Preparing For The 2025 FSM 50: A September 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.

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 that it is akin to voting for a sports league’s MVP. The winner should be the one 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, while the best player may miss half the year. It is an important distinction.

The Big Guns: WWE, AEW, and NJPW

It’s been two months since I’ve been able to do this.

During that time, AEW had two more PPVs that met their normal quality level. Forbidden Door & All Out both had several great matches.

Forbidden Door was highlighted by Swerve Strickland vs. Kazuchika Okada (****1/2), but I ended up with five more 4+ star matches off that show that was really deep.

All Out hit higher for me, with Kyle Fletcher’s challenge of Adam Page landing at ****3/4 stars for me, and four (!) more matches at ****1/2 – Briscoe vs. MJF, the Unified Championship three-way dance, Darby Allin & Jon Moxley’s coffin match, & the Tag Team Championship ladder match. Add in a really fantastic Dustin Rhodes-Kyle Fletcher TNT Championship street fight on the July 31 Collision, and AEW had a really fruitful late summer without digging deeper into their output.

I think WWE’s been slower the past couple of months, but my new favorite match from the promotion this year is CM Punk against Gunther at SummerSlam (****3/4). This was a great match with a lot of drama and intense work from both guys. Naturally, we went full WWE immediately after with Seth Rollins cashing in with the idea that a faked knee injury that almost everyone saw through immediately created drama. Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena (****1/2) and Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Naomi (****) both delivered from SummerSlam weekend as well. Another couple of WWE matches I’d point out as great were Je’Von Evans vs. Wes Lee on the July 29 NXT episode and Rusev vs. Sheamus at Clash in Paris on August 31.

New Japan’s G1 had some great matches but lacked the heat of the classic tournaments we were blessed with in the last decade. My favorite match was Konosuke Takeshita vs. Zack Sabre Jr. (****3/4) – unsurprisingly, two of the very best workers in the world had a great match. I had six other matches hit ****1/2 for me, but I want to specifically point out the final of EVIL vs. Konosuke Takeshita as the best possible usage of EVIL. There wasn’t too much House of Torture nonsense, and we had a very interesting crowd dynamic with EVIL getting a babyface reaction due to being the home promotion guy versus the outsider Takeshita. I can’t believe I’m strongly putting over an EVIL match in 2025, but here we are.

Random match thoughts

Hideki Suzuki vs. Jun Saito (c), Triple Crown
AJPW Super Power Series, June 18 – AJPW.tv ($$$)

Yet another great match involving Suzuki dropping bombs with a very game Saito. This had a really great finishing stretch where they just beat the hell out of each other for several minutes. ****1/4

Saori Anou vs. Tam Nakano
Stardom Nighter in Korakuen, April 2 – Stardom World ($$$)

A highlight spot in this one was an awesome slap exchange down the stretch between these two. Yet another great match in Nakano’s last months. ****1/2

Miu Watanabe vs. Shoko Nakajima
TJPW Live in Dallas, July 13 – Wrestle Universe ($$$)

After what largely seems to be regarded as a couple of sleepy shows in Houston, TJPW delivered their first great match of their trip to Texas with this bout. These are two of the strongest works pound-for-pound, and they matched that strength with explosive speed. By the time Watanabe got the pinfall with the Teardrop, the crowd was rocking. ****1/2

Maki Itoh vs. Mizuki
TJPW Live in Dallas, July 13 – Wrestle Universe ($$$)

I don’t think Maki Itoh is a great wrestler. Her offense looks like it doesn’t hit too often, and her selling is spotty. This isn’t to say she doesn’t have strengths – she clearly has charisma and has good facial expressions during a match. I think she’s capable of drawing the crowd in during her matches, but also is capable of having outright stinkers.

Mizuki is a great wrestler. I give her a lot of credit for the quality of this match and helping Itoh use her strengths to get this to as high of a level as it did. Not everything worked in this match – as you might guess, I thought Itoh’s control segments tended to be the weaker parts of the match. But she sold well for Mizuki, and Mizuki did everything she could with her selling to make Itoh look legitimate. The crowd was invested, and the work was mostly very good. Far from the best match on this card, but I’d happily chalk it up as “very good.” ***3/4

Rina Yamashita vs. Mei Suruga (c), Super Asia
ChocoPro Game Changer, September 5 – YouTube (free)

This was a great underdog story with Suruga being outsized and outpowered by Yamashita, but fighting hard from underneath. Suruga countering a Krunchie with a flip into a Code Red was a highlight, and Suruga hit some really mean looking double stomps throughout the match. I’m not digging deep into dentist office matches on the regular, but if this isn’t the ChocoPro match of the year, I need someone to send me a link to what’s better.

Shame about Baliyan Akki’s “if I incoherently scream constantly, it gets the match over somehow” commentary style, though. It being buried in the audio mix was a minor saving grace. ****1/2

Mascara Dorada, Mistico & Neon vs. Averno, Euforia & Mephisto (c), CMLL World Trios
CMLL Viernes Espectacular, May 16, 2025 – YouTube ($$$)

Yet another great trios match from Arena Mexico. This just had great work from six very great workers in a hot environment, and that’s really hard to mess up. Fortunately, they didn’t. Mistico is a serious Thesz/Flair contender that English-language media needs to wake up to. ****1/4

Planning for October

I’m trying to dig more into this year’s joshi. I’ve made good progress on TJPW; maybe I’ll finally get good headway with Stardom!

I’ve rated 868 matches from 2025 to date.

An overview of where I am with certain promotions:

80%+ of target matches watched: AEW, NJPW, WWE

40-80%: AJPW, CMLL, Dragongate, TJPW

<40%: DDT, Deadlock Pro, Dragongate, Marigold, NOAH, Stardom, TJPW

An entirely too early top 100

There’s no reason for me to expand this to 100, but yet, here I am! We all know what the second most common use of the internet is – ranking things so people get mad at you and then yell about it online. I’m engaging in this! But you are too! You can’t be mad! You’re down here with me!