5 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (July 13)

The dangers of the modern, overarching in-ring style have become more and more apparent over the last couple of years.

Particularly in Japan.

What's sobering is that the incredible risks synonymous with New Japan Pro Wrestling aren't that necessary. Hiroshi Tanahashi spearheaded this current Golden Era by projecting sheer star power and wrestling with the purity of a wrestling genius. Injecting actual strategy into his epic, slow-burning masterclasses, he also pioneered modern wrestling's dizzying, ultra-dramatic reversal-strewn finishing sequences, in which he countered (and countered) the signature moves of his challengers. In effect, he put them over by frantically avoiding their offence as much as taking their arsenals would have. He also avoided the risk of serious neck injury and concussive trauma with this expert narrative innovation born from a complete aversion to the strong style of pro wrestling.

In doing so, he brought the acclaim and box office back to New Japan.

And yet, the performers still take the risks the Ace avoided, perhaps self-consciously so. Tanahashi was and somehow remains very much the once in a century talent he markets himself as. His main event successors have brought back the head drops and repatriated dangerous table spots from the U.S. in recent years, all but inviting a sense of grim inevitability.

This week, sadly, that inevitability materialised...

At New Japan Pro Wrestling's G1 Special In San Francisco, Hiromu Takahashi suffered a broken neck.

Such is Hiromu's reckless style - it is the very essence of the performer, and the man, there is so little to conflate - that we have dedicated entire entries in this series to his absurd insanity. Takahashi however wasn't directly at fault; Dragon Lee, wrestling his fourth high-intensity match in the space of 24 hours, was unable to maintain his grip when dropping Takahashi with the Phoenix Plex.

The margin for error already dangerously thin, the loose application sent Hiromu sliding head-first across the canvas. His head turned back in on itself at a disgusting angle that mirrored the notorious, career-ending injury suffered by Hayabusa in 2001 but, according to the latest reports, Hiromi has miraculously escaped Hayabusa's fate. He has not been paralysed. Insanely, Hiromu used the last vestiges of feeling to actually finish the match.

Naturally, this reawakened a dormant debate: is the modern wrestling style a dangerous contravention of the work? More questions abound: Is it fair, or responsible, to implicate New Japan alone? Is it fair, or responsible, to place the onus squarely on the glory-chasing performers? The promotions themselves must shoulder much of the blame. Across the board, pro wrestlers, the lifeblood of pro wrestling, are not compensated sufficiently, at least relative to those promoters who abuse the draconian and disturbing "independent contractor" criteria to draw stars into their gaping maw. An example of what-about-ism it may be, but WWE's injury record is actually far worse. The problem is industry-wide, and thus the industry must therefore attempt to control it. Irrespective of style, the bump clock ticks for all with a grim encroachment. If the industry paid better, generally, the performers - though perhaps not those, like Takahashi, with an inherent death-defying mentality - may manage their schedules more responsibly.

Us fans aren't blameless, either, but most singled out and condemned the Wrestle Kingdom 11 spot in which Kenny Omega drilled Kazuchika Okada with a top-rope dragon suplex. Their subsequent matches were less dangerous, and somehow, even more critically acclaimed and well-received.

There's a lesson in there.