10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2018
9. Kenny Omega Vs. Tetsuya Naito - NJPW G1 Climax
Something incredible happens in the last five minutes of Kenny Omega's best matches. He unleashes and is subject to a deluge, a cloudburst, of brutal, state-of-the-art moves. Recapped in words, it may read as him getting his sh*t in. When you watch those finishes, they become so much more than that. They become a last-gasp fight to the end that never looked so good.
There is a testy element to Omega and Tetsuya Naito's dynamic. Omega has accelerated beyond Naito in the New Japan pecking order, but Naito remains the more popular star. They always ignore this in their matches...at first. They play it aloof. They flex. They each play to the crowd, ignoring or outright dismissing one another. And then that tension surfaces, inexorably, and manifests as something far beyond dangerous.
This initial denial of competition becomes wrestling's deadliest form of it.
Wrestling's increased danger level became the talking point over the summer, and New Japan was at the epicentre of it. At least two awesome matches from the G1 Climax were a touch too tough to stomach, and didn't make it here accordingly - but this was just insane enough to warrant praise in good conscience. When Omega crashed into Naito with an over-the-top-rope plancha, you could see Naito's cheek wobble as he took the full brunt of it.
The last five minutes of this Omega match absolutely tore the roof off the place; benefitting from the building blocks of their prior G1 block matches, Omega and Naito located unreal counters to their most over, spectacular weapons in a way that benefitted the story. In contrast to the opening flex, they had been paying the strictest attention to one another.
Spittle flew, and heads were stomped in a pulsating affair in which whenever an injury was inflicted, an insult quickly followed.