Preparing For The 2025 FSM 50: A January Watch Diary

I’m a voter for the FSM 50 that is published on this site, which you’re probably familiar with but if not: it’s an attempt to recognize the 50 best in-ring wrestlers in the world. The 2024 results are here.

Being a voter in this inspires me to watch more wrestling to learn more about the different performers worldwide. I’ve watched at least 1000 matches a year the last two years to try to have the best ballot possible. This last year, I watched Joshi outside of Stardom and TJPW for the first time, which fortunately lined up with Sareee having an all-timer year.

Last year, I had to cut out some promotions due to a lack of time. I hope this diary will help me better manage the year and see more stuff.

Rather than be a spreadsheet guy who stores away his ratings like a goblin; I’d do something with it to encourage other people to watch more new wrestling.

I use my ratings as part of a formula that assigns points by star ratings. Without going too deep into it, a 3.5-star match is worth one point, a 4-star match 5 points, a 4.5-star match 10 points, and a five-star match 18 points. I use this as my starting point for my ratings before getting into vibes, downtime, etc. For those of you that think this is incredibly nerdy: yes, it is, I have both Microsoft Excel and self-awareness.

I have, unfortunately, followed a Greg Valentine path for 2025 – I’m off to a slow start, thanks to work and The Great 2025 Pro Wrestling Primer, where I spent five hours interviewing nine experts on 14 different promotions. I’m doing my best to get caught up, but February will be tough. Less tough than January, fortunately, but tough all the same.

My 2024 FSM 50 ballot

To give you an idea of my view of wrestling, this was the ballot I cast for the 2024 FSM.

1. Will Ospreay
2. Bryan Danielson
3. Konosuke Takeshita
4. Shingo Takagi
5. Zack Sabre Jr
6. Sareee
7. Kyle Fletcher
8. Yota Tsuji
9. Kazuchika Okada
10. Tomohiro Ishii
11. Kaito Kiyomiya
12. Miu Watanabe
13. Ricochet
14. Claudio Castagnoli
15. YAMATO
16. Swerve Strickland
17. Gabe Kidd
18. Darby Allin
19. Young Bucks
20. Ryohei Oiwa
21. Kento Miyahara
22. FTR
23. Yuma Anzai
24. Chihiro Hashimoto
25. Hangman Page
26. Kenoh
27. Masha Slamovich
28. Shoko Nakajima
29. Nanae Takahashi
30. Dragon Dia
31. Jon Moxley
32. Hirooki Goto
33. Axiom & Nathan Frazer
34. Orange Cassidy
35. Mio Momono
36. El Desperado
37. Shun Skywalker
38. Luis Mante
39. Naruki Doi
40. PAC
41. Eddie Kingston
42. Miyu Yamashita
43. Mark Briscoe
44. TJP
45. Hiromu Takahashi
46. Daniel Garcia
47. Bron Breakker
48. Dragon Kid
49. ISHIN
50. Drew McIntyre

In my opinion, a worker’s reputation or prior work shouldn’t matter for work prior to the year you’re voting in. Vibes for the current year does matter – the Young Bucks going out and saying that actually, they tried to do bad matches on purpose is a good explanation of why I dropped them several spots down from where they started when it came time to cast my final ballot.

Two examples for what I’m talking about: first, I looked at Tetsuya Naito for a low spot due to having several quite good matches at the start of the year, but by year’s end, he was awful in the ring. That made it easy to go with people like Bron Breakker and ISHIN who had better overall years. Secondly, it’d be foolish to say that Kazuchika Okada’s 2024 was anything but disappointing in terms of how he was used in AEW. He went from being presented as the best wrestler in the world by New Japan to a guy who says bitch and disappears for months at a time in AEW. But in my opinion, he had a lot of highlight matches in 2024 that kept him as a top ten worker in the world – more than most people, in fact. Left to my own devices, there’s no way I would have left Okada out of the FSM 50, This is an argument I lost, but that’s the key value from the FSM 50 – it’s a voting pool where you get lots of different viewpoints.

I do strongly think that quantity is an important aspect of this. For me, this is very similar to voting for a sports league’s season MVP. If Michael Jordan was the best player in the NBA in 1985-86, he still shouldn’t have won the MVP because he only played in 18 games. Working a lot of great matches is what I value in a wrestler. This is a problem with WWE, where buckets won’t get filled and very talented midcarders work fewer featured matches vs. other companies. Compare Chad Gable to Mark Briscoe in 2024. I think they’re both very good workers, but Briscoe got a lot of opportunity to have great matches, Gable didn’t.

The Big Guns: WWE, AEW, and NJPW

WWE is a promotion I approach distantly. Match quality is not their priority; their style of storytelling is not mine. There’s still talent I like in that company, I just hate the restrictions put upon them by the style of the company. Nothing that I saw for WWE hit notebook level, with their January matches topping out at 3.75. I also have to space out watching it for my own sanity, especially when Booker T is on commentary. This is unfortunate, as my current favorite WWE act is Axiom & Nathan Frazer in NXT.

AEW had a quiet month, with no pay-per-view and as such relatively few standout matches. AEW is not putting on highlight TV matches like they were even two years ago, but a few got through: Will Ospreay vs. Buddy Matthews on the January 8 Dynamite & Adam Page vs. Christopher Daniels on the January 18 Collision both hit 4.25 stars for me. Katsuyori Shibata also hit four stars for me twice with his bouts against Daniel Garcia (1/11 Collision) and Konosuke Takeshita (1/25 Collision). “The Wrestler” needs some wins, but he can still go in the ring.

I only got through Wrestle Kingdom & some of Wrestle Dynasty for New Japan. Gabe Kidd vs. Kenny Omega from Dynasty is an early frontrunner for Match of the Year (5.25 stars), and Tomohiro Ishii & Takeshita put on a match a step behind that level with a brutal bout (4.75 stars). AZM vs. Mayu Iwatani and Yota Tsuji vs. David Finlay lead the way for a disappointing Wrestle Kingdom card with both checking in at 4.25 stars.

The rest of Wrestle Dynasty and Battle in the Valley remains on my “to watch” list.

Assorted Other Matches

 Ninja Mack vs. Robert Martyr, WrestleRave King of the Mountain, January 11, IWTV

Despite what you would expect from Ninja Mack, there wasn’t a lot of high-flying from him here. These two produced an intense grappling match, with Martyr coming off as an aggressive technician targeting Mack’s knee. This was a very solid indie match where the two worker came off well. I’d like to see both have great years. This solidly fits in at the recommended level. ***1/2

SAKI vs. Mei Suruga (c), Super Asia Championship, ChocoPro Purple Chocolate, January 19, YouTube

Unfortunately for me, when it comes to what was Gatoh Move, I just can’t get into the dentist’s office matches at the same level – there’s a level of amateurism the setting gives it that hurts even the best performances I’ve seen there. Fortunately for me, this match is in an arena with a ring.

It’s been a while since I’ve watched a Suruga match – it might have been before the name change away from Gatoh Move – but I’ve always thought she was a very talented performer. She flexes her skills here – she comes off as a great underdog babyface with fast-paced offense. SAKI did a solid job here as the heel, bullying the smaller Suruga for the length of the match. A great closing stretch built around countering roll-ups set up the exciting finish. A strong recommendation here, and further wishing from me that ChocoPro will do more shows like this. ****1/4

Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Jeff Cobb, BJW, January 24, BJW YouTube ($)

I don’t know what you could imagine this would be other than the obvious given these two. They just lay into each other for 16 minutes and it all looked great. They have great chemistry where they just beat the hell out of each other and try to have the ultime mean guy matches. For all the people pushing the “BEEF” meme, you better watch this to keep your legitimacy.

I’d put this a touch above Takeshita-Ishii from Wrestle Dynasty that was much beloved. ****3/4

Nanae Takahashi & Seri Yamaoka vs. Bozilla & Tank (c), Marigold Twin Star, Marigold New Years Golden Garden, January 19, Wrestle Universe

Takahashi’s retirement is going to be a huge blow to Marigold. This was a match where her partner was in her fifth career match and her opponents Bozilla and Tank were in their 87th and 41st career matches, respectively (per Cagematch). It was apparent that Nanae’s presence and experience were essential to this match working at all.

Bozilla acquitted herself well, despite being so early in her career that up & down performances are to be expected. She outshone Tank, who is similarly large, by just being a better worker & more charismatic.

I didn’t get enough from Yamaoka to get a good read on how she’s going to work out. She’s obviously seen as a super prospect by Marigold. She seemed solid, especially relative to her experience. She didn’t pop off the screen with charisma here. Yamaoka did some impressive moves, particularly a German on Tank down the home stretch, though I’d drop the spear if I were her.

Not all 3.5 star matches are the same. This isn’t going to rewrite wrestling history on its own or anything., but it will hopefully be a very interesting one to reflect on in a few years. ***1/2

Shuji Ishikawa vs. Chris Brookes (c), KO-D Openweight, DDT New Year New Hero, January 26, Wrestle Universe

I’ll start with the negative here. I thought the introduction of the staple gun didn’t make much sense with the little bit I knew of the match heading in. I thought it worked rather quickly, with Ishikawa just becoming a movie monster that would just march right through the staples.

Ishikawa took control with some impressive high impact offense from that point, and the match picked up as Brookes tried to fight back from underneath against the bigger and stronger Shuji. That became the engine that drove the match and it led to some really interesting sequences down the stretch. I think if this had two or three more minutes of that kind of work, this would have been even more memorable than it already is. As is, we got a great match worth checking out. ****1/4

Left to watch

I already feel terribly behind on keeping up with everything. I haven’t touched CMLL, Marigold, TJPW, Stardom, NOAH, TNA, or Deadlock Pro yet. I have 12 NJPW and 18 Dragongate matches on my watch list. I’m hoping February will be calmer and more conducive to having a couple days to just sit down and watch stuff. It feels like we barely flipped the calendar over and everyone burst out of the gate.

An entirely too early top 5

1. Konosuke Takeshita
2. Kenny Omega
3. Gabe Kidd
4. Tomohiro Ishii
5. Katsuyori Shibata

Shingo Takagi, Will Ospreay, and Adam Page also merited consideration.

Match Recommendations