As a part of this blog, something I'd like to do is watch all of the Match of the Year candidates in the different major Match of the Year awards (including PWI, WON, and Tokyo Sports).
Honestly, this whole thing is just an excuse to try and educate myself further on the history of wrestling, so in addition to watching and reviewing as many of these matches as I can pick up, I'd like to pin down some of my own favorite matches each year.
Because of my own strange tastes and predilections, I will set a few things down here to explain how I'll do this:
- I won't be paying attention to historical importance, nor will I pay a ton of attention to the booking. I will try to be informed on this stuff if I'm considering something for my MOTY, but it won't be a decisive factor and I don't make any promises.
- My reaction to the actual match as I'm watching it will be the most important factor.
- I also might just pick something that epitomizes the general creative gist of a company when I like it.
- Death matches, shoot wrestling, comedy matches, hybrid styles, weird combos are on the docket. I'm fairly omnivorous in all of my media tastes, and wrestling is no different. I also don't believe that any of these things are more or less "wrestling" or have more or less value.
- There will be a lot more women's wrestling than you'd probably expect. This is because women's wrestling is good, and because many of the absolute best wrestlers ever are women.
I'd like to use this post as a hub for this whole project, so I'll try to update here with any further posts about this.
1972
- Not approved: Bruno Sammartino's Battle Royal (14-01-72). (PWI)
- Approved: Adrian Street vs. Jim Breaks. (12-02-72).
1973
- Not approved: Harley Race vs. Dory Funk Jr. (25-05-73). (PWI)
1974
- Strong maybe: Antonio Inoki vs. Strong Kobayashi 19-03-74 (Tokyo Sports)
