10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2024
9. Willow Nightingale Vs. Kris Statlander - AEW All Out
These are the two best sensations when watching a wrestling match:
1 - Knowing that the classic you were excited about is going to rule within seconds of a superb opening exchange, and
2 - A match that you expected to be good clicking to a much, much higher level than you could have hoped for
Willow Nightingale Vs. Kris Statlander fell into the latter category. They’d wrestled on TV, and it was fine. Good even. There were brief sparks of impactful physical chemistry. Then, in Chicago, those sparks caught fire.
This was a violent, beautifully paced shoot-out.
The execution was outstanding. They could have repeated the match an infinite amount of times, and this would remain the best. After Willow smashed a light tube over Stat’s head, and celebrated, Stat popped back up and drove Willow off the stage and through a table with a spear. ‘Drove’ is the word, and Willow’s flailing bump was wild.
Stat sold but fired-up here with a perfect sense of balance. This was the pattern throughout; not a single second was wasted, but the spots still meant something. The match was wrestled with an incredible, urgent sense of it’ll take more than that to kill me defiance.
Statlander’s crotch-first bump on a pool of tacks - after an axe kick attempt went horrifically wrong - was the seared-in visual that elevated the match into something genuinely iconic.