at midway japan lost a massive element of kido butai and thus virtually its only method of force projection across vasts of the Pacific. given the large amount of stalement across large parts of europe for most of ww1 is there a similar battle that was so important?
Tully and Parshall argue that Japan was pretty much doomed to begin with, Midway or no Midway. So while it certainly was a huge morale boost, as far as Japan was concerned it didn't really change much of the war. All it did was speed up the time table for the US to achieve carrier superiority.
If we're talking about major naval battles of WWI, the most obvious one that comes to mind is Jutland. While tactically it was a stalemate between the Royal Navy and the High Seas Fleet, strategically it was decisive in favor of Britain, as the High Seas Fleet was not able to break the British stranglehold in the North Sea. As a result, the German High Seas Fleet ended up doing nothing for the rest of the war.