Josh Barnett vs Minoru Suzuki (GCW - 4/4/2019)

If matches were judged just by crowd heat and by how masterfully the wrestlers play the crowd this would be a legit #1 contender. This match was white-hot face melting goodness by the end of it. They worked everyone into a frenzy to the point where they demanded more and then... THEY FUCKING GAVE IT TO THEM. What they are able to do here in terms of building suspense, anticipation, and investment is impressive, but particularly so in 2019. This is just masterful psychology. The violence and intensity build while simultaneously selling the exhaustion and never really losing people over the stretch of a very long match.  

The other reason this deserves serious consideration is that it really stands out as sort of a compelling hybrid. I would argue that most wrestling post the mid 2000s is a hybrid of some sort or another, some more obvious than others. This was a really interesting blend of modern indy wrestling (a dash of New Japan) in terms of its pacing and the amount of action they put in the match and old school shoot with strikes and - more impressively - holds that are intended to maim. It brings many of the best things from at least two types of wrestling that I enjoy a lot and mashes them together into some beautiful wrestling.

I genuinely think this is a very serious contender. That said, it loses the plot a little bit in the last 1/4th of the match or so - favoring the emotion and energy over the story of the match - in a way that will likely keep it out of contention for me.