10 Best Wrestlers Of 2024

7. Darby Allin

Best Wrestlers Of 2024
AEW

Nobody calls Darby Allin a bad wrestler, but it's reasonable to consider him one of the most underrated professional wrestlers of all time for how normalised its become to expect the world from his matches.

People simply don't have bad or boring matches with the former TNT and Tag Team Champion, and after five years as a mainstream North American star, he's realistically the best in-ring wrestler across either majors to never hold a World Heavyweight Championship.

His bout with Konosuke Takeshita was the first of either man's year but was making Match Of The Year arguments well into the winter months, and this is ultimately the norm for Allin. The big singles and tags stacked up as normal, most notably when he scored gold with Sting before 'The Icon's amazing Revolution retirement, and he continued to be the easiest performer to best sum up AEW's increasingly fragile USP. 

He approached everything with reckless intent, but the key word remains the latter more than the former ever was. One of the realest-feeling wrestlers ever, he now attaches the gravitas of a half-decade long relationship with the fans to his brutal bumps, and feels a lock to become AEW Champion in 2025 at the expense of Jon Moxley or whomever else holds the gold hostage. 

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett