Tetsujin

Even if the first half suffers a bit from lack of hate and violence, that changes when the blood appears and it became a great match. I agree with Y2J being the best man there, but I have to give Omega some credits too. He had to guide 2018 Chris Jericho through a NJPW big Dome match, and he had to get out of his confort zone to do it. He still needs to learn how to sell exhaustion and accumulated pain throughout a whole match, though. ****1/4.

I'll add Punk/Y2j from WM XXVIII, one of the most underrated matches ever imo.

He kinda is, but no way at the same league as Naito.

OMG! I'm here thanks to GWE so I'm very happy to see this. Awesome stuff

Didn't watch the Rumble. Opener match was fine; nothing more, nothing less. Glad they're taking the division seriously, but I wanted RPG 3K to win and became the true kings of the mountain. Gauntlet match was mediocre as expected, but hey Ishii is champion of something. Cody vs Ibushi was a good match, nice body and great climax. So happy they put Kota over, I'm no way a Cody fan (anymore, loved him in WWE). I liked KES vs LIJ, the heat segment was golden and EVIL'S hot tag too. Would have prefered if they had a few more minutes 'cause the win felt too easy. MiSu/Goto was great. Stiff, dramatic, without Suzuki-Gun... All I could ask for. Post-match was awesome too, Suzuki's the most badass wrestler alive when he wants to. The F4W was nice, with some cool moments and some dull ones. Crowd didn't give a shit about Scurll/Ospreay, loved it. Hiromu cleaning the house near the end was amazing :'( I wasn't too focused when the IC match happened, and I need a rewatch, but I loved White's offensive in this. Tanahashi was good enough. Repeat, I need a rewatch. Omega/Y2j was fucking great. First half was funny, but when the bladejob happened the magic started. What a Jericho performance, his best one since... 2012? So cool. And thanks to Omega for not choosing his classic big match formula against such opponent, it was the right call. Aaaand finally the main event. That was WK 12, everybody!!! Ok, fine. The ME was Incredible, nothing new in terms of NJPW's big match formula but the special feeling was there at every moment, because it was THE moment. Naito's moment, the fans moment. Aaaand it wasn't. And that was horrible. And they fucked up the most beautiful tittle-chase story since Bryan. And no, next year is not going to be the same. Terrible ending for a pretty good show (and a terrific match).

Okada for me. An incredible championship reign with different oponents and stories. When it comes to the WK main event, I'm not on the "MOTY" board but I love it and think Kazuchika's performance is out-of-this-world great, and same with the Shibata match (although Shibata's even better). He gave lesser oponents (Fale, Cody, EVIL) good-to-great matches. But not only is title matches, his G1 is awesome too: the Elgin match, the Kojima match (heel Okada is best Okada), the EVIL match, the Omega match... Easily the mvp of the tournament (and I'm not even as high with the MiSu draw as others). And I totally agree with WingedEagle about the six-man matches. Naito, Trevor Lee and BRAAAAUUUUUN are on the discussion fo #1, too.

I'm currently working on a personal project to find my MOTYs, so this'll be a nice thread. Right now, this is all I've got: 1980: Roddy Piper vs Buddy Rose (PNW, 13/9) - Rick Martel vs Buddy Rose (PNW, 26/4) - Johnny Saint vs Steve Grey (JP, 28/1) 1981: Stan Hansen vs André the Giant (NJPW, 23/9) - Jerry Lawler vs Terry Funk (CWA, 23/3) - Jim Breaks vs Jon Cortez (JP, 2/2) 1982: Ric Flair vs Kerry Von Erich (WCCW, 15/8) - Dutch Mantell vs Jerry Lawler (CWA, 29/3) - No more runner ups this time, weak year in terms of MOTYC 1983: Bill Dundee vs Jerry Lawler (CWA, 6/6) - Nick Bockwinkel vs Wahoo McDaniel (AWA, 28/8) - Roddy Piper vs Greg Valentine (NWA, Starrcade) 1984: Rick Martel vs Nick Bockwinkel (AWA, 20/9) - Américo Rocca vs Mocho Cota (EMLL, 27/1) - El Satánico vs Shiro Koshinaka (EMLL, 30/7) 1985: Ric Flair vs Rick Martel (AJPW, 21/10) - Jim Duggan vs Ted DiBiase (MidSouth, 30/3) - Jerry Lawler vs Bill Dundee (CWA, 30/12) 1986: Nick Bockwinkel vs Curt Hennig (AWA, 21/11) - Buddy Rose & Doug Sommers vs Midnight Rockers (AWA, 30/8) - Ric Flair vs Barry Windham (JCP, Battle of the Belts 2) 1987: Ric Flair vs Barry Windham (JCP, 20/1) - Carlos Colón vs Stan Hansen (WWC, 6/1) - Hijo del Santo vs Negro Casas (WWA, 18/7) 1988: Espanto Jr vs Hijo del Santo (UWA, 10/4) - Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs Barry Windham & Lex Luger (NWA, Clash of the Champions I) - Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy vs Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW, 16/12) 1989: Jumbo Tsuruta vs Genichiro Tenryu (AJPW, 5/6) - Masakatsu Funaki vs Tatsuo Nakano (UWF II, 24/7) - Ricky Steamboat vs Ric Flair (NWA, WrestleWar) 1990: Ángel Azteca vs El Dandy (EMLL, 1/6) - El Dandy vs El Satánico (EMLL, 14/12) - El Satánico vs El Dandy (EMLL, 26/10) 1991: Masahiro Chono vs Keiji Mutoh (NJPW, G1 Climax) - Naoki Sano vs Minoru Suzuki (PWFG, 26/7) - Wayne Shamrock vs Naoki Sano (PWFG, 19/5) 1992: Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Mayumi Ozaki & Dynamite Kansai (AJW, DreamRush) - Ricky Steamboat vs Rick Rude (WCW, Beach Blast) - Doug Furnas & Dan Kroffat vs Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW, 25/5) 1993: Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, 29/7) - Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori (AJW, DreamSlam I) - No more runner ups this time, weak year in terms of MOTYC 1994: Aja Kong vs Yumiko Hotta (AJW, 24/01) - Aja Kong vs Manami Toyota (AJW, 20/11) - Owen Hart vs Bret Hart (WWF, WrestleMania X) --------- The following is my current "list" (I don't really have one, but you know), the years I have more or less clear, but could change throughout the project) 1995: 9/6/95 - Akira Taue vs Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW, 15/4) - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, 25/10) 1996: Riki Choshu vs Shinya Hashimoto (NJPW, G1 Climax) - Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels (WWF, WrestleMania XII) - Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama (AJPW, 6/12) 1997: Kenta Kobashi vs Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW, 20/1) - Bret Hart vs Steve Austin (WWF, WrestleMania 13) - Hijo del Santo vs Negro Casas (EMLL, 19/9) 1998: Kenta Kobashi vs Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW, 31/8) - Burning vs Stan Hansen & Vader (AJPW, 5/12) - Mankind vs Undertaker (WWF, King of the Ring) 2002: Low Ki vs Bryan Danielson (ROH, Round Robin Challenge) - Brock Lesnar vs Undertaker (WWE, No Mercy) - Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit vs Rey Mysterio & Edge (WWE, No Mercy) 2003: Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi (NOAH, 1/3) - Kurt Angle vs Chris Benoit (WWE, Royal Rumble) - Akira Taue vs Yuji Nagata (NOAH, 6/6) 2004: Samoa Joe vs CM Punk (ROH, World Title Classic) - Samoa Joe vs CM Punk (ROH, All Star Extravaganza II) - Kenta Kobashi vs Jun Akiyama (NOAH, 10/7) 2005: Samoa Joe vs Kenta Kobashi (ROH, Joe vs Kobashi) - Shawn Michaels vs Kurt Angle (WWE, WrestleMania 21) - Christopher Daniels vs Samoa Joe vs AJ Styles (TNA, Unbreakable) 2013: Katsuyori Shibata vs Tomohiro Ishii (NJPW, G1 Climax) - CM Punk vs Brock Lesnar (WWE, SummerSlam!) - Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kazuchika Okada (NJPW, Invasion Attack) 2014: The Shield vs The Wyatt Family (WWE, Elimination Chamber) - AJ Styles vs Minoru Suzuki (NJPW, G1 Climax) - Adrian Neville vs Sami Zayn (NXT, Takeover R Evolution) 2015: Bayley vs Sasha Banks (NXT, Takeover Respect) - Shinsuke Nakamura vs Kazuchika Okada (NJPW, G1 Climax) - Sasha Banks vs Bayley (NXT, Takeover Brooklyn) 2017: Kazuchika Okada vs Katsuyori Shibata (NJPW, Sakura Genesis) - Tetsuya Naito vs Kenny Omega (NJPW, G1 Climax) - Trevor Lee vs Chip Day (CWF, 25/3) Work in progress. I'll be editing the list very often, 'cause I've not watched most part of the 90s/00s/10s matches in a while and my tastes may have changed since then; and 'cause I need to watch a lot from the years I didn't picked; and yeah, I definitely need to watch a lot from the 70s.

Just watched this for the first time, and it was awesome. What an all-time-great performance by Fujiwara, being an arrogant jackass, working the crowd wonderfully and making Yamazaki earn every single one of his little victories. I totally agree with Phil, as this is the Fujiwara show, but Kazuo's determination was amazing too. He was pissed off by Yoshiaki's attitude and used that feeling as a weapon, learning about his rival and evolving into a better oponent for him. Also, I really liked that fucking finish. I'm kinda new watching shoot style stuff, but I loved every second of this: great character development and cool technique from both guys. One of the most underrated matches of the year and mayyyyybe of the whole decade? Maybe. ****1/2.

Throughout all 2017 I've heard about some great matches in NOAH, EVOLVE, PROGRESS and PWG that I didn't watch (any suggestions?), but right now I have 20 MOTYC. After several days thinking about it, I ranked them. But first, some HHMM in chronological order: Ok then, here I go, my top 20 matches of 2017: ****1/2 20. Daisuke Sekimoto vs Hideki Suzuki - BJW 30/3 19. Kyle O' Reilly vs Mike Bailey - WCPW World Cup 18. Brock Lesnar vs Samoa Joe - WWE Great Balls of Fire 17. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Tetsuya Naito - NJPW G1 Climax 27 16. Kento Miyahara vs Shuji Ishikawa - AJPW 21/5 15. Timothy Thatcher vs Daniel Makabe - 3-2-1 BATTLE! 28/7 14. Hiromu Takahashi vs KUSHIDA - NJPW Sakura Genesis 13. Kota Ibushi vs Zack Sabre Jr - NJPW G1 Climax 27 12. Shinsuke Nakamura vs Bobby Roode - NXT Takeover San Antonio 11. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kota Ibushi - NJPW Power Struggle 10. Brock Lesnar vs Braun Strowman vs Samoa Joe vs Roman Reigns - WWE SummerSlam! 9. Matt Riddle vs WALTER - PROGRESS Chapter 51 8. Tetsuya Naito vs Michael Elgin - NJPW The New Beggining 7. Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega - NJPW WrestleKingdom 11 6. Tyler Bate vs Pete Dunne - NXT Takeover Chicago ****3/4 5. Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega - NJPW Dominion 4. Kento Miyahara vs Suwama - AJPW 9/10 3. Trevor Lee vs Chip Day - CWF 26/4 ***** 2. Tetsuya Naito vs Kenny Omega - NJPW G1 Climax 27 1. Kazuchika Okada vs Katsuyori Shibata - NJPW Sakura Genesis

Hi, I'm new here but I follow the forum since last year's GWE (which was fucking incredible). Awesome community! I'm not a native English speaker, so excuse me for my Steinerism. Hope to have fun here, and happy new year