My Favorite Matches of 2025 (Part II of II)

(Here's Part 1 if you missed it!)

Bandido vs Konoske Takeshita (SuperCard of Honor)

Watching all of these matches back wasn't hard in any context, really. I love wrestling and re-watching some of my favorite matches to figure out how they stack up in retrospect and against each other sounded fun. That said, I was nervous about finding this match because I didn't have ROH Club anymore and wasn't willing to buy it just to watch this one match (even if it's incredible).

Turns out, it's free on YouTube.

So that solved that!

If you have looked at my previous post you'll see that I mention Takeshita quite a few times throughout it. He was one of my wrestlers of the year (WOTY) for 2025 because of his ultra-consistent quality in his matches. But another man that was in that same league (if not a little bit above) was Bandido.

Bandido is an incredible athlete with a high-energy performance and a sweet personality (despite his name) that results in many fans going wild for him. His 2025 was so good that Bandido himself said it was the best year of his career.

This doesn't even cover his amazing tag run with Brody King which was a fun (but sadly short-lived) tag team title reign that was a true joy to watch under the moniker "Brodido" with outstanding matches such as the four-way ladder match, the Young Bucks and defeating Takeshita who tagged along with frenemy Okada.

But that's enough of setting the table, let's see it break.

To start, this match has a "holy shit" chant seconds in so you know this is going to be good, partially because the crowd knows ball. And despite the fact that Takeshita is obviously working heel as a member of the Don Callis family, he's still getting plenty of cheers from the crowd because (again) his workrate is that good.

They do some chain wrestling at the start with kip-ups galore and lots of dazzling displays of athleticism. The two also share a somewhat humorous moment where Takeshita is trying to avoid Bandido's gun...his finger gun, and keeps moving his head so Bandido can't get a clear "shot" on him with the pose. Wrestling is great.

Another thing that was great (and even beyond) was Bandido doing a head spinning version of the head scissors. This move beggars belief. I don't even know how to exactly describe it but basically Bandido twirls his neck like he's an owl or something and throws Takeshita while he has Takeshita wrapped up in his legs.

There's also a great Code Red not long after from Bandido but Takeshita comes back and in one of the very few instances I can personally remember (though that's not saying much), we actually see Bandido not only with part of his mask torn off (thanks to Takeshita working heel) but he's also bleeding!

Takeshita follows up this devastating offense with a brain buster on the ramp and this is, sadly, one of my few criticisms of the match. Takeshita doesn't help Bandido get back to the ring which makes no sense. If Bandido had not beaten the count, Takeshita wouldn't have won because titles don't change that way. Titles can only change through pinfall or submission, so what was the kayfabe reasoning?

My thinking is you could say:

1. Takeshita knew Bandido was (to quote Taz) "triple tough" and would make it and then he (Takeshita) would take advantage for the pin/submission.
2. He was so exhausted from the match that he forgot to bring Bandido back.
3. Getting a win over Bandido, even if he didn't get the title, would prove him the superior athlete and he'd be able to get another shot in the future.

Regardless of my nerdy nitpicking, it's an incredible spot and of course Bandido makes it back before the 20 count (because it's ROH). From here it's a lot of hard-hitting offense from Bandido with a dead-lift German suplex, a tribute to Bryan Danielson and his submission move Cattle Mutilation and even hits his finisher.

Now, much has been said about Bandido's finisher. It sounds cool ("the 21-plex") and it looks really cool as Bandido runs at his opponent and suplexes them as they hang off the ropes and then bridges into a seamless pin.

But that's just the theory (a wrestling theory).

In practice, that often doesn't happen or else it just looks kind of silly for his opponent to wait if Bandido takes too long. Still, it's a sick move when pulled off right and has gotten Bandido the win many times against even tough opponents.

Not this time though.

There's a moment in many matches where Caprice Coleman, a great commentator for ROH and DPW (previously), says, "That's it Riccaboni! I promise you that!"

And without fail it almost always is. But as Bandido goes to hit the 21-plex and does so correctly, Takeshita kicks out. This makes him one of the few to actually take the move and then kick out, a rarity for sure and it popped me big.

Riccaboni is also at the height of his commentating prowess here where Bandido keeps kicking out, even kicking out at 1 at a point later in the match and Caprice asks if he's human and without missing a beat Riccaboni says:

"He's not human, Caprice! He's Bandido!"

Simply a fantastic match and my only real gripe is with the count out spot, but other than that there's not much to complain about. Bandido picked up the win but, as cheesy as it is to say, the fans were the real winners here. Simply incredible.

4.75/5 (Strong, bordering on a 5*)

Women's Casino Gauntlet (All In)

I talked earlier about how matches are affected by retrospect and this is definitely one of the matches that was hurt by that. At the time, I just gave it a 5* rating because I was so happy Athena won and maybe would get the world title run she deserved in AEW rather than only being on ROH and holding that world title.

Welp.

So yeah, that's didn't happen. And looking back at this match it's almost cruel to us Athena fans to give us that kind of hope. There's also some spots at the end of the match with Mina and Thunder that are just not good and hurt proceedings.

Still, this match is incredible and I absolutely adore it for how fast-paced and hard-hitting it is through and through. There's some weird spots with Penelope not immediately backing up Megan Bayne though you could easily argue Megan didn't need it, even if she was going against Statlander. There's also a return here from Tay Melo that just doesn't come across well on TV (so to speak), not much of a pop.

Seeing Syrui here was super cool and she along with Alex Windsor basically picked up where they left off with their rivalry from the UK promotion EVE, if I'm not mistaken. It kinda gave me HBK vs Shawn Michael vibes in the Royal Rumble, the one where they basically have an impromptu singles match. I guess the modern equivalent from the Rumble would be Punk and Cody, a year or two ago.

Thekla also has this amazing moment where she jumps on a bunch of the women at the same time and screams FUCK YOU and it's funny as hell. What's even better is Taz says, "What did she say? I think she said FOR YOU!"

Bottom line, this is still an incredible match, but man, what could've been.

4.75/5 (solidly)

Adam Page vs Jon Moxley (All In)

Some matches are a moment in time, lost and will never be fully recaptured. There are some moments that you will never feel how you felt in that time, despite how fantastic they were or timeless (sorry Toni) they seemed.

The fact that this match comes close to how I originally felt about it is a miracle because it was an insane sensation during this. Sure, I was 95% sure Hangman was winning but that 5% was SCARY. It's like being told you are going to have surgery to get rid of the cancerous lump on you but there's a 5% chance you could die.

Sure, it's unlikely you'll die, but when the consequences are that big, 5% sure as hell looks pretty scary all the same. And for some folks it really was as dire as this, either because they were convinced Jon was washed (wrong), thought his title reign sucked (wrong but more understandable) or just saw the Death Riders' as a cancer that needed to be cut out of All Elite Wrestling (correct in kayfabe at least).

Regardless of how anyone saw it, Hangman won.

But how did he get there?

By bleeding a lot.

There's a fork introduced less than five minutes into the match and it simply never slows down from there. There are beds of nails, barbed wire tables, glass, broken glass, barbed wire chairs, plastic bags, handcuffs, and of course, a chain.

This match is a spectacle but not in that fake WWE way. I'd call this the antithesis of the Bloodline match between Cody and Roman from a year ago. Although, for the record, I enjoyed that match, mostly because it ended Roman's reign. This match I loved for the sake of itself, even if Hangman had lost it would have been a tremendous match, whereas Cody vs Roman depended on the result to be good.

There's interference in this match, because of course there was. But all of the interference is done perfectly. Hangman is even able to fight it off at first, but then the reinforcements happen, Ospreay gets taken out, Darby comes back from Mount Everest and descends from the rafters Sting style, and of course Bryan.

The best moment of this match, however, may just be when Swerve Strickland, Hangman's long-time rival, helps him defeat the Death Riders. What works so great about this is that he slides Hangman the chain but never hits anyone himself or did anything to anyone directly. He just gave Hangman the tools to destroy the Death Riders and end their title reign, it was up to Hangman to use it right.

There's amazing fake outs with Hangman getting up at the count of 9 (it's a Texas Death Match, literally set in Texas) multiple times, the Bucks nearly costing Hangman with a (Former) EVP trigger to the face. One of the biggest fake outs is Mox hitting a Seth Rollins stomp on the bed of nails to Hangman's head/hand (you can see he puts his hand up but AS IF I AM GOING TO BLAME HIM) and a Paradigm Shift that looked like it sucked to take, and yet Hangman perseveres.

A buckshot lariat onto the nails later from Hangman to Mox, as well as a Hangman's noose to Mox not once but twice (the first time failing) and Hangman walks away (after trouble with the briefcase containing the title) as the new AEW Men's World Champion, and much rejoicing was had, what a beautiful match.

5/5 (I'd give it 6* if I could)

Hangman vs MJF (Forbidden Door)

I remember talking to a friend of mine before writing this follow-up and saying that I had some five star matches he may not agree with. This was one of them with him remarking something along the lines of, "don't get me wrong it's good but five stars? I don't know." And yeah, I hate to give him any credit, but he was right.

Still though, incredible match.

There are so many ways to increase the jeopardy between two guys when you want the audience to be unsure of who is going to win. AEW took the tactic here of including a bunch of stipulations that purely benefits MJF. If there's a DQ or count out, Max wins which (as noted earlier) is very unusual in a title match. Max also didn't have to use his guaranteed title match in order to get the match, just threaten Mark Briscoe with literal fire, which, you know, wrestling!

One thing I love about MJF (and there are many) is that he'll sometimes play up in-ring psychology like faking an injury. There's a spot in this match early on where Max acts like he's hurt his leg but then goes on the attack when Hangman tries to target that limb and take advantage. Little things like that are great.

To skip ahead a bit, some of my problem of this match comes from the involvement of a Dusty Finish, basically a wrestler "won" but not really because of some technical rule mess up that happened. The ref missed a detail that would have invalidated the pinfall and that is seen by officials so the match is restarted.

Suffice to say it's not my favorite match type finish. Mainly because it makes so much of cheating in wrestling suspect. Why don't these happen all the time? Why aren't decisions thrown out and matches restarted more often? The heels and faces are always on camera, so why would these finishes only happen here?

I guess you could argue that the referee's decision is final but only in most cases and at the top of the card (ironically this is the semi-main but you know what I mean), there can be exceptions for this. I can agree to that, but Dusty Finishes have to be done very sparingly, otherwise your audience may lose faith in the booker's abilities to actually book a real finish to a contest. In WCW for example Dusty Finishes happened days after the pay-per-view match, not good!

Here, it was just that Hangman had his leg on the bottom rope, the referee didn't notice it when he counted the pinfall, fell back to the mat due to a previous attack by MJF and then when he got back up noticed Hangman's foot. So technically he never gave the match finish, so you could say this is a bit less Dusty than usual.

Regardless, it only happened because Mark Briscoe wanted to make sure MJF didn't get a cheap win like he did over him previously. So there was some narrative resonance here that I appreciated. But even still, not my favorite trope.

In saying all that, this match still slaps, make no mistake. A very cool looking hammerlock DDT from MJF, a tombstone piledriver on half of a table (the table already being previously broken in two), lots of blood, and super solid action.

I do have one more nitpick about this match. The referee constantly does not disqualify Hangman even though he gets pretty aggressive at times. I understand this is for narrative tension sake and respect this approach. But it does require a fair amount of suspension of disbelief why Hangman doesn't get DQ'd at times.

Either way, after a hit with the contract that MJF still has to cash in on Hangman at some point, a dead eye and a buckshot, it's another Hangman win.

4.75/5 (weakly)

Takeshita vs Mascara Dorada vs Okada (All Out)

This is similar to my review of Takeshita vs Ospreay in my last post. It's super short but goddamn that doesn't mean this is a bad match. Dorada's place in this match is to get "little bro'd" a lot. Basically diminished, put down, and tossed aside by Okada and Takeshita who are too busy hating each other to take Dorada seriously. But damn they should have because Dorada walks away the real winner.

It is, and I mean this as earnestly as I can, simply incredible the things Dorada can and does do on the regular. The moves he pulls off and with such stunning consistently and seeming ease, it's indescribable.

So indescribable I'm just going to go tell y'all to watch this masterful match.

5/5 (Solidly)

Kyle Fletcher vs Hangman Adam Page

If this post was about my wrestlers of the year, I think I'd have to put Kyle Fletcher as my number 3, closely preceded by Takeshita and Bandido (at #1). Fletcher had such a fantastic 2025 and it's a shame he's gotten hurt recently. Hopefully when he comes back (if we're lucky before All In 2026), he'll be better than ever.

Now, I'm not sure why, but a spotlight was apparently needed for some of this match so that's what we got. Bit weird, but okay!

This was a match I went back and forth on. It's so close to being a five star classic but there's just a couple of spots that stuck out to me like a sore thumb. An early thrust kick from Fletcher was blown up because of the camera angle, and the hidden blade Fletcher did later didn't look very convincing compared to Will's.

Still, I can't deny how impactful this match was. Hangman using a V-Trigger on Fletcher, an avalanche dead eye on the exposed turnbuckles, the Big Pressure from Hangman to Fletcher, not to mention Danielson on commentary. He just gives it his all with calls like, "Hangman kicked out!!!" "Holy shit!!" his enthusiasm absolutely sells this match and makes it that much more memorable.

There's an interesting bit of in-ring psychology in this match with Fletcher working over Hangman's neck throughout the match and even more psychology in a literal sense with the idea that Fletcher "isn't ready" for the world title. I thought (and still think!) that's nonsense, but it makes for a fun rant from Taz at least.

Anyways, incredible stuff here from two talented men.

4.75/5 (strong, maybe a weak 5)

Speedball Mike Bailey vs Kyle Fletcher

Oh hey, we're back to Fletcher again!

Like I said, he'd probably be my #3 wrestler of the year for 2025 and the Continental Classic (C2) was a big part of the end of Fletcher's year to make the point that he was "ready" for the big time of holding a huge singles title.

Unfortunately for Fletcher, Bailey proved him wrong and got the win here with a surprise roll up. I've spoken before about how mixed I am on that trope but here it's legitimately a surprise roll up and I didn't see it coming. It also came from an underdog towards a more physically imposing opponent, so it really works here.

I also want to say fuck you to Excalibur for making a "6-7" reference by saying "some 6-7 years ago some might say". It was also funny to me when they said that Bailey was "really hungry" (for a win) and I'm like, what the fuck is catering doing?

There's too much here to cover but let me list some spots in chronological order so you can see just how ferociously fast-paced and hard-hitting this match was:

1. The slam on the ringside apron from Fletcher to Bailey
2. The knees to the apron from Bailey to Fletcher
3. The powerbombs from Kyle
4. The Ultima Weapon finally hits (top rope knees to the back)
5. A huge brain buster from Kyle

There's more besides but that's just some of the spots I noted.

I know I've said this sentence but these posts are all about my favorite, right?

Anyways, incredible match.

The only thing that held it back from being a 5* was that I wanted more time.

But that's tough because the C2 has a 20 minute time limit, so there wasn't much more they could have done as Bailey won with a minute to spare. I honestly don't know what else they could have done to get that 5* rating from me, but all I do know is I want a pay-per-view match with these two ASAP!

4.75/5 (Solidly)

MJF vs Swerve vs Hangman vs Samoa Joe (World's End)

This is another one that was a bit controversial for my friend. He thought it was another great match, but not 5*. And again unfortunately he was right.

Similar to the Hangman and MJF match I covered earlier this is an incredible match (4.75) but only just barely, and I'll get more into why below. But I do want to say that I called who was winning this match (MJF) at the time and was super surprised other folks didn't see it as painfully obvious. MJF's entire 2025 was about reclaiming what he felt was wrongfully taken from his via Joe years prior and it was at this very pay-per-view that it happened! It seemed too perfect to me.

And while the match itself isn't perfect (or Masterful I suppose, which is what a 5* rating means to me, not perfect) it has lots of fun moments. Swerve and MJF exchanging crotch attacks (yes really), Joe doing a huge dive out of the ring, a fun tower of doom spot (with MJF selling it super well verbally), a Panama Sunrise as well as MJF getting absolutely destroyed for most of the match, beautiful.

That was another reason I was confident MJF was winning. He was getting absolutely shit on by Swerve and Hangman, who also had a fantastic stare down that made me get goosebumps even though I knew it was coming. There was a buckshot from Hangman off of Swerve's back which is absolutely nuts. And then of course Swerve and Hangman love doing each other's moves to other opponents.

One of the things that cut against this match unfortunately was the OPPs interfering, which I just could have done without. They're a heel group, it makes sense in storyline as Joe is their leader, so I get it. But still, not really something I wanted in a match that already allowed cheating because it was a four-way.

Ultimately, it didn't really affect the finish which makes it kind of pointless, but I'd rather have that then the alternative I suppose. There's no way to win for me because either interference is a fake-out and doesn't matter at all or it determines the finish and matters way too much. Striking that balance, to me, is tough.

MJF walks away as champ, and all is Good as 2025 comes to a close.

4.75/5 (Weakly)

My Top 10 Favorite Matches of 2025

Okay, so where does that leave us?

From best to "worst":

1. Adam Page vs Jon Moxley (Masterful+)
2. Anarchy in the Area (Masterful)
3. Omega vs Speedball vs Ricochet (Masterful)
4. Takeshita vs Mascara Dorada vs Okada (Solidly 5)
5. Hangman vs Will Ospreay (Solidly 5)
6. Omega vs Takeshita (Soft 5)
7. Ospreay vs Takeshita (Soft 5)
8. Kyle Fletcher vs Hangman (Strong 4.75)
9. Kyle Fletcher vs Will Ospreay (Strong 4.75)
10. Mariah May vs Toni Storm (Solidly 4.75)

And of course the rest are honorable mentions!

Thanks for joining me on this very nerdy quest, see y'all soon!