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If you’ve been following my series about the best wrestlers of the decade, you might think I’d give the honorific to the Okada/Shibata match that cut short the resurgence of Katsuyori Shibata’s career, but if there’s anything you should know about me as a critic, it’s that multiple things can exist as the best,…
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Dustin Rhodes is the wrestler of the decade. There is no critical gesture emptier than declaring something or someone the best of the decade. Look at who I’ve gone with thus far—Katsuyori Shibata, Daniel Bryan and Toru Yano. They’re great at what they do, but in declaring them the best wrestlers of the decade…
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Yes, he is the best wrestler in WWE, a title you can easily give him every single year he was active this decade. Yes, his 2014 conquest of Evolution at WrestleMania XXX may be the single best moment WWE ever produced. Yes, his return, despite being tied, three-legged race style, to another McMahons vs.…
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It’s been a depressing decade, the 2010s. Like, one of its mascots is a cartoon dog sipping a cup of coffee in a burning house. Like, the things keeping me going are professional wrestling and the promise that John Wick: Chapter 4 and The Matrix 4 are gonna come out on the same day…
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Let’s start at the end: On April 9, 2017, Katsuyori Shibata wrestled Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in the main event of Sakura Genesis. He hasn’t wrestled since. After the match, he collapsed backstage and was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent surgery for a subdermal hematoma, the result of a…