Preparing For The 2025 FSM 50: A June 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. https://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2025/01/16/fsm-50-2024-the-50-best-wrestlers-in-the-world/ I shared my personal 2024 ballot here https://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2025/02/03/preparing-for-the-2025-fsm-50-a-january-watch-diary/.

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 is 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 is an important distinction.

The Big Guns: WWE, AEW, and NJPW

SmackDown for WWE was very much buoyed by the tag division. The post-Mania TLC match was truly great (****3/4), managing to not feel like “do a high spot through the not-yet Fireball-sponsored ladder that visibly has pink insulation inside” thanks to some great work from the Street Profits, DIY, & The Motor City Machine Guns. Axiom & Nathan Frazer had a great transition to the main roster, pulling off several notebook tags such as 5/9 vs. the Street Profits (****1/4) and on 5/16 against DIY (****). The Street Proffits vs. Axiom & Frazier rematch on 5/23 (***3/4) was trending the same way, only to end in a truly undesirable run-in from the Wyatt Sicks. In a sense, that’s a perfect representation of WWE.

Pseudo-AAA, pseudo-WWE When Worlds Collide had three notebook matches for me: the accidental anointing of Mr. Iguana trios match (4 stars), the NXT North American four way (4 stars), and Gable vs. Vikingo (4.5 stars).

AEW had a PPV-free month but kept up production with some great Dynamites, especially the June 18 Dynamite Grand Slam Mexico show. The only thing that hit me as a MOTYC was Swerve vs. Ospreay from the June 11 Dynamite (4.75 stars here), but there have been a good number of low-level notebook matches, bouncing between 4 & 4.25 stars.

New Japan’s Best of the Super Junior tournament was slightly disappointing. It seemed like it was going to be a very memorable one through May 17, but then quality matches seemingly became rarer from that point forward. Despite the undercard drama, Dominion did give us two 4.25 star matches in Kidd vs. Tsuji & Shingo vs. Goto. Mention must be given to El Desperado vs. MAO (4 stars), which gave us one of the funniest spots I’ve seen in a while: after a ref bump, MAO looks at Desperado, pauses, and screams “FREEDOM” before rolling outside to grab some hard plastic containers to use as weapons. Good stuff.

Assorted Other Matches

Braun Strowman vs. Jacob Fatu, Last Man Standing, WWE SmackDown, April 4

Despite the various trappings of WWE that drive me crazy – we have to do the breakaway barricade spot that any match involving someone over 200 pounds has to have, we have to do multiple “holy shit” chants and also have it bleeped out by USA, the goofy counting over any move that involves at least one guy selling for more than a second – there’s stuff to like here. There is a lot of fun here in two big guys throwing each other around. It’s relatively brief – it’s listed at 15 minutes, but several are in ads – which is what it needs to be for what’s basically a kaiju battle. Fatu looks really promising, and we get a glimpse of what Actually Good Braun Strowman would look like. ***3/4

Hideki Suzuki vs. Kento Miyahara, AJPW Champion Carnival Night 1, April 9 – AJPW.TV ($$$)

I missed the worst of Hideki Suzuki’s pre-WWE run, but there’s plenty of stories about him refusing to do jobs, no selling, and otherwise being a whole thing. So I was shocked when we got a very giving Suzuki not big timing Miyahara, and pleasantly surprised when they put together a great match together. Suzuki did great work targeting Miyahara’s midsection, and got Miyahara out of his normal match structure a bit. That normal match structure is not a complaint – I love Miyahara and think he’s one of the most gifted wrestlers in the world. So we got a great combination that served as a great main event for the first night of the stories Champion Carnival.  ****

Kengo Mashimo vs. Shotaro Ashino, AJPW Champion Carnival Night 6, April 23 – AJPW.TV ($$$)

I loved this match.

Mashimo & Ashino worked a great technical-focused match, mixing in the occasional big throw with targeted limb work. The pace was brisk and the intensity was kept up the whole way through. This is a great example of how to work a match under ten minutes but make everything feel important. ****1/4

Galeno vs. OZAWA (c), GHC Heavyweight, NOAH Star Navigation Premium, February 11 – Wrestle Universe ($$$)

This is my second OZAWA match. It’s pretty obvious just how it’s easy to be frustrated with the Team 2000X/OZAWA act. OZAWA’s extremely gifted – he’s charismatic, he’s athletic, he’s got great instincts in the ring. It’s also American-style heel schtick that is far from the norm in traditional puro. Seeing the ref get dragged out of the ring on a pinfall and it not resulting in a DQ is one of the dopier things to occur regularly in American wrestling, and it happens in this match.

Galeno (no longer del Mal) is such a unique worker as well – very much A Large Adult Son, he’s massive, strong, and capable of hitting tope con giros. I need to see more of his stuff.

The finish – OZAWA hitting a Phoenix splash where he first jumps to the top rope straight from the mat – is an extremely impressive move that I rewound to watch five times to make sure my eyes weren’t fooling me. But it also came fairly abruptly, and I wasn’t expecting it to end when it did. Still, this is a great match with a pair of great performances, and is well worth your time. ****1/4

Kushida vs. Ultimo Guerrero, CMLL 69. Aniversario Arena Mexico, April 25 – YouTube  ($$$)

This was an extremely well-worked match, with all the limb work you’d expect from Kushida and some great selling from Ultimo. I really enjoyed the story here with UG going for big moves to get the pinfall, while Kushida was focused on getting the submission via targeting the arm. There is one spot where UG doesn’t quite take a diving rana as smoothly as you’d hope, but it was relatively minor. The crowd were super invested in this. ****1/4

 Madoka Kikuta vs. Rei Saito, AJPW Champion Carnival, May 6, AJPW.TV ($$$)

Kikuta is someone that I remember enjoying quite a bit during his Open the Dream Gate Championship run, and then he seemingly quickly fell from prominence in Dragongate. I was pleasantly surprised to see him pop up in the Champion Carnival, and I was especially pleased that he showed great heel charisma in this match against the lesser Saito. He came off as a very cocky heel invader against the beloved hometown Saito. This was a very well-structured match that maximized the match quality you’re going to get here. ****

 Other assorted thoughts

I think All Japan’s Champion Carnival was a better tournament than New Japan’s Best of the Super Junior; it just has some higher-level matches. CMLL is having a fantastic year and maybe should be the promotion of the year. Their roster is ridiculously deep, and nearly every Friday night show has multiple high-quality matches.

Planning for July

I only have the final of the Champion Carnival to watch, so that’s at the top of the list; there’s also three title matches between the June 15 & June 18 shows. I’m going to make more headway on Stardom and Dragongate in July. I am also hoping to do some gap filling for AEW, WWE, NOAH, & CMLL.

An overview of where I am with certain promotions:

• 80%+ of target matches watched: AEW, NJPW
• 50-80%: AJPW, CMLL, NOAH, WWE
• <20%: DDT, Deadlock Pro, Dragongate, Marigold, Stardom, TJPW

An entirely too early FSM Top 50

Note that I don’t give credit for huge multi-man matches like the 14-man tag in Arena Mexico on Dynamite or Elimination Chamber.

Also note that this could be considered a “dumb” rating, in the sense that it’s just following numbers and not accounting for any vibes or wrestlers being hidden in tags. As examples, I’d consider moving Mistico down because in so many of his matches he’s being boosted by teaming with Mascara Dorada & Neon; meanwhile, I’d consider moving OZAWA up because his work impressive but his matches are being dragged down by huge amount of heel shenanigans that are dragging the overall quality down.

With us at the halfway point of the year, I’m expanding the list to a top 50. In terms of points, Takeshita has a huge lead on the year; the gap between he and Ospreay is the same as the number of points between Ospreay and #31 Angel de Oro. Ospreay has a good lead on third, and then there’s a tier from ZSJ to Ishii.

It’s a damn shame that Soberano Jr. got hurt; he was off to a fantastic start and could have been the CMLL worker of the year. He should be completely gone from the list by next month.

I’ve rated over 550 matches from 2025 to date.

1. Konosuke Takeshita (last time: #1)
2. Will Ospreay (2)
3. Zack Sabre Jr. (3)
4. Ricochet (5)
5. Kenny Omega (4)
6. Mike Bailey (8)
7. Mascara Dorada (22)
8. El Desperado (23)
9. Titan (UR)
10. (tie) Saya Kamitani (6)

11. (tie) Tam Nakano (6)
12. Hirooki Goto (11)
13. Hechicero (10)
14. Tomohiro Ishii (17)
15. Kyle Fletcher (12)

16. David Finlay (9)
17. Kosei Fujita (UR)
18. Gabe Kidd (15)
19. Brody King (19)
20. Barbaro Cavernario (13)

21. Yuma Anzai (UR)
22. Neon (UR)
23. Mistico (16)
24. Mark Briscoe (20)
25. Adam Page (14)

26. Swerve Strickland (21)
27. Hiromu Takahashi (UR)
28. Axiom & Nathan Frazer (UR)
29. Kento Miyahara (UR)
30. Jun Saito (UR)

31. Angel de Oro (UR)
32. Averno (UR)
33. Hologram (UR)
34. Atlantis Jr. (UR)
35. Volador Jr. (UR)

36. Esfinge (UR)
37. Jeff Cobb (18)
38. Shingo Takagi (UR)
39. OZAWA (UR)
40. Ultimo Guerrero (UR)

41. Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford) (UR)
42. Yuma Aoyagi (UR)
43. Beast Mortos (UR)
44. Zandokan Jr. (UR)
45. Templario (UR)

46. KENTA (UR)
47. Robbie Eagles (UR)
48. AZM (24)
49. DIY (Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa) (UR)
50. Shun Skywalker (25)

Next five: Soberano Jr., Valiente, ISHIN, Kota Minoura, IYO SKY

Match Recommendations

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