5 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (August 3)
1. A Most Dangerous Match
Kota Ibushi Vs. Tomohiro Ishii, from NJPW’s awesome and awful G1 Climax tournament, is one of the most insane matches you are ever likely to wince your way through.
Ibushi may be the most eclectic performer on the planet right now. He can fly. He can grapple. He can take Canadian Piledrivers from sex dolls. And, betraying his cherubic face, he can take the fight to his opponents.
Ishii does not have a neck. It was likely crushed into his torso many moons ago, after the cumulative effect of countless disgusting head drops, and he simply endures yet more brutal punishment. That is what he does.
When confronted by one another, they wrestled a seminal and stupid entry of the Strong Style genre in which the objective wasn’t to win via conventional sh*te like strategy. Whomever wasn’t battered into dust was the winner. At one point, Ibushi struck a running Ishii with such force that it sounded like his fist was made of concrete. Ibushi struck the Stone Pitbull with his famed balcony moonsault before landing a top-rope dropkick with such amazing precision that he actually located what is left of his neck. No sell spots. Glass-eyed sell spots. Kick outs at one. Kick outs at 2.99. This was just awesome…but equally troubling.
Ibushi and Ishii then started punching one another square in their b*stard throats, in the sort of novel sequence that is novel for a reason: no other two men are brave/stupid enough to conceive of it. They also traded stiff headbutts, when the last man brave/stupid enough to connect with that move that hard, Katsuyori Shibata, had to retire.
As awesome as it was - everything was timed to such sheer perfection that a hyper-stiff match never felt overdone - it was too insane at times to stomach.