Best Individual Performance in a Match

Maybe because it's fresh in my mind on a re-watch, but Ric Flair's face performance against Terry Funk in the Great American Bash match is tremendous. Such great fire in his offense and comebacks. He's great in the Clash of the Champions match as well but to me, this felt like Flair's best performance ever.

Kenta Kobashi's performance in the 10/25/1995 match against Misawa might have been the greatest offensive display of wrestling ever, even besting his '93 match against Williams. He just completely overwhelms Misawa from the get-go with such a wide variety of moves including an Orange Crush just minutes into that never felt excessive or out of place.

But for number 1, I'd probably go with Kobashi in the classic 6/9/1995 match. His combination of selling, comebacks, and acting is perhaps greater than anything I've ever seen in a wrestling match. He's melodramatic yes, but this type of match called for melodramatic. There's a very fine line between acceptable and excessive melodrama and Kobashi absolutely nailed it.

I gotta go with Ricky Morton in the cage match with Flair in '86. You could also point to maybe 2 or 3 tags where he is at the top of the class but unfortunately none of his total carry jobs are all-timers. The feud and cage match really are something special, the self-contained storybook drama of a tag team specialist being driven to fight solo against the Best in the World in a game for blood. I would argue Morton is the best individual performer of all time, which is easy to see even when he's in there with the GOAT.

That's a really great choice. He was a brutal juggernaut and a perfect assist to Kawada there, the key of their win.