The Nasdaq Composite rose 20% in 2025, but the world market outperformed the US by 10% while the US dollar also declined 10%. That's kind of how things worked in wrestling, it looks better or worse depending on what glasses you are viewing. The vast majority of the wrestling we watched didn't actually take place in 2025, so this isn't generally a this guy is better or worse than they were in 2024, so much as better or worse than our perception of them.

Kana - While one could argue that Arisa Nakajima is better in any year from 2011-2015, Natsuki Taiyo is better in 2010, or Io Shirai is better in 2015, Kana was the woman who definied joshi from 2010-2015. She was someone who actually made it on her own, breaking through the geriatric grip and overcoming her most obvious stylistic rival in a prime Meiko Satomura while also having great and credible matches that for a few years made WAVE an important promotion. She did the most to keep Mariko Yoshida's quasi shoot style alive in joshi, though obviously Nakajima, Satomura, Command Bolshoi, and Kana's opponents who were willing to go along with her such as Shu Shibutani & Mio Shirai played a part. When she joined WWE in 2015, it was a massive blow to the future and credibility of joshi, and set the stage for the further watering down of the Japanese stronghold on women's wrestling through WWE signing Shirai & AEW signing Hikaru Shida, among others. Of all the Japanese women who have come to the US since the great JB Angels raptured American's notions of what women's wrestling could be with their 1987 WWF tour, Kana has done the best job of staying serious and not embarrassing herself. While it was inevitable that her style would change for the worse because WWE, for the most part, doesn't sign women with real grappling chops or who want to get bludgeoned by many crisp kicks, Asuka was able to elevate her opponents and work around them well enough that she actually still managed to pull off some good matches. She's more like a 7 there when she probably would have had at least another five years as a 10 had she stayed in Japan, but at least she maintained a work ethic and didn't become cringe like Io and most of the others who made the transition.

Mil Mascaras - Mascaras was Mexico's emissary to the north and east, the first high flying Luchador most people saw in the 1970's and 1980's. While he popularized using the top rope to jump in the ring and out, he wasn't all about high flying like you would have thought had you only seen his short WWF squashes. Mascaras was a much better technical wrestler than I realized, and this was actually the backbone of his game. His technical wrestling isn't really what you would think of as the Mexican style, it's slower but still active enough, more snug and less athletic, going for something more substantial and less gymnastic oriented while still changing positions often. We don't really have any examples of 1970s Lucha Libre beyond his more skilled brother Dos Caras, so it's hard to know where exactly to place him as a technical wrestler in his era, basically less entertaining than all the better guys in Europe, but better than just about anyone in America beyond Billy Robinson, Nick Bockwinkel, and Verne Gagne. Overall though, because of his flying, and bringing a mixture of offense that perhaps nobody else in whatever territory he showed up in was doing in the 70s, he was very much ahead of his time. He becomes all the more impressive when you consider he was a heavyweight doing some moves that we weren't seeing junior heavyweights do yet (even though they were probably common in Mexico). I would liken him to Randy Savage in the WWF where he wasn't necessarily using the best flying moves, but he was the only guy jumping off the top to the floor, and he was doing this at the top of the card when most of the other guys were just doing punches and headlocks. Yes, he stayed around decades too long and didn't really do anything different beyond a certain point so he eventually became very much behind the times, but he's definitely one of the best wrestlers in All Japan in the late 70s and early 80s when most of the best wrestlers in the world would come through there at some point during the year.

Don Leo Jonathan - I knew of his legend from wrestling magazines going back to when I was in the 4th grade, and used him in my old computer wrestling simulator, but I don't think I ever watched a match of his until this year. He's a lot better than I imagined, and quickly became my favorite heel of the 50s era. He's the sort of imposing giant heel I want to see, with plenty of size and strength, but his speed and technique are surprisingly good for a 6'5" wrestler of that era. It would be a long time before we got a big man who could match him athletically or technically. He knows how to use his physicality to the point he's hard to get around or away from if he chooses to be. He's predominantly a serious, credible technical wrestler who is active on the mat both offensively and defensively, capable of doing a kip up to escape a headscissors. He doesn't have to rely on taking shortcuts, but his chippy heel work is good if you like that sort of thing, fairly unobtrusive if you don't. He takes subtle shortcuts that annoy the opposition and provide an incremental advantage without making things silly, similar to what Lou Thesz did. He's better the more realistic the style is, capable of moving around in a more credible manner and trying to create his own openings to engage while not being the usual stationary target himself. He's definitely considerably better in the 50s than when the footage picks back up again in 70s AJPW, but that's to be expected because he's in his 40s then.

Cactus Jack - Jack was great at making his opponent look better. He put them over by taking memorable bumps. He was a good enough wrestler that he didn't need to be a brawler, but his willingness to ignore the pain he was putting himself through to make the match more entertaining made it a style he could do much better than others. Because Foley's style was built around what was being done to him rather than what he was doing to others, he was able to elevate the level of his opponent, and get a better match out of them than they would normally have. His 90s work holds up well because he was doing a style that was in the vast minority, and coming at it from a different perspective where his high spots were his bumps rather than his moves. Even though he was very popular and highly influential, most of the other brawlers weren't selfless enough to really copy him, and Darby Allin, who is a roadrunner high flyer, actually comes closer to the essence of Cactus through his self sacrificing style than your average lughead who likes to break a bunch of light tubes. The crucial difference is Foley made his stunts matter. They didn't feel like they were just done for the sake of being stunts, they defined his character and/or the match, whereas all the AEW stunts barely matter in the moment to the match they are happening in, so of course no one remembers them for long. There's no saving Undertaker, but overall, Jack is one of the most likely people to somehow pull a good match out of people who rarely if ever have them.

Ricky Steamboat - Steamboat was just so much smoother and more fluid than the other WWF or NWA champions of the 80s. Everything he did seemed effortless. At his best, he conveyed his determination both through his actions and his mannerisms, as shown by his urgent 1989 quest to finally win the NWA Heavyweight Title where he didn't just tell you, "look at me, I'm determined", he worked harder and faster, pouncing on every opportunity against Ric Flair in a match where Flair actually fought back realistically rather than doing his same old hokey routine. Comparing that memorable match to the sluggish, lethargic slow motion 1983 passing of the guard where Flair got the gold from the great Harley Race without any of the advertised flare was just night and day. Steamboat was the serious, sports based presentation representative at the top of the card in the 80s, humble, respectful, giving credit to the opponent rather than doing the cheesy shit talking. He was everything a martial artist was supposed to be, before mixed martial artists were taught to be jerks hurling mindless insults as if real fighters weren't already trying as hard as they could to win before they got injured, and the punches somehow hurt more if they supposedly hated their opponent. Steamboat would make a point of making the opponent pay when they wronged him, but even when he was laser focused on punishment, he still managed to be a credit to the sport rather than a B movie revenge fantasy. Steamboat actually made chopping interesting because, imagine this, he seemed to try to accomplish something with them instead of just waiting around like a dunce for his opponent to answer back when they finally got around to it. Sometimes he spent too much time holding an armbar, but he was one of the only wrestlers of the era who could make control acceptable because his better work had genuine dynamics, with impressive bursts in and out of his arm drag. He pretty much always elevated the quality of the opponent and the match, rather than simply performing his offense well in a vacuum.

Owen Hart - Owen was obviously one of the best wrestlers of the late 80s and early 90s because he travelled the world and was a fan of all these styles of wrestling, watching tapes of his past, present, future, and would be opponents and incorporating what he picked up into his own style whereas Bret Hart only followed WWE and Stampede and didn't even know where the Midnight Express were to say hi to them. Owen didn't have many big programs or signature fueds in these days because he didn't stay in most places for very long. Once he settled into WWF for the money, Owen's talent was largely wasted. Even though he was rarely featured there outside of his program with Bret, which produced the best WWF match up to that point in time, and perhaps ever, and often embarrassed and mistreated, he still managed to have some good 3, 5, 10 minute matches that outshined the featured performers who were regularly doing big main events despite this being the world's only promotion that discouraged the undercarders from showing up the headliners. He always made his opponent look a lot better than they were, and he could work with literally anybody. He wasn't a look mom I'm wrestling type like Shawn Michaels who mostly just made himself stand out and tried to outshine his opponent even when he was unrealistically selling and bumping for them. Pretty much anyone Owen wrestled always seemed more fearsome than they otherwise would. Obviously, had Owen settled in NJPW, he probably would have had at least 5 great matches with both Jushin Thunder Liger & Chris Benoit, among others, but Owen's WWF stuff is still better than what anyone else was doing there in that era.

Jessica Troy - A very diverse and creative performer who is one of the best females of the 20s. She's generally a technical wrestler who works toward arm submissions, but has enough options that her matches don't seem predictable, much less formulaic and repetitive. She mixes styles seemlessly, fluidly going in and out of her armwork as opportunity permits rather than forcing a didactic style because she's supposed to be a submission wrestler. She can carry a match, and makes her opponent look better. She can do all the junior and Lucha style stuff, so it doesn't matter that much what her opponent can do, just that they can do it decently. She's capable of more thoughtful stuff, and can actually do a long match that doesn't drag, or she can go all out for 10 or 15 minutes. Her big singles matches are often some sort of gimmick or hardcore match that reminds me of the Lioness Asuka, Mayumi Ozaki, LCO stuff that made me enjoy this style in the 90s. In that tradition, working weapons into her offense in new and original ways feels like it makes the moves more dangerous, rather than just being the cosplay stuff we see in AEW where the faux tough guys gleefully jump on tacks like they are playing around in a bounce house instead of providing the illusion of danger that makes the spots actually dramatic and meaningful.

Charli Evans - You wouldn't pick CHEVS out of a lineup as the most likely to be an excellent pro wrestler, but she's deceptively good at just about everything. She's a charismatic heel who can brawl, but can also hang with anyone technically, can base, can carry a match. She's good in both singles and tag, actually managed to make some matches with the anchor Jamie Hayter watchable before forming a much more interesting team with one of my favorite UK wrestlers, Millie McKenzie, who is unfortunately out long term due to a liver transplant. Evans is still somehow not very well known, but she's had really good matches in Japan & Europe, as well as her home country Australia.

Gabe Kidd - Kidd was always a hard worker who fought a tough, hard hitting style, but he finally started coming into his own in 2025 as an overall performer. His badass character feels much less forced now that he doesn't feel the need to constantly try to convince us he's a rebel, and he's done a better job of pulling people into his matches through heart and effort because that feels more genuine. He's become more active and aggressive rather than waiting around and playing the fake tough guy game. He's at his best in 15 minute NEVER style matches where he can sprint and unload flurries. When he's forced to drag things out, he loses more than most because he still doesn't have much of a move set and feeling and emotion can't mask things forever.

El Phantasmo - ELP will never reach the level of Tarkus or Karn Evil 9, but sometimes merely being a Lucky Man will suffice. Phantasmo has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Will Ospreay departing to Khan AEW '24. He doesn't have the same level of push, but now usually a midcard champion who has taken over the role of being the heavyweight who livens things up by wrestling an exciting junior heavyweight style. He's probably going to be the lesser worker in the match if it's recommendable, but he has a good work ethic, and his matches that don't quite get there are rarely dull and tedious like the typical NJPW failure.

Rita Stone - Relentless Rita is the best of the newer Australian women. She's been wrestling 5 years, but basically all her matches have been in her home country, so it's a light schedule with less than 150 career matches in the cagematch database, which is probably 38% of what Hulk Hogan claims to have worked in 1982 when he was regularly breaking the time zone barrier. She's short, but very energetic and athletic. Definitely a good babyface that's easy to get behind. She does all the usual Lucha stuff, but is hardly a a one dimensional spitfire. Even though Madison Eagles wasn't her primary trainer, basically all these Australian girls she's worked with wind up having a good technical background and believe in utilizing submissions and escapes in their matches. Stone can hit hard and go on the mat, she can do at least a little of everything, so it doesn't really matter what style of opponent she has. Stone isn't to the level where she's going to make the match on her own, but she's a very good opponent for a better or even more experienced wrestler who can construct a match.

Natsupoi - She's good in the right type of match where she can do fast sequences and impress with her speed, athleticism, and gymnastics. Unfortunately, there are less and less of these high speed matches that were previously the best thing STARDOM had going for it since Io Shirai left. I was really unimpressed by Natsupoi's 3/9/24 performance against Sareee & Chihiro Hashimoto where she kind of killed the match because she just couldn't stand up to them and looked feeble and phony. She's just not the right opponent for those tougher and more sturdy opponents, and in that situation the more workmanlike and solid Saori Ano is going to fare better. Natsupoi is entertaining the more the match focuses on flash rather than impact, and really shines against Starlight Kid, who can lead the match, feed for her, and won't overwhelm her with power or stiffness. I wasn't big on Natsupoi before, but now I've realized she's useful against the better STARDOM wrestlers so long as they basically have the same style and put her through the sort of match where she mostly can rely on being flashy, graceful, and nimble.

Al Snow - He wasn't the most original American junior, but he could more or less do everything the ones who became more famous did, even to the point of annoying them by using their own moves against them. He had good diversity, and his adaptability was arguably his biggest strength, so even when he wrestled the same people repeatedly, the matches still varied. His good period wasn't very long because WWF had no idea how to use junior heavyweights, and wasn't serious about exciting or quality wrestling. Unfortunately, he didn't get popular until the Head thing when he was broken down and couldn't or wouldn't go anymore. His 1994 indy work holds up very well though. If he went from NWA to Japan, or even spent more time in ECW and was an anchor of their workrate oriented matches along with Jerry Lynn, his career could have turned out much differently.

Villano IV - This guy was so underrated. His brother, Villano III, usually gets more praise and credit, but it was actually Villano IV who was the best worker of the Mendoza family. Villano IV wouldn’t just sit in holds and work slow matches, Villano IV would always prefer to constantly have something happening in his matches. I like that approach, and I was definitely impressed by his work in 1992 against Pegasus Kid in LLI (sometimes referred to as UWA) in Mexico. And I also really liked his BOSJ III match from 1996 against Black Tiger II (Eddy Guerrero). So, my opinion of him went from thinking that he was just another luchador to realizing that he was actually a very underrated and super talented luchador.

Harley Race - Towards the end of 2025, I did a ‘Redefine’ article on Barry Windham to find out how the current version of me would appreciate Windham’s matches from the 1980s versus my childhood memories of Windham’s matches. What ended up happening was I was very impressed with Harley Race’s performance in his CWF 8/17/83 match against Windham. In that match, I realized that I had forgotten/overlooked how great of an NWA World Heavyweight Champion Race was, as he carried the young Windham to an excellent television bout. Race had the unique talent to command respect and make his opponent look like worthy challengers. In fact, I was so impressed with Race that I decided that one of the upcoming ‘Redefine’ issues should be about him. So, that’s something I look forward to working on at some point in 2026. His stock may or may not end up rising more in 2026 once I do the ‘Redefine’ article on him. For now, my opinion of him went from thinking he was mainly just famous to thinking that he was easily the greatest NWA World Heavyweight Champion ever.

Nick Bockwinkel - When I recently did the ‘Redefine’ article on Curt Hennig, I realized that I had completely overlooked and/or forgotten how cool and smooth Nick Bockwinkel was. He was truly a respectable old school American wrestler who had his own style and tremendous longevity. What’s also remarkable is that he was in his 50s when he was still able to have an excellent match. His famous match against Hennig on 11/15/86 took place when Bockwinkel was 52 years old. And Bockinkel was the one carrying Hennig, who had just started his peak era at 28 years old. I should probably watch more of Bockinkel’s work.

Jeff Jarrett - While doing my research for the Hall of Talent induction essay for ‘Wild Pegasus’ Chris Benoit, I watched Benoit against many international stars from all over the world. To my surprise, Jeff Jarrett stood out more than I expected. Sure, he wasn’t as spectacular nor as technically gifted as some of Benoit’s top opponents in the ‘90s were, but, in their Starrcade ‘96 match, Jarrett showed me that he truly understood and respected Benoit, and even knew how to combine their talents and make it a memorable bout. Just like Race in his ‘83 match against Windham, in this ‘96 match against Benoit, Jarrett helped me re-appreciate some of the finer qualities of American wrestling. As much as I am a fan of Japanese and Mexican pro wrestling, it’s matches like these that made me remember why I liked American wrestling quite a lot back in the day. So, basically my opinion of his work went from thinking he was just another decent-ish midcard American to a pretty darn good pro wrestler when he wanted to be.

El Samurai - This guy was even cooler than I remembered he was. He was such a reliable worker, and so unselfish. He wasn’t afraid to do cool stuff, but it never felt that he did any of that cool stuff just to put himself over. Instead, he would opt for doing things that would benefit the match as a whole (which would end up making both him and his opponent look better. Prior to 2025, I always thought of him as an inconsistent worker (and to be fair, he could have some off days for sure), but most of his matches against Wild Pegasus were so memorable that Samurai’s stock almost kept rising with each match I watched. I’m especially a big fan of his ‘95 and ‘96 BOSJ matches against Pegasus. And his TOSJ IV final from ‘93 against Pegasus is one of the more forgotten/underrated tournament finals in history. My opinion of him basically went from thinking that he was a solid hand to thinking that he is someone worth seeking out more matches of.

Jushin Thunder Liger - I have been a Liger fan for pretty much 29 years now, and I have always known about his credentials. My opinion of his work has always been high, but his position on my GOAT list would always change over the years. This year, however, I think I’ve come to the realization that he probably is the greatest Japanese pro wrestler ever. I mainly watched his tremendous series of matches against Wild Pegasus, which may very well be the best feud in pro wrestling history, and was a feud that really made Pegasus the great worker that he was. So, in my mind, Liger went from just another legend to arguably the greatest Japanese pro wrestler in history.

Chris Benoit - Now, this might sound like an odd pick for a guy who has been a Benoit fan for 30 years now. But, I think that doing the Hall of Talent essay on him really made me realize that he’s arguably the greatest men’s pro wrestler ever (rivaled by only a few). I won’t go too deep into this here now, because I just finished writing that 65,000-word essay on him (and you’ll be able to read everything in there). But, basically, my opinion of him went from thinking he was one of my personal favorites from the past to being a super strong candidate for the current #1 position on my all-time GOAT list.

Hiroshi Hase - I already thought quite highly of his ability before, but I think that somehow, this year, my appreciation for his work reached a peak. Or, at the very least, it’s for sure that his stock has risen for me this year (because who knows, he might go up even more.) I mainly saw him in action in matches with Pegasus Kid, including bouts that took place in Canada, Japan and even North Korea. What I like so much about Hase’s work is that he’s always moving forward, which is helpful in NJPW because a lot of the guys there tend to want to sit in holds and/or just go through the motions. Hase seemed to have this feeling of responsibility to motivate those around him, because he had that drive inside of him. He went from a guy I simply respect to a guy who I now actively want to watch more matches of in the near future.

Mei Suruga - I already knew the bubbly Mei Suruga was clever and likable. And she had always shown her intelligence and interest in being creative. But, her recent match against AZM made me realize she’s actually an in-ring genius. I’ve known about her potential for over five years now, and I was happy to see her prove herself in her match against AZM on 4/29/22. However, her bout against AZM on 10/30/25 blew me away, because she worked the match I always hoped she had in her but wasn’t sure she did. Now I know. Her match against AZM in STARDOM in ‘22 was refreshing, and the two did whatever they were capable of at the time and whatever the unwritten restrictions of STARDOM’s major shows have in terms of creativity. However, her 10/30/25 match in ChocoPro saw them go all out without any limits or boundaries, as they presented the type of great match they are currently capable of having. AZM had been on my radar as a top worker for a long time, and I’m happy that I can now add Mei Suruga on that list. She went from a girl I thought was super cool, to a super cool girl that’s actually also a great talented in-ring performer.

Montel Vontavious Porter - Initially, he’s actually only gone up on my list because it turned out he said nice things about two of my all-time favorites, Chris Benoit and Manami Toyota (which means he can’t be all bad, right?). I knew I kinda had to watch a match of his to justify him going on this list, though. So, I watched his WrestleMania 23 match against Chris Benoit. Now, that match was from 2007. Yep, so that means it’s from Benoit’s final year. Benoit really wasn’t himself anymore in that match, and MVP almost was more impressive than Benoit in that match. I’ll talk more about Benoit another time, let’s focus on MVP for a second or two. What I liked was how MVP actively cared and seemed enthusiastic about the opportunity of facing a legend at WrestleMania. He did some cool spots and certainly seemed quite agile. I used to really dislike MVP, but I can now safely say that I actually don’t dislike this guy anymore. Like, he’s not a guy I want to write an article about or anything, but I don’t mind watching him from time to time. He used to be a guy I would automatically skip. So, that pretty much means he went up a few hundred spots on my all-time list.

Kevin Sullivan - This guy was actually a pretty darn good brawler. And he could cut quite the excellent promo. He knew how to make brawls memorable without relying too much on weapons and blood. Sure, the weapons and blood will be part of his brawl, but it’s about the sheer violence and hatred displayed in the brawls that make it memorable. His brawls with Chris Benoit are some of the most memorable matches in WCW history. Sullivan was quite an unselfish booker, as he was rarely the center of attention. In spite of Benoit having an affair with Sullivan’s wife, Sullivan still made sure to put Benoit over in their feud (and later even made him the WCW World Heavyweight Champion in spite of the rest of the booking committee not wanting it). So, yeah, in my rankings, Sullivan went from a guy who had, like, one memorable match to someone who was actually more than just useful for one match. He proved in the 7/13/97 Bash At the Beach brawl with Benoit that he was able to relive the magic of their famous 6/16/96 Great American Bash brawl.

Dos Caras - In my mind, Dos Caras was a guy I once thought was good but was actually kind of a dull worker. This probably has a lot to do with me having come across a lot of his 1990s work in recent years, which was generally a mixed bag. However, then I recently watched some of his 1970s work in AJPW, and I was like, oh wow, I remember why I used to think this guy was excellent. I’d completely forgotten that he was one of the more interesting guys of the 70s, based on the little footage that’s available. I wish there was more footage of his prime, and I wish he had wrestled Billy Robinson in the 1970s. That would have been interesting, for sure. 

Norio Honaga - I always thought he dragged things down a lot in the NJPW junior heavyweight division. And sometimes he certainly did (like, in the classic “Norio Honaga pins your favorites” show on 9/27/94). However, I also watched some of his stuff where he really tried hard, didn’t drag things down and even exceeded expectations in terms of execution. For instance, the TOSJ III 4/26/92 match against Pegasus Kid, in which Honaga didn’t drag things down, didn’t just get carried, and even was an actively driving force for significant portions of the match.

Eddy Guerrero - I already thought the world of him, but watching a lot of his ‘90s matches once again rekindled my fascination for his work. And it turns out he had even more 4-star matches than I had realized when I initially did his Hall of Talent article, as his initial WCW run was more productive than I had realized. It’s just a minor stock rise due to the fact that he was already quite high on my all-time list.

Shawn Michaels - Growing up a fan of The Midnight Rockers, Marty Jannetty was always my guy. He was the one who made the hot tag and did the dropkicks after Michaels spent the match doing his ridiculous overselling, and he looked similar to Geoff Tate of Queensryche, in the days before Empire when they were one of the best bands America had to offer. Rewatching the AWA series against Buddy Rose & Doug Somers and Pat Tanaka & Paul Diamond, I didn't find any of these matches to be good, and consistently thought Rose, Tanaka, & Jannetty were the pluses, while Michaels overdoing things and being a wobbly woozy Terry Funk sort of clown, Somers not having a move set, and Diamond still being green (he's actually better in WWF though I'm not sure he's ever as good as the Max Moon fan in me wanted him to be) were the negatives. They basically did the same moves, but Jannetty was more realistic by being lower key and less silly and grand in his movements and mannerisms. I wouldn't call Jannetty any sort of a great wrestler based on my current mode of judgement, but I also don't think that he's particularly worse than any version of Michaels, assuming both of their heads are on straight, yet one is largely a footnote, while the other is a concensus "all-time great". Michaels star grew and Jannetty's faded fast once the team split, partly due to Jannetty's inability to not massively screw up outside the ring, but I never thought Michaels was a good singles wrestler even as a kid who basically just liked whoever jumped around, which should have made me still a huge fan of Shawn's. He always just looked like he was dancing with himself, and Billy Idol did a better job of that. He's certainly preferable to Vince's roiders and giants of the mid 80s and early 90s, but there's a big difference between a better alternative and actually good. During a period where WWF was largely very lethargic and outdated, he was less behind the times and did individual things to make the matches sometimes entertaining. When the opponent was terrible, then sure you can say at least Michaels doing a few good moves and taking a couple big bumps was something to keep the match from being a complete waste of time. It's worth something that Michaels could avoid a wholly unwatchable match against an absolute turd like Diesel because bouncing off him unbelievably was indeed more entertaining than the restholds and a couple clumsy power moves Nash would offer on his own, but even when I didn't really understand what a good match was, Michaels against another guy who interested me never really seemed to add up to anything close to the sum of the parts because they never really meshed. Having a more capable opponent doesn't really help when you aren't willing to truly work with them. Michaels didn't do better sequences or counters because he had an opponent who was capable of handling more, he just didn't work that way to being with, so it didn't really matter if he was in with someone who could chain wrestle or was also a good athlete or whatever. Unless the opponent specifically wanted a certain thing, at which point he was certainly capable of it, he was still sort of working around them because his whole style was based on him doing all the moving and them not really being necessary beyond someone to catch him or for him to bounce off of. Michaels still just took turns indescriminantly, and while both alternating playing their greatest hits might make for some good moments, it doesn't really add up to something that's particularly interesting, or make for much of a match. It feels very self-aggrandizing, like Michaels just did what he does to make himself stand out, rather than to actually help the match in any real way. Watching him with 2025 eyes, he mostly just seems like another dude with overly choreographed phony offense who does random would be flippy stuff. Sure, there was less of that in his era, but at the same time, his flying wasn't nearly as advanced as the pioneers of American junior style, much less any number of juniors in Japan, or probably even your average Lucha technico. Michaels is primarily a showman and an entertainer, a good athlete who moves in a big flamboyant manner, calling way too much attention to himself. If that's your idea of a great wrestler, then I suppose he might be good, but let's just say there are plenty of guys that do everything he does a lot more solidly and believably. I found his matches so low intensity, and wasn't believing in them at all, particularly the Vader match feels so incredibly wimpy and low stakes. Michaels can just stand there and win exchanges with his subpar striking against a guy twice his size rather than getting mauled and having to stick and move, and Vader had to pull everything so as not to break him. Comparing that to the incredibly effective Owen Hart vs. Vader from 9/20/97 where everything Vader did was leveling Owen, and Owen legitimately had to use his speed and athleticism was just a joke. I had tried watching the 1st Michaels vs. Ramon ladder match again after seeing some indy ladder matches from the era. I still can't take it seriously because Michaels makes everything so phony and overdone, but I enjoyed the ladder matches of Sabu, which just seem way more genuine to me with his reckless aggressive kamikaze style, particularly the ladder match against Al Snow is still quite enjoyable. The Montreal double cross might have been good if it went to the finished Bret was expecting, but what we got was mostly just solid brawling . At some point after being consistently underwhelmed, I started watching more Michaels matches because this guy had to be better than I thought he was by virtue of everyone falling backwards over him acting like he's the greatest WWF wrestler of all-time. I feel like people really have rose colored glasses for this guy because the WWF was just so ruined by oversized and overmuscled guys for such a lengthy period, and at least Michaels wasn't that. AJ Styles is more like the guy everyone remember Shawn Michaels being, a really athletic guy who was also a diverse, capable and unselfish pro wrestler who understood how to get a better match out of a wide variety of opponents, not just a dude whose offense wasn't even that good who liked to bounce around and was almost always just doing his own thing whether the opponent could work or not. The more Michaels I watched, the more I saw a lot of the stuff that makes me not care about modern wrestling. Like, sure, at the time he was doing it there weren't 500 other guys that alternated between standing around and doing really contrived overly showy sequences with too much choreography and too little urgency, but at this point, I get about as excited about seeing him as I do the Jungle Jackass. I just don't believe in what he's doing, and I don't believe in what he's passing off as being a match. Michaels offense was so low impact all around in the 80s and early 90s, but he became better at mixing it up later on. Even though an athletic wrestler can sometimes get away with that, it's really straining credibility that he's relying on the kiss that don't miss except the majority of the time that it actually does (or just grazes) to just randomly KO guys that have at least 50 pounds on him. His whole aura is just entitlement. The athletic underdog overcoming the odds against the bigger stronger opponent is in my wheelhouse, but someone like Lio Rush makes you feel like he earned whatever offense he gets, whereas Michaels just comes off as such a spoiled diva in the mid 90s who dominates for the same reason anyone else ever dominated in WWE, because Vince McMahon was into them. In the 00's, Michaels did less weak looking offense and actually worked with the opponent a little more, but in the end, he didn't have many actual good matches, and the few matches I still like such as 9/22/96 vs. Mankind are more good in spite of him than because of him.

Terry Funk - He's such an unserious person. Normally, I would prefer the wrestler who changed with the times and did his best to stay modern, but Dory Funk Jr. was always credible because he kept it simple and stuck to what he did well and believably. Late Dory might not be exciting, but I've rarely thought Dory made a fool of himself or tarnished his legacy. Terry on the other hand, good god... Terry had talent when he was young in spite of being in the silly overselling Brisco camp, which already made his wild and crazy guy routine only slightly more serious than Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin's version, and at least the Festrunk brothers never did a bit where they just endlessly wailed "my eye, my eye". Terry was sometimes good in the 70s and early 80s when he wasn't just clowning around, but he's just embarassing after he reinventing himself as an old codger trying to incorporate a bunch of moves he couldn't perform even half decently into woozy brawls that were about as serious as Jackie Chan's drunken master routine, without any of Jackie's mastery. He could have been a feared brawler if he was willing to lean into his craziness in any sort of a serious way, but I'm sorry, this was a guy who couldn't perform most of what he was trying to do, and made matches that should have been dangerous into clown shows. Funk's 93-94 feud with Sabu, and any of his early ECW stuff is just plain sad, particularly that insufferable neverending 3 way with Sabu & Shane Douglas that started off passably until he got involved, and he's decidedly the anchor humiliating himself through his typical phony, corny, and sloppy attempts to remain relevant.

Io Shirai - When she was a great wrestler in the mid 10s, she could do a lot of different styles and put them all together into something interesting, even though it was mainly aerial based. She also used to put a lot of effort into working with her opponent to both craft more interesting sequences and make them look better. In WWE, she does one thing, jump around, and doesn't even do it that in a compelling manner. The main issue is she hasn't been a serious wrestler from the moment she set foot in WWE in 2018. That seems like a lifetime ago. She can still do everything she used to do, more or less as well, but she peacocks and spasms nonsensically in between. It's so cringy and embarrassing. There's no intensity or desire to do anything beyond her empty and uninspired routine. Her match with Mayu Iwatani, previously her best opponent who she had 2 great matches against in 2016, was the disappointment of the year even though my expectations were pretty low to begin with. There was no attempt to actually work together, even to repeat their old sequences much less do any new ones. Everything was do a move then stop, so usually Io could preen and Mayu could flail. Unlike the hopeless AEW women's division, there are some WWE women's matches I like, it's just that none of them involve Io, and even when it seems like her match should be good, for instance the 5/13/24 match against Shayna Baszler, it's Io that's simply not up to doing anything beyond what she always does. Asuka didn't humiliate herself in WWE, and had a number of good matches because she actually took it seriously and still tried to wrestle as best as she could even though she had to adapt her style quite a bit for the worse. Io has been content to simply do some things and play to the crowd. Becky Lynch definitely shouldn't be having good matches if Io can't.

Barry Windham - Windham was my favorite wrestler as a kid in 1985, and I was heartbroken when he just disappeared and I didn't see him again for years since Vince controlled the New York territory to the point where we couldn't see any other leagues outside of whatever ESPN was televising. Due to not being able to see him, and reading people rave about his matches elsewhere later on, he carried this mythological standing where I was just deprived of seeing his best stuff, but it was there, somewhere, it had to be even in absence of it ever seeming to turn up. I can still see what excited me about him, he was an energetic enough babyface that you actively wanted to root for. He didn't have any real offense until much later. In the 80s, Windham had a good punch and elbow, and was willing to run and throw a dropkick. It didn't help that Mike Rotondo did that much less, and lacked Windham's fire and charisma. Face Windham seemingly only made for a notable match against Harley Race because Race had a real move set that was beyond most of the faces had in those day even though he was a heel. Ultimately, I like Windham better as a heel against an opponent who actually did things. This wasn't really happening until the early 90s, where he's having more interesting matches in WCW involving Brad Armstrong, Tim Horner, Brian Pillman, Ricky Steamboat, etc. I think he's better as a solid tag wrestler like, and actually with Arn Anderson. He makes the opponent look good, and does enough to keep advancing the match. In the end, I still like Windham, but he's nowhere near the perception people have of him being one of the absolute best wrestlers of the 1980s, and I think his early 90s WCW work before he wrecked his knee. Most of his matches are at the watchable or okay sort of level. He's definitely more a guy who does what little he does well, but still needs to be surrounded by high quality than one who was pulling good matches out of people.

RVD - If you want a high flyer with any speed, flow, or fluidity, look elsewhere. RVD's nickname should have been "Wholly Fuck, I'm slow". He was basically a tortoise paced robot who crawled through his forms without being able to make anyone care about anything he was doing. I've enjoyed most of Sabu's early feuds, until these 1996 messes vs. RVD, who Sabu is just waiting around for endlessly to get around to doing literally anything. RVD can jump, but he gets off the canvas as quickly as someone with a double hip replacement, and generally spends most of these matches moving like Rip Van Winkle after his 20 year nap. They just take turns in these meandering clusterfucks with way too much laying around. The cooperation is so obvious every time the opponent is waiting for RVD to get around to doing his clunky parts that the whole match just seems like it's wrestled underwater.

Ricochet - He just doesn't work as a heel. His talent is being a flashy and exciting flippy guy. When he's being methodical and lethargic, all his liabilities are exposed. He's just gotten so slow that the cooperation in the style he used to do well is pretty startling, even by AEW standards. He no longer does the gymnastics counters that were the thing that once made him cool. He largely just seems to be mailing it in, but the stalling heel style plagues AEW to the point it's sometimes difficult to determine who is actually trying and just thinks this bs makes for good wrestling for some unknown reason. I thought Ricochet had 5 good matches when he joined AEW at the end of 2024, but in 2025 he didn't show much motivation, and the only match I liked was 1/5 vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

Rocco Rock - I remembered him being one of the more useful ECW wrestlers who weren't just some obvious great that had been primarily working in Japan or Mexico. I didn't expect him to have many notable matches because he was dragged down by his partner, Johhnny Grunge, and some lousy opponents such as The Gangstas. The ECW tag division has been quite disappointing in general. The Steiners had a couple of good matches even though they were only there for a second, but the actual named ECW teams broke some tables and battered each other with chairs, but never actually delivered anything really cohesive and coherent. By the standard of the division, Rocco was still one of the best because he did 1 or 2 cool flying moves, but I can't really point to any actual good matches or performances he gave. Ultimately, he's mostly an adequate brawler who saw what Sabu was doing and souped up a couple of his old Cheetah Kid flying moves by adding a table.

Juventud Guerrera - I was under the impression that Juventud's matches against Rey Misterio Jr. were of similar quality matches to Psicosis' matches with Rey. This was not at all the case. Psicosis made Misterio 10x better, Juventud was another guy who did lesser versions of similar flips and not much else to actually help the match. The Rey vs. Juventud matches are still good for the time period because the offense is so far beyond what most other guys were doing, but for the most part, they were getting in their own way even trying to get their great offense in. Juventud really should just have been a technico because he really didn't do rudo things all that well, but his offense was better than just about any babyface.

Dishonorable mention:

Tony Khan - I try to be positive in life, but you still have to have some discernment over who and what is actually good, and who and what is going to accentuate the strengths you have at your disposal. You can't just say everything is great, every match is going to be 5 stars because Dave Meltzer exists to fawn over everything I do, and somehow think this is going to continue to be interesting to anyone else in absense of any logic or reason as to why something should be happening. Obviously, we already knew this guy had no idea who was good, who fit together well, how to create a star or even elevate anyone, why anyone should be getting a title shot (they just came back from a movie shoot or an injury is not a storyline reason), but he's fallen into the most boring and predictable formula ever for every PPV. Take your worst performers Jon Moxley, Kazuchika Okada, Mercedes Mone, Toni Storm, Kyle Fletcher, MJF, Bobby Lashley, and have them all win virtually every time in matches with no drama they ensure won't be worth watching. Stick everyone else in either a contrived gimmick matches where they gleefully jump on implements of torture because they are gimmicked rather than actually creating any drama for the bumps or a 3 or 4 way match that's 10x more contrived than your average match because there's people that have nothing to do and call it a day. Wash, rinse, repeat... Virtually everyone who isn't in the same spot in AEW today as they were the month they joined the company is in a worse spot because Tony doesn't understand how to elevate anyone. The same people always win. No one ever goes on a real run, has a hot month or two where they string together 3 to 5 legitimately good wins before finally losing a big match. When Tony accidentally does something right such as getting Tomasso Ciampa over by giving him a title in his first AEW match, he then immediately undercuts that by having him lose to the fan gazer Kyle Fletcher, a result he should have held off for at least 6 months. This guy just can't get out of his own way. He thinks losing a competitive match is elevation, which can help when done sparingly (largely for young up and coming wrestlers) and backed up by actual focus and eventual wins, but when 90% of AEW matches are 50/50, one isn't really more competitive than the other even if it happens to go 5 or 10 minutes longer. No one was falling for his nonsense of having his not really stars lose to the guys that always win on Dynamite and then beat a jabronie on Collision to even their record a couple years ago, much less now that he's just endlessly repeated that same formula to no gain month after month. What this league used to have going for it is that they had a lot of talent, and the guys were trying hard, but after everyone realized there was no upwards mobility no matter how hard they worked or how well they wrestled because the booker is obtuse and were consistenly put in silly segments to make them look stupid, they mostly stopped taking it seriously and decided to preserve themselves by goofing off and generally just being out there for shits and giggles. Virtually every match is a 50/50 where the face shows no urgency outside of basically Kyle O'Reilly, the heel stalls the moment they go on offense, and the already contrived wannabe lucha stuff looks super contrived because they are just eventually walking back to each other and starting a cold sequence off the stalling rather than at least trying to cover things somewhat by being quick and opportunistic. AEW was such an unserious promotion in 2025, and that was largely without the world's stalest clown, Old Cassidy. Collision sometimes has a good match involving FTR, but I'm increasingly looking at the results and deleting Dynamite without even watching a match, and despite the claims that every PPV is better than AJW Dreamslam, almost nothing on any of them is actually interesting anymore because the least skilled workers take up the majority of the real estate and there's no real hope of any of that changing beyond basically something unfortunate happening like the Lashley injury.

3 Way Matches - I never really cared for these, but at least when you only got a few a year, they were a novelty. I can theoretically get interested in the Royal Rumble once a year because it's something very different even though it doesn't really deliver much useful wrestling even in the best of times. The problem with a lot of the modern style already is there's no urgency. From the moment the heel goes on offense, they just waste time then eventually stroll over and do another overly cooperative sequence. The lucha wannabe stuff comes off really badly when there's no speed or hustle in or out of it, everything looks phony if you don't work against that. Now add in a person having no role in the action most of the time, and literally all you are doing is pointing out how obviously choreographed everything is. 2 guys taking turns while 1 illogically plays dead for 3 minutes from something they would normally get up from in 10 seconds, hoping you don't catch them peeking over the apron checking if it's time for them to reincarnate, is just not where anyone should want to be in pro wrestling. None of this feels remotely organic or realistic. Anything you can accomplish in a 3 way you can do in a tag match, and then there's actually reason for 2 guys not to be doing anything most of the time.

Villano III - This guy may have been good in 1981, but he was so boring in the 90s (and beyond). He enjoys doing as little as possible in his matches. If lying on the mat for great lengths of time makes you a great technical master, then this guy was certainly the man. I always thought Villano III was the best of the Villanos, and that’s what we’re supposed to believe. But, I can assure you that that definitely wasn’t the case.

Barry Windham - He unfortunately didn't live up to my childhood memories or his perpetual role as Heavyweight champion in my wrestling simulator. See my Redefine article on Barry Windham in the 1980s.

Johnny Smith - This guy was super uneventful and uninspiring in Stampede. Like, he wasn’t horrible or anything. But, because he was often in matches with guys like Chris Benoit, Dynamite Kid, Davey Boy Smith, I mistakenly believed that he would be as useful as Biff Wellington, for example. Instead, he was just slightly better than Ben Bassarab. So, it's just the association with some of those other Stampede guys that made me believe he was better than he actually was. I don’t mind watching his matches too much, but I am definitely not seeking out any of his work on purpose.

Kensuke Sasaki - This guy barely did anything that was exceptional. He was just kinda there. Like, he was not bad or anything, but Hiroshi Hase and the other people in the match really carried Kensuke Sasaki. When I think of Kensuke Sasaki these days, I just think of him as Akira Hokuto’s husband, not as a noteworthy worker. It’s mainly ‘90s stuff that I watched recently. I know that in the 2000s, he does all the famous chopping (vs. Kobashi), for whatever that’s worth, but Sasaki basically went in my mind from, like, a good and notable worker to just a guy who was there. Like, he certainly wasn’t terrible. It’s just that his ‘stock’ clearly went down on my list, as his ‘90s stuff wasn’t as good as I thought it was.

Alex Wright - This guy was way too tall to be a cruiserweight/junior heavyweight. He had a couple of impressive moves, but they always looked kinda awkward. Plus, he couldn’t really work a match. In my imagination, he was a guy who could kinda hang in there with some of the top guys, but rewatching some of his work made me realize how tough it was for his opponents to carry him.

Ric Flair - What a buffoon. Maybe if it was 1990 right now, I would have appreciated his work more. However, the more time goes on, the more dated and repetitive Flair’s work looks.

Tully Blanchard - My opinion of his work seemingly goes up and down all the time. Sometimes I think he’s overrated, sometimes I think he was a smart worker. Currently, I think he was just an exaggerated character that fit perfectly with the likes of characters like the comedy worker Ric Flair and to a lesser extent the occasional clown Arn Anderson. I was definitely not impressed with what I watched recently for my Barry Windham article. To be honest, whenever I think of Blanchard these days, I think of Tessa.

Raven - I still love the character Raven, and the person Raven is still fascinating. He put so much thought into his character work, and he has been sharing many interesting comments and stories in (shoot) interviews. However, the wrestler Raven really wasn’t that good… even less good than I remembered. I tried to give one of his matches versus Benoit a recommendable rating, but I just couldn’t find one that was worthy of recommendation. I’ll always have fond memories of him being one of my favorite wrestlers when I was a teenager, though. Quoth the Raven, nevermore!

Honorable mention:

Alexa Grasso - I know she’s an MMA fighter, and I rarely talk about MMA, but this has to be mentioned, as Alexa Grasso is one of my personal all-time favorite MMA fighters. She’s just totally awesome. But, this year, on my birthday of all days, she let me down big time. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but she lost a fight that should have propelled her back to title contention, yet instead, she was now finding herself having to work her way up again. And this all coincided with me finding myself not paying much attention to MMA anymore. Alexa Grasso was going to be the one to take me from pro wrestling fandom to MMA fandom, but that never ended up happening (thankfully, because I much prefer pro wrestling, lol). I guess it was simply meant to be. And here we are, and as you’ve probably noticed lately, I’m back in full force writing about pro wrestling again.