3. An Eye-Watering Kip Up
https://twitter.com/DeathToAllMarks/status/683958368017498112 We're down to the last 3 matches now, and each and every one of them was an absolute, no-hyperbole classic. Find them, watch them, because they are beautiful. First up was the match for the NEVER Openweight Championship, pitting challenger Shibata vs champion Ishii. This was, to quote a much missed Oklahoma native, a "slobberknocker." It was possibly the stiffest match I've ever watched, which is saying something for a NJPW fan. In an exhibition of sheer pain-endurance, both men clobbered each other senseless with the hardest kicks, chops, forearms and headbutts to occur within a squared circle. The match began with both men slapping, and thumping each other in the face, before taking it in turns to sitting cross-legged on the ground and invite their opponent to kick them as hard as he could in their spine! Unfathomably, it got more brutal than that, with Ishii (the short man with no neck) chopping Shibata (the man in the black trunks) square in the throat as hard as he could, leading to the moment above. Shibata took a forearm straight to the Adams apple, then kipped up and smacked Ishii with a forearm. Before the match, Shibata promised to take years off his life at Wrestle Kingdom 10. I think he just might have.