One of the matches I do agree fully with in this thread is Tanahashi vs. Okada at Invasion Attack, great storytelling, great wrestling, great chemistry and just a great feel in general. I'd rate it ****3/4. I think I have done a full review of it before whether it was on this forum or not. I don't bother typing everything out again though, haha.
Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hirooki Goto at NJPW Dominion absolutely blew my mind and I do think it deserves a really high place among matches of the year even though I have heard people saying although it was definitely an incredible match, it wasn't a MOTY contender. I do think this and I honestly can't fake my enthusiasm for this match, it's as genuine as it can get. It must be something little extra I found entertaining in this match that others didn't, but oh well. It had such great psychology in the sense of following up from their previous match which ended in a double count out after both got knocked out. Both had so much to prove and that showed in the match. The story couldn't have been told better and if you saw their previous match and watch/watched this one, you cannot/couldn't miss the desire for one of these guys to win this match, kayfabely, of course. They treated it like it was their only goal in life to win the match and as I said, it was definitely noticeable. This is where people genuinely would think wrestling is real. The emotion was genuine and to say the least; so was their wrestling. Stiff and credible in the sense of dealing damage.
Rating: ****1/2 (I want to rate it higher but I have a feeling it would be too much, so I stick to my guts.)
