10 Stiffest Wrestling Matches Ever

6. Mike Awesome Vs Masato Tanaka - November 2 Remember 1999

Vader Yokozuna Royal Rumble 1996
WWE.com

Even though wrestlers often develop antagonistic relationships with their coworkers, they still have to compete against one another. In the interest of being professional and maintaining a good reputation, wrestlers tend not to take liberties with their real-life enemies. On the contrary, wrestlers typically work stiffest when they're taking on friends they can trust.

Such was the case with Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka, who first worked against each other in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, an ultra-violent 1990s outfit in Japan. The feud found its way to ECW in 1998, with both men taking each other on at Heatwave in front of a crowd that was receptive to the new stars.

In late 1999, Awesome and Tanaka had another series of matches, this time with the ECW Title on the line. Their best and most violent match, in the eyes of many, came at November 2 Remember 1999. Brutal powerbombs, reckless dives, and tons of chairshots ensured that both men left the battle feeling like they'd been hit by trucks.

This wasn't the last bout between the two men - they traded the ECW Championship in December of 1999, then had one final, excellent match at One Night Stand in 2005.

In this post: 
Yokozuna Vader
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried. *Best Crowd of the Year, 2013