Best NOAH Match I've Seen In A LOOOONG Time

NOAH 06/09/19: Go Shiozaki vs. Naomichi Marufuji

Go is coming into the thing w/ a heavily taped up shoulder, so naturally Maru goes to town on it w/ some pretty vicious work, and he is acting cocky as hell all the way through, which made his onslaught even more compelling. Stuff like those little arrogant kicks to Go's head + pouring some drink at him was AWESOME. Maru is great at being a smug veteran systematically breaking down his opponent with a focused strategy. Go's selling was VERY surprising too - I certainly wasn't expecting to see one of the finest limb-selling performances of the year come from NOAH, but goddamn his selling was outstanding all the way through. The moment of him getting up on the corner w/ the help of the ropes, only for him to stop assisting himself with the other rope because it's killing his shoulder that Maru had been destroying, was so good. Might just be one of my favorite single match moments of the year. They kept the expected-in-NOAH soulless bomb throwing to the minimum, which I very much appreciated & was somewhat surprised at, but there still was a bit too many equally or maybe even more soulless strike no-sell exchanges that didn't interest me in the slightest. I guess that's what I'd say prevents this match from being GREAT rather than "just" a very, very good one. It's still indeed one hell of a match though - I don't watch much NOAH, but from the little amount of stuff that I've watched, this is my favorite match I've seen from them since Marufuji vs. Kiyomiya from January 2017. ***3/4