AEW: 20 Best Matches of 2023 (Part 4)
It’s been a long and winding road, but we have finally reached the culmination of the list of AEW’s 20 best matches of 2023. So far, we have covered huge title matches, brutal blood feuds, and a look into the company’s future when it comes to who might be on top of the mountain in 2024. However, these final five matches are the best of the best. While All Elite Wrestling’s backstage drama might have dominated the headlines in the past 12 months, these five matches are proof that when it comes to in-ring work, no one does it quite like AEW.
My name is Sam Palmer from Vendetta Sports Media, and here are the best matches All Elite Wrestling produced in 2023!
5. Jay Lethal vs. Mark Briscoe – Dynamite (Jan. 25)
On Jan. 17, 2023, the world lost Jamin Pugh, better known to wrestling fans as Jay Briscoe. He was tragically killed in a car accident while taking his daughters to cheerleading practice, something a lot of people still haven’t fully processed yet. Jay was one half of the ROH Tag Team Champions with his brother Mark when he died, and given that Tony Khan owns both AEW and ROH, many expected a full-blown tribute show to honor Jay’s memory. However, that wasn’t the case.
Warner Bros Discovery never wanted The Briscoes on AEW TV due to homophobic comments Jay made in 2011. Jay would not only apologise for these comments, but would also educate himself on why his comments caused such a stir. He was a proud LGBTQ+ supporter until the day he died, but WBD wouldn’t let him or his brother on TV because of it. In the days following Jay’s passing, WBD must have seen the outpouring of love and support surrounding Jay Briscoe’s name, WBD allowed Mark Briscoe to appear on the January 25th edition of Dynamite to wrestle Jay Lethal, a long-time friend of the Briscoe family.
The match that took place on what would have been Jay Briscoe’s 38th birthday was special. On the surface, it’s a good to very good TV wrestling match, something you would come to expect from AEW. But when you look at what it took to get this match on TV, it means so much more. People deal with grief in different ways, and Mark knew that his brother would have slapped him across the head if he stopped wrestling. This match meant so much to those involved, the people who watched it, and the Briscoe family. Rest in Peace Jay Briscoe, reach for the sky.
4. Bryan Danielson vs. MJF [60 Minute Iron Man Match for the AEW World Championship] – Revolution:
It’s incredible to think that it took until Revolution 2023 for Bryan Danielson to get a main event pay-per-view match in AEW. He began the year by vowing to become the No. 1 contender to MJF’s AEW World Championship, and after beating the likes of Rush, Bandido and Konosuke Takeshita, the match was set. The first-ever 60-minute Iron Man Match in All Elite Wrestling history between The American Dragon and The Devil.
Danielson picked the stipulation because he knew that he could go for one hour straight, even proving this in AEW in 2021 against Hangman Page. Max had been in long matches, but he had never been in the ring with someone like Danielson for anywhere near 60 minutes. This showed, as MJF took multiple shortcuts to try and get ahead of his opponent throughout the match. Max was even willing to sacrifice a fall just to gain two kick pins over Danielson to bring him back on level terms just before the halfway point.
Given the nature of MJF’s title reign, no one went into this match thinking that Danielson was going to win. However, the visual of Danielson covered in blood laughing to himself while Max is in literal tears is one of my favorite moments in wrestling all year. Bryan even busts out the classic “YES!” chants from his WWE run, which genuinely had people believing that he was going to do it. It’s the greatest Iron Man Match in wrestling history, it’s the best match of MJF’s title reign, and it’s one of the greatest main events in pay-per-view history.
3. Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay [IWGP United States Championship] – Forbidden Door:
When Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay put on their now iconic match at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17, fans were wondering when the rematch would take place. Omega had found himself in the midst of the Blackpool Combat Club/Elite drama in the Spring and had no time to defend his IWGP United States Championship. As for Ospreay, he suffered an injury during the New Japan Cup, setting back his year by a number of weeks, leaving the potential Omega/Ospreay rematch up in the air.
However, when a tournament was set up to determine Omega’s next challenger and Ospreay was entered into it, there was no doubt who would be Kenny’s dance partner at Forbidden Door. Will defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi and Lance Archer on his way to Toronto, even acquiring the services of Don Callis, who hated Kenny just as much as he did but for very different reasons. Taking place in Omega’s home country of Canada, this was one of the matches everyone was dying to see at Forbidden Door, and it didn’t disappoint.
Even the strange ejection of Don Callis, who just showed up again towards the end of the match didn’t take away anything from this one. Much like how Omega was in charge of their first bout in Ospreay’s home promotion, Ospreay was more than dominant on Omega’s home turf. The level of violence was ramped up to 11, the escalating danger of the moves was something no one could turn away from, and the Tiger Driver ’91 that looked like it killed Kenny lived in my head rent-free. With Will Ospreay joining AEW on a full-time basis in 2024, expect more matches of this quality in the near future.
2. Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre Jr. – WrestleDream:
It’s not often that a match that is billed as a dream match actually lives up to its billing, but there wasn’t really any doubt when these two crossed paths at WrestleDream. Bryan Danielson announced after his return at All Out that he had one more year left in him as a full-time wrestler, admitting that he wants to spend more time with his children as they are growing up. With that in mind, Bryan admitted that he wanted to squeeze as much stuff into his final year as humanly possible, and his first port of call was Zack Sabre Jr.
This match was meant to take place at the inaugural Forbidden Door event in 2022, and lots of things changed between their last meeting and this one. Bryan had become a mainstream superstar in WWE before being forced into an early retirement. He came out of retirement and after another few years in WWE, he joined AEW and cemented his legacy as one of the best wrestlers of all time. In comparison, Zack Sabre Jr. had taken Danielson’s title of “best technical wrestler in the world” and continued to claim that he was better than the American Dragon.
In front of Danielson’s home state of Washington, these two proved why technical wrestling can sometimes be beautiful to watch. Bryan and Zack went hold for over 20 minutes, putting together sequences that young wrestlers need to class as essential viewing if they want to become stars in the future. The match left a lot of people wanting more in a good way, as many people could watch more of these two wrestling for hours on end. A true technical masterpiece that would be AEW’s match of the year had one other bout not taken place.
1. Hangman Page vs. Swerve Strickland [Texas Death Match] – Full Gear:
When it comes to how a match made me feel as a fan, there aren’t many matches that made me feel the way I felt watching Hangman Page vs. Swerve Strickland at Full Gear 2023. These two already had one of the best matches of the year at WrestleDream the previous month, but to say things escalated quickly between the two men would be an understatement.
Hangman cost Swerve a shot at the TNT Championship, prompting Swerve to fire back by interfering in a match Page had with Jay White. The two kept exchanging words to the point where Strickland, and this might be a bit of an overreaction, broke into Page’s house and had a conversation with his literal child. This crossed the line for the former AEW World Champion, and decided that he wanted to try and kill Strickland live on pay-per-view in a Texas Death Match.
This match started in third gear and reached 1000mph within three minutes as Hangman stapled his child’s drawing to Swerve’s face and drank his blood in front of 12,000 people. From there, barbed wire, cinderblocks and broken glass were all brought out, which might put some people off. But in this case, it was warranted. One criticism of hardcore wrestling is that a lot of it is brutal for the sake of being brutal, this was brutal because the two men involved hated each other so much that they wanted to kill each other. It’s one of the best matches AEW has ever produced and is the company’s best match of 2023.
AND THAT IS THAT! What do you think was AEW’s best match of 2023? Let us know in the comments section below! Don’t forget to follow myself and Vendetta Sports Media on all your favorite social media platforms.
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