2018 was an excellent year in wrestling. From the booming popularity of the indies all over the world to the success of supershows such as ALL-IN and ROH’s upcoming MSG show on WrestleMania weekend, pro-wrestling feels exciting in a way that it hasn’t for several years. What 2018 might be most remembered for though, is the copious amount of quality matches that has hit us this year from a huge amount of promotions around the world. In this, I’ll be looking at promotions around the world and highlighting the best matches from each of these promotions.

WWE – Main Roster

Becky Lynch vs Charlotte – WWE Evolution

2018 was a turbulent year for WWE’s main roster. The first half of the year was lacking in real top-quality matches with only a few standout matches like Charlotte vs Asuka or Rollins vs Balor vs The Miz. Ever since Summerslam though, it seems as if a fire had been lit under everyone and we got some utterly fantastic matches. Jeff Hardy vs Randy Orton at Hell In A Cell, Daniel Bryan vs AJ Styles at TLC, and Daniel Bryan vs Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series were all serious contenders for match of the year but in the end, WWE’s best match this year came in the form of a brutal and heated Last Woman Standing match between Becky Lynch and Charlotte for the SmackDown Live Women’s Championship. At Summerslam, Becky Lynch would turn heel on Charlotte and ignited a feud that would launch both women to the top of the WWE, and it all culminated here. Highspots, chaotic crowd brawling and an overall brilliantly told story of betrayal and anger made for a wildly entertaining contest that will definitely be spoken about for years to come.

WWE – NXT

Johnny Gargano vs Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas – NXT Takeover: Philadelphia

At the start of 2018, Johnny Gargano was the best babyface in the world. He had an uncanny ability to get the crowds into his matches and had a connection with them like no wrestler in WWE has had since Daniel Bryan in 2013-2014. This was showcased several times when he took on Tomasso Ciampa in wrestling’s best rivalry this year, but it was this match with Almas that really showed this. His work fighting from beneath Almas was exceptional, with great selling and perfectly timed, fiery comebacks. Of course, Almas played his part perfectly as we saw some brutal work on top, insane athleticism, and brilliant character work with his cocky facade giving way to frustration as the match goes on. An unbelievable match that set the tone for the rest of NXT’s year.

New Japan Pro Wrestling

Kenny Omega vs Kazuchika Okada – NJPW Dominion

Despite the absurd quantity of quality matches that would win MOTY in most years, New Japan was probably the easiest company to pick a match of the year for. That’s because not only do I believe this match was the runaway match of the year, but also because I believe that this is the greatest match of all time. I thought that their WrestleKingdom 11 bout would not be topped for at least a decade, but I am very happy to say that I was wrong. What is perhaps most impressive about this match is that for a 60+ minute match, there was a very small amount of fluff or stalling. They squeezed everything they could out off the runtime including some phenomenal selling, some insane counters, creative sequences, brilliant internal continuity, and some utterly fantastic callbacks to their previous matches; it felt like every move had a reason to be there. A generation-defining match.

All Japan Pro Wrestling

Kento Miyahara vs Zeus – Summer Action Series 2018

AJPW has been making a steady resurgence over the past few years, and a lot of that success has been due to their ace Kento Miyahara. From his first reign in February 2016, Miyahara had held the Triple Crown for a total of 633 days across 3 title reigns leading up to this match. Meanwhile, since 2015 Zeus had tried and failed to win the Triple Crown several times, including a challenge against Joe Doering in January. Coming into this match Zeus was the underdog, and despite having the strength and power advantage was dominated by Miyahara in the earlier portions of the match who had a lot of experience at the top level. Miyahara was cocky throughout, but this seemed to ignite something in Zeus. As the match went on Zeus grew into the match, getting more and more offense along the way. Through sheer willpower and determination not fail again, Zeus managed to swing the momentum his way in the final ten minutes and finally captured the title that eluded his grasp. An emotional, highly dramatic match that paid off a year’s long storyline.

Dragon Gate

Kzy vs Masaaki Mochizuki – Kotoka Road To Final 2018

It’s been a rather turbulent year for Dragon Gate. Mochizuki’s reign with the Open The Dream Gate title was a great title run but a lot of booking decisions, failure to create new stars, and two of their biggest draws in Shingo and CIMA leaving left business dwindling with a rather alarming attendance for their Kobe World Festival event. With PAC returning, business has spiked and hopefully, it stays this way because in terms of in-ring product Dragon Gate is as good as it has ever been, and this match for the OTDG title is the best of the lot. Kzy is a popular act in Dragon Gate and this was his first ever challenge for the title. Mochizuki was great here, but he seemed to take a backseat here and was overshadowed by a sublime performance from a particularly determined Kzy. This match had lightning offense, crisp move execution, insane athleticism as only Dragon Gate matches can do, and a great story of the youngster pushing the older wrestler to the limits where he has to fall back on his experience to try and win. This match was a statement by Kzy as he showed that he belonged at the very top of Dragon Gate and proved he could hang with the best.

European Indies

Jordan Devlin vs WALTER – OTT Wrestlerama 2

This was the category that gave me the most trouble as there were a good 4 or 5 matches that could have conceivably won this; PROGRESS gave us a brutal affair between Timothy Thatcher and WALTER, wXw had an excellent, emotional triple threat between Ilja Dragunov, WALTER, and ‘Bad Bones’ John Klinger, White Wolf Wrestling in Spain gave us a technical classic between A-Kid and Zack Sabre Junior, while Kay Lee Ray and Viper made a late claim with their savage Queen of Insanity match in ICW. But in the end, the storytelling and drama in this match pushed this match to the top in my eyes. The hometown hero looking to slay the beast is a story older than pro wrestling but between the sublime selling from Devlin, the vicious offense from WALTER, and the insane crowd heat, they turned a simple story into a gripping contest that had my eyes glued to the screen throughout its runtime.

North American Indies

Tessa Blanchard vs Mercedes Martinez – RISE 10: Insanity

For the most part, the North American indies had a solid, but unspectacular year with multiple great matches but none that stood out amongst the pack. Two companies though had matches that stood out amongst the pack. PWG’s Battle Of Los Angeles tournament gave us three matches that could have won this; Shingo/Dragunov vs Ringkampf, Shingo vs Dragunov, and Shingo vs Jeff Cobb Vs Bandido. Meanwhile, RISE had an excellent feud between Mercedes Martinez and Tessa Blanchard. Their 30-minute iron woman match at RISE 9 was excellent, but it was their 75-minute iron woman match at RISE 10 that really impressed. Shattering the previous record for longest woman’s match, Blanchard and Martinez gave us an absolute epic. Martinez was unrelenting in her offense, chopping Blanchard to bits and absolutely destroying her knee. Blanchard would give a masterclass on how to sell a limb without halting the pace of the match, and really drew sympathy from the crowd. On top of this, all her comebacks were intense and timed to perfection. In my eyes, this is the greatest woman’s match to ever take place in North America.

Big Japan Wrestling

Masashi Takeda vs Isami Kodaka – BJW 20/06/2018

This is not one for the faint of heart. For anyone keeping up with deathmatch wrestling, Takeda’s run with the deathmatch belt was perhaps the greatest deathmatch run I’ve ever seen, and this was the peak of that run. While it may not be the most brutal deathmatch you’ll ever see, though it is still very brutal, it is definitely the most bonkers. The problem with a lot of deathmatches is that they are very often quite slow-paced and are very heavily reliant on the weapon spots. There was no such problem here. These two blended elements of strong style with the best elements of deathmatch wrestling and threw in some really great technical wrestling, all while working at an absolutely relentless pace, to craft an absolutely insane match that managed to transcend deathmatch wrestling. If you can handle some bloodshed, this is one I would recommend to even those that dislike deathmatches.

Ring Of Honor

Cody and Marty Scurll vs Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi – ROH Honor Rising: Japan, Night 2

There have been better years for Ring Of Honor, but 2018 was a very solid year for them in terms of ring work. While there were no obvious Match Of The Year Candidates, there was definitely a lot of great matches, the best of which took place at their Honor Rising show. This would be the first time Omega and Ibushi tagged together in a 2-on-2 match since 2014. Their time apart showed as they told a brilliant story of having to get the chemistry and synchronicity that they were so famous for back after 4 years apart. Scurll and Cody would work great as the villains, cutting off The Golden Lovers whenever they started to get momentum going. We also got a tease of the Golden Shower but in the end, it was the newly debuted Golden Trigger that would earn Omega and Ibushi the victory.

Joshi

Kagetsu vs Mayu Iwatani – STARDOM True Fight 2018

There were a lot of great matches in Joshi wrestling this year from a wide variety of promotions such as SEAdLINNG and Sendai Girls. However, it was this contest for STARDOM’s main title that would be my favourite this year. It’s been a great year for STARDOM. Despite losing Io Shirai, Kairi Hojo, and Toni Storm over the last year and a half, they’ve developed and signed enough talent that it won’t affect them much – Momo Watanabe is already fantastic and can only get better, Kagetsu taking the belt from Toni means that STARDOM has a champion that shows up to every show, and Mayu Iwatani continues to be one of the best wrestlers in the world. This match was exceptional. Kagetsu’s unhinged offense and persona are always great to watch, and Mayu’s high flying and variety of suplexes make for a great foil to Kagetsu, on top of her always exceptional selling. There are moments that are absolutely mad, the brawling is top-notch, and the escalation is fantastic, with them just exploding in the final five minutes trying desperately to put the other away. A stellar title match.

Rest of Japan

Jun Kasai vs Masashi Takeda – FREEDOMS Crazy Monkey 20th Anniversary

A lot of promotions in Japan had a great year. Takashi Sugiura went on a fantastic title run in NOAH, with his match against Go Shiozaki being particularly great. DDT had a wide variety of great matches, my favourite of which being CIMA vs Konosuke Takeshita. But it was this absolutely insane deathmatch that won it for me. Simply put, this is the most brutal deathmatch I’ve ever seen. Boxcutters, scissors, panes of glass, and bucketloads of blood make this match. On top of all this craziness though, there was a really nice story running through of Kasai being desperate for one last title win and Takeda trying to prove he had surpassed the deathmatch legend, Kasai. Excellent stuff.

Lucha Libre

El Barbaro Cavernario vs King Phoenix – CMLL 29/06/2018

There were some good matches in AAA and LA Park is having a career renaissance, but this year’s best match was the phenomenal 2-out-of-3 falls match between King Phoenix and El Barbaro Cavernario. Phoenix put on a show of high-flying in a way that only he can while Barbaro tried to keep Phoenix grounded as match as possible with some absolutely brutal work on top. On top of all this, the pace was incredibly quick for its entire runtime, and the atmosphere was electric. Great stuff.

The Future

That’s pretty much 2018 in a nutshell. It was yet another fantastic year for wrestling as it just continues to grow and grow. Hopefully, 2019 can bring in more of the same and these wrestlers continue to spoil us with awesome matches.