10 Best Wrestlers Under 30 In The World Today
7. Takuya Nomura
If Takuya Nomura feels older than his years, he isn't merely cosplaying the idealised image of the black trunks, black boots shooter.
He is innately legitimate.
Using his craft to gradually escape holds applied by much larger opponents, he's as clever as he is vicious in an understated way. Virtually every second of his matches feels like a contest. When he drags his opponents away from the refuge of the ropes, he always takes a second to anticipate a hold and leathers the sh*t out of the arm he's holding. He is a daunting, yet rewarding watch.
In an era of oversaturated matches that are often long because most highly-rated matches are, Nomura's slow-burn approach still works. His engrossing, laser-focused limb work is so consistent and pronounced that when an opponent manages to grab his standing leg and reverse the momentum, it looks like a master, not a prodigy, has been felled.
He can sell a lariat like a decapitation, his own strikes look like death, and he gets the spaces between, too; if a kick to his chest feels like it is the one to finally break his resolve, with a sh*t-eating grin, he'll wag his fingers "no".
The Big Japan freelancer already has the old hard f*cker aura, and he's 28. When he's 48, he might be the best dad in a scene beloved for them.