1. New Japan Cup – Final: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Here’s one of those professional wrestling matches that hearkens back to a time when professional wrestling was treated as a legitimate competition in which men professionally wrestled each other.
This had some help before the bell started with the tournament final atmosphere and built-in drama with Tanahashi’s arm and ZSJ’s push, and they completely delivered on the world they were given. They took their time early but there was a credibility to everything they did – these aren’t two guys killing time with something they saw on tape from 1975; these are two guys fighting for an opening, fighting to be THE BEST. This is two gentleman who are wrestling professionally.
After some high-end ZSJ matwork with Tanahashi who can go with it, they built this into the most dramatic heated god damn match. The crowd’s consistent buzzing towards the end was so great, just hanging on every step rooting for Their Guy. It was as if ZSJ knew he had Tana’s number, then as he went for the kill – the out-matched half broken Ace would not let it happen.
I liked how there were a bunch of epic moments but with mat-based stuff – Tanahashi fighting out of the triangle for a couple minutes before countering with a Texas Cloverleaf, ZSJ watching Tanahashi struggle to do the skin the cat and grabbing a leglock. Tanahashi catching the PK and trying a dragon screw, only for ZSJ to stop short and do a reverse cradle with a bridge was special stuff. Tanahashi doing his own reverse cradle bridge was awesome, as was it leading into ZSJ trapping him in a submission lock that he just could not escape. ****1/2
