10 Best Wrestlers Under 30 In The World Today
3. Mayu Iwatani
An impossibly fluid and multifariously skilled performer, the title of the article is almost an insult to her prowess. The title suggests a sub-division of greatness.
Iwatani is simply great. Even "complete" isn't an apt description. She's the complete version of several archetypes.
Entire generations of wrestlers throw strikes either because they're from Japan or because they fell in love with its styles as tape traders or YouTube nighthawks. Few wrestlers throw as much into them as Iwatani. She throws the sort of strike that seems like it can't not cause actual shoot damage. She's such a creative bumper, too. Instead of smoothly and quick travelling across the ring following an Irish whip, the fatigue of a major, long match informs her movement; she can stagger, buckling under the accumulated damage, and throw herself into the turnbuckle.
Like the best wrestlers, she masters the spaces between; her approach to the rope run nails the purpose behind it - deception - in such cool, distinct ways that can elicit gasps (or, sadly, claps) just by cleverly avoiding a move.
Spirited, nasty, sympathetic, fearsome, aerials, strikes, grappling: she can do the lot and it never clashes against itself.