This is one of the very few matches in New Japan where I can rewatch at any given time. What really loved about this match specifically, was the brutality Shibata was giving to Okada. To add, this really encapsulates “Strong Style” to another level that isn’t seen too often. I highly recommend fans or new fans to check out this match from Sakura Genesis. I mentioned Tanahashi vs Nakamura G1 Climax 25, Tanahashi vs Okada KOPW 2013, AJ vs Okada from Dominion, Omega vs Ospreay WK 17, etc. ( There’s too many to choose from lmao) but if I were to ever make a top 5 list, Shibata vs Okada would be there. Aside from the freak accident with the headbutt from Shibata, this was almost perfect in every way in terms of what defines New Japan as a whole. That will to fight and be a champion.
Kazuchika Okada vs Katsuyori Shibata Sakura Genesis 2017 Highlights
by u/Agreeable_Surround13 in njpw
21 comments
Definitely one of the best matches I’ve ever seen, yet I still struggle to rewatch it.
I can barely ever make it through even the highlights of this match, but I always persevere past the headbutt just to get to The Bitchmaker.
Have seen this one enough to have every spot memorized. My absolute favorite match… Now that Shibata is back I can say that without getting as many looks of suspicion lol. But truly a masterpiece. Glad I woke up early that morning to watch the show live as it ran
You pretty much perfectly articulated what makes this match great, amigo!
It’s NJPW’s past (aka Inoki’s teachings and the foundations of the company) vs it’s present (Okada and the big match style inspired by AJPW’s Four Pillars and Indy wrestling).
It’s also Okada’s true trial by fire, as Shibata doesn’t hold much back on his strikes and his submissions look tight as can be without being shoot holds.
This was one of the best AND one of my favorite Wrestling matches I’ve ever seen
Match makes me sad, what could have been.
This was the match that I discovered Shibata in, what horrible timing.
My favorite of his matches is against Ishii from G1 Climax 23 though.
Man, easily one of the greatest wrestling matches I’ve ever seen. I remember watching with my dad and he was so impressed with Shibata. We were bummed that he lost lol but great memories and glad that Shibata is ok now
This match has to be one of the greatest matches of all time, in my personal opinion.
Im just glad that Shibata is healthy again. My favourite match ever, but I just cant get myself to watch it again.
Greatest match of all time.
2017 was such a legendary year for New Japan
Greatest match of all time, bar none
I’m a fan of Moxley and all but Shibata truly is the man who brings glorious wrestling violence
From being disregarded by the fans of NJPW to having the fans wanting Shibata to win so badly. Nothing can beat the story arc
Sometimes I forget how physically big Okada is. When they were sitting doing the strike exchange he looked massive compared to Shibata.
I think I’ve said the following in a reddit comment about 10 times already.
It’s my favorite wrestling match of all time. It has been my favorite long enough I doubt any match will take its place.
Would like to give a mention to Simon’s (of [Unnamed Wrestling Forum](https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bigevil/simon-reviews-f13/) and [Handwerk Reviews](https://handwerkreviews.wordpress.com/)) absolutely fucking incredible review of this match.
*”Huge deal. Shibata’s been working towards this slowly since he came back at the 2012 G1 Climax, the night that Okada won his first one. With all due respect to men like Hiroshi Tanahashi, Shinya Hashimoto, Tatsumi Fujinami, on down the line, men who I think are better wrestlers than these two on the whole, this is very likely the best match in New Japan history. It’s better than 8/8/88, it’s better than every Hashimoto vs. Tenryu fight, better than Akiyama vs. Tenzan, better than every Tanahashi vs. Nakamura match, every Ishii vs. Shibata match, Okada vs. Ishii, all of it. It’s as close to perfect as a 2010s New Japan match is probably going to get.*
*In the immediate afterglow of just watching, it’s one of the rare matches I’ve watched and been in awe of. I usually write a little bit at the start of a match and then if something strikes me during it, but I wrote nothing when I was watching this. I needed to sit back for a moment when it was over. The only problem with this match is the result and how they got there, and even then, they did it in such a way that it’s hard to really hate. This match has a lot of things that should — and usually do — really bother me, and they just don’t. It’s a forty minute match that doesn’t exactly breeze by, but it’s a shockingly efficient match in a year so far when that’s been a big problem for Okada. There’s smatterings of limbwork that go nowhere and one could argue they’re there to fill space, but neither bit goes long enough to really be that, they’re small little bits, and they’re sold exceptionally well in transition. Sometimes, people have incredible nights where everything goes perfectly. Tonight, two different guys had perfect nights, and the result is one of the best matches of all time.*
*What’s immediately obvious is the story. Shibata is bare bones and old style, and Okada is flash and pomp and excess. Shibata is a prodigal son of his generation, and Okada’s had a storybook rise, even moreso than Tanahashi before him. Shibata constantly evokes sort of an idea of the way things used to be, an obvious continuation of the Hashimoto/Nagata line of mentorship, and naturally, has a real disdain for Okada. He has the training, he went through everything that everyone else did, but unlike even Tanahashi, he never really even bothers paying tribute, it’s all flash and offense and fast movement. It’s such a contrast, and neither has any kind of respect for the other. It’s a perfect match up. One of my favorite things in wrestling is when you have two admirable people who dislike each other. Neither of these men is bad (anymore), they’ve both reformed themselves to become what New Japan needs them to be, but each represent everything the other doesn’t believe in, and — for Shibata moreso than Okada — wants to change. Okada fluctuates between trying to wait Shibata’s old style attack out and trying to throw hard shots at him once pushed, to show that he can do this too. Shibata is intentionally evocative at a few key points, to lengths that I can’t simply write it off as anything but a deliberate choice. After dominating on the mat in their first exchange, he gets down on the mat and dares Okada, in a clear Ali vs. Inoki bit. He uses the STO at a point in another Inokiism tribute, he survives Okada’s repeated shotgun dropkicks that ended Tenryu’s career, and there’s a long Octopus Hold in the back half. If Shibata is going to win, he’s going to make it a statement, and ultimately, it’s his undoing.*
*Shibata’s path to victory is obviously to force Okada into his match, and for a while, he does. He takes Okada to the mat in the first quarter and repeatedly challenges him to really just do anything. Okada tries to keep him at bay, and only gets really active when Shibata is close to something that can really affect him like a sleeper or deep cross armbreaker. Okada eventually gets to turn it into an Okada match around fifteen in, when his patience and durability pays off. He does Okada Neck Work, and it’s good like it always is. Shibata keeps alive though and punishes Okada like nobody ever has before. Tanahashi took Okada apart very carefully, AJ Styles dominated Okada at his own flashy game, and Ishii was a ball of fury, but Shibata is constantly rubbing Okada’s face in it. He stretches him on the mat a lot more viciously when he gets the chance (this is where brief limbwork comes in, I don’t hate it because it feels like an extension of this Shibata strategy, and Okada sells it very well), and lays a BEATING in. Okada’s never been beaten like this, and Shibata’s never beaten anyone to this extent, not even Ishii. Okada keeps trying to match him and while he throws elbows better than he ever has before in his career, he’s not Shibata. He starts trying to jump to the ending and Shibata punishes him even more, in addition to really wearing him out. Okada vs. Omega was a great epic, but it always felt like Kenny doing the best he can before it was over. Okada vs. MiSu was frustrating, and never felt like Suzuki had a chance. At a point here, from around thirty minutes to maybe thirty eight or thirty nine in, it feels like Shibata is genuinely closing in, like he’s solved the problem and that his gamble has paid off.*
*The Rainmakers are countered in increasingly violent and mean spirited ways. He starts slapping him around, and when Okada looks just about done and Shibata withstands a short arm Rainmaker, standing there and taking it while a spent Okada collapses on him, Shibata unloads with one of the grossest headbutts of all time. He begins to bleed and is CLEARLY fucked up, but has one of the better facial sells in recent memory with a nod and deep breath, like he’s done the work and it’s finally happening.*
*The problem is though, that he plays just a little long with kicks near the end, without going for the PK that would almost certainly end it at that point. Okada snatches his arm out of nowhere for a short arm Rainmaker, which takes Shibata down now that he’s hurt and not ready for it, and maintains the god damned wrist control. Shibata fights it, but a second short arm Rainmaker REALLY surprises Shibata, and he collapses on Okada this time. After wrestling a nearly perfect match, he got caught sleeping and has immediate panic in his eyes. Okada finally winds him up properly. Shibata cocks his arm back to try and block with an elbow, but Okada hits first finally, and hits the Rainmaker to retain the title.*
*I don’t love that Shibata didn’t get a kickout. Kenny Omega got a kickout. We’re at the point where people can kick out of it more and more. Of course, Kenny got to kick out as part of a concerted effort to create a new North American star, and Shibata is already beloved. This also definitely feels like the first match in a series, with the sudden ending and Shibata realizing his mistake at the very end, or rather, that he made one by underestimating Okada’s durability and tenacity. There’s also the fact that the PK never comes, and that Okada left a few things still on the table. There’s themes opened up here that aren’t fully explored, because in retrospect, this was clearly only setting the table for even more in the future. If this wasn’t their last together, or Katsuyori Shibata’s last match ever, Might be a little kinder about these little flaws, but given that it’s their last and his last, it’s just enough of a frustration to hold this back from being completely perfect.*
*****3/4*
*Of course, it’s impossible to separate this match from its context now.*
*I’m never going to know if I love this match removed from the circumstances. I waited months to watch it back in 2017, until people I trust had vetted it, after previous long Okada match disappointments. I’ve always watched it knowing this is Shibata’s last match, and there’s always been something kind of romantic about it being such a big and thematically perfect final match. He was beaten to shit coming into this, he’s had his neck and shoulders taped up forever, and threw all of himself into trying to become champion. He pursued the goal in such a way that it feels in retrospect that he was either going to become champion or suffer the fate he did. He didn’t do it, and it’s an absolute heartbreak, but Shibata’s story has always been like that. A classical tragedy, ever since he first fell from grace in the mid 2000s. There’s a real “Moses isn’t allowed to enter the promised land” feeling to the whole thing that puts it down as one of the great non-death heartbreaks in the history of wrestling, like Japan’s version of Magnum TA.*
*It’s a heartbreaking kind of classic match that’s about everything from a basic old vs. young story to the value of knowing your strengths, not being too rigid in your beliefs, a battle of philosophy, all the way to how we’re all monsters who share a small part of the blame for one of the best wrestlers of his generation retiring far before his time.*
For my money, the [GREATEST MATCH OF ALL-TIME](https://www.reddit.com/r/njpw/comments/t06yfe/20_for_10_my_top_twenty_new_japan_matches_of_the/?sort=old)!
Shibata vs the Stone Pitbull. I spent half of the match wincing at the hits they were laying onto each other.
This is my solid #1 for best matches of all time.