Preparing For The 2025 FSM 50: A February Watch Diary

As a reminder: I am a voter for the FSM 50, which is an attempt to recognize the best in-ring workers on an annual basis. The 2024 results are here. I shared my personal 2024 ballot here. I’m writing this to keep track of what I watch as the year goes on; hopefully you’ll read about something cool and decide to watch something new.

To get my earliest version of my top 50, I use 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. It is a nerdy way to do an already nerdy activity.

My philosophy with the FSM 50 is it’s akin to voting for a sports league’s MVP. The winner should be who had the best year and not necessarily who you think is the most talented. Sometimes the tenth best person by raw talent has a career year, sometimes the best player misses half the year. It’s an important distinction.

The Big Guns: WWE, AEW, and NJPW

New Japan continues to be the promotion of the year for me, and that’s with me not even getting to the Fantastica Mania shows yet. Hirooki Goto finally getting the top IWGP belt was my second five-star match of the year, hot on the heels of Gabe Kidd & Kenny Omega (my first). Add in other strong bouts like Kosei Fujita vs. El Desperado, Oleg Boltin vs. Konosuke Takeshita, and Kidd vs. Yota Tsuji, amongst others, and the King of Sports is punching well above its 2024 output. Now, to just clear time out to watch Fantastica Mania.

Business has picked up in AEW after a slow January. The booking for the promotion has improved notably compared to late 2024, and the match quality has finally started to match it. I finally have them on the board with three 4.5 star matches in Kyle Fletcher vs. Mark Briscoe, Orange Cassidy vs. Takeshita, and Omega & Will Ospreay vs. Fletcher & Takeshita. This is the AEW I expect, and I’m glad that they’re finally performing at the level that should be expected with their talent. I’ve still yet to watch the March 1 Collision.

I’m only halfway through WWE’s February, and it’s been an underwhelming start to the in-ring year for them. They continue not to try to have great matches, despite the talent they have on their roster. The only match of theirs that hit notebook level for me was Finn Balor & Damian Priest’s street fight on the January 13 Raw, and that just did hit four stars for me. They’ve had a decent number of 3.5 & 3.75 star matches, but those don’t really do much for a great year on their own. Here’s hoping the various hyped matches of Vengeance Day actually deliver when I get to them.

On a side note here with WWE: Kevin Owens vs. Rey Mysterio on the January 17 Smackdown stuck out to me as one with generous use of crowd sweetening. Despite being a good match, they had a lot of chants that didn’t have anyone visibly participating in them in the crowd. On the same show, Tiffany Stratton & Bayley had a solid but slow (3 stars) match that just used the base WWE crowd murmur for the entire closing stretch until Stratton’s final two moves. I don’t claim to know the ideal way to use artificial crowd noise, but making a match seem more boring than it actually is would not be my strategy.

Let’s Talk About Promos

Separate but parallel to all of this, I wanted to also highlight great promos because, well, why not?

This was inspired (very late in the process of this article) by Trevor Lee cutting one of the most emotional promos you’ll ever see after a match for AAW. AAW, fortunately, posted the thing on social media.

Everyone reading this article is aware of the artifice of pro wrestling. I’d imagine most of you, like me, appreciate it best when it brings in elements of realism, of actual passion, of anything that makes you feel an actual emotion. Lee nailed it here. Clear six minutes out of your schedule and watch this.

As I mentioned, this idea came to me very late in the process of writing this – it’s currently just before six a.m. here on March 4, and I am hoping to get this published later this day. I don’t have a lot of time to refresh myself on the other promos I’ve seen this year and what warrants mention here, but the Lee promo is so good that I wanted to carve out space to highlight it.

One other segment that I really enjoyed recently was the recent argument & brawl angle between Gabe Kidd & Mark Briscoe from this past Saturday’s Collision.

Assorted Other Matches

Xelhua vs. Guerrero Maya Jr. ©, Mexican National Heavyweight, CMLL Lunes Clasico, January 13, CMLL YouTube ($)

This is my first time watching Xelhua; he’s legit, 100% someone to keep an eye on. Both he and Maya do some flying, but they’re really more ground-based than not, with some really good all-around work from both. This was a really solid bout; keep an eye on both guys. ***3/4

Kenoh vs. KENTA, NOAH The New Year, January 1, Wrestle Universe ($)

Famed silent film actress Greta Garbo’s appearance in her first talkie was advertised with the tag line, “Garbo Talks!” A similar line for this match would be “KENTA cares!”

It’s not exactly prime KENTA, but he’s doing his damndest in this match to recreate it, and Kenoh’s there to do everything in his power to make sure he achieves it. These two lay into each other with vicious strikes in a really nice undercard match that, frankly, deserved a better position on this card than what it got. If you just like watching guys beat the hell out of each other, watch this.  ****1/4

Neón vs. Virus, MLW Reloaded, January 25 (air date), YouTube (free)
Barbaro Cavernario vs. Mistico, MLW Reloaded, January 25 (air date), YouTube (free)

CMLL carries the day for MLW. Neon and Virus is a textbook match up – Neón is a young, flashy high flyer with some really eye popping moves, and Virus is still a great base who’s more than capable of pulling out highlight moves of his own. ***3/4

Mistico & Cavernario put on a very solid main event, marred by the referee having a slight communication on the first fall. Cavernario picked up that pinfall after a slight delay over if Mistico’s shoulders were down, leading to Mistico barking at the ref the rest of the way, including after his victory. Yes, that’s a spoiler, but only in the sense that saying the Harlem Globetrotters are picking up the W in their next game is a spoiler.

Digression aside, these are two very charismatic workers who worked hard and put on an entertaining bout. The work is tight and fast paced. You can easily do worse. ***1/2

Obviously, both of these matches would have been better in a packed Arena Mexico (how do you say “it’s a happening” in Spanish?) rather than a claimed 2,400 fans bolstered by – allegedly – counting the attendance of a hockey game on the other side of the building. You can argue that none of these men really reached their top gear in their matches, but they definitely had their working boots on. If you’re on the fence about digging deeper into MLW, this show’s opener & main event can act as a nice – and free! – way of feeling out the CMLL style.

Hijo de Máscara Sagrada vs Hijo de Fishman, Arena del Valle Lucha Libre, February 16, YouTube (free)

This is the touring Mexican indie match of the moment – bloody brawls that go across the arena, with Hijo de Fishman being the bully to the smaller Hijo de Máscara Sagrada. This is the first of these I’m watching; it’s the fourth in the series in 2025, and tenth overall per lucha knower Griffin Peltier. It unfortunately features a truly asinine lucha-style finish, but there’s some good brawling big spots in this leading up to that point. ***3/4

I believe in the post-match promos, Sagrada refers to Hijo de Fishman as “Fish,” which amused me.

Kevin Blackwood vs. Titus Alexander, Deadlock Pro You Already Know, January 17, DPW On Demand ($)

This was a truly great match with both guys going all out to get there. Blackwood is a great in-ring guy; I think he needs to develop his presence more to really get to that next level, but if you’re running anything below the level of AEW & WWE in the U.S. and you’re not trying to use him, I don’t know what you’re doing. Titus Alexander has developed that presence, and pops off the screen like a Dude. Add in his wrestling ability, and I don’t understand why someone hasn’t signed him to a national TV deal. He comes off great as a heel. ****1/4

Masha Slamovich & Zara Zakher vs. Maki Itoh & Miyu Yamashita (c), Princess Tag Team, TJPW Tokyo Joshi Pro ’25, January 4, Wrestle Universe ($)

I swear, there’s something about Itoh & Yamashita that make them about 50% worse in the ring when they fly across the Pacific.

This match was a really fun sprint. There were a couple really cool spots in this – Zakher backflipping to avoid a Yamashita headkick sticks out. There was one spot where Itoh & Yamashita were supposed to bump heads but it looked bad. If they kept this up for another five minutes, it might have flirted with match of the year contender status. ****1/4

Mizuki vs. Miu Watanabe (c), Princess of Princess, TJPW Tokyo Joshi Pro ’25, January 4, Wrestle Universe ($)

If you like power wrestlers, you really need to watch Miu Watanabe – she’s towards the top of the list of today’s great power wrestlers, regardless of size. She regularly does spots that impress. In this one, she did a giant swing to Mizuki by the latter’s arms.

This was a well built main event, with Watanabe working on top most of the way. Mizuki did hit a wild diving foot stomp from the top rope to the floor. It was amazing that she didn’t break an ankle. On the downside, this ended pretty abruptly. Watanabe was dominating, and then Mizuki hit her bridging suplex, the Cutie Special, and that was that. It felt like they were building to something bigger with a more methodical pace than the preceding match, but it ended too early to get there. ****

Saya Kamitani vs. Tam Nakano, Loser Leaves Stardom, March 3, YouTube free stream but no one knows how long it’ll actually stay up

This was a great match with a lot of emotion and fantastic work. It also had a ridiculous amount of interference. I’m generally annoyed when AEW-era Jim Ross screams about the ref, because usually it comes off as putting heat on the ref instead of the heel workers and that seems tremendously counter-productive. The ref in this match should, in kayfabe, be thrown into the sun. We had entire stables rushing the ring in front of the ref, and the ref just doing nothing about it.

But, the interference mostly worked (I felt it got too excessive down the homestretch), and it was a really high level match beyond that. An absolute must watch. ****3/4

Left To Watch

Promotions I’ve barely touched and I’m starting to get worried that I’ll never caught up: CMLL, Dragongate, Marigold, TJPW, TNA

Promotions with five or fewer matches left to watch on my list: AEW, DDT, Deadlock Pro, NOAH, RevPro, RoH, Sareee-ISM, Stardom

An entirely too early top 12

1. Konosuke Takeshita (last time: #1)
2. Zack Sabre Jr. (NR)
3. (tie) Saya Kamitani (NR) & Tam Nakano (NR)
4. Kenny Omega (2)
5. Gabe Kidd (3)
6. Kyle Fletcher (NR)
7. Jeff Cobb (NR)
8. Tomohiro Ishii (4)
9. Will Ospreay (NR)
10. AZM (NR)
11. Hirooki Goto (NR)

If Takeshita keeps this up, he may clinch Most Outstanding by June.  In my formula, he has as many points as Sabre & Omega combined. Obviously, other top wrestlers will work more matches and it won’t go like that (I feel like Dave Meltzer being overly literal here), but he’s been working a wild schedule so far. If he can keep it up and stay healthy, it’d be a ride for the ages.

Shibata, who had a nice January, was put on ice in February, with a single six-man tag that checked in at three stars for me.

Match Recommendations

An asterisk denotes it was newly watched in February for me, regardless of the actual date of the match.