5 best wrestling matches of 2011

#3. Davey Richards vs. Eddie Edwards - ROH Best In The World 2011

This was a fantastic wrestling match between two former tag team partners fighting for ROH’s top prize. There were no faces or heels in this match; it was simply two wrestlers wanting to prove to each other and the fans which of them was the better wrestler.

For over thirty-five minutes, Richards and Edwards tore into each other with classic ROH-style athletics. You had vicious strikes (including several wince-inducing head-butt exchanges), horrifying moves from the apron to the ringside, and a lot of impressive technical wrestling.

That last point is the most important one: the commentators noted that both wrestlers had many moves with which they could end the match. Because of that, every submission hold and pin-fall attempt had an aura of believability that isn’t seen much in today’s WWE.

Although both of these are ‘smaller’ wrestlers (Edwards is the taller one at only 6 feet tall), they made up for that lack of size by showing off their masterful grappling ability. In that sense, this felt like a smaller version of the famous Bret Hart vs. British Bulldog match from SummerSlam 1992, only with smaller wrestlers and more grappling.