10 Great Matches That Inadvertently Ruined Wrestling
7. Kenta Kobashi Vs. Takeshi Rikio - Pro Wrestling NOAH Navigate For Evolution 2005
Kenta Kobashi's reign as GHC Heavyweight Champion was a critical and commercial smash success.
His passionate army of fans had awaited his coronation as Ace for over a decade. His first singles victory over Mitsuharu Misawa, on March 1, 2003 - at the umpteenth time of asking - heralded his long-awaited stint as the man of Pro Wrestling NOAH. This was no mere sentimental victory; the NOAH faithful literally bought into the idea of Kobashi-as-Ace in their droves. Kobashi did what Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada could not and pulled in excess of 60,000 fans to the Tokyo Dome at the 2004 height of his epic reign, in which he amassed countless awesome and lucrative matches with all manner of opponents, deviating with ease from the All Japan King's Road style to attract new fans to the NOAH product he had defined.
It came to an end at the hands of Takeshi Rikio on March 5, 2005. It was a good match. Good was nowhere near enough.
Rikio was obviously a talent. NOAH would not have selected him to end the reign if he wasn't. The problem was that the gulf in quality was immense. NOAH needed to build to the future, but the new generation was either nowhere near as talented nor over (as with Rikio) or the NOAH fandom had not been conditioned to accept men of their slight proportions in headliner roles (KENTA, Naomichi Marufuji).
NOAH, simply, did not do enough work in the background. The state in which the promotion exists today is thoroughly depressing.