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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > 2022's Best and Worst Pro-Wrestling Matches of the Year (plus Recommended)

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

And that's a wrap!

Top 22 MotYC Participants

Moxley's lead was big enough to hold up during the last quarter of the year. Fenix was a surprise, adding a big 6 matches to his list -- turns out wrestling a lot of great trios matches will do that for you. (Yes, he really did have six more MOTYCs than Penta -- AAA, a match at that Ric Flair show, some Rampage, etc.)

16: Jon Moxley
14: Rey Fenix
13: Kazuchika Okada
13: Nick Jackson
13: Matt Jackson
12: Will Ospreay
12: Bryan Danielson
12: Dax Harwood
11: PAC
11: Chris Jericho
10: Sammy Guevara
10: Cash Wheeler
10: Tomohiro Ishii
10: Zack Sabre Jr.
9: Shingo Takagi
8: Hangman Adam Page
8: Jungle Boy
8: Darby Allin
8: Swerve Strickland
8: Penta El Zero M
8: Eddie Kingston
8: Wheeler Yuta

203 wrestlers had MotYC nods in 2022, down from 294 last year.

Top 20 HM Participants

Mox didn't wind up winning here, but tied for second is pretty respectable. Nice to see DOUKI slipping in there!

15: Penta El Zero M
14: Orange Cassidy
14: Darby Allin
14: Jon Moxley
14: Bryan Danielson
13: Rey Fenix
13: Wheeler Yuta
12: Jamie Hayter
12: Toni Storm
11: Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D.
11: Dante Martin
11: Swerve Strickland
10: Adam Cole
10: Trent? Beretta
10: Will Ospreay
10: PAC
9: El Desperado
9: Sammy Guevara
9: Chris Jericho
9: DOUKI

357 wrestlers got HM nods in 2022, down from 447 last year.

Charts

Thanlis fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jan 1, 2023

# ¿ Jan 4, 2022 00:17

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 12:11

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

Thanks for those stats you put together for the last thread, Thanlis, they were really fascinating!

It is exactly the kind of geeky thing I find fun, so that works out well for everyone! I dropped the final stats for 2021 in this thread. Thanks for all the work you do maintaining this.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2022 00:46

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

All from Wrestle Kingdom 16, 1/4, night 1:

WMOTYC: EVIL vs. Ishii
MOTYC: Okada vs. Takagi
MOTYC: Shibata vs. ~MYSTERY MAN~
MOTYC: Desperado vs. Hiromu
HM: Dangerous Tekkers vs. Goto & YOSHI-HASHI

My third Wrestle Kingdom, the worst so far, but still sets a good bar for the rest of the year. Despy and Hiromu elevated to MOTYC for me when they started throwing those closed fist punches out of sheer intensity. I originally hoped that was going to close out the feud but now I'm OK with it going another year. I liked the tag championship match but we really need to get G1 ZSJ into these tag matches, he's too good to be the perennial guy who takes the beat down before Taichi saves him.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2022 18:20

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

MOTYC: Hangman Adam Page (C) vs. Bryan Danielson for the AEW World Title - AEW Dynamite 1/5

Picked right back up from their hour-long draw and kept up the same quality, with wonderful callbacks to that first match and notable matches of the past (including to one of the judge's own career), both these guys are insanely good. Crazy match, hot crowd, great finish. Hell yeah.

Nth; they took the first match and built on it in different ways, which was cool.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2022 02:39

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

DarkstarIV posted:

WMOTYC: Jade Cargill vs Ruby Soho, TBS Title Match, AEW: Dynamite 1/5/22

Yah � I can�t nth this cause of the outcome although I agree with you, it was just a very clumsy match and your tournament finals shouldn�t be like that. The bar needs to be higher.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2022 04:19

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

HM: 2.0 & Daniel Garcia vs. Proud 'n' Powerful & Eddie Kingston in a Street Fight - AEW Rampage 1/7

This was a chaotic mess and I loved every single second of it. 2.0 have just blown me away since they showed up in AEW.

Nth; actually might have been MOTYC without the forced break in rhythm of the commercial break.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2022 06:32

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Lamuella posted:

HM: Eddie Kingston vs Gabriel Kidd, New Japan Strong, January 8. A King's Road vs Strong Style epic, as performed by an angry kid from Nottingham and a dirtbag from Yonkers. Eddie has the emotion of the wild veteran, Kidd has the fire of a young Shibata protégé. The strikes and throws here are great, and a version of this match that had a story going into it would be in MOTYC territory.

Nth. Worth making time for this. I love Eddie in AEW but this is non-goofy Eddie and it�s nice.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2022 01:05

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Dango Bango posted:

HM: Orange Cassidy & Kris Statlander vs. Adam Cole & Britt Baker, AEW Dynamite 1/19

Nth.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 06:00

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

MOTYC: 1/23 GCW WRLD - Team Bandido (Bandido, ASF, & Laredo Kid) vs. Team Gringo (Gringo Loco, Arez, & Demonic Flamita)

Luchamazing, as they say. Total clusterfuck but also awesome.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2022 02:44

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

HM: 1/23 GCW WRLD - Blake Christian vs. Lio Rush

Wish this had ended as well as it started but I sure loved the opening. These two should work together a bunch.

Laughed my rear end off at the Cardona/Janela match but it got too overbooked for me to nom it. Which isn�t to say I didn�t like it a lot.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2022 04:22

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

quote:

MOTY: Sammy Guevara vs. Cody Rhodes, AEW Dynamite 1/26

Nth wtf I can�t even quote properly

# ¿ Jan 27, 2022 02:26

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

HM: Orange Cassidy vs. Adam Cole in a Lights Out Match - AEW Dynamite Beach Break 1/26

Really, really fun match though the structure got a little weird at points. Loved the ending though.

Nth.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2022 04:00

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Macksy posted:

WMOTY Seth Rollins vs Roman Reigns royal rumble 2022 - Roman is a bad actor and wrestler and his matches where he dunks on his geek opponent because he's just so strong is so loving boring and drags on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on

Nth, that got dumb quickly.

Kevino07 posted:

WMOTYC: Bobby Lashley vs Brock Lesnar (c) for the WWE Championship, WWE Royal Rumble 1/29

Nth, that got dumb quickly.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2022 04:31

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Punch McLightning posted:

WMOTYC: Men's Royal Rumble

gently caress this company

I gotta nth this just for Shane in the final four.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2022 06:01

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

HM: PAC & Penta El Zero M vs. The Kings of the Black Throne - AEW Dynamite 2/2

Two loving metal tag teams having a hell of a great match. Wonderful stuff, so exciting!

Nth, really enjoyed this one.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2022 17:27

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

MOTYC: Mox/Punk vs. FTR, AEW Dynamite, 2/9/2022

# ¿ Feb 10, 2022 03:22

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Rarity posted:

MOTYC: Hangman Page vs. Lance Archer, AEW Dynamite, 09/02

Rarity posted:

HM: Jade Cargill vs. AQA, AEW Dynamite, 09/02

Nth and nth. This poo poo is free!

# ¿ Feb 10, 2022 04:01

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

HM: The Young Bucks vs. CHAOS (Rocky Romero & Trent?) - AEW Rampage 2/11

You'll be shocked to learn the Young Bucks were in a great match! This was awesome, equal parts funny and excellent wrestling.

Nth, best spot fest I�ve seen in a while.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2022 04:25

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Cerebral Bore posted:

MOTYC: El Desperado vs Master Wato NJPW Golden Series 11.02

Started a bit slow, but once it got going it got going real good.

Nth. Wato has come a tremendously long way.

Also from NJPW Golden Series 2022-02-11:

HM: O-Khan vs. Kojima

# ¿ Feb 13, 2022 03:44

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

HM: Bryan Danielson vs. Lee Moriarty - AEW Dynamite 2/16

Right right right right right on the cusp of a MOTYC. Moriarty REALLY stepped up and Danielson was incredible.

Jerusalem posted:

HM: Thunder Rosa vs. Mercedes Martinez in a No Disqualification Match - AEW Dynamite 2/16

Nth on these.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2022 06:51

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Cerebral Bore posted:

HM: #10 vs BUDGE AEW Rampage 18.02

Ten stepped up his game massively here. Dude looked like an absolute killer.

E:

HM: Dante Martin vs Will Hobbs AEW Rampage 18.02

I hear that Dante Martin was legally required to register himself as an aircraft before this match.

Cerebral Bore posted:

MOTYC: Trent Beretta vs The Detested Knife Pervert AEW Rampage 18.02

FUUUCK YOUUUU SWITCHBLADE

Nth on all three of these.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2022 02:35

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

MOTYC: Hiroshi Tanahashi (C) vs. SANADA for the IWGP US Championship - NJPW Golden Series 2/19

Nth, really sharp match.

Also:

HM: Flying Tigers vs. Team 6 and 9 vs. BC�s Cutest Tag Team vs. Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & Kanemaru) - NJPW Golden Series 2/19

Fun spot fest and I have to recognize the glory of that one �rana.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2022 19:01

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

MOTYC: Jake Something vs. Ace Austin vs. Chris Bey vs. Mike Bailey - Impact No Surrender, 2/19/2022

Excellent spot fest that was way more coherent than your usual multi-man, with at least two �whoa� spots. Didn�t know any of these guys and I still loved it.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2022 03:28

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

MOTYC: Kazuchika Okada (C) vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship - NJPW Golden Series 2/20

Nth. There is still nothing in the world of professional wrestling that compares to the best NJPW title matches.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2022 17:53

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Kevino07 posted:

All from Dynamite 2/23

HM: Tag Team Battle Royale for a place in the Revolution Tag Team Championship match
HM: PAC & Pentagon Obscuro vs. The Knights of the Black Throne
HM: Bryan Danielson vs. Daniel Garcia

Nth on these.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2022 00:51

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Seams posted:

HM: Bryan Danielson vs Christopher Daniels, AEW Dynamite, 2/3

Nth certainly.

Jerusalem posted:

HM: Tag Team Elimination Battle Royale - AEW Dynamite 3/2

Making this staggered entrances was a great idea and the match was fantastic to watch from start to incredible finish.

Also nth, very enjoyable and managed to be very different from last week�s tag team battle royale.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2022 03:31

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

SG Bamboo posted:

NJPW New Japan Cup Night 1 March 2nd
MOTYC
Kazuchika Okada vs El Desperado
- loving. Rad

HM
TAKA Michinoku vs CIMA
- Great way to start off the night, Taka looked great as a singles guy

Nth on these, it�s nice to see NJC becoming a showcase for the juniors.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2022 03:10

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

MOTYC: Sammy Guevara (C) vs. Darby Allin vs. Andrade El Idolo for the TNT Championship - AEW Rampage 3/4

This match absolutely loving ruled, all three guys worked so well together but Andrade in particular as the "hoss" just powering through the smaller guys (particularly Darby) was sensational. And HOLY gently caress that ending!

Best three-man I�ve seen in quite a while, nth. Wow.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2022 04:18

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

And a bit belatedly, stats are compiled through February. I'm still thinking about a cool progressive bar chart, just had a bunch of other stuff going on this month.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2022 05:19

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

edogawa rando posted:

HM: Christian Cage vs Ethan Page, AEW Rampage

Good match, but would like to see Ethan Page win once in a while.

Yeah nth.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2022 15:47

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

SG Bamboo posted:

NJPW 50th Anniversary March 1st
HM
Suzuki-gun (DOUKI, EL Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs STRONGHEARTS (CIMA, T-Hawk and El Lindaman)
- More Stronghearts in New Japan please, they were allowed to shine and looked great

Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr and Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada and Tstsumi Fujinami
- This was great, old man Fujiwara is an absolute delight

Nth on both of these (didn�t watch the tag Jrs. vs. HW match). That main event was everything great about Japanese pro wrestling.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2022 18:24

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

TTBF posted:

MOTYC - SW3RVE The Realest vs Nick Wayne (DEFY 50, February 26th)

Arguably better than Janela vs Nick Wayne. Kid is a prodigy and DEFY gives him every chance to shine and he delivers constantly. Strickland wrestled like he had a lot to prove. Excellent, excellent match

Nth. Wayne brings some real passion to his matches.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2022 02:59

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Quick blast from the far past of 2021:

# ¿ Mar 11, 2022 22:06

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Little bit of NJC catchup!

Jerusalem posted:

MOTYC: Shingo Takagi vs. Tomohiro Ishii - NJPW New Japan Cup 3/7

EXACTLY the match you would expect from these two, and God bless both of them for it.

Nth.

SG Bamboo posted:

NJPW New Japan Cup Night 7 March 13th
MOTYC
Hiromu Takahashi vs Minoru Suzuki
- MiSu is the King, that's never gonna change. Even when some young poo poo is slapping his chest raw

Nth.

GEORGE W BUSHI posted:

MOTYC: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. DOUKI - New Japan Cup (3/12)

Yet another incredible Tekkers vs DOUKI match. Not on the level of Taichi vs DOUKI but still an amazing match. ZSJ alternating between bullying and encouraging DOUKI, DOUKI pulling out his technical wrestling skills. Excellent, excellent match.

Nth.

And you know I'm a mark for grapplefuckery, so:

HM: ZSJ vs. Ryohei Oiwa - New Japan Cup (3/6)

That kid is going to be so good.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2022 19:28

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

GEORGE W BUSHI posted:

MOTYC: Taichi vs Kazuchika Okada - NJPW New Japan Cup (3/14)

Okada is the runaway wrestler of the year right now. Incredible match.

HM: CIMA vs Hirooki Goto

Really great work with a super sick finishing sequence.

Nth on both of these, particular the finisher for CIMA and Goto. The NJC is settling into the usual excellence in the later rounds.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2022 01:13

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

forkboy84 posted:

Because I'm a dork & keep a spreadsheet of all this poo poo, & also because I'm bored but don't have the time to do anything really before having to go & do real-world things, I decided to waste your time by making you scroll over a post of statistics.

The stats are great!

# ¿ Mar 16, 2022 20:30

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

2nd, and also:

HM: Bryan Danielson & Jon Moxley vs. Chuck Taylor & Wheeler Yuta - AEW Dynamite St. Patrick's Day Slam - 3/16

I love Regal and his Violence Stepsons so much, and goddamn what a showing for Yuta.

Jerusalem posted:

MOTYC: Dr. Britt Baker DMD (C) vs. Thunder Rosa in a Steel Cage match for the AEW Women's Championship - AEW Dynamite St. Patrick's Day Stampede - 3/16

"No man's land, no woman's land..."
"NOBODY'S LAND!"

These two women were trying to kill each other, and largely succeeding!

Double nth!

# ¿ Mar 17, 2022 03:03

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Seams posted:

HM: Punk vs FTR Bald, AEW Dynamite, 23/3

Nth on this, very enjoyable.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2022 03:25

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

GEORGE W BUSHI posted:

MOTYC: Okada/Naito, ZSJ/Shingo

Nth!

# ¿ Mar 26, 2022 17:09

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 12:11

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

Jerusalem posted:

MOTYC: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tetsuya Naito in the New Japan Cup Final - NJPW New Japan Cup 3/27

Magnificent ending to an incredible tournament.

Nthing my little heart out!

# ¿ Mar 27, 2022 18:06

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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > 2022's Best and Worst Pro-Wrestling Matches of the Year (plus Recommended)

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