Match of the Year Tracking Thread 2017

[Papa Pillman]

This hasn't been done in years on this site, but I think its a handy way to help organize all of the great matches that happen throughout the year, as well as a really cool tool for people to use to look for great matches that they might have missed, or who want to check out the best matches from promotions that they don't regularly watch. It could also be helpful to remind people of the top contender bouts when the end of year award nominations arrive in several months.

Since we're already a third of the way through 2017, I'm gonna build a little starting list of contenders that I believe belong legitimately in the conversation for the title of year's best:

NJPW
Okada v. Omega WK11

Naito v. Elgin New Beginning Osaka

Omega v. Ishii New Japan Cup Night 2

Okada v. Shibata Sakura Genesis

Omega v. Ishii Wrestling Dontaku

WWE
Cena v. Styles Royal Rumble

ROH
Hardy's v. Young Bucks Supercard of Honor XI


Feel free to make a case for any other matches that I didn't list. I could see the tag title match from Takeover Orlando, Ishii and Shibata from the NJ cup, a couple other Okada matches, the Rumble and Elimination Chamber matches for those who like the big multi-man starpower-filled WWE gimmick matches, among others being matches that people could make a case for.

As the year progresses, if a new match happens that you feel has an argument as being the year's best, come here and add it on! Also remeber that this post is in the non-spam section, so be sure to give some thoughts on the match and why you posted it.

 

[ShinChan]

I totally agree with Kazuchika Okada Vs. Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 11 & AJ Styles Vs. John Cena at Royal Rumble being strong contenders for "Match Of The Year".

I would like to add another match. Although it's not on the same level as aforementioned matches, yet it was a great match. Finn Balor Vs. Seth Rollins Vs. The Miz at a recent Raw.

I'm almost sure that AJ Styles Vs. Kevin Owens at Backlash will make this list if given enough time. Kazuchika Okada Vs. Kenny Omega II also.

 

[JoeMallard]

I'm going to put Styles vs Shane at Mania. Talk about a match that nobody thought was going to be good exceeded expectations.

 

[ShinChan]

I'm going to put Styles vs Shane at Mania. Talk about a match that nobody thought was going to be good exceeded expectations.

Yeah, that was really a good match. Unexpectedly good. We all were upset that AJ Styles could've had a much better opponent. Instead of a part-time wrestler, we wanted to see him against a star like John Cena or even The Undertaker. But the match just proved us wrong and was damn entertaining.

Especially that Shooting Star Press by Shane McMahon. I won't be surprised if a Cruiserweight did it. But Shane McMahon? I felt awesome seeing him execute this move.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

I would love for Styles vs Shane to be added. It shouldn't win, but it's still an outstanding match and I think having a non wrestler be in a MOTY candidate is rather humorous.

 

[Papa Pillman]

While not really a truly legit MOTY candidate(mostly because this year has already offered 5 or 6 that would win in pretty much any other year), some love needs to be thrown in the direction of the Will Ospreay versus Jay White match from War of the Worlds in NYC.

While admittedly some overhyped it in the couple days between when the showed aired and when I got to catch it, the match did deliver in spades. I had Ospreay/White at four and a quarter stars and felt that it edged out the Lethal/KUSHIDA match from WOTW Toronto as best match on the tour, as well as also just topping the meetings earlier this year between Marty Scurll and Lio Rush as the best singles match presented by ROH thus far in 2017.

The whole show was fun, but White and Ospreay delivered the one match worth going out of your way to see.

 

[Papa Pillman]

Having just navigated the most loaded weekend of wrestling since WrestleMania- with TakeOver, BackLash, and BOSJ action, I thought I'd update here.

I haven't watched the hard cam shows from the Super Juniors tourney yet, and while Nights 1 and 2 were high quality stuff, I don't think either delivered a true MOTY contender. Though outstanding as stand alone affairs, Ospreay/Scurll and Hiromu/Lee suffered by delivering matches that in both cases failed to even crack the top-3 in either series' illustrious history(not really a criticism as the case can be made for either rivalry being the best in-ring pairing of sub-30 guys in the entire industry). And Ospreay/Ricochet was also outstanding but failed to reach the level of their all time classic from last year's tourney.

As for the WWE action, there were three close calls for MOTYC status, as Roode and Itami delivered a four star effort that was arguably the Japanese icon's best match under the NXT umbrella; DIY and the Authors delivered four and a quarter star effort that was the second best ladder match thus far in 2017(only failing to top the Bucks/Hardys classic from SCoH), but the match itself was outshone by the perfectly executed post match heel turn; and AJ/K.O. also had a ridiculous encounter, but as strange as it is to say for a 20+ minute bout with a ton of big offense, I felt as if both men left a metric shit ton on the table for future matchups that we have to expect over the remainder of the Spring and Summer. Props to AJ however, as he's now been a part of the two best WWE main roster singles matches thus far in the calendar year. I had the US title match at four stars.

Now... We get to the match that did manage to blast its way into MOTY contendership status; Tyler Bate defending the UK strap against Pete Dunne. I absolutely love that the UK brand happens to be the one that has even less of the WWE match restriction formula in play yet. NXT always went slightly past the main roster's restrictions, and the CWC broke that barrier to even another degree, but the UK brand has taken that to even a different level. Dunne and Bate had the exact same match that I would've expected them to deliver in a main event title match on a major indy show. And you couple their level of chemistry, the level of physicality, the drama and stakes, and the absolutely huge and hot Chicago crowd, and what resulted was arguably the best 2017 singles match outside of NJPW. I had it at 4.5 stars. I would have to go back and watch AJ/Cena from the Rumble again as well as this match to make the determination, but I'm leaning right now toward saying that Bate and Dunne are the leader in the clubhouse for the best 2017 match of any sort wrestled anywhere under the WWE tent.

First new true MOTY candidate since my original post in this thread: Bate vs Dunne- NXT Takeover Chicago.

 

[JoeMallard]

Bate vs Dunne was fantastic!

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Even though matches that happen on television are often not included when it comes to match of the year candidates, I feel that the Intercontinental Championship #1 contender's triple threat match between Finn Balor, Seth Rollins and the Miz deserves at least a mention. I think it'd be a possible contender if not for the fact that, since it took place on Raw, the show went to commercial. There's a very strong possibility that the Fatal Fiveway bout coming up at Extreme Rules will be a contender as well.

 

[JoeMallard]

Hideo Itami vs Roderick Strong on NXT was one of the hardest hitting matches I've seen on WWE programming this year, it was enjoyable to say the least.

 

[Wildcat66]

That Fatal Five Way we saw at Extreme Rules was really good, especially in terms of the spot department. It might be a dark horse candidate for MOTY. If not, then it's definitely up there as the craziest match of the year.

 

[Slash-LN]

That Fatal Five Way we saw at Extreme Rules was really good, especially in terms of the spot department. It might be a dark horse candidate for MOTY. If not, then it's definitely up there as the craziest match of the year.

This is the one I came to mention.
While I haven't watched a ton of wrestling this year I will say that from the shows I've seen this one definitely stood out.

It exceeded expectation. It was well paced. It told a story. It wasn't full of botches and there weren't too many high spots. There weren't even any spots that didn't make sense.

Everybody looked strong by the end of the match. It didn't drag on and it helped carry over to RAW.

There's really not much else you could ask for out of a match and outside of the Women's match Extreme Rules was solid all around. So that this match sticks out as the best of a group of very entertaining matches says something about it.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

A match that's gotten some buzz over the past week was Kushida vs. Will Ospreay in the Best of the Super Junior finals on June 3.

I just finished watching the match on YouTube and Dave Meltzer has really started passing out 5 star ratings for New Japan matches like a pediatrician passes out lollypops. I know everything is subjective, but I just don't see how he so casually just gives so many of 'em out these days. To be honest, I thought the match was maybe 3.75 stars, it was a strong match but I thought there were too many negatives for this to be a MOTY candidate.

Is it in Ospreay's contract that he has to do a flip with almost every one of his moves? For me, maybe a little more than halfway through things, Ospreay's stuff stopped having any sort of impact with me because it was almost all some sort of flip or high spot. The selling was inconsistent with Ospreay just sort of shaking off everything after a handful of seconds most of the time. I'm just not a huge fan of Ospreay's style of nonstop flips and the general overuse of high impact moves as it makes the moves less impactful. One thing that did help it was the length, I wish WWE would let more of their bigger singles matches go 30 minutes sometimes as it just seems like it'd make some matches matter all the more.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

Dave Meltzer has really started passing out 5 star ratings for New Japan matches like a pediatrician passes out lollypops.

Did he seriously rate it 5 stars? If so then I would be shocked. But I know he did rate Ospreay vs Ricochet II 4.75. That is way too high for that match in my view.

As far as his other New Japan 5 star matches, do you disagree with them? Okada vs Omega and Okada vs Shibata I think absolutely are 5 stars. Naito vs Elgin... It was a fucking great match, but perhaps a tad too long (taking the venue, event and players involved into account).

I did love Ospreay vs Kushida though. But my favourite of the tournament would have to be Kushida vs Taguchi. Much more "cerebral" as a match and the Dugan vs between the two as "stablemates" made it more interesting.

 

[ISkye]

Did he seriously rate it 5 stars? If so then I would be shocked. But I know he did rate Ospreay vs Ricochet II 4.75. That is way too high for that match in my view.

As far as his other New Japan 5 star matches, do you disagree with them? Okada vs Omega and Okada vs Shibata I think absolutely are 5 stars. Naito vs Elgin... It was a fucking great match, but perhaps a tad too long (taking the venue, event and players involved into account).

I did love Ospreay vs Kushida though. But my favourite of the tournament would have to be Kushida vs Taguchi. Much more "cerebral" as a match and the Dugan vs between the two as "stablemates" made it more interesting.

Meltzer is pretty credible actually with a majority of the star ratings. The only thing I tend not to even take note on are his ratings with Ospreay, Ricochet, Young Bucks, etc. He really does see something in the style that they wrestle in, but not exactly everyone does. He will throw like a 4 or 4.5 at PWG tag matches with top talent, and then when I watch it or talk to others it's not exactly what I expected. They're usually absolutely fantastic for sure and accomplish a majority of things you could even begin to take into account. The downfall is the comedy, no sells, endless high spots, etc. It's cool, but I could see people loving it and absolutely despising it at the same time. Definitely where I'd highlight it being his opinion.

Okada v. Shibata, Elgin v. Naito, Omega v. Okada are probably going to be at least 2 of the 5 best pro-wrestling matches matches this year with no.1 secured. A lot of the ratings are *in the moment* so I could see Elgin v. Naito being quite a bit different in retrospect. The other two? No chance. Also if those are the only 3 with 5 stars it's fair. NJPW is absolutely great at the moment, but honestly the bar literally everywhere else isn't set very high.

Anyway. Bate vs Dunne 1 & 2, Okada v. Omega, Okada v. Shibata, Fatal Five way @ Extreme Rules, Cena vs Styles Royal Rumble, Naito v. Elgin, WWE Elimination Chamber, Dunne vs Mark Andrews, Takahashi vs Dragon Lee, Shibata vs Riddle are all good. That last Authors of Pain vs #DIY match was ridiculously good to with everything said and done. I feel like 2016 kind of spoiled me. If you look back at the year it was kind of ridiculous how many great matches they had within this same time span. I feel like in a few months it'll rebound overall and we'll get quite a lot of good stuff though.

Mack vs Mundo all night long was really good in my opinion last week on Lucha underground. The big matches are cool, but I honestly feel like I already saw it prior to watching. I hope they develop a bit more quality with the time to come and however long they may be.

 

[Black Anaconda Vise]

While the Ospreay/KUSHIDA match was really good, the KUSHIDA/Taguchi match was far superior. Maybe part of it is just I'm not that big of an Ospreay fan. Not that he isn't impressive, but the high spots can get excessive, especially when they're done in every match.

Also, am I the only one who enjoyed the Taguchi Japan/LIJ tag from the BOSJ finals? I'm usually not big on New Japan's mass tag matches, but I actually really enjoyed this one.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Best match I've seen this year is the new UK Champion match, shit was off the chain dawg!

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Did he seriously rate it 5 stars? If so then I would be shocked. But I know he did rate Ospreay vs Ricochet II 4.75. That is way too high for that match in my view.

As far as his other New Japan 5 star matches, do you disagree with them? Okada vs Omega and Okada vs Shibata I think absolutely are 5 stars. Naito vs Elgin... It was a fucking great match, but perhaps a tad too long (taking the venue, event and players involved into account).

I did love Ospreay vs Kushida though. But my favourite of the tournament would have to be Kushida vs Taguchi. Much more "cerebral" as a match and the Dugan vs between the two as "stablemates" made it more interesting.

Yup, he gave it a 5 star rating. He's entitled to his opinion of course and I'm not as overly familiar with New Japan as some others in the forums are, yourself for instance. It just sort of annoys me that Meltzer has such an obvious bias and that so many other writers take whatever he says as gospel. I've been looking up a few matches, over the past few days, that Meltzer's awarded 5 stars and the ones I've seen sort of leave me scratching my head a bit. A few days ago, I watched the 2015 G1 Climax finals with Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and I just didn't see a "5 star" performance. It was a good match, don't get me wrong but, just using that as an example, I've seen much better from WWE that didn't get the treatment from Meltzer.

As far as some of the matches you mentioned, I'd say that Elgin vs. Naito was the strongest, if not 5 star then damn near. I thought it was a great meshing of styles, Elgin did a great job of selling his knee throughout and both men were able to showcase what they can do. Okada vs. Omega I was a strong match, but I thought it dragged on too much and there were a few dangerous spots that really didn't seem worth it. If I remember correctly, Omega performed a dragon or full nelson suplex and Okada landed right on his head & neck, it just looked really, really ugly and he was lucky to get away without being injured. As for Okada vs. Shibata, the headbutts killed the match for me because I thought it was just so fucking stupid that somebody would be so reckless in 2017 after all the issues surrounding head trauma in pro wrestling over the last decade or so. There are of ways to deliver stiff, or at least stiff looking, shots that don't really endanger the wrestlers. As a result, Shibata's career is pretty much over and there's no telling what the long term effects will be. If this had happened in WWE, dirt sheet writers, Meltzer included, would've raked Vince, the wrestlers involved and WWE as a whole over the coals.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

Okada vs Omega 2 absolutely needs to be put on this list! I wonder how common it is for two match of the year candidates to be from the same matchup?

 

[Jack-Hammer]

While this won't win, I think the Last Woman Standing NXT Women's Championship match between Asuka and Nikki Cross that just went down on tonight's NXT episode deserves mention. I thought it was a great outing that had a handful of big spots and, as a result, I felt the spots mattered more, especially, particularly the last spot in the match where Asuka superplexed Cross off the top of a ladder through the commentator's table.

For me, it was probably the 2nd best women's match in NXT history, after Bayley vs. Sasha Banks at the first NXT TakeOver event held in Brooklyn, is probably tied with the AOP vs. #DIY at TakeOver: Chicago for the 2nd best NXT match of the year. Overall MOTY, for me, is Bate vs. Dunne so far.

 

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

It seems like what really matter to Dave Meltzer is the way the crowd connects with the match, especially the comeback story during the match. As long as people only cheer for finishers and high spots and not actually connect with the wrestlers in the match, WWE will never see great matches. Although I don't know whether I should blame the WWE crowds or the superstars themselves.

 

[Wildcat66]

New challenger: Braun Strowman vs Roman Reigns's Ambulance Match at GBAF.

It was a brutal brawl with so many tough looking bumps and told quite a good story. Really looking forward to seeing when they fight again to see if they can top that, because at this point; they're pretty much guaranteed to have a good fight.

 

[TeamAwesome]

I'd say Bate Vs Dunne 2 is MOTY worthy.

This is they first match in a long while i have been able to show to a non-wrestling fan whose response after was "wow, that was incredible" he was genuinely popping for the near falls and bigger spots, it's been a while since i've done that myself as a life long wrestling fan.

Their chemistry together has been mentioned in a previous post. They absolutely blew the roof of the place and went a long way to show that the UK scene is the best it has ever been.

 

[Papa Pillman]

Okay I'm going to make this really simple...


Every match that Kenny Omega has had this year with either Okada, Elgin, or Ishii is better than any other wrestling match that any other wrestler has had anywhere in the world in 2017(excluding a few other "non-Omega" Okada matches).

 

[Bagpipes]

The Okada/Omega trilogy should just be grouped together and win match(es) of the year. They're all so great in their own ways, it's really a matter of personal preference as to which one was really the "best". But then again, the same could be said for any wrestling match, so fuck it.

I enjoyed Omega/Naito probably just as much as any of the trilogy matches but that's probably because I like Naito a bit more than Okada. Gonna be nearly impossible to choose 1 match this year.