Tetsuya Naito vs Hiroshi Tanahashi (NJPW - 4/01/2017)

Almost sent my list without nominating this masterpiece once again. I'm so dumb.

This is one of the, if not the actual best, big match that ever happened at the Tokyo Dome. It's a multi-layered story that pays off brilliantly for long-term fans, but if you just wanna check how good it is without knowing anything about their rivalry, you're just gonna get what you need from the very beginning: Naito hates the Intercontinental Championship and Tanahashi because both things stopped him from main eventing the Tokyo Dome a couple of years ago, and so now he fucks with the title as much as he can. Tana, being the Ace of the company, obviously can't allow that.

The crowd goes fucking nuts from beginning to end. It's a match full of character work, as both guys are as opposite as possible in terms of ideology and attitude, but also a fascinating, perfectly done and sold, duel of legworks. Tana's legwork is legendary throughout his whole career, but Naito's doesn't get too far away here, giving Tana his own medicine in the ultimate act of mockery. The match has all the personality that Okada/Omega lacks, but sadly Meltzer decided to break his scale with that one, so this one got eclipsed. Fuck Meltzer.

To me, it's near perfect. The progress of offence, the dynamics between both characters, the selling, the drama, how they work the crowd, the stakes. And the best thing is, this isn't even the best match these two had together THAT SAME YEAR. A dream match that actually happened, for sure.