10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2023
5. Kenny Omega Vs. Will Ospreay - AEW X NJPW Forbidden Door
While not quite as incredible as the first match - more on which later - Kenny Omega Vs. Will Ospreay II was phenomenal.
It was flawed. Don Callis was ejected from ringside early and was allowed back to interfere in a match without drawing a disqualification on Ospreay's part. That made no sense and was unnecessary. Callis should have remained at ringside.
Despite that, the match was transcendent. A blood-stained and hate-fuelled war, Omega's shoot-style mat work was tremendous. Omega looked like he was trying to split Ospreay's forehead open with the blade of his palm. The visceral feeling evoked was disgusting. The abattoir floor aesthetic, the aural squelch of the ungodly strikes, the brutal neck-crunching precision: this match was at once something you'd hate to be involved in but electrifying to watch unfold. Heated violence and mind-blowing exhilaration have never felt less mutually exclusive.
The last 10 minutes were as dramatic as this great sport gets. Kenny Omega inserted three of the most incredible false finishes in pro wrestling history in one match.
Commanding a local derby atmosphere and unleashing the roar of a last minute equaliser, Omega kicked out of the One-Winged Angel at one. Then, he rope-breaked the Stormbreaker. The timing was ridiculous. He only seemed to lift his leg at 2.99, finding a new unit of time at which to touch the rope. Not a soul in that arena thought that wasn't the finish. Then, he kicked out of a Tiger Driver '91 so gruesome that it was legitimately difficult to watch before falling to the Stormbreaker.
Even the best matches ever barely touch one of those false finishes, much less the trifecta.