10 Fascinating Facts About 2019's 5-Star Matches
5. Scale Breakers
Wrestling fans are divided in their opinions regarding Dave Meltzer, especially when it comes to him breaking his own rating scale.
He infamously "first"* did so in January of 2017, awarding Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega 6 stars for their war at Wrestle Kingdom 11. He would later give their subsequent matches 6.25 stars, 6 stars again, and a record 7-stars for their final encounter at Dominion 2018. And those weren't even the only matches he tipped the scales for.
Needless to say, he has been a lot more flexible in this regard as of late, as he broke the record for most scale-breaking match ratings in one calendar year. While there were no 6-star matches in 2019, we were treated to nine matches over 5-stars in one year, thrashing last year's record of six. The highest-rated out of these nine matches were three matches that each earned themselves a 5.75-star rating - the first being Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 13, the second being Will Ospreay vs. Shingo Takagi in the finals of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament, and the third being Kazuchika Okada vs. Ospreay in the G1 Climax.
If 2019 is any indication, look forward to a lot more scale breaking in 2020.
* Apparently, at the time of WK11, wrestling fans forgot about Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada, which Meltzer rated 5+ stars in 1994, retrospectively tallying it at 6 stars.