Post by tactician on Aug 23, 2018 22:15:36 GMT -5
This was a classic. My personal favorite match of 2018. There were a few rough moments early in the match including the botched leapfrog but that doesn’t affect my opinion of the match. Kenny Omega was perfect in his role as the arrogant dominant champion. He was undefeated throughout the entire G1 and he refused to take Ishii as a threat. Ishii gave one of the greatest underdog performances I’ve ever seen here. Kenny Omega was great working on top for most of the match but the timing of Ishii’s hope spots was impeccable. The crowd was losing their minds down the stretch. Ishii is so great at selling. Omega is so brutal and violent sometimes too. It seemed like he was trying to kill Ishii at points in this match.
My favorite thing is about this match is if you were paying attention to the standings and scenarios, an Ishii win was obvious here as Kenny would essentially clinch the block several days before the Final. But they made you believe Kenny was winning with how he shut down all of Ishii’s comeback attempts. As he became increasingly dominant, the tension heightened. There were so many points during the match where I thought “it’s over, Kenny has it won”. But Ishii plays a resilient badass so well. The finish where Ishii stunned Kenny for just a moment and dodged his errant lariat and quickly planted him with a devastating Brainbuster was amazing. It showed that Ishii just barely took it. He caught Kenny at the exact right time and eeked out a win.
And who could forget Kenny’s busted lip. I don’t think I’ll forget the grotesque image after the match of Kenny’s bloody mouth, his lip hanging on by a thread. This match was a car crash. It was a mess in the best way possible. It was sloppy. It wasn’t smooth, it wasn’t pretty but it was what wrestling should be. It was a brutal, violent spectacle.
My favorite thing is about this match is if you were paying attention to the standings and scenarios, an Ishii win was obvious here as Kenny would essentially clinch the block several days before the Final. But they made you believe Kenny was winning with how he shut down all of Ishii’s comeback attempts. As he became increasingly dominant, the tension heightened. There were so many points during the match where I thought “it’s over, Kenny has it won”. But Ishii plays a resilient badass so well. The finish where Ishii stunned Kenny for just a moment and dodged his errant lariat and quickly planted him with a devastating Brainbuster was amazing. It showed that Ishii just barely took it. He caught Kenny at the exact right time and eeked out a win.
And who could forget Kenny’s busted lip. I don’t think I’ll forget the grotesque image after the match of Kenny’s bloody mouth, his lip hanging on by a thread. This match was a car crash. It was a mess in the best way possible. It was sloppy. It wasn’t smooth, it wasn’t pretty but it was what wrestling should be. It was a brutal, violent spectacle.
