25 Best Wrestling Shows EVER
WrestleMania X-Seven: has its crown been taken?
The pro wrestling super-show - whether they’re called pay-per-views, Premium Live Events, or whatever - is why pro wrestling exists.
The destination show is meant to feel like you under no circumstances can miss it. If you miss it, you’ve missed the event after which everything will change. You, ideally, should spend the week prior in a state of rapt anticipation. In small moments away from the drudgeries of existence, you think about it. You might even indulge in some dorky fantasy booking because you want it to be perfect. On a very corny and lame but not untrue level, you might need it to be perfect.
This is why you work, study, and in some cases exist. You do what you need to do to get by. Your hobby is what you want to do, and you do what you need to do to get to it. The destination pro wrestling show, at its absolute best, should be nothing short of life-affirming.
These are the nights on which you are grateful that you persevered through the Invasion disaster, through Triple H going over Booker T, through much of the 21st century brackets general.
But which was the absolute best…?
25. AEW Dynasty 2024
AEW’s roster is so stacked that, were this list to be produced in a year’s time, some of the following, ultra-vaunted entries - the collective nostalgia attached to which sometimes dictates their placement - might have to be omitted. At its best, AEW is better than the most sacred cow.
While it wasn’t a “proper” opener, Kazuchika Okada Vs. PAC was one of the better examples of a modern trend that isn’t going away. Often - too often - a match that could headline a show often opens in the mainstream. This can impact the flow of the entire show. Still, it’s virtually impossible to criticise a match as elegant and powerful as the Continental title bout. PAC displayed his range by playing sympathetic babyface with his outstanding selling, where Okada casually flicked the switch off “goofball heel living his best life” and onto in-ring living legend. His panicked 2.99999999 kick-outs were outrageous even by his standards. The slow-burn pacing was masterful.
Roderick Strong Vs. Kyle O’Reilly was a vicious technical ripper. Adam Copeland, Eddie Kingston and Mark Briscoe Vs. the House of Black was inessential but very fun. Thunder Rosa and Toni Storm brought an all-too-rare, hate-fuelled energy to their huge over-delivery of a Women’s title match.
The show was a touch too long, as every single AEW pay-per-view is. Did Chris Jericho really need to go 17 minutes with HOOK?
Well, he did, but nobody else needed him to.
Bryan Danielson Vs. Will Ospreay was considered by many to be the greatest match ever promoted on U.S. soil. It was phenomenal - perhaps the greatest ever match sold and wrestled on the high-pressure premise of it being great. The work was out of this world. The crowd shared a collective religious experience as Danielson casually mastered the movez stalemate at the first time of asking. They had barely touched by that point. When they did touch, the contact was out of this world. The physical timing was almost unprecedented. Watch Danielson counter the Oscutter with the Busaiku knee: the precision and impact, on such an ambitious and difficult exchange, was, well, there is no adequate synonym of excellent. It was better than that.
FTR Vs. the Young Bucks initially struggled to follow such an instant landmark of pro wrestling in the United States, but went so incredibly hard - Cash Wheeler in particular wrestled like a man possessed, flying into barricades for fun - that the fans eventually chanted “Please be careful”. This wasn’t so much a wrestling match as cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
The Samoa Joe Vs. Swerve Strickland main event wasn’t great - doing limb work to a monster is never a great thread - but it was good, and it was very impressive. The crowd wanted Swerve to win the big one, he won, and the dead crowd woke up and stayed with him for the duration.