10 Most Painful-Looking Wrestling Matches Ever

Joshi fans were long accustomed to the hands-to-open-mouth sight of Aja Kong, in her role as a kawaii-killer, mercilessly knocking f*ck out of her more slender and more beautiful opponents. This night served as a retribution of sorts - a retribution delivered so emphatically that it made one question our inner moral compass.

The referee frantically wedged himself between Hotta and Kong immediately, putting over the clear and present danger. It was a gesture steeped in irony; as soon as he created separation - imagine Michael Cole calling this - Kong scrambled Hotta’s brains with a spinning back elbow. What’s so frighteningly immersive about this match is that it cared not a thing about traditional narrative, consequently separating the audience from any notion of fiction.

This beast didn't “build”.

Kong grabbed Hotta by the hair, within the first minutes, and didn't telegraph her piledriver through the table with any theatrics. She didn't ask the audience to register what she was about to do. She just did it, and because she didn't hurt Hotta to her satisfaction, she threw a chair directly into her face.

More piledrivers followed. More shots to the face delivered with the audible thwack of a watermelon imploding on concrete. In an attempt to gain some sort of advantage - there was some strategy within the guts - Hotta smeared her own blood into Kong’s eye. It didn't work; Kong was relentless, kicking Hotta’s face in with the zeal of a psychopath.How it was possible to feel sympathy for Kong, after all that, was a mystery. And yet, when Hotta, firing up, did well not to kick Kong’s head off, you do.

It rendered the viewer a spluttering, squealing, head-shaking, guffawing mess, at once gripped, delighted and utterly disgusted with oneself.