5 Best Wrestling Matches Of 2014
2014 was another great year of wrestling matches. But unlike in previous years, by 2014, New Japan Pro Wrestling had effectively supplanted WWE as the unquestioned king of great pro wrestling bouts. It isn’t that WWE didn’t have great matches throughout the year; they absolutely did.
Fantastic bouts like The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family, Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H, Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn, The Shield vs. Evolution, and John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt in a Last Man Standing Match were all outstanding bouts that deserve to be praised and re-watched.
But the reason that NJPW out-ranks WWE in 2014 is because of the sheer volume of amazing wrestling matches and great wrestlers they produced throughout the year. NJPW showcased outstanding matches by the likes of A.J. Styles, Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Katsuyori Shibata, Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto, the list goes on.
The 2014 G1 Climax tournament, in particular, was an absolute lightning rod for amazing wrestling, producing more great matches than can be counted on one list.
Ultimately, ththe list can only highlight the five best matches of the 2014 calendar year, so here they are…
#5 Tomohiro Ishii vs. Hirooki Goto – NJPW Power Struggle 2014
https://rutube.ru/video/747695bf49be0d4d2c9f54e4a42b2d24/
This was not a technical wrestling match. Instead, it was a savage brawl that looked like Goto and Ishii were desperate to win. Goto was his usual high-quality wrestling self, but Ishii was the one that made this into something special.
He wrestled with a separated shoulder and still fought through that to try and keep his title. To do that, Ishii had to not survive an onslaught of vicious moves from Goto, but he also had to channel his own strength to somehow try and beat Goto.
Video: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Hirooki Goto – NJPW Power Struggle 2014
These two wrestlers hit each other HARD, and showed that classic Japanese ‘fighting spirit’ by putting their bodies on the line in a way that isn’t seen often in a wrestling ring. At one point, Goto hit a lariat right in Ishii’s clavical, and Ishii didn’t even flinch after receiving such a vicious move.
Soon after, Ishii did the same to Goto; they kept going back and forth with these brutal strikes and the crowd exploded for this match, giving both a standing ovation. Neither man would back down, no matter how many big moves were hit
Goto and Ishii proved in this match that sometimes a simple formula is all you need to have a great match. Like some of the classic stiff-as-hell brawls from All Japan’s heyday, sometimes all you need is two gladiators dishing out and absorbing inhuman amounts of punishment to bring a crowd to its feet.