10 Times Wrestling Made You Lose Your Goddamn Mind
2. Hayabusa Explodes, Fights On
Yes, this match has been written up on this author page recently. Yes, this is another excuse to put it over because it rules so damn hard.
Arguably the zenith of the death match genre - and certainly its commercial peak, having drawn in excess of 58,000 to Kawasaki Stadium - Atsushi Onita and Hayabusa worked a spectacle match so good that it realised the crazed, incredible promise of the old magazine photographs. The images of sparks smarting blood-soaked bodies were indelible. The actual match couldn't do them justice, but this one did.
Hayabusa was incredible at the death match; he used his immense athleticism to stop just short of the triggered explosive after running full pelt off an Irish whip, drawing anxious gasps from the giant gate. And then, after the legendarily daunting siren count-down, during which both men traded frantic, heart-pounding near-falls, Hayabusa exploded. Twice.
He triggered a bomb at the exact second the timed explosive rig detonated and disappeared under thick billowing clouds of smoke. In an iconic sequence elevated by the atmospheric visual, Onita and Hayabusa fought amid soot. Covered in ash, the scene looked cinematic, and both men looked like total badasses for fighting through this post-apocalyptic landscape.
The match was so great, and elicited such visceral feelings of do-or-die competition, that it peaked after the best execution of the explosion stunt.