Kazuchika Okada's 10 Best Wrestling Matches

4. Vs. Tomohiro Ishii - G1 Climax 2016

Kazuchika Okada Tomohiro Ishii G1 Climax
njpwworld.com

It may be somewhat depressing to say, but one day Tomohiro Ishii is going to be considered one of the best professional wrestlers to never win a major World title. Ishii is a national treasure, a violent brawler who manages to garner better babyface sympathy than his smaller peers. If you're not familiar with Tomohiro Ishii, watch this match and watch it now.

Okada and Ishii may be stablemates, but if The Rainmaker thought that the Stone Pitbull was going to go easy on him, he had another thing coming. Ishii made sure this was an Ishii match as opposed to an Okada one, hitting the IWGP Champion with a barrage of early shots. This was the perfect G1 Climax sprint, a high-speed match between two men desperate for the win for very different reasons.

The Japanese commentary was particularly fantastic throughout this match, as the booth truly rammed home just how important this match was to both men. The usual Okada formula was completely eschewed, Ishii even managing to interrupt the Rainmaker pose, before hitting Okada with a Brainbuster for the 1-2-3.

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.