A Defence Of The Most Controversial Wrestling Match Ever

Moxley himself referred to Omega as the ‘Rembrandt’ of pro wrestling. The Lights Out match was his grandiose, excessive vision for a garbage match, and the very idea of wrestling a match of that type is something his character—a lost soul, a literal man without a country, a performer so driven by being the best that he fancies himself a polymath—would do.

This echoed much of the discourse that stemmed from it—that Omega lowered himself to a garbage match. Both men were talented enough to not subject themselves to its harrowing, mind-blowing danger level.

But consider Omega’s philosophical war with Hiroshi Tanahashi at this year’s Wrestle Kingdom. The theme of their programme was driven by reality; Tanahashi was the in-ring purist, a technical genius, where Omega poisoned the in-house style with his reckless style. This played out wonderfully in the match itself, as Omega clipped Tanahashi’s back on a table with a whoops-sorry, playing-dumb facial.

Kenny Omega thrives on danger as a pro wrestling strategy. The Full Gear match wasn’t excessive, or incongruous. It was Kenny Omega relishing a new level of danger to prove himself.

The big, affected moment—Omega’s demand that his Elite stablemates bring out a massive, barbed-wire atrocity—was also in character. He is pro wrestling’s artist, and this spiderweb was his sculpture of pain. This also was his strategy for the finish; he attempted to blast Moxley through it with the One-Winged Angel. Again, this was not (quite) excess for the sake of it. It was gruesome pro wrestling theatre, but it had purpose.

Moxley, meanwhile, spent years in a WWE system that shackled his own pro wrestling vision. He is a private, intense individual with an inherent willingness to use the ring as an outlet for a hard, troubled life. This ingrained mentality, fused with years of unfulfilled bloodlust, erupted in Baltimore in a way the build to the match told us it would.

This match, simply, made sense in its own deranged context—but was that context itself a transgression of what pro wrestling should be?

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