The 2023 Match of the Year: Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Kento Miyahara – Pro Wrestling NOAH One Night Dream

Greetings!

The best professional wrestling match of 2023 happened on July 15th, 2023 under the banner of Pro Wrestling NOAH.

I wrote about it and I want you to read about it.

Let’s watch some wrestling, shall we?

I used to read a lot of top 10 lists back in the day when I used to write film criticism, and one of the things that I tried and mostly failed to avoid was to make things almost sound medicinal when it came to something of quality; almost making it something you should be ashamed if you hadn’t liked or heard of it beforehand.

I want to avoid that here. I want you to come away with the sense that this match is worth you plunking down some yen to watch, worth both time and $$$, but more importantly, I want you come away with the pure sense of joy and elation and awesome that came from seeing it! That this is a good time had by all, that if you liked other matches, you’ll like this one, because you will! It’s so fucking great!

So let’s go, folks. Let’s go on a ride.

PROLOGUE:

MEET THE PLAYERS –

Katsuhiko Nakajima: Angel’s grin straight from the depths of hell. Violence in the form of soul-crushing kicks. Best in the World. Former NOAH Champion, current AJPW Triple Crown champion. Takes the lead while dancing with the Devil in the pale moonlight. No one strikes like Naka, no one has timing like him. An icy, magnetic bulletproof monk. Will literally bring you flowers before knocking you out cold.

Kento Miyahara: The hero we need. Ultimate babyface. Melodrama taken to the appropriate line, then vaulted 20 yards past into a stratosphere of agony. Superman at times, Clark Kent at others in a beautiful duality. He will be kicked, oh yes. He will be kicked. And he will get up. And he will be kicked. And he will get up. He is THE babyface. A hot-blooded crazy motherfucker, selling Picasso.

THE ISSUE –

Nakajima and Miyahara both trained under Kensuke Sasaki as part of Sasaki Office. Sasaki’s wife, one Akira Hokuto, had a hand in the training as well. Nakajima had a hand in training Kento as the senior and was hard on him in training. Tensions built over the years as both went to the top of their various promotions. Recently, at the Mutoh Retirement show volume 38 or so, the two crossed paths in a six man, NOAH vs AJPW. Shit went down. And now, it’s on.

They’ve met 3 previous times over the years. Nakajima is 3-0 in those matches. Their last singles match was in 2012, 11 years ago.

There’s more to it, but that’s all you need. I don’t even know all of it and it doesn’t matter. The basics are good enough.

CONFLICT:

Tinkling piano music. The video before the main begins, Naka clad in what looks like his casual workout clothes, Kento in a suit and tie. Photos from their past scroll past. Footage from the presser as Miyahara KNOCKS Naka the fuck OUT with one shot after they pose. I understand not a word, but I understand the feeling. The MOMENT. I let it wash over me as they promise to do violence to each other.

The music of Miyahara hits, he comes out oozing the definition of swagger as the crowd chants his name. The best damn theme music in wrestling is back as the piano builds on top of itself to signal the arrival of the destroyer of worlds, Nakajima with a smile that promises gleeful suffering.

Miyahara disrobes. Naka watches. Miyahara stretches against the ropes.

Nakajima watches.

Bell.

Staredown. There’s something in the air, a palpable feeling of anticipation and dread in Korakuen Hall. Crowd is going batshit before they even touch.

Lockup goes to the ropes, Kento gives a clean break…..and goes for the cheap shot anyway, as Naka ducks it. They dance around each other more, no one willing to make the first mistake. The gravitas of the match is contained in these quiet moments of two warriors who both respect and loathe each other, but are unwilling to error against their equal across the ring.

Naka with a kick to the gut, but Kento responds with two boots to the face! Crowd chants for Kento, Naka responds and hits a spinkick that sends Kento crashing to the mat and then to the outside. The moments of explosion balanced by the quiet is one of my favorite parts of this match.

Speaking of explosion, Naka runs down the apron with a kick that separates Kento from his sense of well-being as he goes stumbling around the ring, and now the merciless side of Naka emerges to torture a screaming Kento to my delight. Two boots to the face set up a choke against the railing, right in front of guest commentator Masa Kitomiya, as the announcers reference the history between the three.

Back in and Kento is set up and I can just feel it coming and no matter how much I see or hear it, there’s still nothing that quite prepares you to even watch a Nakajima kick to a defenseless opponent, as he attempts to remove Kento’s spine with a kick to the back before putting one foot on him for two.

Naka wants to punish Kento for the camera now, but a headbutt from nowhere by Miyahara turns the tide! Naka goes up, but a resilient Kento knocks him to the floor and revels in the adulation from the crowd! They feed him as he heads to the floor for another headbutt, knocking both men for a loop, but Miyahara doesn’t care. Kento will do anything to beat Naka, no matter the state of himself once it ends. He’ll destroy his own body and soul to do it.

He makes that clear by firing rapid-fire headbutts now as the crowd chants for him while Nakajima stumbles away. Back inside? Not yet, even though the ref wants it, because Kento has another headbutt to deliver.

NOW we’re back in, and Naka kicks out at one. That’s a message. One. That’s all you get, Kento. Bring better than that. Now it’s time for Naka’s extremely educated feet to once again remind what they can do, as it’s a kick to the knee and an enzuigiri.

What time was it again? Oh yeah, it’s SHOWTIME, as Naka poses for the crowd with Kento slumped in the corner. Does he do it with his feet on Kento’s face? But of course, he does. More kicks, more showtime. Miyahara despairs as Naka keeps punishing him. Ridiculous kick from Naka. Another one. Miyahara tries to fire up, dragon-screw and the leg of Kento gets taken out.

Miyahara screams in agony. It’s music.

Prisim Lock by Naka, who pumps it as Kento hears the crowd chanting for him, motivating him, pushing him, saving him! Kento grabs the bottom rope to save himself finally, but Naka has ’til 5 and do you even need to ASK if he uses every last second he can?

Miyahara crashes to the floor and Naka looks to finish him, but Kento is back up and he takes out the leg of Naka! They have an insaneo fight for a piledriver/backdrop on the apron as both men scratch and claw, but it’s finally Kento who gets the piledriver on the apron before stumbling back to the ring, his leg still nothing more than spaghetti.

Back in, and now it’s time for Kento to fire the fuck UP. Running knee in the corner! German suplex by Naka! Miyahara is back on his feet right away, German of his own! Superkick by Naka! Saito Suplex by Naka! He’s on a roll……but here comes Miyahara with a giant lariat! Everyone is down now! I’m on my feet! In my living room! My dog is confused!

Naka comes up with a slight grin. Scarier than anything conceptualized on film or paper, this man’s smile. Kento comes up with a wry expression himself. He knows that this war is only entering the next phase now that the early skirmishes are over.

They slug it out, with Kento stumbling ’round the ring, drunkenly skating from rope to rope while Naka stands resolute. A contrast in selling, in character, in everything. Now it accelerates into bomb after bomb being thrown, both men attempting to not only finish the match, but each other. Now it’s a kick battle, and Kento being valiant in this case is tilting at windmills, with Naka telling him to bring more with each kick.

Naka BEGS for it, goes down, right back up! Kick knocks down Kento, he’s right back up! Eyes locked with each other after 25 minutes of punishment. These are MEN. MEN. Naka wipes him out with a kick and then flattens him with a strike to the face.

Full mount. Naka just pummels Kento over. And over. And over.

Crowd chants Kento’s name as the camera rises above to show him splatted on the mat, spread-eagled, dead to the world. A Christ-like pose as the ref attempts to determine if Kento can continue.

Naka will not wait. Kick after kick is rained down upon the prone body of Kento with agonizing precision, hearing the smack as flesh caves in under the boot of Naka.

It’s time to bring mercy to Miyahara and end this, so Naka sets up for the Penalty Kick, but Miyahara ducks it! Dropkick by Kento! Miyahara can barely stand as Naka pulls himself up in the corner. Kento charges, but misses! Kick to the face by Naka! Hook kick puts Kento prone in a sitting position!

Penalty Kick by Nakajima! 1, 2, NO!!!!!!

Fuck you! NO! How? NO!

Naka loads Kento up, but Miyhara counters into a brainbuster! Both guys down again! All the desperation of Miyahara comes roaring to the surface as he can’t waste this moment! V-Trigger by Kento! Lariat by Kento!

1, 2, NO!!!!!!!

Kento screams at Naka! This is the moment! Big knee by Kento! Running knee to the face by Kento! Naka is dead!

1, 2, NOOOOOOO!!!!! You cannot kill this man! Delayed German suplex! With a bridge! This’ll do it!

1, 2, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NO!!!!

Kento stares a thousand yards. What must I do?, his expression screams. What is this man I have never beaten, what is he made of?

How does a man kill a God?

Shutdown German suplex, but Nakajima escapes. And he reaches back to the presser, to the cheap shot, to the moment where he was knocked out, and he fires a slap that drops Miyahara. Destroys him. Ends him. Penalty Kick to the head!

1, 2, you know what happens. Kickout. Of course.

So Nakajima decides that this must end now. For his junior. For his student. For himself.

He hoists Kento up.

Vertical. Spike. Brainbuster.

The miracles are over. 1, 2, 3.

Katsuhiko Nakajima over Kento Miyahara, pinfall, 34:12

Post-match, Naka goes to help Kento to his feet. It’s over. Once more, Naka has defeated Miyahara. The cycle continues. But a snarling Kento wants nothing to do with Naka’s charity. He still has pride. He’ll defend what’s left of his soul. They fire shots at each other, slugging it out until Nakajima sends Kento to the floor.

On another day, maybe Kento will climb this mountain. But until that day, there only remains the mountain that he cannot climb. That mountain is a man.

And the man is Katsuhiko Nakajima.

FIN:

*****. Ten Stars. Whatever bullshit number Uncle Dave is using now (he gave this match *****1/4, for whatever that’s worth). Two thumbs up.

Choose your objective metric, and this match is at the top of it. Nakajima’s strong bully style and striking. Kento’s absolutely top-notch selling, from his glassy eyes to his stumbling. The pacing and character work, with Kento fighting up from underneath against an almost literal terminator, and not quite being successful in that endeavor.

These two men went out and worked a wrestling match. Not a lot of moves, relatively sparse in spots, this was all things that good wrestlers do executed to total, exquisite perfection. There aren’t a lot of wrestlers on earth who could have worked this match, which is why I talk it up the way I do. It danced on the razor’s edge where it could have ended up too far one way or the other. The selling could have been too much, which would have negated the impact of the comebacks by taking away their potential realism of a last chance. Or the selling could have been too subtle, which would have cut into the dramatic moments of the match in ways that would have been more like a butcher knife and less like the scalpel that it was. Too many moves, and the crowd doesn’t get the impact and ability to breathe; too few, and they lose the thread and become bored. Everything had to be precise and perfect.

This belonged to the two men in the ring, and is so worthy of our respect because this is what they trained to do. They trained to be professional wrestlers under the same man, in the same place, and both came out exemplifying the craft in ways that cannot be denied. They did things in that ring that everyone physically can do, but at the same time did them in a way that no one else does.

And that, as a result, is the match of the year.

I will give a last bit to someone I disagree with most of the time, one Mr. Bryan Alvarez, and his words from Wrestling Observer Radio with Dave Meltzer on July 17th, 2023:

“If I ran a wrestling school, every wrestler would have to watch this match, because you will not see a lot of matches where every single solitary move, they got the most out of it…..they had a ten minute match that lasted 34 minutes. Because they had 24 minutes of music between the notes in this ten minute match. It was amazing.”

If you listen to that show, ignore Dave. Just trust me, he’s wrong.

You can watch this match as part of the One Night Dream NOAH show over on wrestle-universe.com – it’s less than 10 bucks and you will get more than your money’s worth with just this one.

EPILOGUE:

Why did I write about this today? Yeah, it’s the end of the year. Almost done, seems appropriate to write up this match, right? December 30th, only one day to go.

But there’s another reason. And while I’m watching the AEW PPV tonight and hoping for a banger of a show, since I fucking love wrestling and I hope you fucking love wrestling and I hope you watch that PPV and this match and all the wrestling you want to watch as we celebrate this crazy, thrilling, nutty art form, while I’m doing and thinking all those things, there will be ONE more thought in the back of my mind as we all wait for Scott’s rant on that show.

And that thought is this:

Maybe this ISN’T the match of the year.

Because the rematch is happening. December 31st, 2023. Katsuhiko Nakajima defends the Triple Crown against Kento Miyahara, this time in Kento’s home of All Japan.

The clock hasn’t run out on 2023 yet.

Can they top themselves?

Only one way to find out. We’re in for a fun night tonight, everyone.

See ya then.

As always, thanks for reading this thing I wrote,

Rick Poehling
@MrSoze on Twitter
[email protected] for email