A note, quickly, about what I’m intending to do here…

Decade lists are fun, and they are forthcoming. GWE III is also only six years off. But I think that it would be irresponsible to do the former without some sort of revisitation, and I’ve never been the sort who could just kind of do a project. As such, the HARASHIMA/DDT and Tanahashi/NJPW series have essentially been folded up into this, and I intend 2011 to be even more expansive. My intention is to cover 25 matches you may have missed, five promotions and tag team of the year, ten shows, and as with 2019, the Top 25 Wrestlers of the Year. I will obviously not be re-treading 2019 but this is the first of nine of these, unless the plague gets me, in which case, hey, enjoy this one at least. 2011 probably drops some time in late June or early July. We’ll see. If you like what you read, hit the ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon#) or venmo (https://venmo.com/Simon-Fessenden). I’m out of work for the time being because of all this, and a few dollars here and there goes a long way.

2010 is a super weird year. It always seemed like it had a reputation in some circles of being this all time bad year, but I’d always chalked that up to being what happens when WWE is bad. People get the impression that it was bad all around. There’s not a lot of all time great in ring stuff that happens in 2010, but it’s generally much more solid than it gets credit for being. It’s a real weird year too, generally. Everything is in transition towards what it looks like for most of the next decade, but barely hanging on to how it used to be. I’ve always subscribed to the idea that decades, as we recognize them, don’t always present themselves until a year or two when something big happens. That’s sort of been blown up by a pandemic happening so early into the 2020s, but it’s generally pretty true and especially true in wrestling. The 2000s don’t begin until 2001 (WCW and ECW die, also 9/11, decide for yourselves what’s worse), and 2010 is a year that doesn’t look much like the 2010s at all. New Japan isn’t quite there yet, there’s still a lot of great little WWE TV stuff from the old guard, ROH/NOAH are in decline but not as obviously so as they’ll get, and TNA is even still sort of relevant in its own way. PWG is almost fully formed into what it’s gonna be, but that’s really it. The 2010s don’t really begin until May 1st the following year, when John Cena has a little announcement for everybody. Until then, we’re sort of just playing out the string on all the things that mattered for past few years. Nothing that happens in 2010 has much consequence years later, save for this one little starmaking feud on the independents. Naturally, I wrote several thousand words about this totally inconsequential year, all in list format.

As always, thanks for reading.

TOP 25 HOOT OF THE YEAR/FUN THING YOU MISSED/CATCH ALL NOT-MOTY-BUT RECOMMENDATION LIST CATCHALL (CHRONOLOGICAL):

Finlay vs. Mike Knox, WWE Superstars (1/7/2010)
Yuji Nagata vs. Tomohiro Ishii, NJPW (1/17/2010)
Christian vs. William Regal, WWE ECW on SyFy (1/19/2010)
Brodie Lee vs. Hallowicked, CHIKARA A Touch of Class (1/31/2010)
The Young Bucks vs. The Switchblade Conspiracy, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2010 Night Two (3/6/2010)
Thumbtack Jack vs. JC Bailey, CZW Walking On Pins & Needles (3/13/2010)
Goldust vs. Dolph Ziggler, WWE Fan Cam ~ San Francisco, CA (3/14/2010)
Jushin Liger vs. Negro Casas, NJPW Wrestling Dontaku 2010 (5/3/2010)
The Young Bucks vs. Johnny Goodtime/Jerome LTP Robinson, PWG DDT4 2010 (5/9/2010)
Claudio Castagnoli/Ares vs. Hallowicked/Frightmare, CHIKARA Aniversario Elf (5/23/2010)
HARASHIMA vs. MIKAMI, DDT King of DDT 2010 Final (5/30/2010)
John Cena/Evan Bourne vs. Edge/Sheamus, WWE Raw (5/30/2010)
The Kings of Wrestling vs. Up in Smoke, ROH Buffalo Stampede II (6/18/2010)
Nick Gage vs. Abdullah Kobayashi, CZW Tournament of Death IX (6/26/2010)
Ricochet vs. Chuck Taylor vs. Adam Cole vs. Arik Cannon, DGUSA Enter The Dragon 2010 (7/24/2010)
Shingo Takagi vs. Jimmy Olsen, CHIKARA Chikarasaurus Rex (7/25/2010)
KENTA vs. Atsushi Aoki, NOAH New Navigation 2010 in Tokyo (8/22/2010)
Goldust vs. William Regal, WWE Superstars (8/26/2010)
CM Punk vs. The Undertaker, WWE Smackdown (9/10/2010)
Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz vs. John Morrison, WWE Hell in a Cell (10/3/2010)
Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley, TNA Impact (10/7/2010)
Jon Moxley vs. Drake Younger, CZW Night of Infamy 9 (11/13/2010)
Homicide vs. Necro Butcher, ROH on HDNet (11/29/2010)
TJ Perkins vs. Kyle O’Reilly, ROH Tag Title Classic II (12/17/2010)
Makoto Hashi vs. Manabu Suruga, FUTEN (12/19/2010)

EVENT OF THE YEAR:

HONORABLE MENTION: TNA HARDCORE JUSTICE 2010 (8/8/2010) ~ ORLANDO, FL

This isn’t good enough to make the list, but I’d like to remind people about it, because it was a really good and weird time. A loving tribute and a very fun show. There’s one great match as 2 Cold and CW Anderson turn the clock back, but this is less about great matches than it is about New Jack telling JB that he’s going to pimp his ass and the very very weird blue lighting.

10. CHIKARA “FADED SCARS AND LINES” (6/27/2010) ~ CLEVELAND, OH

CHIKARA goes on the road for a quietly very good little show. The highlight is Bryan Danielson’s Summer Vacation gifting Tim Donst his best singles match ever (in which he gets offense for more than ten seconds at a time), but everyone else shows up with working boots on too. The Colony vs. Da Soul Touchaz is a blast, there’s your customary great CHIKARA vs. BDK tag as Quack and Frightmare fight Lince Dorado and Pinkie Sanchez, and the main event sees the only glimpse of Claudio Castagnoli vs. Jimmy Olsen we ever got to see. A remarkably fun little thing all around.

9. PWG “CYANIDE: A LOVING TRIBUTE TO POISON” (12/11/2010) ~ RESEDA, CA

A top heavy PWG classic, and arguably the start of the golden age. The Kings of Wrestling and Peligro Abejas have one of the finest classic style tag team matches of the decade. Kevin Steen makes his full time return home and connects with another beacon of nightmarish violence the only way two psychopaths can ever connect with each other. The show is anchored by the tremendous double main, but there’s a variety of cool golden age PWG style sprints underneath the epics to whet the appetite.

8. NJPW “EXPLOSION 2010” (10/11/2010) ~ TOKYO, JAPAN

Main event aside, an incredibly consistent show. I’m not over the moon about Golden Lovers vs. Apollo 55, because it’s the sort of mindless juniors spot wrestling that doesn’t age well, but it’s still great. Nakamura and Goto? Still great. Tanahashi and Naito? A satisfying finish to a real fun little rivalry. The crown jewel is, yet again, a NOAH vs. New Japan tag team match, as Nagata and Kanemoto turn in their second best performances of the year against a game Shiozaki and Aoki. Even while the main event isn’t a great match, Satoshi Kojima finally winning the IWGP Title is a hell of a cap to put on one of the more well rounded cards of the year

7. CHIKARA “KING OF TRIOS 2010 NIGHT THREE” (4/25/2010) ~ PHILADELPHIA, PA

A perfect sort of sampler of CHIKARA at its storytelling peak. The tournament matches more than deliver, especially the finals as The Colony takes a stab at revenge upon the BDK super team. There’s also one of CHIKARA’s best ever Tag Team Gauntlets, combining entertainment with some actual terrific wrestling, the best of the handful of Young Bucks vs. Quackenbush & Jigsaw tags, and Eddie Kingston vs. a mostly motivated Christopher Daniels in a classic “only in CHIKARA” match. Not the best CHIKARA show of the year, but the most CHIKARA show of the year.

6. PRO WRESTLING NOAH “NEW NAVIGATION 2010 IN TOKYO” (8/22/2010) ~ TOKYO, JAPAN

The best NOAH card of the year. Takashi Sugiura takes on Jun Akiyama for the title in the main event, atop a card consisting of a delightful KENTA/Aoki scrap and two more delightful New Japan vs. NOAH matches. Tiger Mask IV and Koji Kanemoto turn up the heat big time as they take the Junior Tag Titles hostage, and Shinsuke Nakamura and Go Shiozaki get it right in a major way the second time. The best full show from Japan in 2010.

5. CHIKARA “THE DARK CIBERNETICO” (10/23/2010) ~ EASTON, PA

A top heavy show, but that weight is centered around one of the great emotional payoffs in the history of a company based around emotional payoffs. The CHIKARA vs. BDK Cibernetico is one of the more exciting and rewarding things CHIKARA’s ever put out into the world. Beyond that, it’s a fun little card that allows the main event to pull the weight of the show without much drag. Brodie Lee vs. Dasher Hatfield and Frightmare vs. Johnny Gargano are also both well worth your time.

4. PWG “DDT4 2010” (5/9/2010) ~ RESEDA, CA

The fact that this isn’t the best PWG show of the year says a lot of positive things about PWG in 2010. The tournament itself is full of good to great matches like The Young Bucks vs. Johnny Goodtime & LTP and Peligro Abejas vs. Chuck Taylor & Scott Lost on the way to the finals. Beyond the tournament, this also has one of the best Chris Hero solo performances of the year. While Davey Richards is an absentee champion, Chris Hero takes up the mantle for himself and does a whole lot for local favorite Brandon Bonham. The main event sees a payoff a year in the making, as The Young Bucks eat shit for the first time. It feels as great now as it did then.

3. ROH “FINAL BATTLE 2010” (12/18/2010) ~ NEW YORK, NY

I’ve soured on the main event, relative to where I was, and Roddy vs. Davey in 2010 doesn’t do a whole lot for me, but this is a hell of a top to bottom card. It ages out of all time status, but the Steen/Generico blowoff is still a hell of a thing. The Kings of Wrestling vs. Briscoes feud involving Shane Hagadorn and the infamous Papa Briscoe is a hell of a thing. Underneath this, it’s a more-fun-than-you-remember undercard with little bangers like Colt Cabana vs. TJ Perkins and a surprisingly fun Future Shock vs. All Night Express match. The most important thing about this show is the way it feels big and important and lives up to that the way that few other shows in 2010 did.

2. TNA “BOUND FOR GLORY 2010” (10/10/2010) ~ DAYTONA BEACH, FL & TNA “IMPACT” (10/14/2010) ~ ORLANDO, FL [TIE]

Must see as a historical document. The pay per view isn’t entirely useless, although it’s all downhill after the Machine Guns vs. Generation Me opener. This show and the one following it are monuments to one of the funnier moments in wrestling this decade, and this total and complete confidence in something that was clearly wrong. As for the follow up, there is virtually no wrestling on this episode. Following the 10/10/2010 SWERVE founding of Immortal, TNA spends the majority of its first hour explaining the angle in excruciating detail. It’s a very bad show, but it’s one of the most fascinating episodes of television ever produced. You can explain TNA’s entire trajectory in the 2010s by watching these shows.

1. PWG “SEVEN” (7/30/2010) ~ RESEDA, CA

Every match on this show is great. Every single one. The main event is an incredible stunt show only forgotten because of how later matches like it eclipsed what happened here. There’s a dumb jock wrestling epic. There’s an emotional retirement match. Bryan Danielson’s Summer Vacation even makes a stop in Reseda for a fun go around with one of his best old opponents. Your usual cool ass sprints before all the major bits. The best PWG show of the year, and for a big chunk of the 2010s, that makes it a near lock for show of the year.

PROMOTION OF THE YEAR:

5. PRO WRESTLING NOAH

The peak has been over for years, but 2010 NOAH showed life in the way it hadn’t in a while. Sugiura was a beacon as champion, but a lot of people still worked with a fire lit under their asses. If not an especially interesting or focused company, still a very consistent one.

4. COMBAT ZONE WRESTLING

One of the best years in the history of The Dub. Anchored by a long and fruitful Jon Moxley reign, 2010 also saw the incredibly fun ULTRAVIOLENT GOLDEN BOY heel run from Drake Younger, the birth of the Adam Cole/Mia Yim act, and the ever consistent Sami Callihan. Beyond that, a few of the better deathmatches of the year with Nick Gage against outsiders like Thumbtack Jack and Abdullah Kobayashi. 2009-11 is a rare time when CZW tripped over its dick and became something of a functional company for a period of time, and I think it deserves more recognition.

3. FUTEN

This is the most violent wrestling of the year though. Pretty much ever FUTEN show of 2010 found its way online, as an extension of the shoot style revitalization project that began with BattlARTS’ rebirth in the last years of the previous decade. Anchored by a near career year by Daisuke Ikeda and the greatest five minute match of all time, but with a string of weird and wonderful guest appearances from names as varied as The Brahman Brothers and Makoto Hashi.

2. PRO WRESTLING GUERRILLA

PWG isn’t quite High Peak PWG just yet, but it is the premier independent in the United States by now. There’s growing pains in 2010, as Davey and Omega are inconsistent champions, Kevin Steen is gone for large parts of the year, and not all of the young guys quite pan out, not to mention the phrase “Battle of Los Angeles winner Joey Ryan”. What’s right is really really right though, and among the best things anywhere in wrestling all year. By the end of the year, every piece is in place.

1. CHIKARA

Was this my favorite year of CHIKARA? No. Was there an all time classic match in CHIKARA this year like in the two or three years before this and the two after? No, not exactly. Was there any other company in 2010 that displayed this sort of unified and cohesive storytelling from January to December? Not even fucking close. Virtually everything that happened in CHIKARA in 2010 mattered. If this blog is an ode to matches that don’t waste time and where things matter, CHIKARA is the best promotion of the year. The more frustrating moments of 2010 that I disliked at the time produced a handful of the best payoffs in wrestling, in addition to some of the weirdest and most fun matches of the year. If someone wanted to watch one singular year of a promotion, I’m not sure there’s a better start to finish story to be told than CHIKARA in 2010.

TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR:

5. DAISUKE SEKIMOTO & YOSHIHITO SASAKI

Strong BJ style, especially in the first half of the decade when they had the talent to do it well, is some of the most satisfying and honest wrestling that there is. In 2010, this was the core team involved in most of it. Less the exact same type like Strong BJ, and a far more interesting team for it, even if they never had the sort of run, opponents, or opportunities to do what Sekimoto later achieved with his clay son.

4. PELIGRO ABEJAS (EL GENERICO & PAUL LONDON)

They had something like six matches together. Most of them are great, and half are among the very best tag team matches of the year. Not much volume to speak of, but as airtight a consistency/peak case as you can make.

3. THE YOUNG BUCKS/GENERATION ME

This will not be the last time I speak of a trend like this in this post. In 2009, The Young Bucks found themselves with a heel turn, but it took a while for them to perfectly align a heel persona with in ring work, so 2010 is when it all began to really click. There’s still problems, they’re not the best tag team in the world, but few things were more satisfying than both the Machine Guns and Peligros Abejas forcing them to eat shit. It’ll be much easier for them to win in the years following when the competition clears out more.

2. THE MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS

The MCMG has largely a deserved reputation for one of TNA’s most underutilized acts, given the sum of the parts and how long they had them both, but 2010 is the year they got it right. Like WCW before it, TNA would sometimes quarantine most of the good wrestlers in the tag division and would accidentally create spaces on their shows where good matches were about guaranteed. The last half of 2010 is the best example of this, as MCMG were given mostly free reign for two consecutive long rivalries with Beer Money and with The Young Bucks, getting the most out of two lesser teams. In more historical terms, the MCMG’s 2010 run is some of the last stuff ever that belongs in any sort of pantheon of great stuff to come out of TNA.

1. THE KINGS OF WRESTLING

Come on. Come on. While I begrudge nobody who would hold up Shelley and Sabin for this one, this was a no brainer. One team did it once a week, at most, on television and pay per view for half a year. The other did the same thing for a full year, with more regularity, and against a broader spectrum of opponents, with a higher set of highs (Briscoes street fight, Peligro Abejas title match) than their competition. In their first run, Hero and Claudio were a fun sort of stooging indie heel team. Maybe they were the best team in the world, but it’s a hard maybe. In their second run, they were the sort of once in a generation superteam that hasn’t been approached anywhere since they last teamed. OG Burning for the US indies, if KD joined the Cavs in 2016, etc. One of the best years that any tag team has ever had.

2010 MATCH OF THE YEAR:

25. THE MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS VS. GENERATION ME, TNA REACTION (11/18/2010)

This is an empty arena match, and for as much credit as the MCMG/Beer Money series in 2010 TNA gets and even for as much credit as the pay per view matches between these teams gets, this is the forgotten great match of the decade. Of course, this is on a show nobody watched and put forth by a promotion most had, rightfully, given up on. Nobody was wrong to ignore it at the time, and as it’s gone unheralded, it’s become forgotten. You should all look at it again or for the first time. It’s one of the most inventive matches of the decade, as four maniacs use the space to its full potential as a display of nasty spots. Very few Young Bucks matches could ever be described as scrappy, but this is such a scrappy and charming little thing. The most faithful modern reinterpretation of the original, as it’s not goofy at all, there’s no referee, and it ends with the heels humiliated. Like it felt good to see Terry Funk run away twenty nine years earlier, it feels just about as good to see “Max” and “Jeremy” get beaten into the Earth at the end of this.

24. EL GENERICO VS. RICOCHET, PWG THE CURSE OF GUERRILLA ISLAND (10/9/2010)

One of the greatest performances in PWG history. One of the greatest performances in El Generico’s entire career. With very little disrespect intended to everyone on the independents over the last ten years who has tried something like this, every one of them stands in the shadow of El Generico here. Either they fail to actually do the thing and give the young guy the legitimizing win, or more typically, nobody trying it can touch El Generico in this match. It’s not a big ask to get Ricochet over as a top guy with a PWG crowd, but few could do it as effectively as El Generico, and leave the match not only still as over, but maybe even moreso. The defining moment of this match isn’t Ricochet’s all time insane ringpost dive, or the finish. It’s a moment when El Generico grabs an empty glass pitcher to use behind the ref’s back, and he decides not to. 2010 is where El Generico stops being just a great babyface, and becomes one of the greatest babyfaces of all time. It’s easy enough to work underneath great heels and be sympathetic in opposition. It’s a much bigger ask to remain just as likeable on the other end of that. This match is the difference between El Generico and 95% of the people to try and walk in his footsteps since.

23. HIROSHI TANAHASHI VS. SATOSHI KOJIMA, NJPW G1 CLIMAX 20 FINAL (8/15/2010)

Super interesting match. Lots of times in wrestling, strategies fail despite being good ideas, because someone is too strong or guts it out. Having a strategy just be completely incorrect is so much more interesting. Beyond that, it’s two guys with clear dislike for each other teeing off for twenty minutes. Two very different characters approach the match in the most natural way, and the result is what it always was going to be in August 2010. Kojima is Kojima, and trying to game plan against the Lariat is like trying to stop the sun from coming up.

22. SHEAMUS VS. JOHN MORRISON, WWE TLC 2010 (12/19/2010)

Incredibly rude of these two to have one of the best ladder matches of all time. At this point, WWE ladder matches can’t be the sort of world changing stunt shows they were ten years prior. What they can do is something like this match, maybe the most logical and physical ladder match ever. There was a Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels ladder match in 2008 that people praised for being violent and physical, and I never got it. This match is what that match pretends to be, minus accidental blood. This match is best summed up in one small sequence where Sheamus slams Morrison’s knee into a ladder and then while selling, he uses his free leg to kick the ladder a few feet away so Sheamus has to go pick it up again and so he’ll leave him alone for a few seconds. Everything they do here makes sense. The transitions, the offensive choices, all of it. Morrison puts on the best selling performance of his career and Sheamus has never been more violent. The babyface survives violence through invention, and cooler shit wins the day. It feels wrong to describe a ladder match as what wrestling should be, but this is what ladder matches should be.

21. YOSHIHITO SASAKI VS. NECRO BUTCHER, BJW (6/25/2010)

The hardest boy in the land fights an invading barbarian. This is not any more complex than that, and it doesn’t need to be. Necro Butcher puts our young hero through enough hell that even the most foregone of all conclusions feels like a real accomplishment by the end.

20. SCOTT LOST VS. SCORPIO SKY, PWG SEVEN (7/30/2010)

The Professional clocks out. Scott Lost was one of the most talented wrestlers I’ve ever seen, on every level. He could do just about anything, but he also had a tremendous brain that you don’t often see from wrestlers in his spot and doing the kinds of things he did. Unfortunately, having such a great brain, he made the decision that if he wasn’t making a living full time off of professional wrestling by the time he turned thirty, he would hang the boots up. He finally turned thirty, and this is him hanging the boots up. This is one of the better retirement matches ever because it avoids so many of the tropes that would feel out of place. Scott Lost has been a villain in PWG for seven years, there’s no reason he should suddenly be a good man just to accommodate the people wanting to pay their respects now. He isn’t, and they have the sort of match they would always have, elevated by the sentiment of the moment and not propped up by it alone. Until the final bell, Scott Lost is still one of the best and most unappreciated wrestlers in the world. This is grounded when it has to be, bombastic when it has to be, and never ever dull. This is a direct sequel to the Chris Bosh vs. Scorpio Sky retirement match in 2008, a coda on the beloved Arrogance vs. Aerial Xpress feud, and a much appreciated love letter to PWG’s first era.

19. TAKASHI SUGIURA VS. GO SHIOZAKI, NOAH SHINY NAVIGATION 2010 (9/26/2010)

Among the best “middle match in a trilogy” cases of the decade. Not the fault of the middle match that they blew the landing in 2011. Beyond just how insanely hard they hit and all of the cool moves they do, there’s a real other quality to this. Go Shiozaki’s made all these personal improvements, and not once is it ever enough. 2010 focused a lot on the personal, and a significant chunk of the best matches tended to be cathartic victories or crushing defeats. One of the best examples of the latter.

18. BRYAN DANIELSON VS. EDDIE KINGSTON, CHIKARA WE MUST EAT MICHIGAN’S BRAIN (6/26/2010)

Over the summer vacation of Bryan Danielson, a number of major independents tried to use him in short term situations as best they could. CHIKARA proved its mettle as the best independent in the world by getting the most out of the greatest of all time in this short experience. It’s a dream match like most of the others, but by putting him against someone who doesn’t really DO dream match style wrestling, it forced them into something more than that. This is the 2010s version of something like the famous Samoa Joe vs. Chris Hero match, as a prideful and overmatched homegrown takes on the best wrestler in the world. Since he can’t take the win, Eddie can take solace in doing even better here than Chris Hero.

17. THE KINGS OF WRESTLING VS. THE BRISCOES, ROH DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR VIII (6/19/2010)

I’m going to repeat this later in the list, but the best matches in ROH history tended not to be the scientific matches and big epics they prided themselves on, but instead were bloody violent brawls like this. As such, these teams had a series of attempted epics in 2010 (and before and after), but the sole match in the series like this, a Street Fight, is far and away the best of the bunch. I’d rarely call a Briscoes match disciplined or efficient, but this is disciplined and efficient in addition to the blood and mayhem.

16. SHINGO TAKAGI VS. BXB HULK, DRAGON GATE KOBE WORLD 2010 (7/11/2010)

2010 featured a lot of matches that I would describe as emotional. They weren’t all payoffs though. Not every emotional powerhouse of a match ends happily. BxB Hulk wanted this so bad. The feud was over, Shingo Takagi had turned over a new leaf as a fan favorite, but BxB had to have his match. He put his hair on the line to get it. Want doesn’t get, and over the thirty or so minutes this lasts, he very painfully realizes that. BxB Hulk realizing he’s gotten himself in over his head and fighting his best anyways is the work of his career, and Shingo’s almost-pity-but-mostly-indifference towards his plight creates the most dramatic contrast in Dragon System history. If there’s a must watch DG singles match this decade, this is probably the one.

15. MINORU SUZUKI VS. MASAKATSU FUNAKI, AJPW PRO WRESTLING LOVE IN RYOGOKU VOL. 9 (3/21/2010)

An incredibly mean little match. One of the more forgotten great matches of the decade. Two hard ass shooters get in a cage and settle the god damned thing once and for all. The best match of Masakatsu Funaki’s career and proof that Suzuki had a career before tumblr.

14. JUN AKIYAMA/KENTA VS. YUJI NAGATA/RYUSUKE TAGUCHI, NOAH NEW NAVIGATION 2010 IN OSAKA (7/24/2010)

Raw clear eyed hatred. Whatever respect Akiyama and Nagata have for each other as Lost Generation compatriots vanishes when New Japan shows up on the green mat. In a year he largely lost to injuries and a lack of emphasis, this is KENTA’s finest performance. You wouldn’t be embarrassingly wrong to call this his best performance of the entire decade. Akiyama is a stately defender of the mat, but KENTA is a buzzsaw. Together, they come together for the best interpromotional tag of the year, if not the decade proper.

13. KEVIN STEEN/STEVE CORINO VS. EL GENERICO/COLT CABANA, ROH GLORY BY HONOR IX (9/11/2010)

This series of tag team matches won’t ever get credit for it, because it was a tertiary part of an incredible feud instead of the focus, but it’s one of the better series of matches of the decade. There were five of these matches that made film in 2010. Two on pay per views, one on a DVD release, and two on television. Each of them is different and aside from the first, which is all about getting them to the point of Generico and Steen finally making contact), they’re all nuts. This one is the Double Dog Collar match, and it’s all about Kevin Steen having fallen off the deep end. An absolute mess in the best way.

12. PELIGRO ABEJAS VS. THE KINGS OF WRESTLING, PWG CYANIDE: A LOVING TRIBUTE TO POISON (12/11/2010)

I wrote about this in full, but to summarize: this is the best regular tag team match to happen in America in 2010. It’s the purest and most wholesome underdog victory in wrestling in 2010. There are fights that it seems you cannot win, but you can never give up. This match is about climbing mountains, it’s about how the fight is never really over, it’s about the virtues of always moving forward and always trying. El Generico is the greatest babyface of all time. Paul London is not far behind. Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli are perhaps the most talented tag team of all time. If not for the greatest five minute match ever also happening in 2010, this would be the most efficient match of the year, without question. I cannot imagine a person existing who could see this match and not love it.

11. NAOMICHI MARUFUJI VS. KOJI KANEMOTO, NJPW 38TH ANNIVERSARY (3/5/2010)

The finest performance ever in the career of Koji Kanemoto, riding a line perfectly that very few wrestlers in history can. At times, he’s an endearing old man, trying to defend the faith against this absolute perversion. At times, he’s a whirlwind of violence tormenting his opponent. He can switch here on a dime, and it’s not unbelievable or jarring in the slightest. The finest performance of the year in all of professional wrestling. What Kanemoto does here cannot be torn asunder by any man, not even Naomichi Marufuji, who does try his best.

10. EDDIE KINGSTON/MIKE QUACKENBUSH/LARRY SWEENEY/JIGSAW/HALLOWICKED/ULTRAMANTIS BLACK/STIGMA/ICARUS VS. CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI/ARES/TURSAS/SARA DEL REY/TIM DONST/LINCE DORADO/PINKIE SANCHEZ/DAIZEE HAZE, CHIKARA THE DARK CIBERNETICO (10/23/2010)

The best booked match of the year. To be clear, this is not a match you can go into blind. There aren’t just months of history behind it, there are years of history behind it. It’s the last hurrah for one of the most beloved independent wrestlers of an era, and the ending is one of the most cathartic experiences in CHIKARA history. In real time, the BDK was frustrating and enraging. In retrospect, a match like this with moments like this had made it all worth it.

9. TAKASHI SUGIURA VS. YOSHIHIRO TAKAYAMA, NOAH SUMMER NAVIGATION 2010 (7/10/2010)

You’ve read the words “catharsis” and “emotional payoff” a lot so far, I’d imagine. Very few things in wrestling felt as good as the final minute of this match, as Sugiura finally topples the man who’d been both a mentor and a constant bully to him. An incredible piece of violence on display, even if the larger parts of this didn’t quite hit you in the heart like they did for me.

8. CM PUNK VS. REY MYSTERIO, WWE OVER THE LIMIT (5/23/2010)

The worst thing about this is that it takes place in WWE in 2010, one of the most lifeless and bloodless years any promotion has ever put on in the history of wrestling (guess what company holds spots #1-10 on a top ten?). It might also be the best thing? As great as this would be anywhere, the sterile environment in which it happens only emphasizes the more guttural nature of all of this. A hero surviving a fight for which he is ill equipped because heart and grit matters more than anything. One of the only times WWE got a morality play correct.

7. CHRIS HERO VS. IKUTO HIDAKA, EVOLVE 2: HERO VS. HIDAKA (3/13/2010)

Wrestling for the sort of people who read this blog. One for the true maniacs. The technical wrestling match of the year. Artful and masterful stuff, with only the most minor of concessions made to the climate of Northeastern independent wrestling. Dueling limbwork that matters and terrific selling on top of a match where they almost always do the most interesting thing possible. With a better finish, this is the best match of the year. With the finish it has, it lags behind some of these other killers.

6. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA VS. YOSHIHIRO TAKAYAMA, NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM IV (1/4/2010)

This does not need to be complicated. Takayama beats the hell out of Shinsuke Nakamura, before The King of Strong Style legitimizes himself by finding a way to fell the great oak and doing it believably. Everything that happens in this match is hard as hell, it’s mean, it’s violent, and it feels real in the way so many other things do not. That’s the key both to why this works, and to why it accomplished its goal so thoroughly. This is not the best match of the year. This is the best fight of the year.

5. JON MOXLEY VS. JIMMY JACOBS, DGUSA BUSHIDO: CODE OF THE WARRIOR (10/29/2010)

This match is something that feels specifically designed for me, allowing Jimmy Jacobs the rare chance to use his gifts for heroics instead of villainy, but allow me to explain it for you, if you missed the previous fifteen hundred words gushing over it. 2010 is a year with a lot of great bloody brawls on the independents. This is the least insane of them, but maybe the most violent. This lacked the bombast and sensationalism of the big and famous ROH bloodbaths in 2010, but it had a heart and grit on par with any of them. These two stripped it down to the barest of bones, allowing no distractions from an incredibly physical and emotional sort of violence. In perhaps the most violent year of professional wrestling all decade, this was the purest expression of that.

4. CHRIS HERO VS. BIG VAN WALTER, WXW 16 CARAT GOLD 2010 NIGHT THREE (3/7/2010)

This is the best WXW match I’ve ever seen. I don’t say that lightly or insultingly. It’s an incredible piece of work, and it’s one of the crown jewels of Chris Hero’s career year. Hero tries to prove something by going strike for strike with the huge young man, but breaks his hand over Walter’s gigantic skull and the match changes. It changes in the exact sort of way that this blog is named for. The Hand Work MOTY. Chris Hero is one of the the five or so best hand sellers ever. Even the act of throwing elbows sends a ripple down that pauses him even if it never kills him to do it. Walter, for what he’s asked to do, is incredible. This isn’t just great, it’s Important. He’d shown bits and pieces before, but if you’re doing a career retrospective, this is when he started to look like something more. Couple that with one of the finest ever performances in the career of the greatest independent wrestler of all time, and it’s something really special that I’m hoping to shine a light back on.

3. KEVIN STEEN/STEVE CORINO VS. EL GENERICO/COLT CABANA, ROH BITTER FRIENDS, STIFFER ENEMIES 2 (4/24/2010)

So forgotten that it’s not available almost anywhere besides a DVD in a box in my mom’s attic. It’s not on Honor Club. It’s not on any sort of pirate site. The torrent takes forever. It’s worth it however you can get your grubby little paws on it though, and it made the rewatch even sweeter. This was the Chicago Street Fight, and is the wildest this feud ever got, and the best Kevin Steen vs. El Generico match. Don’t talk to me about Final Battle, don’t talk to me about anything they did in PWG. Those are great matches and I love them, and they’re not better than this, because no part of this was lacking. No part of this felt like we were waiting for the next spot or filling space up until the next big emotional moment. This was a fight, and after a third of a year of antics and mind games, Steve Corino put on the best “past his prime” performance of the entire decade in paying for those crimes. This has the violence and authentic feeling of hatred that Cabana and Corino’s fights against Homicide had, combined with the insanity and pace of the best Steen/Generico gimmick matches. Secretly, the best things ROH ever did were big bloody brawls, and this series in 2010 is the high water mark of ROH in the 2010s as a result. It’s been a decade, and they’ve still yet to produce anything that can touch these tag team matches.

2. DAISUKE IKEDA VS. TAKESHI ONO, FUTEN (9/26/2010)

The best five minute match in wrestling history. Beyond just unparalleled violence, there’s a clear story as old man Ikeda overcomes a much fiercer and angrier foe with the power of grit and the impact of one really well placed shot, compared to roughly the five thousand punches that Ono threw in this. Sometimes the runner up MOTY can be the hoot of the year too.

1. CHRIS HERO VS. AKIRA TOZAWA, PWG BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES 2010 NIGHT TWO (9/5/2010)

Lightning in a bottle. Chris Hero got compared to Barry Windham a lot in 2009-11 because of the look, and this is his 2 Cold Scorpio match. Not the finest performance of the year for either, but sometimes magic is in the air and it elevates matches. Chris Hero straddles a line perfectly between respectable gatekeeper and vicious bully. Akira Tozawa is a firecracker, and over the course of fifteen minutes, he becomes the most exciting wrestler in the world. To be honest, 2010 lacked a really high end sort of all time great match to run away with this the way I would have hoped. This would have probably won MOTY too in 2019, but in any of the years in between, I don’t know. It’s enugh to win in 2010 though. Every moment is great and it accomplishes something. It’s both efficient and important, on top of whipping a ton of ass. All killer, no filler.

2010 WRESTLER OF THE YEAR:

25. DOLPH ZIGGLER

With the way he’s been since some point in early 2015, when they finally broke him, it’s easy to forget that Dolph Ziggler was great once. Over the next four or so of these, I will be reminding you. He wasn’t the television MVP of the year exactly (and he probably never was, always existing in the same company as Daniel Bryan), but he was the television workhorse of the year. He occupied most of his time with an interminably long feud with Kofi Kingston, where they had so many similar matches that you could call any random one good or any random one bad, and I’d believe you. The time he didn’t occupy with that was his best work, even if it was totally meaningless. Being a JTTS guy for actual stars, or having great Superstars matches that seem laughable on paper if you don’t know your shit THAT well. Good is good though. Few other people were as reliably good as he was at this point. There’s a fair point about WWE Midcard Workrate Heel being a very easy role to pull off, based on all of the people who have done it well and then stumbles in just about every other role. There’s also a fair point about how very few have pulled off that role better than Dolph Ziggler did in 2009-13.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Rey Mysterio, WWE (2/5)
vs. Goldust, WWE (3/14)
vs. Chris Masters, WWE (5/13)
vs. Christian, WWE (5/20)
vs. Kofi Kingston, WWE (pick one, there’s like 200)
vs. Daniel Bryan, WWE (10/24)
vs. John Cena, WWE (12/20)

24. GO SHIOZAKI

2010 was the year that poor Go Shiozaki went from feeling like the future of wrestling in a country to feeling like another guy. None of that is really his fault, save for underdelivering in the Tokyo Dome to start the year. Go Shiozaki in Tanahashi’s match wasn’t much good at all, but against his own people, he was as electric as ever. A great Big Match Guy who got to have a lot of big matches in 2010.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

Kensuke Sasaki, NOAH (7/24)
Yuji Nagata, NJPW (8/10)
Shinsuke Nakamura, NJPW (8/15)
Shinsuke Nakamura, NOAH (8/22)
Takashi Sugiura, NOAH (9/26)
w/ Atsushi Aoki vs. Yuji Nagata/Koji Kanemoto, NJPW (10/11)

23. SHINSUKE NAKAMURA

The first full year that Shinsuke Nakamura spent as a great wrestler. He hit his transformation into the King of Strong Style in 2009, but much of that was spent figuring out exactly what that meant. Even in 2009 when he went nearly unbeaten through the G1 and broke Tanahashi’s face, certain actions felt like isolating the answer for “what would a heel do here?” and doing that. In 2010, especially after losing the title and being a little freer to explore these things, Nakamura began to feel less like someone trying to be the top heel or a face, and like his own fully realized character. Following a win in one of the best matches of 2010 to start the year, Nakamura felt concrete enough in that position to start to grow in it and show vulnerability. Nakamura had the best year of his career so far in 2010, showing not just range and versatility, but doing it in a very believable way, in addition to having the best match of his career so far. A character is working if its responses to things feel less like they exist to serve the story, or like the answer to “what would a heel/babyface do here?”, and more like “what would [character x] do here?”. 2010 was the first year that Shinsuke Nakamura felt like an actual person and less like the wrestler someone else wanted him to be, and it helped his wrestling a whole lot.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, NJPW (1/4)
w/ Masao Tanaka & Toru Yano vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi/Hirooki Goto/Togi Makabe, NJPW (3/5)
vs. Togi Makabe, NJPW (5/3)
vs. Go Shiozaki, NOAH (8/22)
vs. Hirooki Goto, NJPW (10/11)

22. JUN AKIYAMA

Jun Akiyama was not the focus of anything in 2010. Whatever spotlight he had in 2010 came from being a pin for dominant new face of the company Takashi Sugiura to knock down, and from finding his way into one exceedingly great interpromotional fight. The thing is that Jun Akiyama is, at worst, a top five Japanese wrestler of all time and, at worst, a top ten wrestler of all time. With another three or four years here still in his physical prime, Akiyama was able to take full advantage of every opportunity, and make something of even the smallest ones, in throwaway tags and six man tags. The only wrestler who was as great as Jun Akiyama at so many different things was the best wrestler in the world in 2010. Old faithful does it again.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Kensuke Sasaki, NOAH (4/10)
w/ Yoshinari Ogawa & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Go Shiozaki/Akitoshi Saito/Taiji Ishimori, NOAH (4/25)
vs. Takashi Sugiura, NOAH (5/2)
w/ Kensuke Sasaki & Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Go Shiozaki/Takeshi Morishima/Masao Inoue, NOAH (5/22)
w/ KENTA vs. Yuji Nagata/Ryusuke Taguchi, NOAH (7/24)
vs. Takashi Sugiura, NOAH (8/22)

21. RICOCHET/HELIOS

Hard to imagine someone starting out as the third best member of a four man mid-level babyface group in CHIKARA (Jimmy Olsen, Jigsaw, Helios, Lince in that order), and ending it as CIMA’s new tag team partner. If I had to imagine it on January 1st, 2010, I’d start thinking about how good CIMA and Jimmy Olsen would be together. Ricochet did well enough though, I suppose. He’d have stolen BOLA weekend too, if not for the best match of the year happening there too. I’ll admit a little bias here. I’m an old IWA fan. I’m an old CHIKARA fan. It’s not like I didn’t know who Ricochet was before the 2010 BOLA or before he showed up in Dragon Gate. His success felt good because of that. To the blind eye though, I imagine he’d be even more impressive. Ricochet gets bogged down in later years with the decision to expand into more indieriffic movez work and power work. For now though, he’s a high flier entering his prime. Incredibly cool offense, credible enough striking, and an efficiency to his work that people who began watching Ricochet later in the decade might not recognize at all.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw/Jimmy Olsen vs. Brodie Lee/Vin Gerard/STIGMA/Colin Delaney, CHIKARA (2/27)
w/ Jimmy Olsen/Jigsaw vs. Daisuke Sekimoto/Yuji Okabayashi/Kankuro Hoshino, CHIKARA (4/24)
w/ Jimmy Olsen vs. Lince Dorado/Tim Donst, CHIKARA (5/22)
w/ Jimmy Olsen vs. Claudio Castagnoli/Ares, CHIKARA (6/27)
vs. Chuck Taylor vs. Adam Cole vs. Arik Cannon, DGUSA (7/24)
vs. Claudio Castagnoli, PWG (9/4)
vs. El Generico, PWG (10/9)

20. SHINGO TAKAGI

When I wrote about 2020 in depth, I found that consistency was all the more impressive and noticeable in weaker years and in weaker promotions. 2010 was p weak year, and especially weak for Dragon Gate. Shingo Takagi is the most consistent wrestler in Dragon Gate history and very very possibly the most consistent wrestler of the entire decade. There are years when he didn’t get to participate in many blowaway great matches (2012, 2017, 2018, to name three off the top of my head), but that is not a problem in 2010. In 2010, he was the driving force behind very possibly the best singles match in the history of Dragon Gate. Beyond that, he and YAMATO wound up making one hell of a tag team, and he even found time to steal the shot in CHIKARA with a terrific little sprint against our hero, Jimmy Olsen. Not everything Shingo touched in 2010 was great, but everything he touched was good as hell. In a year like 2010 and a promotion like Dragon Gate, that came off as especially impressive.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ YAMATO & Akira Tozawa vs. BxB Hulk/Speed Muscle, DG (3/3)
vs. YAMATO, DG (5/5)
w/ YAMATO & Kagetora vs. Speed Muscle/PAC, DG (5/28)
vs. BxB Hulk, DG (7/11)
vs. Bryan Danielson, DGUSA (7/24)
vs. Jimmy Olsen, CHIKARA (7/25)
w/ YAMATO vs. Masaaki Mochizuki/Don Fujii, DG (8/5)

19. COLT CABANA

The least crucial part of the feud of the year is still part of the feud of the year. It’s not like he contributed nothing, he was great in the tag team matches, and his big gimmick singles encounters against Steen and Corino were both tremendous. A handful of great little matches litters the rest of his resume, and it’s not fault that “Hero’s Friend” is a less interesting role than Hero, Villain, or Devil On The Shoulder. To his credit, Cabana managed to selflessly ride a line perfectly between likeable and legitimate but never outshining El Generico in any way. It’s a real hard lining to walk, and few could have or have done it better than Cabana in 2010.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ El Generico vs. Kevin Steen/Steve Corino, ROH (4/24)
vs. Kevin Steen, ROH (5/8)
w/ El Generico vs. Kevin Steen/Steve Corino, ROH (7/19)
vs. Chris Hero, ROH (7/22)
w/ El Generico vs. The American Wolves, ROH (7/24)
w/ El Generico vs. The Kings of Wrestling, ROH (8/30)
w/ El Generico vs. The Kings of Wrestling, ROH (9/10)
w/ El Generico vs. Kevin Steen/Steve Corino, ROH (9/11)
vs. Eddie Edwards, ROH (12/6)
vs. TJ Perkins, ROH (12/18)

18. DAISUKE IKEDA

In the last few years, I’ve repeatedly written the phrase “secret BITW” about Roderick Strong, as a shorthand way of discussing how he’s still as great as he was at his peak in 2015, but hidden on trash brand NXT and held back by WWE being WWE, it’s hard for him to show it. In 2010, Daisuke Ikeda was secretly the best wrestler in the world, because only real obsessive perverts watched him at the time and because he had something like ten or less matches make tape in 2010. The BattlARTS footage resurgence began in 2008, and did wonders for the reputations of a lot of those guys. In 2010, it was about FUTEN. Just about every show found its way online, and the highlight of each and every one of them was the performance of Daisuke Ikeda. I’d imagine that everyone reading this has seen the match against Takeshi Ono, the hoot of the decade and the greatest five minute match of all time. People always get put over for impressive carryjobs, but I think there’s a difference in getting something out of someone who sometimes chooses not to do their best all the time and what Ikeda did in 2010, getting genuinely incredible matches out of the fucking Brahman Brothers or making matches against true nothings like Moriyama feel as important as they did.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ The Brahman Brothers vs. Takeshi Ono/Manabu Suruga/Hajime Moriyama, FUTEN (4/24)
w/ Makoto Hashi & Mohammed Yone vs. Minoru Suzuki/Yoshihiro Takayama/KENTA, NOAH (6/13)
vs. Hajime Moriyama, FUTEN (6/27)
vs. Takeshi Ono, FUTEN (9/26)
w/ Takehiro Oba vs. Kengo Mashimo/Makoto Hashi, FUTEN (10/24)

17. CHRISTIAN

Arguably the television MVP, if not the best television worker of the year. Rey Mysterio or Daniel Bryan or CM Punk may have had or gotten to have more exciting or sensational matches, but none of them were tasked quite with the sorts of things that Christian was. He got to wrestle against actual great wrestlers like Punk or Regal a time or two in 2010, but he spent most of his effort holding the hands of various WWE projects and guiding the least interesting of them to career performances without the sorts of stages or time allotments that Mysterio or Bryan or Punk had. There aren’t the sorts of highlights that he had the year before and the year after, but he succeeded when tasked with the near impossible. No longer the centerpiece of a niche brand for online obsessives, he now had to do the same sorts of things on the midcard of an ice cold show like 2010 Smackdown and did just as well.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. William Regal, WWE (1/14)
vs. William Regal, WWE (1/19)
vs. Ezekiel Jackson, WWE (1/31)
vs. Ezekiel Jackson, WWE (2/16)
vs. Cody Rhodes, WWE (5/7)
vs. Dolph Ziggler, WWE (5/20)
vs. Drew McIntyre, WWE (7/30)
vs. Drew McIntyre, WWE (8/21)
vs. CM Punk, WWE (9/17)

16. YOSHIHIRO TAKAYAMA

A year of return, however brief. Takayama began the year with one of the most effective legitimization performances of the decade, and spent his year maintaining that level of performance, including a repeat to legitimize NOAH’s top shit kicker too. Beyond simply hitting hard, Takayama began to work more as a force of nature in 2010. In his prime, he was a tank. In 2010, he was a mountain to be climbed. Not everyone was able to, but the main two who were able to (Nakamura & Sugiura) were made by Takayama finding that perfect balance between destructive power and a sort of precarious vulnerability.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, NJPW (1/4)
w/ Jun Akiyama & Kensuke Sasaki vs. Go Shiozaki/Takeshi Morishima/Masao Inoue, NOAH (5/22)
w/ Akitoshi Saito & Yutaka Yoshie vs. Kensuke Sasaki/Takeshi Morishima/Takashi Okita, NOAH (6/6)
w/ Minoru Suzuki & KENTA vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Mohammed Yone/Makoto Hashi, NOAH (6/13)
w/ Kensuke Sasaki & Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Takashi Sugiura/KENTA/Mohammed Yone, NOAH (6/26)
vs. Takashi Sugiura, NOAH (7/10)
w/ Takuma Sano vs. The Kings of Wrestling, NOAH (12/5)

15. DAISUKE SEKIMOTO

The picture of consistency, beginning with 2010 and going forward. This year, and most years. A very basic wrestler? Yes. Absolutely. A very good and smart wrestler? Yes. Absolutely. His best work was in tag teams, be it the Strong BJ run over 16 Carat Weekend, the Team BJW run in King of Trios, or with regular partner Yoshihito Sasaki. His singles work in DDT didn’t do it for me quite as much as I would have liked. If you were someone who loved all of that stuff, big Dice-K might wind up even higher than this.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ Yuji Okabayashi vs. The Switchblade Conspiracy, WXW (3/7)
w/ Yoshihito Sasaki vs. Takashi Sasaki/Abdullah Kobayashi, BJW (3/19)
w/ Yoshihito Sasaki vs. Shuji Ishikawa/Yuji Okabayashi, BJW (4/1)
w/ Yuji Okabayashi & Kankuro Hoshino vs. Mike Quackenbush/Hallowicked/Frightmare, CHIKARA (4/23)
w/ Yuji Okabayashi & Kankuro Hoshino vs. Jimmy Olsen/Helios/Jigsaw, CHIKARA (4/24)
w/ Yoshihito Sasaki vs. Takashi Sasaki/Yuko Miyamoto, BJW (5/28)
w/ Yoshihito Sasaki & Ryuichi Kawakami vs. Yuji Okabayashi/Kazuki Hashimoto/Takumi Tsukamoto, BJW (9/19)

14. STEVE CORINO

Among the best old man runs of the decade. Steve Corino had been dead as a great wrestler for something like five years before crucial involvement with the feud of the year sparked something in him again. For all the credit Kevin Steen rightfully received for his character work in the feud, I found “devil on the shoulder” Steve Corino to be an more vile character. The moments near the end of the year when he’s realized that he’s created a monster that he no longer has control over do as much to build up the Final Battle match as the famous hype video does. The in ring highlights are in the feud, but the tag team with Kevin Steen was great in general. The singles matches in the feud were great in their own way, and the most impressive thing might have been how he was able to get a more coherent and interesting television singles match out of Tyler Black than just about anyone save for Daniel Bryan and El Generico was for the rest of the decade.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ Kevin Steen vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (4/24)
w/ Kevin Steen vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (7/19)
vs. Tyler Black, ROH (8/30)
w/ Kevin Steen vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (9/11)
w/ Kevin Steen vs. Adam Cole/Kyle O’Reilly, ROH (10/15)
vs. Colt Cabana, ROH (10/16)
w/ Kevin Steen vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (11/1)
w/ Kevin Steen vs. The Kings of Wrestling, ROH (11/13)
w/ Kevin Steen vs. The Briscoes, ROH (12/17)

13. CM PUNK

CM Punk spent half the year injured and/or doing work that was beneath someone as talented as him. He did so in a promotion where he was one of the only bright spots, and at times, the only one period. Despite all that, when he had the chances, he was too good for that to matter. Beyond simply that the CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio feud was among the best of the year and very possibly the best one on one series of 2010, everything he did was great. There’s a handful of great little television matches in tags with Luke Gallows, but he also got something out of a broken down Undertaker in a TV singles match and more than anyone else did out of a babyface Mark Henry. The material isn’t here to let me go even higher on one of my favorites of all time, but almost everything he got to touch was gold. A year before he got to call himself by the name, 2010 was when CM Punk started to feel like the best in the world.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Mark Henry, WWE (1/5)
vs. Rey Mysterio, WWE (2/12)
vs. Rey Mysterio, WWE (3/28)
vs. Rey Mysterio, WWE (4/25)
vs. Rey Mysterio, WWE (5/14)
vs. Rey Mysterio, WWE (5/23)
vs. The Undertaker, WWE (9/10)
vs. Christian, WWE (9/17)

12. THE YOUNG BUCKS

I think it’s fine to put a tag team in one spot here, provided that most of their work was together, and they’re here largely for that tag work. The Kings of Wrestling can’t rank as a team, but the Bucks can (and another team can and will!). There wasn’t a purerer tag team than this, even if there were a few better. 2009 was the year that The Young Bucks took a leap when they began working heel. Like Shinsuke Nakamura, 2010 saw the refinement of an act that began to work in 2009. Nowhere near the versatility, but a hell of a resume in 2010 making the most of the same act in just about every major independent in the country, as well as somehow having multiple great matches in 2010 TNA. Capable of great spot work, great stunt show work, and then the sort of emotional catharsis title loss at the end of a long heel reign that a people would be over the moon about if it happened now. Something like their incredible babyface performance in WXW against Moxley and Callihan is the icing on the cake.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. The Switchblade Conspiracy, WXW (3/6)
vs. The Motor City Machine Guns, TNA (3/21)
vs. Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw, DGUSA (3/27)
vs. Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw, CHIKARA (4/25)
vs. Johnny Goodtime/Jerome LTP Robinson, PWG (5/9)
vs. Peligros Abejas, PWG (5/9)
vs. The Kings of Wrestling, ROH (7/24)
vs. Peligros Abejas vs. The Cutler Brothers, PWG (7/30)
vs. The Motor City Machine Guns, TNA (9/5)
vs. The Motor City Machine Guns, TNA (11/18)

11. TAKASHI SUGIURA

The god damned Big Boss. 2010 was Takashi Sugiura’s time to establish himself on top of NOAH. He turned back invaders, fought veterans, and stayed (barely) one or two steps ahead of his peers. Time and time again, he reaffirmed his position as the baddest wrestler alive, and every time, it felt like as much of a victory as it did when he first won the title. With each defense, Sugiura felt less like a man holding a title as a “thank you”, and more like the man, period. The crown jewel is the defense against Takayama, where the match and Sugiura’s appeal is best summed up as a man standing up to his father and finally having the strength to knock him down. Very few wrestlers ever have filled me with life like Takashi Sugiura does at his best, and 2010 is him at his very best.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Hirooki Goto, NJPW (1/4)
vs. Jun Akiyama, NOAH (5/2)
w/ KENTA & Mohammed Yone vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Kensuke Sasaki/Katsuhiko Nakajima, NOAH (6/26)
vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, NOAH (7/10)
w/ KENTA vs. Go Shiozaki/Takeshi Morishima, NOAH (8/4)
vs. Jun Akiyama, NOAH (8/22)
vs. Go Shiozaki, NOAH (9/26)

10. YOSHIHITO SASAKI

The angriest boy and my strongest son. May his career rest in peace. His crowning moment wasn’t in 2010, but this was his career year. In 2011, Daisuke Sekimoto adopts Yuji Okabayashi as his partner as THE Strong BJW team. In 2010, the baby golem isn’t quite ready, and our man Y. Sasaki got fill that role for a time, even if he wasn’t allowed to be unleashed on the poor unsuspecting people of Philadelphia for King of Trios. On top of the tags though, he was involved in some of those wonderful Strong vs. Deathmatch matches, including the two BJW singles highlights of the year. One of the best rounded years in Japan.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Takashi Sasaki/Abdullah Kobayashi, BJW (3/19)
w/ Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Shuji Ishikawa/Yuji Okabayashi, BJW (4/1)
w/ Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Takashi Sasaki/Yuko Miyamoto, BJW (5/28)
vs. Necro Butcher, BJW (6/25)
vs. Takashi Sasaki, BJW (6/27)
w/ Daisuke Sekimoto & Ryuichi Kawakami vs. Yuji Okabayashi/Kazuki Hashimoto/Takumi Tsukamoto, BJW (9/19)

9. MIKE QUACKENBUSH

Another great year from the maestro. No longer much for traveling around and no longer bothering to cast himself as CHIKARA’s lead, Quackenbush spent 2010 as a mascot for everything the promotion of the year stood for and as a symbol of its history, both mascot and living legend. Quackenbush’s 2010 resume is almost entirely tag team work, but few people had more great tag team matches than Mike Quackenbush. The most impressive thing is how he did it with all these different partners and in all these different scenarios. Quackenbush was just as good as the conductor in a CHIKARA showcase tag in DGUSA or EVOLVE as he was at home, be it in dream tags with Manami Toyota or as the general opposite the BDK. 2010 saw the two major payoffs of that story first in the Cibernetico, and later in the December tag title switch. The first didn’t belong to him, the second did, and both would have been far worse with someone else in his place.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ Hallowicked & Frightmare vs. Brodie Lee/Team FIST, EVOLVE (1/17)
w/ Jigsaw, Jimmy Olsen, & Helios vs. Brodie Lee/The UnStable, CHIKARA (2/27)
w/ Jigsaw vs. Hallowicked/Frightmare vs. The Osirian Portal vs. Fire & Green Ant, EVOLVE (3/13)
w/ Jigsaw vs. The Young Bucks, DGUSA (3/27)
w/ Hallowicked & Frightmare vs. Daisuke Sekimoto/Yuji Okabayashi/Kankuro Yoshino, CHIKARA (4/23)
w/ Jigsaw vs. The Young Bucks, CHIKARA (4/25)
vs. Green Ant, CHIKARA (6/26)
w/ Frightmare vs. Lince Dorado/Pinkie Sanchez, CHIKARA (6/27)
w/ Hallowicked & Jigsaw vs. Speed Muscle/BxB Hulk, CHIKARA (7/25)
w/ Manami Toyota vs. Claudio Castagnoli/Sara Del Rey, CHIKARA (9/19)
w/ Team CHIKARA vs. Team BDK, CHIKARA (10/23)
w/ Jigsaw vs. Claudio Castagnoli/Ares, CHIKARA (12/12)

8. THE MOTOR CITY MACHINE GUNS

With all due respect to the Shelley/Hero matches and Sabin’s PWG singles work, they get here as a team. Their case has been established, no need to repeat it. They had two of the best tag rivalries in TNA history back to back, all the more impressive when you consider that they were a.) basically non-entities in the division before the push began and b.) that one of those rivalries saw them elevate a team in that position too. The pit stop to ROH for a show to face the other best tag team in the world didn’t hurt the case much either. The best pure babyface tag team run of the decade, not that it’s some huge hurdle.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

Alex Shelley vs. Chris Hero, PWG (2/27)
Chris Sabin vs. Roderick Strong, PWG (2/27)
Alex Shelley vs. Chris Hero, WXW (3/13)
vs. Generation Me, TNA (3/21)
vs. The Kings of Wrestling, ROH (5/8)
vs. Beer Money, TNA (7/11)
vs. Beer Money, TNA (7/15)
vs. Beer Money, TNA (7/22)
vs. Beer Money, TNA (7/29)
Chris Sabin vs. Akira Tozawa, PWG (7/30)
vs. Beer Money, TNA (8/5)
vs. Beer Money, TNA (8/12)
vs. Generation Me, TNA (9/5)
vs. Generation Me, TNA (11/18)

7. JON MOXLEY

Something something sick guy. Something something Sweet Caroline. With all due respect to the best years of The Shield and his statement year to end the decade, this is the best year of Moxley’s career. It’s a rare thing that you can look at the entire landscape of wrestling and make a halfway decent argument that the CZW World Champion had the best title reign of the year. You can do that in 2010 with Jon Moxley. Undoubtedly the best hardcore wrestler of the year, but so much more than that. He could work one of the best deathmatches of the year against Nick Gage and have an American Wolves indie epic in the same day, and be the driving force behind both. And in a year dominated independently speaking by one hyperpersonal blood feud, it’s Jon Moxley who’s in the best blood feud blowoff match of the year. The great shame of the decade is that this wrestler vanished four months into 2011 and we didn’t see him again. Some evolution of it emerged in 2019, but the tragedy of the 2010s is that we missed the entire journey from A to B.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ Sami Callihan vs. Up in Smoke, WXW (3/5)
w/ Sami Callihan vs. The Young Bucks, WXW (3/6)
w/ Sami Callihan vs. Strong BJ, WXW (3/7)
vs. Nick Gage, CZW (3/13)
w/ Sami Callihan vs. The American Wolves, WXW (3/13)
vs. Sami Callihan, CZW (4/10)
vs. Brodie Lee, EVOLVE (7/23)
vs. Jimmy Jacobs, DGUSA (9/25)
vs. Bryan Danielson, DGUSA (9/26)
vs. Jimmy Jacobs, DGUSA (10/29)
vs. Drake Younger, CZW (11/13)
vs. Homicide, EVOLVE (11/20)

6. REY MYSTERIO

The picture of consistency in the WWE, and the best television worker of the year. Beyond being half of WWE’s feud of the year and match of the year against CM Punk, few others were as much of a guarantee as Rey Mysterio was for a good television match. Forget the CM Punk feud entirely, I can make a case without it. It’s hard to think of more than a handful of guys who could have both played such a great underdog against The Undertaker and Batista and then turned it around and become a symbol of strength for guys like Ziggler, Del Rio, and Swagger to create reputations against. This isn’t a top five year for Rey Mysterio probably, but he’s one of the greatest wrestlers of all time and 2010 provides every sort of reason why.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Batista, WWE (1/15)
vs. The Undertaker, WWE (1/31)
vs. Dolph Ziggler, WWE (2/5)
vs. CM Punk, WWE (2/12)
vs. Mike Knox, WWE (2/18)
vs. Luke Gallows, WWE (3/5)
vs. CM Punk, WWE (3/28)
vs. CM Punk, WWE (4/25)
vs. CM Punk, WWE (5/14)
vs. CM Punk, WWE (5/23)
vs. The Undertaker, WWE (5/28)
vs. Jack Swagger, WWE (6/11)
vs. Jack Swagger, WWE (7/18)
vs. Jack Swagger, WWE (7/23)
vs. Alberto Del Rio, WWE (10/8)
vs. Edge vs. Kane vs. Alberto Del Rio, WWE (12/19)

5. DANIEL BRYAN/BRYAN DANIELSON

OUT HERE IN THE FIELDS/I FOUGHT FOR MY MEALS

excuse me. Daniel Bryan is the greatest wrestler of all time. He effectively spent half a year on the shelf, and still cracked the top five. He suffered in the way that new WWE signees tend to suffer, until a fortunate incident with a tie granted him a summer vacation. Bryan hit the indies for three months and through a combination of dream matches and miracles, it was a reminder of what we’d lost for the previous nine months. When he came back, it was a Bryan Danielson with a green light, and there is nothing better. With a full year of work, he might be my Wrestler of the Year for a fourth consecutive career (2006 belongs to Necro, don’t at me).

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Eddie Kingston, CHIKARA (6/26)
vs. Tim Donst, CHIKARA (6/27)
vs. TJ Perkins, WXW (7/3)
vs. Johnny Moss, WXW (7/4)
vs. Shingo Takagi, DGUSA (7/24)
w/ John Cena/Bret Hart/Edge/Chris Jericho/John Morrison/R-Truth vs. The Nexus, WWE (8/15)
vs. The Miz, WWE (9/19)
vs. Jon Moxley, DGUSA (9/26)
vs. The Miz vs. John Morrison, WWE (10/3)
vs. Sheamus, WWE (10/11)
vs. Dolph Ziggler, WWE (10/24)
vs. Ted DiBiase Jr., WWE (11/21)
vs. William Regal, WWE (12/20)

4. KEVIN STEEN

For all the problems I’ve expressed with him sometimes as a singles guy, 2010 saw him work more as a character, and what a character. One of the most magnetic runs a wrestler had this decade. It’s largely concentrated in one feud, but that’s not something that I think disqualifies him. It was the feud of the year, and quality is quality. Outside of the feud, he led Tyler Black to one of his better title defenses, formed a devilishly fun team of jilted exes with Brian Kendrick to fight the Peligro Abejas, and finished what Chris Hero started with Akira Tozawa. Not the Wrestler of the Year just quite, but the most captivating personality in professional wrestling in 2010.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Human Tornado, ROH (1/29)
w/ Steve Corino vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (4/24)
vs. Colt Cabana, ROH (5/8)
w/ Brian Kendrick vs. Peligro Abejas, PWG (6/11)
vs. El Generico, ROH (6/19)
w/ Steve Corino vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (7/19)
vs. Tyler Black, ROH (7/24)
vs. Roderick Strong, ROH (8/28)
w/ Steve Corino vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (9/11)
w/ Steve Corino vs. Adam Cole/Kyle O’Reilly, ROH (10/15)
vs. Akira Tozawa, PWG (12/11)
vs. El Generico, ROH (12/18)

3. CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI

The tag team worker of the year. Tag team wrestling is the best, and in addition to being half of the Tag Team of the Year, Claudio was also the guiding force behind a whole different promotion’s worth of tag team work. Beyond just the guiding force of tag work, the guiding force in totality. The BDK fails without Claudio Castagnoli. Both because of who he is as a figure in CHIKARA but also because of who he is as a wrestler. Very few people could have anchored that collection of guys and girls the way he did. Very few could have taken a mediocrity like Ares to as many great tag matches as he did or taken both a mediocrity like Ares and a brand new big man like Tursas to as many good to great six man tag team matches as he did. Beyond just that it’s impressive that he was half of two different great year defining teams, it’s impressive how different he was in those runs. For the more prestige wrestling minded, his breakout run in PWG was also something real special and cool to witness, as he put Ricochet on the map before then doing the same for himself. The only other wrestlers in 2010 with more variety, volume, and versatility than Claudio Castagnoli are the two above him.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

w/ Ares vs. Fire & Soldier Ant, CHIKARA (3/20)
w/ Ares & Tursas vs. The Colony, CHIKARA (4/25)
w/ Chris Hero vs. The Motor City Machine Guns, ROH (5/8)
w/ Ares vs. Hallowicked/Frightmare, CHIKARA (5/23)
w/ Chris Hero vs. Up in Smoke, ROH (6/18)
w/ Chris Hero vs. The Briscoes, ROH (6/19)
w/ Ares vs. Jimmy Olsen/Helios, CHIKARA (6/27)
w/ Chris Hero vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (8/30)
vs. Ricochet, PWG (9/4)
w/ Chris Hero vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (9/10)
w/ Chris Hero vs. World’s Greatest Tag Team, ROH (9/11)
w/ Sara Del Rey vs. Mike Quackenbush/Manami Toyota, CHIKARA (9/19)
w/ Chris Hero vs. Super Smash Bros., ROH (9/27)
w/ Chris Hero vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Takuma Sano, NOAH (12/5)
w/ Chris Hero vs. Peligro Abejas, PWG (12/11)
w/ Ares vs. Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw, CHIKARA (12/12)
w/ Chris Hero & Shane Hagadorn vs. The Briscoes/Papa Briscoe, ROH (12/18)

2. EL GENERICO

2010 is the year when the best babyface of a generation arrived as such. Beyond that, it was the year when El Generico took the leap into being one of the five to ten best wrestlers in the entire world, if not something more. So much of that is tied to the feud of the year, but the reason he’s higher up than his three partners in that is all the great work he did outside of that. Peligros Abejas had like five matches together and every single one was great. Not too much of a singles worker in 2010, but what was there was great too, with the crown jewel being a match against Ricochet where Generico looked for the first time like he might just be one of the greatest of all time. A special special career defining year for El Generico, even if he isn’t #1. The only alternative WOTY choice in 2010 that doesn’t feel totally incorrect.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Jushin Liger, PWG (1/30)
vs. Chris Hero, ROH (3/20)
w/ Colt Cabana vs. Kevin Steen/Steve Corino, ROH (4/3)
vs. Paul London, PWG (4/10)
vs. Roderick Strong, ROH (4/23)
w/ Colt Cabana vs. Kevin Steen/Steve Corino, ROH (4/24)
w/ Paul London vs. The Young Bucks, PWG (5/9)
w/ Paul London vs. Kevin Steen/Brian Kendrick, PWG (6/11)
vs. Kevin Steen, ROH (6/19)
w/ Colt Cabana vs. Kevin Steen/Steve Corino, ROH (7/19)
w/ Colt Cabana vs. The American Wolves, ROH (7/24)
w/ Paul London vs. The Young Bucks vs. The Cutler Brothers, PWG (7/30)
w/ Colt Cabana vs. the Kings of Wrestling, ROH (8/30)
vs. Akira Tozawa, PWG (9/4)
w/ Colt Cabana vs. The Kings of Wrestling, ROH (9/10)
w/ Colt Cabana vs. Kevin Steen/Steve Corino, ROH (9/11)
vs. Ricochet, PWG (10/9)
vs. Drake Younger, WXW (12/4)
w/ Paul London vs. The Kings of Wrestling, PWG (12/11)
vs. Kevin Steen, ROH (12/18)

1. CHRIS HERO

If you’ve been reading along for the past few weeks, I think you knew this was going to happen. One of the easiest WOTY victories to award in the history of wrestling. I never considered anything else, and although some of these matches didn’t hold up to quite what I remembered, at no point watching all these Hero matches did he feel like anything less than the best in the world. 2010 is the best year of Chris Hero’s career. Hold up 2016 if you want, you’re wrong. In 2010, Chris Hero had better and more interesting matches, and did it with far more versatility. A living legend in WXW. A heel leaning gatekeeper in PWG. Half of the best tag team in the world in ROH. The variance within those roles is also so impressive. Not just the wrestler of the year, but half of the tag team of the year, half of the match of the year, half of the best match on the show of the year. With few exceptions, if there was an award to be won in 2010, Chris Hero won it. The best wrestler in the world. That might not always correlate perfectly to being the Wrestler of the Year, but when the best wrestler in the world has the talent and stage(s) to work with that Chris Hero did in 2010, it’s barely even a contest.

RECOMMENDED MATCHES:

vs. Alex Shelley, PWG (2/27)
vs. Bad Bones, WXW (3/5)
vs. Martin Stone, WXW (3/6)
vs. Big Van Walter, WXW (3/7)
vs. Alex Shelley, WXW (3/13)
vs. Ikuto Hidaka, EVOLVE (3/13)
vs. El Generico, ROH (3/20)
vs. Tyler Black, ROH (4/24)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli vs. The Motor City Machine Guns, ROH (5/8)
vs. Brandon Bonham, PWG (5/9)
vs. Brandon Gatson, PWG (6/11)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli vs. Up in Smoke, ROH (6/18)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli vs. The Briscoes, ROH (6/19)
vs. Davey Richards, PWG (7/30)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (8/30)
vs. Christopher Daniels, PWG (9/4)
vs. Akira Tozawa, PWG (9/5)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli vs. El Generico/Colt Cabana, ROH (9/10)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli vs. World’s Greatest Tag Team, ROH (9/11)
vs. Eddie Edwards, ROH (11/12)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Takuma Sano, NOAH (12/5)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli vs. Peligros Abejas, PWG (12/11)
w/ Claudio Castagnoli & Shane Hagadorn vs. The Briscoes/Papa Briscoe, ROH (12/18)

Thank you for reading! 2011 coverage will be more expansive to say the least, pulling a lot from my prodigious match spreadsheets to look at a lot of good stuff and then also some not so good things.