10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2018

In a year in which main event melodrama became vogue once again, through NXT's production influence and the soapy storytelling driving the Bullet Club implosion, Zack Sabre, Jr. and A-Kid wrestled a minimalist masterclass of pro wrestling storytelling. You couldn't see the author's hands on this hot Madrid night made famous months after the fact; the combatants were too busy ripping them in half with some of the most realistic and unrelentingly dramatic submission sequences seen in years.

Even a word like "sequence" feels somehow wrong as a descriptor. Locked in the heated moment, this didn't feel like a wrestling match at all, but rather an unvarnished fight. But there was a story here, which, like the best stories, wasn't told.

It was shown; without telling us, with some ostentatious psychology, A-Kid conveyed his hatred of Sabre, Jr. within the parameters of the fight. In a year in which various Elite stars agonised over whether to actually strike their opponents, and in which some of the best wrestlers in the world sat down and left themselves vulnerable to damage under the histrionic premise of a torn friendship, A-Kid didn't burn a hole through Sabre, Jr. when standing in front of him. Zack would have smacked him right in the face. Instead, he burned a hole through him as the referee counted the rope break, when in full mount, refusing to break the illusion in parallel with his refusal to break the hold.

The finishing sequence, incandescent in its intensity and palpable in its pain, was wrestling in a more major key - but to paraphrase a legendary promoter, A-Kid and Sabre, Jr. had already sold you on story beats A and B. When C arrived, in full theatrical throttle, it was never easier to buy.

For a full review of and link to the match, click here.