10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2020
9. Go Shiozaki Vs. Takashi Sugiura - Pro Wrestling NOAH NOAH The Best Final Chronicle
Go Shiozaki entered the match with his shoulder all f*cked up and bandaged in tape. He tried to take control early with undemanding methodical mat work. It was futile.
This was written in his face.
Skilled as he was, he was never going to subdue Takashi Sugiura without slowly separating it. After a few minutes, Sugiura roared back into an offensive stretch. Shiozaki had to enter the fight of his life to secure even a pyrrhic victory. He unleashed the first chop. A reluctance formed on his face even before the popping bacon shotgun blast hurt himself as much as it lacerated the challenger's chest.
An agonised wince crept over it in the aftermath.
Unable to maintain the advantage after this first round of strikes, Go could only crumple to his feet. Sugiura wiped the blood away with a sick grin and a no-sweat gesture.
Fighting like a warrior from underneath, Go's face morphed from defiance to anguish and back again over the course of a grotesque epic that earned its prolonged, glazed selling. They weren't reaching for gravitas. They were selling a f*cking war. And it was a war rich in detail.
Go hoisted Sugiura up for the powerbomb, but took forever to spike him down. It was a struggle enough, getting him up. Throwing him to the mat was going to mess his shoulder up all the more. So he waited. He had to find the strength and the heart. The delay in executing the move meant so much in a match that mastered the spaces between.
An all-timer of a selling performance, much less a match of the year contender.