10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2019
5. Jon Moxley Vs. Tomohiro Ishii - NJPW G1 Climax
The more bloodthirsty among us singled this match out on the loaded G1 calendar immediately.
This absolutely plain f*cking ruled just as quickly; Moxley, intent on restoring his old aura, squared up to Ishii. A butting and scraping of heads ensued, and within seconds, this felt like a real, proper scrap between two hard bastards. What's more, this small but crucial moment put over the dynamic and the premise. These two men each considered one another scalps, and so that's where they aimed their first assault.
A twisting, gruesome tale of defiance and respect, Ishii at one point spat straight in Moxley's face after absorbing a forearm, but minutes later, Moxley, operating in such astonishing form as a likeable badass, charitably offered his opponent a chair with which to brain him. They didn't just want to kill one another; they wanted to kill the very best version of one another.
In an awesome spot, Moxley, as he is wont to do, set up a table on the outside, but Ishii put him through it with a splash. Years of character refinement put this - and Moxley - over. This is something Ishii does not do, but he had to make this out-of-character decision; to surpass this new, violent threat, he had to surpass himself.
He couldn't, and again, this is where NJPW benefits from such audacious, clever booking: undefeated to that point, Mox looked like the toughest motherf*cker in the entire industry. A vicious, pulsating squelcher with a strategic bent underpinning and enriching the spectacle, Mox didn't quite take his ball and go home; he headed east, and became a monster.