Not only is the year ending but so is the decade! That’s wild! In order to say goodbye to the 2010s, I thought it’d be cool to list my favorite matches from the past decade. This took quite a bit of time and a lot of research, including watching hours of content on various streaming sites and Youtube and looking through some of my old lists from high school and college. Boy, teenage me was certainly in love with AJ Styles! Also WWE had made me mad in 2009 so I was getting more into other promotions; my hiatus ended up being a blessing in disguise. But finally, here are my ten favorite matches from the past ten years. Remember that this is an informal list with the only criteria being how much I enjoyed the match.
Honorable Mentions
These are a few matches that were in the top five of their year, but were ultimately edged out by another match.
Tyler Black vs Austin Aries vs Roderick Strong, ROH The Big Bang! (2010)
Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt, WWE TLC (2014)
Seth Rollins vs John Cena for the United States Championship, WWE Summer Slam (2015)
Young Bucks vs ReDRagon, ROH Wrestling (2015)
Charlotte Flair vs Sasha Banks vs Becky Lynch for the new Women’s Championship, WWE WrestleMania 32 (2016)
Roman Reigns vs AJ Styles-Extreme Rules Match for the WWE Championship, WWE Extreme Rules (2016)
2010: Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley vs Bobby Roode and James Storm-2 out of 3 Falls Tag Team Match, TNA Impact 8/9/10 (taped)
High school me absolutely loved the Motor City Machine Guns. Adult me loves going back to watch their matches online. I really liked this match; there’s a whole journal entry about it in one of my old notebooks.
2011: Edge vs Wade Barrett vs Kane vs Big Show vs Drew McIntyre vs Rey Mysterio- Elimination Chamber Match, WWE Elimination Chamber
I was briefly lured back to WWE by Edge and the Elimination Chamber. The Chamber is one of my favorite gimmicks and Edge was one of my favorites at the time. The fact that he had to retire shortly after this match still hurts.
2012: AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe vs Christopher Daniels-Ladder Match, TNA Hardcore Justice
AJ Styles has been one of my favorite wrestlers for about 14 years at this point. Add the fact that I was there live for this match and you can see how this match ended up at the top of the 2012 list.
2013: Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish vs Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards, ROH Supercard of Honor VII
ReDRagon for life! Honestly, this was a match that didn’t originally capture my attention on the card but I was soon drawn into it. I think this match planted the seeds for my love of Fish and O’Reilly, which has continued to this day.
2014: The Shield vs Evolution, WWE Extreme Rules
I was drawn back to WWE after The Shield became a thing and helped me recover from the lowest point of my depression (read: suicidal). Then they put my boys against my former favorite faction. I must’ve talked about this match for weeks; my poor roommate had to hear it all.
2015: Bayley vs Sasha Banks-30 Minute Ironman Match for the NXT Women’s Championship, NXT Takeover: Respect
This one of my go-to matches that I will always recommend to new wrestling fans. It was amazing and one of those matches that changed women’s wrestling in WWE. From the in-ring action to the heel tactics used by Banks, this had everything. This is probably one of my favorite matches ever.
2016: Dean Ambrose vs Seth Rollins vs Roman Reigns for the WWE Championship, WWE Battleground
I did an editorial on this a while back on how the brand split took away from this, which it did. But that aside, the story leading up to it was enough to place this on my list. The vignettes and promos for this match were absolutely perfect and still get me emotional when I come across them.
2017: The Usos vs The New Day-Hell in a Cell Match, WWE Hell in a Cell
I must admit, I didn’t have much for either of these teams prior to their feud here. Something clicked with their rap battles, their promos, and their interactions and suddenly I was invested. This is probably one of the best cage-ish tag matches I’ve seen.
2018: Kenny Omega vs Chris Jericho for the IWGP United States Championship, NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 12
When I got up at 3am to watch Wrestle Kingdom 12, I was still in disbelief that Jericho had actually gone to Japan to challenge Omega. I was gripped from bell to bell and this emerged as my favorite match of 2018 by a country mile.
2019: Kenny Omega vs Jon Moxley-Lights Out Match, AEW Full Gear
Augmented by me attending this event live and also making me tear up at Omega lying motionless on the ring wood, this crazy match is the top of the 2019 list. I will always remember this match and the controversy that followed it.
