Title: Kenny Omega Beat Kazuchika Okada in One of the Best Wrestling Matches Ever
Date: June 11, 2018
Original Source: Vice
Synopsis: For my latest at Vice, I wrote about Kenny Omega finally winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at NJPW Dominion, the end of a two-year title reign for Kazuchika Okada, and the best wrestling match I’ve ever seen.
For 719 days, Kazuchika Okada was untouchable. On the 720th, Kenny Omega found the answer, becoming the new IWGP World Heavyweight Champion in a terrific match to close out an epic quadrilogy. To dethrone maybe the greatest champion in history, it would take one of the greatest performances of all time.
Okada, the best wrestler in the world, had made it a personal mission to tear-down the New Japan Pro Wrestling record book and re-write it in his own image. For nearly two years, Okada carried with him the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, setting new records for the length of his title reign, the number of times he defended it, and time spent with the title in a career. He was not entirely invincible, but with his title on the line, he was, posting an 11-0-1 record since winning it back at Dominion in June 2016.
This was the impossible task laid before Omega on Saturday at the 2018 edition of Dominion, one of New Japan’s marquee annual events. Omega was the one draw in Okada’s otherwise spotless record as champion, and while Okada had defeated him cleanly in a title defense, too, Omega also owned a non-title victory over Okada from last summer’s G1 Climax tournament. Now at the point of calling the shots, Okada chose Omega as his challenger once again, looking to expunge the only mark on his historic reign. The 1-1-1 series would be decided in a best two-of-three falls match without a time limit, a fourth installment that promised to threaten for best-of-all-time status.
Before Omega could attempt to push the boulder up the hill one more time, though, he slipped and it nearly crushed him.
Continue reading at Vice.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 