10 Classic Wrestling Rivalries With ONE THING MISSING
9. Mike Awesome Vs Masato Tanaka - Blood
Between 1994 and 2005, Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka stood across from each other a whopping 168 times, and though most of them were in tag team efforts, the 20 or so singles brawls were held in such reverence that deep old wounds were healed by the sheer scale of the violence.
Awesome and Tanaka's last match was one of their very best. One Night Stand 2005 was one of the best (or at very least best-produced) nostalgia cards ever, toasting ECW to such an extent that even the hardest of the hardcore fans were only happy to put money in Vince McMahon's pocket for one last shockingly authentic taste of their former love. Awesome - a man who gained infamy for signing for WCW while holding the ECW World Championship - was perhaps the most hated man in the building until he reminded everybody of exactly why the big leagues were willing to pay big bucks at the industry's mainstream peak.
Brutal can-you-top-this table bumps and powerbombs were the norms there and in every other epic battle they had years earlier, but thanks to being such extravagantly disgusting chiropractors by force, they never needed to rely on a more common wrestling staple - blood. Not externally, anyway. Goodness knows what was going on internally after some of those wars.