BEST MATCHES OF 2019 PART 1 (HMs & 50-41)

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Chris Jericho vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW 06/09)
Jon Moxley vs. Shingo Takagi (NJPW 07/24)
Eddie Kingston vs. Timothy Thatcher (Beyond 10/10)
Chris Jericho vs. Darby Allin (AEW 10/16)

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SO LETS GET ON WITH IIIIIIIIIIIIT

50) Matt Taven vs. Rush - ROH 09/27
Looking at this on paper, I went into it not knowing exactly what to expect from the two, but what they delivered was one helluva World Championship fight. Rush was his stupid sexy badass self, and Taven more than matched his charisma, explosiveness & viciousness.

49) Cody vs. Shawn Spears - AEW 08/31
Spears does fine, but this is the CODY show all the way through. He shows such classic babyface awesomeness in this, kicking Spears' ass all over the place while pumping up the crowd & slapping hands with kids -- HELL YEAH BABY. And of course: Arn FUCKING Anderson!

48) Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins - WWE 08/11
I kinda wanted to put this lower & higher at the same time. Seth is one of my least favorite wrestlers around, but here he was really damn good, a part from one extremely critical thing; selling. Brock destroyed his mid-section in such amazingly compelling fashion, but Seth doesn't really sell it at all. If he had sold, this could've & probably would've been a top-10 of the year candidate, but OH WELL. Still a badass match for sure & one of Rollins' best ones ever. BORK.

47) Drew Gulak vs. Matt Riddle - EVOLVE 07/13
EVOLVE has felt VERY dead ever since it became Paul's feeder system, but here these two beautiful bastards put on a real throwback to the good "ol'" days when the company provided the best damn pro-rasslin' on the planet.

46) Eddie Kingston vs. PACO - Glory Pro 02/24

This is a really great 2/3 falls match that builds fantastically. The meat of the thing is PACO's attack on Eddie's leg, and Eddie's selling is absolutely terrific all the way through.

45) Big E & Xavier Woods vs. Daniel Bryan & Rowan vs. Otis & Tucker - WWE 07/14
What a terrific way to end the short, yet awesome tag title reign of Bryan & Rowan. The whole match is full of great, fun action w/ the highlights being Bryan's interactions w/ Xavier & Big E -- ESPECIALLY the the entire ending stretch with Bryan going against E; E getting fired up by Bryan's lethal kicks & that slap was AWESOME, and that lariat was a great follow-up, because nobody bumps for those lariats like D-Bry. The finish was so, so, SO fantastic too with Big E catching Bryan straight to the Midnight Hour position as Bryan went for his backflip. Great, great tag team wrestling bell-to-bell.

44) Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Suwama - AJPW 03/19Definitely liked this quite a bit better than their BJW meeting from January. They don't do it in an overly flashy, classic way, but Sekimoto & Okabayashi do some subtle invader heelish stuff, and I looooove it. And of course the match is filled with your fun, BEEFY action between the four lads.

43) KENTA vs. Kota Ibushi - NJPW 07/06
A hard hitting affair to say the least, which was to be expected. KENTA is a joy to watch do his thing, which is beat the absolute fuck out of Ibushi, and Ibushi is absolutely wonderful taking that said beating. They even made the generic puro forearm trading spot interesting!

42) Daniel Bryan vs. The Fiend - WWE 11/24

The Fiend's matches vs. Rollins were oh so extremely silly, but if there is one person in the entire wrestling industry that can make overly gimmicked stuff like that work, it's Soul Man Danny B himself. And make it work he did indeed, with his comeback bits in this match being some of the most magical pro-wrestling in 2019. Fascinating, great piece of business all around.

41) Cain Justice vs. Trevor Lee - CWF Mid-Atlantic 01/05

This is at least 90% Trevor on top, working over Cain's arms, back + both legs - including the right one, which he apparently injured recently. Trevor of course delivers on that said role on top, and there's this awesome teacher vs. student dynamic to it, as Trevor trained Cain, and they play it borderline perfectly for my tastes. Cain gets a few hope spot submissions, but Trevor always finds a way out & continues giving maybe his most promising young student in CWF a beating. A fabulous all around ace performance by the man.