10 Wrestling Matches That Buried Top Stars ON PURPOSE

10. Vader Vs. Antonio Inoki - NJPW, Year End In Kokugikan

Antonio Inoki did not like to lose.

Nor should he have; he was over to that megastar level nobody is anymore, and in an age where a promoter had actually had to sell tickets, Inoki, the promoter, sold tickets. But even by the standards of those politically rife doesn't-work-for-me-brother days, Antonio Inoki did not like to lose lengthy matches.

All of which rendered his shocking, controversial loss to the debuting (!) Big Van Vader in 1987 a level beyond.

Inoki had already worked Riki Choshu in the preceding match, weakening him ahead of the slaughter. The man was no idiot, and he of course entered the actual political arena two years later.

Nonetheless, his sub-three minute loss reverberated so seismically that the Sumo Hall crowd trashed the venue. This story is overstated, as it pertains to Vader's heat. The drunken crowd, deeply annoyed by the go-away heat orchestrated by celebrity stable leader Takeshi Kitano, were already disposed to such a scene. The Americanised booking, and the loss itself, hardly helped.

It was an effective enough man-handling - Vader had an inherent aura, but the fans only glimpsed the full effect of the agile behemoth - and before the unrest, the scene developed a quality not unlike that which played out at WrestleMania XXX.