This match is effortlessly good. There was a zero percent chance of failure with this match up. From the go, you take the two best wrestlers in New Japan this year and put them in a single match. It’s literally the foundation of professional wrestling booking.
This was everything you expect from this match. Whatever those two names place into your imagination, that’s what it is. It’s hard hitting, it’s fast paced, it’s brutal, and it has a lot of personality and charisma from both guys. While Shingo is perfect for keeping the pace up and matching Suzuki blow for blow in a way that an aging Nagata simply can’t, it’s Suzuki that really takes over the scene here. His personality makes this match as it does any Suzuki match. He’s vicious and expressive, just a real mean horrible man given glorious grand stature by the outdoor setting.
With the open air acting as the backdrop on so many of the low angle ringside shots for this match, Suzuki comes across as a gigantic kaiju, looming over the earth and preparing to wreak havoc. Shingo’s a valiant hero and puts in a brave performance here but the monster gets the win today with the Sleeper/Gotch Piledriver combination. Suzuki is one of two people I reasonably wanted to see take the title from Takagi so nothing about this match bothers me in the slightest. If anything, Suzuki winning was a rare pleasant surprise in a year filled to the teeth with misery.
This is my comfort food wrestling for 2020 ever since Bryan decided to take time off to have a family. Long live the dragon and the king.
