15 Best Non-WWE Matches Of The Last Decade (According To Dave Meltzer)
4. Hiroshi Tanahashi Vs. Katsuyori Shibata (5* - NJPW, 2014)
You can put Tanahashi in the go-home match, or - as he was at 2014's Destruction in Kobe - in the penultimate bout.
It doesn't really matter, because either way he's probably going home with the best match of the night. Katsuyori Shibata was his opponent this time, and this was - by all accounts - every bit as stiff as the one he had shared with Ishii about a year earlier.
In fact, that was the only criticism Meltzer could really level at it - that it veered dangerously close to the line between stiff and, well, dangerous.
But it still earned a five-star rating, which must have been a source of comfort for them both the next day as they began showing the scars (and aching, welting bruises) of battle.