4. I Missed One Of The Best Matches Of The Century
I started watching Ring of Honor in 2006 and immediately became hooked. Thankfully, I live in New York, and the promotion would run Manhattan and Long Island on a near-monthly basis. I went to several shows over the course of the next few years and really enjoyed the alternative to WWE. I only wish I'd started watching a little earlier. On October 1, 2005, Japanese legend Kenta Kobashi came to New York, taking on Samoa Joe in one of the greatest brawls in wrestling history. Both men beat the hell out of each other in front of a rabid crowd, with Kobashi eventually picking up the win. The match was roundly considered a five-star classic, blowing away everyone who saw it (including me, on DVD much later). I've seen a lot of great matches live, but I'm still a little sore that I didn't get to go to this one. Kobashi, to the best of my knowledge, never wrestled in the United States again, and while I did get to see Mitsuharu Misawa wrestle KENTA for ROH in 2007 (and I prefer Misawa to Kobashi), their match wasn't on the level of one of the greatest bouts of the past 15 years.
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
