5 Best Wrestling Matches of 1995

2. Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue – May 7, 1995

This is the greatest women’s singles match in wrestling history. Two women wrestled each other for a full hour, showing off athleticism and wrestling dynamism the likes of which has not been seen before or since.

From vicious submission holds that look as real as possible to devastating suplex variations, Toyota and Inoue prove just how revolutionary they are in this match.

I cannot emphasize enough how awesome this match is. You have two women wrestling in a 6-minute match for the most coveted prize in just one promotion, but the entire world, as Toyota’s WWWA Championship traced its lineage back to Mildred Burke, the first-ever women’s wrestling champion of any kind.

Even with some of the most vicious offense ever seen (which includes German Suplexes, Piledrivers, and finishes galore), neither woman could be bested by the time the timer ran out.

This is what women’s wrestling could be when it’s treated with as much legitimacy as men’s wrestling, and serves as a standard bearer for any and all women’s wrestling matches that came after it.

If that isn’t enough to convince you to watch this match, consider the following. In light of all the great matches that took place in 1995, this was the match that was voted Match of the Year by the Wrestling Observer, and Manami Toyota became the only woman ever to win the Observer’s Most Outstanding Wrestler award and Readers’ Favorite Wrestler Award.

She won both awards for 1995 through matches like this one, which was an enormous accomplishment during a period when pro wrestling was almost completely dominated by men.

For history’s sake, if you want to see the apex of women’s wrestling, watch this match. It’s like watching history unfold before your very eyes.