How Jon Moxley Became The Best Wrestler In The World
Jonny B Good.
On July 20th 2019, WWE presented two live events. One, a SmackDown Live house show from Columbus, Georgia saw Kofi Kingston retain his WWE Championship against Samoa Joe in a rematch from Extreme Rules several days prior. The other, a Raw card from Wildwood, New Jersey, was headlined by Seth Rollins taking on Baron Corbin in a Street Fight. It was a Stomping Grounds/Extreme Rules rematch in all apart from stakes - Rollins' Universal Championship was lost to non-attendee Brock Lesnar at the aforementioned pay-per-view.
These were, as per the 'Beast Slayer's assertions, examples of the "best pro wrestling on the planet. Period", regardless of how they might read. Or how they actually looked, when WWE presented them as rather indifferent outings on the above Network supershows.
The legitimacy of Rollins' claims, as much as he may be loathe to admit it, was being challenged at the exact same time on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. In a match Wrestling Observer gaffer Dave Meltzer will almost donate a couple of constellations to, Seth's Twitter rival Will Ospreay and Kazuchika Okada assembled an openweight, open-minded, multi-faceted and futuristic G1 Climax A Block main event for New Japan Pro Wrestling. It was the sort of contest regulars couldn't help be wowed by, and the type of encounter critics of NJPW, Meltzer and all non-WWE output would say was overrated - ahead of not actually watching it.
Subjectively, a very respected voice in wrestling media may be about to deem it the greatest match he's ever seen. Subjectively, a once-very respected actual wrestler will argue that his house show scraps with a ratings-murdering 'Lone Wolf' top it.
Subjectively, neither take matters a f*cking jot, because the lot of them had already been left playing catch-up by Jon Moxley 24 hours earlier.
CONT'D...