From the Archives: The Greatest Match in Wrestling History

What a match, what a rivalry
Screencap via F4WOnline

On June 3, 1994, Toshiaki Kawada and Mitsuharu Misawa wrestled the greatest match in professional wrestling history, a contest for the All-Japan Pro Wrestling Triple Crown Championship. That title then was what the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship is today to American puroresu aficionados, a crowd of people that far smaller than today's group that can easily consume Japanese wrestling thanks to social media and streaming. It was the first match to receive the fabled sixth star in Dave Meltzer's ranking scale, a scale that has been devalued demonstrably thanks to his overuse of the extra-stars over five for his Elite buddies. It was a special match then, and it is a special match now in that it was the watershed moment for AJPW, when it really became Misawa's promotion. Granted, many people will correct me in that Jumbo Tsuruta passed the torch a few years prior, which is true. That being said, this match, one in a storied feud with Kawada, was the landmark.

Thanks to an old friend named Matthew Talbot in 1999, I got my hands on a VHS copy of this match despite not having any rare wrestling matches to give him in return (it is called tape-trading for a reason), along with one of the 1994 New Japan Pro Wrestling Super J Cup, won by [REDACTED]. Back then, I loved the match because it had everything that contemporary American wrestling didn't have at the time, the repeating of moves as if they were trying to win the match rather than doing them as a spot, the hard-hitting, the head drops. Now, if I were to watch it again, knowing the history and having grown and rounded my tastes in wrestling, I would love it for different reasons. Either way, it's a match that everyone who likes wrestling, no matter what walk, should watch. You can see it below, but I don't know for how long.

Happy 25th anniversary to this epic match. Rest in peace, rest in power, Mitsuharu Misawa.