Over the span of 2024, I watched over 3800 pro wrestling matches. Those matches stretched across AEW, WWE, New Japan, TNA, ROH and many others.
Of all those matches, one stood above them all in my opinion and it was the near one hour classic on AEW Dynamite in July for the International title between Will Ospreay and MJF. It looked like it was headed to a draw before MJF won in the literal last minute and took the title from Ospreay. This led to the new champion re-christening his belt as the American Championship. He defended the title until All In when he lost it back to Ospreay in another great match.
Presented here are my top 30 matches of the year. Why 30? Well, that just happens to be the number of matches I rated at 5* or better. Of those 30 matches, Will Ospreay had 12, including the top four and six of the top seven. It was obviously a hell of a year for him and, spoiler alert, he fared very well in my Wrestler of the Year rankings which will come out later this week.
Since several matches in the top 30 had the same rating, I used a tiebreaker system to rank the matches. The first tie-breaker is Dave Meltzer's star rating which are available for most, but not all, of the top 30 matches. The second tie breaker is the cagematch rating. Each entry starts with my rating and at the end of it, the Meltzer star rating and the Cagematch core.
Without further ado, the top 30 matches of 2024!
1. 6* MJF defeated Will Ospreay at AEW Dynamite on July 17 to win the AEW International title. 5.75* from Dave Meltzer; 8.41/10 on Cagematch.
2. 6* Will Ospreay beat Bryan Danielson at AEW Dynasty on April 21. 5.5* from Dave Meltzer; 9.69/10 on Cagematch.
3. 5.75* Will Ospreay defended his AEW International title against PAC at AEW All Out on September 7. 5.5* from Dave Meltzer; 9.27/10 on Cagematch.
4. 5.75* Josh Alexander beat Will Ospreay at TNA Impact on January 18. 5.5* from Dave Meltzer; 9.18/10 on Cagematch.
5. 5.5* Kazuchika Okada beat Bryan Danielson at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom on January 4. 5.25* from Dave Meltzer; 9.24/10 on Cagematch.
6. 5.5* Will Ospreay beat Kyle Fletcher at AEW Dynamite on March 6. 5* from Dave Meltzer; 8.65/10 on Cagematch.
7. 5.5* David Finlay, Clark Connors, Drilla Moloney, Gabe Kidd and Alex Coughlin beat Will Ospreay, Jeff Cobb, Aaron Henare, TJP and Francesco Akira in a Steel Cage match at NJPW New Beginning on Feb 11. 4.25* from Dave Meltzer; 8.97/10 on Cagematch.
8. 5.25* Will Ospreay beat Konosuke Takeshita at AEW Revolution on March 3. 5.75* from Dave Meltzer; 9.46/10 on Cagematch.
9. 5.25* Zack Sabre Jr beat Bryan Danielson at NJPW New Beginning. 5.5* from Dave Meltzer; 9.66/10 on Cagematch.
10. 5.25* Bryan Danielson won the AEW World Title over Swerve Strickland at AEW All Out on August 25. 5.25* from Dave Meltzer; 9.68/10 on Cagematch.
11. 5.25* CM Punk beat Drew McIntyre in a Hell in a Cell match at WWE Bad Blood on October 5. 5* from Dave Meltzer; 9.42* on Cagematch.
12. 5.25* Darby Allin beat Will Ospreay in a Continental Classic Gold League match at AEW Dynamite on December 18. 5* from Dave Meltzer; 9.18/10 on Cagematch.
13. 5.25* Jon Moxley beat Shingo Takagi in a no-DQ match at NJPW Battle in the Valley on January 13. 5* from Dave Meltzer; 8.57/10 on Cagematch.
14. 5.25* Kazuchia Okada beat Will Ospreay at NJPW Battle in the Valley. 5* from Dave Meltzer; 8.57/10 on Cagematch.
15. 5.25* Cody Rhodes won the WWE Universal Championship from Roman Reigns at WWE WrestleMania Night 2. 4.75* from Dave Meltzer; 9.22/10 on Cagematch.
16. 5.25* Tetsuya Naito retained his IWGP title at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom. 4.5* from Dave Meltzer; 8.33/10 on Cagematch.
17. 5.25* Cody Rhodes retained his WWE Universal Championship against AJ Styles at WWE Backlash on May 4. 4.5* from Dave Meltzer; 8.11/10 on Cagematch.
18. 5.25* Kazuchika Okada won the Continential Classic Championship in the tournament final over Will Ospreay at AEW World's End on December 28. 9.36/10 on Cagematch.
19. 5* Konosuke Takeshita won the AEW International title over Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher at AEW WrestleDream on October 12. 5.5* from Dave Meltzer; 9.16/10 on Cagematch.
20. 5* Kyle Fletcher beat Will Ospreay at AEW Full Gear on November 23. 5.25* from Dave Meltzer; 9.14/10 on Cagematch.
21. 5* Mercedes Mone retained her NJPW Strong Women's championship against Hazuki at NJPW Strong Style Evolved on December 15. 4.75* from Dave Meltzer; 9.16/10 on Cagematch.
22. 5* Zack Sabre Jr beat Shingo Takagi in the G1 A Block Final match at G1 Climax Night 13 on August 17. 4.75* from Dave Meltzer; 8.8/10 on Cagematch.
23. 5* Private Party (Marc Quen/Isaiah Kassidy) beat the Young Bucks (Matthew and Nicholas Jackson) to win the AEW World tag team titles at AEW Dynamite on October 30. 4.75* from Dave Meltzer; 8.47/10 on Cagematch.
24. 5* Mark Briscoe beat Kyle Fletcher in a Continental Classic Blue League Match at AEW Collision on December 14. 4.75* from Dave Meltzer; 8.32/10 on Cagematch.
25. 5* Hangman Page and Swerve Strickland wrestled to a 30 minute draw at AEW Dynamite on February 7. 4.5* from Dave Meltzer; 8.86/10 on Cagematch.
26. 5* Mark Briscoe retained the ROH World title over Roderick Strong at Death Before Dishonor on July 26. 4.5* from Dave Meltzer; 8.53/10 on Cagematch.
27. 5* Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii and Hiroshi Tanahashi retained the Never Openweight Six Man titles against Mikey Nichols, Shane Haste and Kosei Fujita at NJPW Road to New Beginning on January 24. 4.25* from Dave Meltzer; 8.37/10 on Cagematch.
28. 5* The Rock and Roman Reigns beat Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins in a Bloodline Rules match at WWE WrestleMania Night 1 on April 6. 4* from Dave Meltzer; 7.39/10 on Cagematch.
29. 5* Tetsuya Naito retained his IWGP Heavyweight title over Yota Tsuji at NJPW Sakura Genesis on April 6. 3.75* from Dave Meltzer; 7.6/10 on Cagematch.
30. 5* Will Ospreay beat Kyle Fletcher in a Continental Classic Semi-Final match at AEW World's End. 8.92/10 on Cagematch.
