8 Wrestling Records That Will Never Be Broken

5. Most Five-Star Matches (24)

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter isn't just the sport's most respected journalist - he's also its most valued analyst.

For more than thirty years, he's offered his expert opinion on wrestling matches, rating them on a five-star scale. For the unfamiliar, the scale goes from DUD (zero stars) to ***** (an all-time classic) in increments of quarter-stars. In January of this year, he extended the scale to ****** - but that was itself a one-off.

Negative stars are also available in the case of extremely bad matches, all the way down to -*****. Five-star matches are exceedingly rare, and from 2006 to 2011, Meltzer did not award a single match that highly. Most wrestlers will never have one, and since circumstance is as important as talent, some all-time legends have never hit the five-star mark in a bout (including Daniel Bryan). One wrestler has more five-star matches than anyone, and unsurprisingly, he's recognized as one of the best in the sport's history. During his legendary career, five-time Triple Crown Champion and three-time GHC Heavyweight Champion Mitsuharu Misawa racked up an incredible 24 five-star matches. Of the 24, 16 were tag bouts and eight were singles matches. He just narrowly edged out perennial rival Kenta Kobashi, who had 23. Both men were stars during All Japan's 1990s glory days, when the company was putting out what was far and away the best in-ring product in the world.

For comparison, the active star with the most five-star matches is Jun Akiyama, who's got seven - and six of those involved Misawa!