10 Images That Proved 2017 Was Wrestling’s Craziest Year Ever
1. The Greatest
Dave Meltzer is but one man, but his news, reviews and opinions remain the lifeblood of a section of the internet built entirely on speculative information and educated guesswork. He's been around a lot of it and seen just about all of it, so even when his ratings divide opinion, they deservedly carry significant weight amongst many.
The sequel to only the second match he'd ever reconsidered his five-star scale for, Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega's unbelievable Dominion clash broke the machine yet again, forcing another quarter-star from the Wrestling Observer doyen as a way to somehow have it rank above their first classic.
Deservedly so too. If Meltzer's rating is the only official metric, it's categorically the greatest match of all time. Wrestling's more subjective than that, but to see the match is to realise just how special it was.
As noted in the introduction, there's something about the sevens. In 1997, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Bret Hart triggered an entire era in a single match. In 2017, for one hour, Omega and Okada reflected the business' latest changes better than any of their peers. Kenny collapsing to his knees as an inadvertent counter to Okada's Rainmaker is just about the most beautiful exhibition of exhaustion ever thought up in a wrestling context.
The match didn't even have a winner and yet...it was perfect.