excel at everything you do without fail.

The best wrestlers of this year all deserve incredible props, with staggering highs, but Chihiro Hashimoto was the most complete package, a perfect dominant monster who was also among the absolute best at taking a beating all year. A singles wrestler with the presence of somebody who deeply, firmly believes that they should be no lower than the main event, and one of the best tag workers of the year as she brought her partner and her opponents up to her level through a willingness to give as much as she took. There’s nobody more deserving than her of the top spot on this list.

Conclusion:

As much as this review has truly been a pleasure to put together, it’s safe to say that it’s going to be a good, long while before I do anything like this again. You can probably tell from the fact that this list is coming out in September of 2025 that it was a fucking gigantic undertaking for me, and one that has meant that I’ve watched far, far less wrestling from this year than I had expected to. My knowledge of 2025 is a hell of a lot slimmer than 2024, that’s for damn sure. Regardless, as I’ve said before, this was an exercise in educating myself on wrestling, and more crucially what I value and care about in wrestling, as much as it was designed to be a guide for anybody else. I came into it hoping to feel better and more confident about what, to me, makes the best wrestling great, and I definitely think that I’ve achieved that goal.

Of course, that education is never over, and I think there’s only so much left to be learned from modern wrestling. In the middle of last year, I decided on a total whim to watch every single match available on tape from All Japan in 1978, and it was an absolutely wonderful experience. I think, for the next year or two, that’s probably where my future in wrestling viewership lies: in enjoying the work that captivated audiences before I was born and understanding why it worked so well, a little journey into the lost arts so that I can be even more of a grumpy oldhead about the product of the modern day. The truth is that the more I’ve learned about wrestling, the more critical I can be of it sure, but that comes out of an ever-growing love of the artform. I doubt that I’ll ever reach that ‘should I just stop watching wrestling?’ point from my youth again. I have so much to catch up on, so much to learn, and I’m looking forward to all of it.