10 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2020 (So Far)
4. Kenny Omega Vs. PAC - AEW Dynamite February 26
When was the last time a heel cheated in a pro wrestling match, and you were earnestly disgusted at what they had done to pollute the sporting contest?
That was the inspired genius behind the Kenny Omega Vs. PAC Iron Man classic.
PAC's transgression followed 15 or so minutes of absolutely furious, elegant, lung-bursting, state-of-the-art professional wrestling. Omega, credited for laying out his all-time great series with Kazuchika Okada, perfectly adapted his trademark epic to U.S. television. This didn't build slowly; it exploded immediately, to align with the wavelength of the weekly Wednesday audience, and maintained their rapt attention with a series of totally unhinged bumps consistent with the finale tone and the personal stakes.
The audience was asked how it was remotely possible for PAC and Omega to maintain that pace. PAC answered it with a transgression that actually got over as one; his blatant steel chair assault marked the first disqualification in AEW history, and it threatened what had legitimately become the sanctity of an instant classic.
Omega recovered, leading to an outstanding crescendo in which the intimate knowledge both men had developed of one another informed a superb and terrifying One-Winged Angel poison 'rana reversal. They said Kenny Omega couldn't "do" American TV wrestling.
Just five months in, he perfected a match genre that had never really reached its idealised aura.