2025 Tag Team and Wrestler of the Year - True Grit Wrestling

NB: This article was written at the end of 2025, before the True Grit Rumble.

True Grit fans, we need to talk about 2025.

This past year has been an incredible one for True Grit Wrestling, full of incredible matches, unforgettable moments, trials, tribulations, controversies and wild innovations!

From the chaos of the Rumble in January, it’s been a veritable gold rush as wrestlers sought redemption, caused mayhem and some, quite frankly should’ve been put in lock up. The invasion of York continued, spreading south as a summer festival became a riot as showtime slammed into action. The outcome of the games became a nightmare for some while other’s dreamt of ascending Jacob’s Ladder on the road to another rumble.

Four tag team champions, three heavyweight champions, 2 women’s champions, 1 Pride champion and the inaugural Hot Tag Foundation (as well as one dastardly Regime) have formed the foundation of True Grit in 2025 and I thought I’d nominate my top 3 tag teams and top 5 singles wrestlers of the year. This is an entirely subjective list (with some statistical back up) so feel free to share your lists in the comments wherever you’re reading this!

Tag Team of the Year

Meat Wagon started the year as tag team champions, successfully defending against Misery Business at Gold Rush in February losing to NashBOAT at Redemption in one of the greatest moments of the year in True Grit. NashBOAT would hold the titles for 3 months, successfully defending against NRG and Crashboat & Misery Business at Mayhem and Left Bank Lock Up respectively, before being toppled by The Regime’s Brad Matthews & Franco Fate at Invasion. The Regime would then Freebird the tag titles successfully with various combinations of Fate, Matthews & Sash putting together 3 successful defences over 5 months before being toppled at Jacob’s Ladder by Misery Business who finally regained the tag team titles becoming the first ever 2-time champions.

Outside of the title picture, we saw unique team ups such as Hack ‘n Slash ‘n Beard (Jay Vertigo, Brandon Butcher & Jake Silver), Jake Silver & Dara Diablo (lovingly dubbed Tashboat by fans on the day) and, of course, Wesley Nsereko teaming with Crashboat and Joey Slade to take on The Regime at Redemption. But that’s an entirely different article. Act 2 and Gen 1 put on an absolute classic at Showtime Slam, Brady Phillips & Riley Nova faced Vusyk & Billy O’Keefe with the winner(s) being crowned number 1 contender and, in the last two shows, the most anticipated tag team of 2025 hit True Grit as LALLIE have begun what could well be a tear through the tag division. With all that said, here are my top 3 tag teams of the year!

3: Misery Business

In third, come Misery Business! A fan favourite team, Alan Kay & Joe Wade endured something of a torrid time in 2025. Personal issues seemed to flare as unsuccessful title challenges against Meat Wagon, NashBOAT and The Regime mounted up (albeit with some shenanigans inflicted on them) but a huge win in Jacob’s Ladder saw them become the first ever 2-time True Grit tag team champions which puts them into the top 3 despite a win percentage of just 20%.

Honourable mentions go to Meat Wagon (1 successful title defence) and LALLIE (2 matches, 2 wins) but the title win and number of matches just edge them out.

A special thank you as well to Anderson Daniels who has sadly had to retire through injury. We, the fans, appreciate everything you did for True Grit and wish you a speedy recovery!

2: NashBOAT

What can we say about NashBOAT? Possibly the most loved tag team in True Grit, a constant source of joy, entertainment, raffle tomfoolery and a surprising amount of wrestling acumen! Ace Matthews secured their title shot eliminating Anderson Daniels from the Rumble and NashBOAT won the titles at Redemption in an incredibly emotional moment that blew the roof off Left Bank in an outpouring of happiness. 2 successful title defences followed before losing to The Regime at Invasion meaning NashBOAT won 75% of their tag matches in True Grit in 2025! Well worthy of the silver medal and would be top if I wasn’t trying to keep my bias aside.

1: The Regime

With a winning percentage of 80%, 4 successful title defences (most of any team) and casting my personal feelings aside, the logical choice for True Grit Wrestling tag team of year is The Regime. Whether you agree with their methods or not, Fate, Matthews and Sash toppled NashBOAT, Misery Business (twice) and Crashboat in title matches as well as being involved in wins over Hack ‘n Slash ‘n Beard and Team Nsereko. The year ended badly losing the titles but The Regime has been the dominant force in the True Grit tag division for most of 2025.

Wrestler of the Year

With the bitter pill swallowed of having to name The Regime tag team of the year, lets move on to wrestler of the year! 2025 saw 54 wrestlers compete in singles matches across 13 True Grit shows so narrowing it down to 5 has been quite difficult! For the purposes of my sanity, the Rumble doesn’t count and nor do individual performances in tag team matches.

Honourable mentions go to Billy O’Keefe (3/5), Che Monet (2/3) and Nathan Black (3/4) who all had outstanding winning records in 2025 but, once again, this weighted with title wins and defences taking precedent! Special shout also to wrestlers such as Sammy Blue, HT Drake, Lana Austin & Vusyk who have put on multiple bangers even if they haven’t ended up on the winning side in 2025!

But I digress. My top 5 are as follows:

5: Riley Nova

As I’ve written elsewhere, the rise of Riley Nova in True Grit has been truly astronomical – from runner to champion inside a year is unprecedented! Big wins over fellow prospect (at the time) Billy O’Keefe gave Nova 2 of his 4 singles wins (out of 6 matches- 67%) but claiming the heavyweight championship at the True Grit Games and a successful defence against Kemper at Jacob’s Ladder (as well as surviving against Kemper at Nightmare) mean the champ takes 5 th place. Meteoric rise, winning record just don’t look too closely at the sheningans in the fine print…

4: Brady Phillips and Kemper

4- With my fourth pick, I’m stretching my own arbitrary rules because they were as inseparable in their win percentage as they were intertwined through so much of 2025. Both former heavyweight champions, both have a winning record of 4/7 (67%) and both have dominated the main event scene with one or both featuring in 10 of the 13 main events of 2025! From champions to challengers, from rivals to reluctant partners, the 4 th spot goes to Brady Phillips and Kemper.

3: Alexxis Falcon

Taking third place is a wrestler who came back from injury and pretty much took True Grit by storm. Alexxis Falcon swooped in back in April, has won 5/7 singles matches, captured the women’s championship and successfully defended it twice! It’s been a fantastic year for The Wicked Witch of BritWres who ends 2025 firmly seated at the head of the table of the True Grit women’s division and I can only see 2026 being even better!

2: Rhio

2- Rhio. I was going to do a big build up but do I need to? Rhio began the year as women’s champion, successfully defended the title 5 times before being dethroned (including 2 defences over current champion Alexxis Falcon and one each over Lana Austin, Lily Winter and Skye Smitson) and took Brady Phillips to the limit in the main event at Mayhem. Rhio is a force of nature and I hope we see her back in True Grit soon.

1: Adam Bolt

Claiming the top spot is the only wrestler to hold a 100% record in singles matches (having wrestled more than two) with 7 of those 8 wins being successful title defences. Topping the tree this festive season is the only wrestler to hold a title for the entirety of 2025. The cream of the crop is the only wrestler to feature on every Left Bank show this year and in so doing has become, in this writer’s humble opinion, True Grit Wrestling’s best bout machine.

My wrestler of the year is the man who makes it look good – Adam Bolt!