10 Must-See Matches That ALREADY Make 2018 Wrestling’s Greatest Ever Year
Infinity Wars
When Twitter-bothering Wrestling Observer maestro Dave Meltzer dished out six of a possible five stars for Kazuchika Okada's iconic Wrestle Kingdom 11 IWGP Title defence against Kenny Omega in January 2017, he underscored how an embryonic workrate reinvention had seemingly reached maturation point.
A rating less about the number of snowflakes and more what they stood for, it pitched the contest in Meltzer's mind at least as wrestling's greatest ever. He'd dished out the accolade once before, but the absorbing All Japan Pro Wrestling effort between Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada from 1994 was as iconic a representation of the future then as it was of the past over twenty years later. Like Misawa and Kawada, Okada and Omega had built on the increasingly dynamic skill levels of their contemporaries to craft something virtually futureproof. Five-monthsproof anyway - they topped it in June.
Meltzer was again forced into moving his already-widened goalposts. Omega and Okada's dream match earned ******1/4, and whilst their third and final match that year went half an hour and three quarters of a star less than the last, the trilogy was quickly considered wrestling's greatest hat-trick. A rematch this June subsequently has perhaps the largest expectations of any pay-per-view superclash ever.
They're not just competing with themselves - the ever-raising bar has continued to generate era-defining battles every other month. 2017 was presumed unbeatable, and yet 2018 has (punt) kicked it into a cocked hat...
10. Andrade 'Cien' Almas Vs. Johnny Gargano (NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia)
The first WWE-branded match to earn a Wrestling Observer five-star rating since 2011's epic John Cena/CM Punk Chicago showdown, Johnny Gargano's desperate failed bit for the NXT Title pulled at heartstrings long thought already-snapped and established then-Champion Andrade Almas as the finished article the company had long thought him capable of becoming.
The two last met in a TakeOver opener, won by Almas after vital new sidekick Zelina Vega threw a #DIY t-shirt in Gargano's face to remind him of Tommaso Ciampa's wicked attack earlier that year. Their collected graduation from curtain jerkers to main eventers in-part relied again on their respective distraction pieces - 'Cien' had managed to keep it one hundred thanks to the persistent presence of Vega whilst 'Johnny Wrestling' was still emotionally entrenched in a rivalry with a man not even on television.
What followed was an utterly gripping battle, a babyface chase for the ages that made the best of Gargano's evocative selling in arguably the best closing stretch to a match in company history.
Everything pointed to a win for the underdog here, breaking hearts further as Almas sustained his challenger's fire, before Gargano's 'Pyscho Killer' returned at the very end of the show to resume conflicts with his former best friend.