25 Best Wrestling Shows EVER
3. NJPW Dominion 2018
Headlined by the greatest pro wrestling match ever held, NJPW Dominion was a top-to-bottom masterpiece.
Kenny Omega vanquished the invincible Kazuchika Okada in 64:50. The most in-form wrestler there ever was defeated the greatest Heavyweight champion ever in an immaculate match that redefined the concept of selling and reframed how it should work in the age of the super-athlete. For 50 impossible minutes, Omega Vs. Okada IV was relentless lung-bursting fury, total precision, built around the former gutting out a devastating blow to the ribs. The twist was ingenious, in that it undermined, to emotionally devastating effect, the key plot thread. Omega had worked himself into the shape of his life. Before the halfway mark, his graft no longer mattered. He needed his heart to claw it all back.
The last 15 minutes were worked, in effect, in slow-motion. The fans in Osaka-jo Hall were thus able to unpack every dense layer of the story and scream themselves hoarse roaring Omega - who had redeemed himself throughout the run-time by using the signature moves of the idols he had betrayed - towards his impossible destiny. A story on an epic scale, Okada Vs. Omega was the best match ever wrestled.
What’s incredible is that, ahead of the show, many thought Will Ospreay Vs. Hiromu Takahashi would steal it. That match was merely out of this world great, and not the match of a lifetime.
The Young Bucks, with a very inspired intentional botch, evolved their party match to deliver something more textured against EVIL and SANADA. Chris Jericho was still brilliant as the rejuvenated credible brawler in his first-time meeting with Tetsuya Naito.
The undercard wasn’t amazing, but it was sequenced so well that the card never once stopped peaking.