20 Years of Live Wrestling: Figures and Breakdown

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​July 2026 is a funny time for a niche topic in the grand scheme of things. It will be 20 years since my first wrestling show seen live (I mean it will be if All-Star never get back to me regarding the buttons 2004 show I was at, the DMs is there in your requests please respond). As such it’s a nice round number to fully look into the facts and figures. A lot of these shows are from the last 12 months where I've really started to be more interested in live wrestling as opposed to just going to the bigger shows and watching the rest at home but it's still a fun collection of names and matches. 

For the record this contains 32 shows which are broken down as the below

x2 LDN Shows (2006-2007)
x8 TNA/Impact Wrestling Shows (2008-2016)
x3 NJPW Shows (2019-2024)
x15 RevPro Shows (2023-2026)
x3 AEW Shows (2023-2025)
x1 Pro Wrestling EVE Show (2026) 

Most Seen Wrestler
So who takes the crown for most seen wrestler? Well as ever there’s some slight controversy with it in terms of the wrestling aspect. With 17 appearances it is Amira Blair. Now I say controversy as she’s only wrestled twice in that time with one being the Revolution Gauntlet on Live in London 105 in January 2026 and then her simply incredible match with Harley Cameron at WrestleQueendom 9 in March 2026. The other 15 she has been by the side of Michael Oku normally as his manager or in ring with him that one time he did a promo. 

Speaking of Oku he is in second place on 16. A difference to Amira he has had 15 matches not limited to his WON 6 Star Rated Match with Will Ospreay at RevPro High Stakes 2024, the main event of the Copper Box against Luke Jacobs for the RevPro 12th Anniversary and his 3rd win of the Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship against Jay Joshua at RevPro Live in London 108. Lot of main events and lots of title matches while not only the numbers Michael Oku remains the most consistently booked wrestler in terms of position except a weird loss to Kosei Fujita at Royal Quest 4. Suppose it’s par for the course with him being the ace of RevPro.

A special mention to Will Ospreay as well as I’ve seen him wrestle for TNA, NJPW, RevPro & AEW. It makes him the wrestler if seen wrestle for the most companies. 

Best Match
Part of keeping this data was painstakingly ranking every match I've seen live. Every match seen live is ranked as long as it is able for rewatch, as such no live events are ranking. It leaves us with 266 matches to rank (with a total including live events of 289) and at the top of those is from All In 2024's main event with Swerve Stickland defending the AEW World Championship against Bryan Danielson in a title vs. career match. It is hard to argue against the greatness of this match. 5.25 from Dave Meltzer, 9.66 out of 10 rating on Cagematch (which ranks as the 22nd greatest match of all time on the website) and a 4.9 on Dropkickd. Look, what can I say about this match that hasn't been said before. Danielson takes the audience on on last adventure through paid and suffering while Swerve is at a career best here as the antagonist looking to kill the dream. Bryan fighting through kicks telling his family he loves them, oh man this shit rules.

Worst Match
We've covered number one so now let's cover number 266. From 2024 at RevPro's High Stakes we have Ricky Knight Jr vs. Anthony Ogogo. Oh man, on a card with great matches this was not needed, supposedly a personal feud following on from Ogogo’s betrayal in December at the same venue in the Great British Tag League Final (another stinker of a match) this one bumbled through until Ogogo won for some reason and the feud ended. It was odd the main highlight when Ogogo randomly stopped backwards as RKJ dived over the ropes misses him and he went splat, a real moment that summed up the mess this was. The reason it is listed as the worst was mainly because of an Instagram story Anthony Ogogo made in December 2024. He listed this as ‘one of the best matches in Britain in 2024’ and that they ‘tore the house down’ which are just two complete lies and I can respect the lying to that level. This was on the same card as Ospreay vs. Oku and the same year as Danielson vs. Swerve just to name a few. It was the ninth best match on a card of nine and there were so many better matches the entire year in Britain. If anything the lie makes it more memorable and those memories are mostly negative. 

Best Title Win
I have been privileged to see 28 title changes over the course of the last 20 years with 85 titles being put on the line in that time over 83 matches (I'm including CM Punk's 'Real' AEW World title and the AEW Unified Title as it's two separate titles) which means 33.73% of title matches have seen a title change. RevPro's Undisputed British Heavyweight championship holds the record for both amount of title matches with 10 and 4 title changes seen live with those being Hiroshi Tanahashi at Royal Quest 1, Luke Jacobs at RevPro's 12 Year Anniversary, Sha Samuels at RevPro's 13 Year Anniversary and Michael Oku at RevPro' Live in London 108). You'd think that the best title win would be in line with best match but I want to choose a different title win. Instead we are going back to 2015 and Rockstar Spud and his TNA X Division Title win. 

To put Spud’s win into context it came from a cash in but it was less than an hour since his Hair vs. Hair match with EC3 which is my favourite live TNA match (ranked 16th as of time of writing). In that match Spud captured the hearts and minds of the crowd willing him on and the explosion of joy when a now bald and bandaged Spud came out and won the belt from Low Ki it is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget. As Samoa Joe bowed out of TNA chasing after Spud it was a tremendous and well earned title win. There’s been bigger title changes (this aired on the same episode where Kurt Angle won his last title) and better matches but this is the one that stands out to me.

Most Interesting Match 
I'm choosing interesting here to mean weird or unexpected. I've seen a lot of top talent in top matches so while Swerve vs. Danielson was probably the most interesting in terms of match quality and spectacle it isn't what I'm looking for here. Instead this is going to be from the 2011 TNA Wembley Arena show where Doug Williams took on Ric Flair. Weird to see Ric Flair wrestle especially with it past his match with Shawn Michaels and even weirder on a non recorded house show. 

Ric Flair hit all of the trademark spots, the chops, the flops, the figure four and even bladed at a house show for what could only be the performer in him thinking people came to see Ric Flair they’ll get Ric Flair. The longest serving memory of this match I have is when Ric Flair took his robe off an almost collective ‘eww’ went across Wembley Arena looking at this saggy old man. Ric Flair won through some cheating I believe but still what a moment seeing of all people Ric Flair work a non-televised house show in 2011. 

WON 5 Star Matches 
To conclude just a fun comparison and observation. Love him or hate him everyone keeps and eye on Dave Meltzer and his star ratings. Used to either justify a match being good and you agree or if you disagree a stick to attack Dave over it is a measuring stick many people look to or compare. I am writing this in the middle of his continued not rating of Mercedes Mone vs. Maya World so maybe bad time and place for this bit lol. 

I just wanted to compare where each match I’ve seen live that Dave had given 5 stars or above ranks for me.

Swerve Strickland (c) vs. Bryan Danielson - 5.25 - No.1 Overall
Will Ospreay (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr. - 5.25 - No.2 Overall
Michael Oku (c) vs. Will Ospreay - 6 - No.3 Overall
Will Ospreay (c) vs. MJF - 5 - No.14 Overall 
Darby Allin, Golden Lovers (Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi), Hiroshi Tanahashi & Will Ospreay vs. Death Riders (Claudio Castagnoli & Jon Moxley), Gabe Kidd & The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) - 5 - No.45 Overall
Will Ospreay vs. Shingo Takagi - 5 - No.48 Overall 

That concludes the 20 year look at my history of wrestling live events. Had some big ups and some massive lows but always a fun time. With All In 2026 a month around the corner I hope I can continue to see pro wrestling at its best far into the future. 

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