10 Cult Wrestling Matches To See Before You Die

This is the match from which the phrase the 'Muta Scale' was coined.

Muta delighted American audiences throughout his breakthrough 1989 year, in which he innovated his way towards mainstream wrestling stardom as an exotic, mysterious force presented in total contrast to the retrograde Japanese imports. He was simply too futuristic to fit into an old paradigm.

It's fitting that he unintentionally created the Scale - an informal metric of excessive blood loss - and again, fittingly, Dustin Rhodes may have broken it this year at AEW Double Or Nothing, bleeding with the same severity, drama, and ageless babyface grit of his crimson-masked father.

The aim is “to get a little colour”; a surface forehead cut, just shallow enough to soak the face, to create the illusion of all-encompassing, insurmountable damage. Muta, however, was sliced much too deeply. Much like Rhodes, his face had been painted red prior to the match, which was, as bloody battles often are, elevated by the grisly visual. Every move was lent so much more heft by Muta's ability to even pull it off. "Blood and guts" might be used pithily by (a hypocritical) Vince McMahon, but used by a master, the drama erupts in harmony with the claret. The sight of Muta firing up in defiance of the blood and energy draining from his body was incredibly powerful.

The intangible spirit within was more stronger, marking this as a truly special match that distilled the core psychological principle of puroresu.