Best Show of 2019: AEW DOUBLE OR NOTHING

You can probably thank the Las Vegas crowd for 2019's best show of the year, AEW's Double or Nothing. The crowd was so loud, energetic, and frenzied that it reminded me of those old, halcyon days of Monday Night RAW and Nitro in the late 90's when watching wrestling was like being hit with a shot of adrenaline. Remember the orgiastic, frothing-at-the-mouth crowd when 'Stone Cold' drove the beer truck into the arena? Or when the NWO would enter the ring and the crowd would pelt them with trash and chaos seemed eminent to break out? Well watching AEW's first show felt like that. This was a crowd for the ages. It also helped that the show had the best ending to any show all year and that there were some excellent matches. All in all, this was a historic show, the first ever AEW show (they had previously done the All In show but that was before the official start of the company and the name, the funding, the realization of actuality). The match of the night, and one of the top ten matches of the year, was the bloodbath that was Dustin Rhodes vs. Cody Rhodes. Not only was that one of the bloodiest matches in recent memory, but it was also one of the few wrestling matches that actually made me cry (when, post-match, Cody told Dustin that he didn't need a friend or a partner, he needed his older brother, then they hugged and the roof to the building blew off). The Young Bucks and The Lucha Brothers had a good match and SoCal Uncensored had a great match with the OWE guys (Cima, T-Hawk, and Lindaman). The end of the show was spectacular, though, one of the reasons that this was the best show of the year. After Chris Jericho beat Kenny Omega, Dean Ambrose surprised everyone by coming through the crowd to attack Omega. Usually, wrestlers debuting in a new company isn't a surprise or a shock, but nobody definitely knew if Ambrose (now Jon Moxley) would show up and when he did the crowd went nuts. Moxley went on to toss Omega off of the poker chips set by the entrance in a wild ending that made AEW the fucking company to beat and the company of the moment. This was just all around one hell of a show.