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What a match! To nobody's surprise two of the best wrestlers of all time put on one of the best matches of all time as Will Ospreay and Kenny Omega put on a sequel to their Wrestle Kingdom 17 masterpiece that delivered whilst having an identity of its own.
Personally, I was the low guy on their Wrestle Kingdom match. I didn't connect with Omega's very deliberate pace and found the match less satisfying than those claiming it the best match they've seen. Almost seven months later and I consider their second effort, from AEWxNJPW Forbidden Door 2023, one of six matches I'd give 5 stars.
Below you will find all the numbers behind the match that currently sits 42nd in the all-time Cagematch rankings.
- Omega was offensively out done by Ospreay in all attacking metrics with the exception of grapples.
- Ospreay also smothered Omega with pins, antagonised him (and the crowd) with taunts and bent the rules wherever possible to ensure his advantage,
- Ospreay achieved 3 of the 4 most dominant offensive minutes.
- Omega managed to completely incapacitate Ospreay for 5 whole minutes right in the middle of the match.
- This chart shows the strength of Omega's mid-match aggression.
- Ospreay had four 3 minute chunks where his advantage over Ospreay was notable compared to only really about two for Omega.
- The cumulative chart shows the importance of Omega's mid-match attack to stop Ospreay completely wiping the floor with him.
- Omega's advantages in this match were sporadic apart from that dominant portion in the middle.
- Ospreay's 12 out of 14 minutes of advantage immediately before Omega's period of dominance is substantial.
- Check out how the different views of the flow of offence data relate to each other.
- This image shows how the overall match flowed. Where it ebbed and where it flowed.
- Omega's strikes and dives were down whereas his grapples and submission use was up.
- Ospreay's strikes and dives were also less prevalent second time out and similarly used more grapples and submission.
- More reversals were used a Forbidden Door but less pins and taunts.
- Kenny Omega had an even more dominant portion of the match this time out, despite the visceral nature of his dominance at WK17.
- Forbidden Door saw a more seesaw type match compared to Wrestle Kingdom.s match that saw a more consistent use of offence by Omega.
- The pattern of who held the advantage; minute-by-minute, was surprisingly similar between the two matches.
- Forbidden Door had a significantly more offence plentiful crescendo.
- The Forbidden Door match had a more frantic pace of offence and tide changes. It also saw more big offence.
Thank you for checking out this article. Check back tomorrow for a quicker look at CM Punk vs Satoshi Kojima.