The Glade 4.0

You could spend lots of time slap boxing the one eyed champ, and create your own special sauce cap.

The only problem if I went that route would be everyone would constantly ask my walls smell like delicious Twizzlers.

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Couple things....

Since there will be no traffic, I'd definitely drywall it and finish it as the rest of the wall will be finished. If you were to plywood it or anything else, your seams are going to be a ***** to get right between the other sheets of drywall and the wood/whatever.

With the height only being 10"...you don't need to worry about the studs since both the header and footer will be sufficient to attach the drywall to and you're actually less than conventional stud distances, just rotated 90 degrees.

If you're really worried about anyone kicking through...put in additional studs in that section just cutting 2x4 or even 2x3's will work and insert them in for additional support and protection.

I'm a perfectionist when it comes to things like this so I'd want my seams and everything to be nice and even and not have drywall-wood-drywall in the area. Even with mudding the plywood, it'll still look like crap...oh and the mud will also chip off the wood as it does get kicked/banged around.