10 Great Wrestling Matches (That Ruined Everything)
3. Kenny Omega Vs. Haruka - STARDOM STARDOM X STARDOM 2011
It doesn't matter that Kenny Omega throws a cracking, sly working punch in what might well be a brag as much as anything else.
It doesn't matter that he has mastered sports-oriented storytelling in which his intensive training for epic main event matches utilises and thus justifies stamina as a story beat.
It doesn't matter that his V-Trigger looks far more brutal than every strike thrown in a pro wrestling match, even those flung by more cult credible "Strong Style" performers.
Kenny Omega will always be, in the minds of people who blindly hate him, the man who wrestled a small child.
Nor does it matter that the match itself was a masterclass; Omega was on spectacularly cruel form in a black comedy match driven by his hammy quest for the blood of the profoundly outmatched, and the punchline of the step-up enziguiri actually "connecting" was sensational in its gall.
Omega "exposed the business", was accused of doing so by the man who popularised the shoot interview exposé, and wrestling fans all across the internet have had to endure, for over a decade at this point, totally poisonous discourse about "realism" and "when men were men".
Wrestling never looked real and real men don't make women cry in order to make themselves feel big and tough.