10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2019
3. Shingo Takagi Vs. Will Ospreay - NJPW Best Of The Super Juniors Final
Shingo Takagi entered this match undefeated in a role so well-performed that it almost felt unfair; he was a Junior Heavyweight capable of wrestling at the warp speed of the peers he towered over.
This push - and the extent to which his work warranted it - informed the spellbinding power of this match. It would take a career-best, career-defining performance on Will Ospreay's part to slay the dragon.
There was a phenomenal - genius - intangible quality to Ospreay's performance. He wrestled as if he was in the fight of his life, gradually overcoming the rocket power of his colossus opponent with every strategy he picked up to become a world class all-rounder. He used his velocity and cockiness to immediately kip up after a propulsive shoulder barge. He used his insane athleticism and the counters imparted to him by Kazuchika Okada to evade Takagi's onslaught. He used his chain wrestling ability to beguile and wear the dragon down.
The subtlest of cues instructed the audience to get behind the underdog. Takagi reneged on the Okada chest-pat to chop Ospreay's soul from his body. Pissed at Ospreay's resilience, Shingo threw a bottle of water at him from the outside. This drove the crowd reaction, making the improbable seem plausible, and the Sumo Hall crowd sensed that their support could make it happen. Ospreay, determined, kicked out of Shingo's protected, destructive weapons in the heat of an electrifying finishing sequence before securing the win.
He secured more than that; he emerged as the undisputed Ace of the division and, to many critics, the best wrestler on the planet.
Period.