After fourteen months out of action, Kenny Omega returned to the ring at Wrestle Dynasty and looked like he'd never left. His match with Gabe Kidd in the semi-main event of that show was the easy winner of the match of the week and will finish very high, if not at the top, in the year end rankings.
It was a stunning display of athleticism and storytelling as well as reading the crowd that wanted to cheer for Gabe Kidd and Omega adjusted to give them what they wanted. All of this resulted in a match that was pretty universally praised. It would've been third on my list for 2024 and I'm sure would've topped many people's lists.
That was far from the only excellent match over the last week that I saw. Out of 78 total matches, 12 of them were 4.25* or better which means a couple of them didn't even crack the top 10!
Over the period of December 30-January 5, I watched matches from the following shows, including a few that took place prior to December 30th: WWE RAW, WWE NXT, JCW Deck the Jaws (aired December 19), IWS Hardcore (aired December 20), WWE Main Event (aired December 27), NXT Lvl Up (aired December 27), AEW Dynamite, TNA Impact, ROH on Honor Club, WWE Smackdown, NJPW Wrestle Kingdom, AEW Collision and NJPW Wrestle Dynasty.
Here is my top 10 for the week. The beginning of each entry is my personal star rating with the Dave Meltzer star rating (when available) and Cagematch rating listed at the end.
1. 5.75* Kenny Omega beat Gabe Kidd at Wrestle Dynasty on January 5. 9.70/10 on Cagematch
2. 4.75* Konosuke Takeshita retained his AEW International title and won the IWGP Never Openweight title over Shingo Takagi at Wrestle Kingdom on January 4. 8.19/10 on Cagematch
3. 4.5* Konosuke Takeshita retained the AEW International and IWGP Never Openweight titles over Tomohiro Ishii at Wrestle Dynasty. 8.78/10 on Cagematch
4. 4.5* Yota Tsuji won the IWGP Global title over David Finlay at Wrestle Kingdom. 8.51/10 on Cagematch
5. 4.5* Zack Sabre Jr retained the IWGP Heavyweight title over Ricochet at Wrestle Dynasty. 7.96/10 on Cagematch
6. 4.5* Zack Sabre Jr retained the IWGP Heavyweight title over Shota Umino at Wrestle Kingdom. 6.61/10 on Cagematch
7. 4.5* Daniel Garcia retained the AEW TNT title over Mark Briscoe at AEW Collisioin on January 4. 7.33/10 on Cagematch
8. 4.25* Mayu Iwatani retained the IWGP Women's title over AZM at Wrestle Kingdom. 7.88/10 on Cagematch
9. 4.25* Mercedes Mone retained the New Japan Strong title and won the RevPro Undisputed Women's British title over Mina Shirakawa at Wrestle Dynasty. 7.88/10 on Cagematch
10. 4.25* Jacob Fatu/Solo Sikoa/Tama Tonga beat Sami Zayn/Jimmy Uso/Jey Uso at WWE Smackdown on January 3. 6.60/10 on Cagematch
The following matches were also rated 4.25* but didnt' crack the top 10:
The Ichiban Sweet Boys (Kosei Fujita/Robbie Eagles) won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag team titles in a Tokyo Terror Ladder match over Bullet Club War Dogs (Clark Connors/Drilla Moloney), Intergalactic Jet Setters (Kushida/Kevin Knight) and Catch 2/2 (Francesco Akira/TJP).
Team Rated FTR (Dax Harwood/Cash Wheeler/Cope) beat The Learning Tree (Chris Jericho/Bryan Keith/Big Bill) at AEW Collision. 6.49/10 on Cagematch
