The Best and Worst of NJPW: G1 Climax 29, Nights 15-16

Previously on NJPW: Kota Ibushi surpassed god and Sanada… froze the rain? With the coldness of his skull? Anyway, he was the first one to beat Okada in the tournament and it was a big deal!

You can watch New Japan Pro Wrestling shows on their streaming service, NJPW World, which costs 999 yen (about 9 USD.) You can also watch certain NJPW shows on Saturdays on AXS TV, including G1 shows that run early Saturday mornings (U.S. time) later the same day.

You can keep up with With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook, follow our home site Uproxx on Twitter, and even follow me on Twitter @emilyofpratt. Don’t forget to share this column on Facebook, Twitter, or whatever social media you use! Also, leave a comment with your thoughts on the show and/or article! All feedback is appreciated and will help us keep up the NJPW coverage.

And now, the best and worst of the fifteenth and sixteenth nights of G1 Climax 29, which took place on August 7-8, 2019.

“It’s been a month since this tournament got started, for God’s sakes” – Kevin Kelly

As of these shows on August 7-8, G1 Climax 29 has been going on for over a full month. It hasn’t been every day, but it has been over two weeks’ worth of shows, and, after nights fifteen and sixteen, over 50 hours of watchable G1 content in the form of streamed events and backstage comments. Kevin Kelly exclaims that “It’s been a month since this tournament got started, for god’s sakes” on commentary and yeah, at this point, you can’t help but feel that. This is a lot of wrestling – and a lot of wrestling presented in essentially the same way and with the same overarching storyline.

This is all going finally to pay off this weekend and on Monday, but the shows I’m talking about in this article are the ones that set everything up for those payoffs of finding out the block winners and then the G1 winner. A lot of the outcomes on these shows are therefore either pretty obvious or not immediately important. This far in the tournament, when we’ve seen so many wrestling matches that it’s harder to get hyped for matches in themselves, this lack of stakes makes several of these matches feel skippable.

Worst: Destroy All Monsters

After a streak of entertaining matches, NJPW’s Monster Fights division sadly delivers some of those skippable matches. Bad Luck Fale vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi is not bad, with a clear story of Fale targeting Tanahashi’s bad knee and a continuation of the fun bit of Fale winning matches with wrestling moves. Also, Tanahashi has a new hairdo that’s even more bizarre for a 42-year-old man than his usual ones! But (Jay White voice) IT’S A LONG TOURNAMENT (end Jay White voice) and if you’ve seen a New Japan tournament before, you’ve probably seen Fale vs. Tanahashi before, so while their hundredth rematch is fine, it feels nonessential.

Sanada and Lance Archer have worked well together in tag matches before and have a dynamic similar to that of Fale vs. Tanahashi, but one we haven’t seen in a singles match before. Archer has had several surprise hits in this G1 and is definitely one of the tournament’s MVPs, but this isn’t his craziest rampage or Sanada’s most exciting comeback. The sequence of missed moves that leads up to Sanada getting one of his smart, clutch hold wins looks silly, though the pinning move itself looks good, as always. Like the other A Block monster fight, this match isn’t terrible, but it’s not must-see, especially this late in the tournament.

Wrestling The Vegan Hydra Might Also Count As A Monster Fight

Zack Sabre Jr. and Kota Ibushi, the semi-main event of this A Block show, is a rematch of something we saw two times this spring, so we have a very good idea of what to expect. Sabre focuses on Ibushi’s ankle and does some of his Horrible Stretching and Ibushi gets worked up enough to shift into his transcendental murder gear. They do switch things up with more striking – which is hit-or-miss depending on how much you can get into Sabre in a strike battle – and Ibushi performing his Bomaye-to-Kamigoye sequence of finishing moves a little differently to end the match on a more exciting note. If you want more Sabre vs. Ibushi in your life, this is definitely worth watching, but if not, don’t sweat skipping this one either.

Best: I NOAH Guy

At this point in time, there are no dream matches for 2019 Kenta. The people who would dream up dream matches for Kenta are either still mourning that he wasn’t totally revived by leaving WWE or have accepted that age and injuries happen and have adjusted their expectations for him accordingly. However, Kenta vs. Will Ospreay does deliver on that Dream Match level.

It’s a wrestler who watched a lot of and was heavily influenced by Kenta’s era of Pro Wrestling NOAH taking on f*cking Kenta. Ospreay’s effectively been watching tape to prepare for this match for like ten years, and I think that must be part of why he and Kenta work so well together here. There is that glaring botched dropkick, but overall, Kenta looks both faster and more comfortable working at a faster pace.

He also brings more of that trademark Kenta hatred of everything and everyone than he has to most of his previous New Japan matches and it is very enjoyable to watch this man destroy Ospreay with kicks for a while. But also, most of Ospreay’s more irritating creative impulses and aspects of his persona are masked by the speed and style of the match. This is definitely one of the best matches of G1 Climax 29 for both of these wrestlers, even if you’re not crazy about them right now, and the audience is very into it.

Mostly Best: New Matches With Immediate Consequences

Over in B Block on August 8, we have some first-time-ever matches that are also important to the story of the tournament, and most of them are solid. Jeff Cobb vs. Tetsuya Naito brings out the worst of Naito in terms of being a bad person, but the best in terms of a smart wrestling strategy and willingness to be yeeted all over the ring by Cobb. Cobb sells his knee consistently and gets to do some cool feats of strength, including a rare F-5000 (his elevated F-5).

The audience isn’t extremely into this match at the beginning because Cobb isn’t that over and there isn’t much reason to cheer for Naito, but after the more exciting closing stretch of the match, they’re hot for the second Destino. Overall, the match is very watchable and keeps Naito on his fraught path to possible G1 victory and maybe, just maybe, ultimate Tokyo Dome main event redemption.

In other path-to-redemption news, Hirooki Goto defeats Jon Moxley and looks great doing it. Going into this match, you might say Mox is definitely losing so either Naito can make it to the final or Naito and White can be tied when they main event the last night of B Block, which is what ends up happening. However, the person who has to beat Moxley in order to keep those people in the game is Goto, and Goto has shown over the years that he can lose to anyone at any time! Sure, he’s had some success since tuning up at the LA Dojo, but it hasn’t been consistent enough to prove the benefits of Shibata, sunshine, and CBD oil.

An odd thing about this match and something I didn’t really like about it was how much of a Goto match or straight New Japan match it was. Rather than see Moxley bring that stylistic variety that he has contributed to this year’s G1, we see him try to hang in a more Japanese-style hard-hitting match that he hasn’t really done before. I guess this works because 1) the match is pretty good, and 2) it allows Goto to beat Moxley on his home turf, so to speak, but I’m not sure why the Moxley character wouldn’t bring his American brawler style that has brought him success in this tournament to this match. (The best kayfabe explanations are probably his ego or that Yano completely destroyed him psychologically.)

The best part of this match is the ending, which is exciting in itself and unexpectedly badass for Goto. The GTR Outta Nowhere – compared to the usual GTR – to counter the Death Rider is very cool and unexpected, and it sounds like the audience is really into it even after the match is over. This win makes Goto tied for the top of the block and though he hasn’t had much consistent momentum in this tournament, or maybe because of that, it feels like he really struggled and fought to make it to that position with one B Block show to go.

Taichi vs. Toru Yano doesn’t have important consequences for the standing of B Block, but it does give us our third count-out ending of G1 Climax 29 with Taichi and Kanemaru being rolled up into the ring skirt, so it’s a pretty big deal. I don’t know if I buy that Yano was really going to walk all the way to the back and forfeit the match early on, but other than that moment, there’s really good cartoon logic in this bout and continuity of the ring skirt bit from the preview tag through the finish. It’s funny and very stupid and a nice interlude of clownery.

Afterward, Taichi seems equally horrified by losing and having to be so intimate with Kanemaru but reminds us that with his final match coming up against Ishii, his rival who took the NEVER Championship from him, his redemption could be at hand.

Best: Unthawing Some Old Rivalries

But before Ishii and Taichi go at it again, we have two rematches from championship feuds past that deliver and don’t feel stale at all. As we were reminded in the preview tag, wrestling Juice Robinson brings out the best of the worst of Jay White. Their feud for the U.S. title last year was important to both them getting to the level they’re at today. It showed what they could do in a high-stakes match and as a babyface and a heel in whom the crowd could get invested.

A strength of their G1 match is how invested the crowd is, encouraged by the work of Robinson and White. Juice basically returns to the version of himself, the more likable and unique version, that he was before he lost to Moxley and fully plays the people’s champion. White so fully commits to being terrible that when the audience starts chanting “Jay!” for his taunting punches because they just love doing that chant, he cuts them off with a rude gesture. This was supposed to antagonistic to them, not fun for them!

Though this match feels overly long after a certain point, it shows that White and Robinson do the wrestling part of wrestling really well together too. White is at his most vicious and motivated as he goes after Juice’s knee and Juice nails every comeback, including his vengeful attacking of Jay’s knee and interactions with Gedo.

There’s some dumb stuff as this match nears and goes over the twenty-minute mark, but both wrestlers also have some smart moments, with Jay elbowing his way out of the high-angle Boston Crab and Juice punching Jay in the face to stop a chair shot, showing he has learned the valuable lesson to not try and block a chair with your fist because that’s how you break your hand in real life and then have to wrestle the whole 2018 G1 with a broken hand.

With a well-executed but dirty ending and a Blade Runner after the match, White goes into his match with Naito with reheated heel heat and coming off one of his stronger tournament matches.

The previous night’s main event also revisits a relatively recent rivalry, Evil vs. Kazuchika Okada. It’s not anything new from either of these guys, but it’s strong work from both of them. Evil has consistently looked really good in this tournament and continues to do so here, enough that it would have been cool to see him get a win over the champ and a title shot for the fall. But after this ends with a Rainmaker, both guys have clearly wrestled a quality main event.

Best: Showa-ing Up And Showa-ing Out

SPEAKING OF QUALITY MAIN EVENTS, honestly, who even cares about the A Block one when we get Tomohiro Ishii vs. Shingo Takagi for the first time the following night and it delivers on every level. Ishii and Takagi are two of New Japan’s most old-school-tough wrestlers, Ishii still has a convoluted shot at winning the block, and after being the first wrestler in his block eliminated in his first G1, Takagi has nothing to lose and everything to prove.

In this match, both wrestlers prove not only their toughness, but their skill as performers. Not only does the pacing of this match keep the audience invested the whole time, but there are so many great smaller moments in the match. I started listing some of the best ones here and the list quickly got way too long. From the trash talk to the dueling Tenryu-esque combos in the corner to Ishii and Takagi headbutting each other like maniacs after the match is over, it just all delivers.

Afterward, both guys look cool as hell and extremely good at their jobs. While this is the match that proves that Shingo Takagi is a “grade one wrestler” (in NJPW kayfabe; he’s been top tier for a while) and that the audiences will get behind him as such even against a fan favorite and even when his road to this point has been so weird, it’s also another G1 MVP showing for Ishii. After he staggers out of the arena – just barely by his own power but, very importantly for him, by his own power – Takagi makes sure to put respect on his name, questioning if he’s even human. (GREAT QUESTION, Shingo, I think we’re going to have to get that Ishii/PCO NJPW/ROH crossover match to find out!)

It’s also worth noting that, like when he always put over his Best of the Super Juniors opponents after he beat them, Takagi plays this next step in his ascent in a smart way that helps preserve his mostly-babyface status even as a New Japan outsider, putting respect on the name of the G1 and the famous August 8 NJPW match in this same building.

Going into the last night of B Block, the most obvious way it could play out is with another win for Takagi, this time over Goto, and a redeeming win for Juice Robinson over Jon Moxley. Right now, Goto, Mox, Naito, and White are tied at the top of B Block, and those two losing would make the Naito vs. White main event winner-take-all. However, Goto could still win the block if he beats Takagi and White beats Naito, because Goto would hold the tiebreaker win over White, which would be very surprising but not unprecedented in G1 history. (See: Goto’s own G1 history.)

Meanwhile, in A Block, the only two possible finalists are Okada and Ibushi, with Ibushi needing to beat Okada to tie the champ at 14 points and hold the tiebreaker. An Okada win or a draw goes to Okada, but we know the Rainmaker isn’t about to let the clock run out and he’s said as much in promos.

As the last three G1 Climax 29 shows approach this weekend, here’s how all the points and win-loss records and potential championship matches earned stack up:

A block points:

14 points – 7-1 – Kazuchika Okada
12 points – 6-2 – Kota Ibushi
8 points – 4-4 – Evil, Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kenta, Sanada
6 points – 3-5 – Bad Luck Fale, Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr.
4 points – 2-6 – Lance Archer

B Block points:

10 points – 5-3 – Hirooki Goto, Jay White, Jon Moxley, Tetsuya Naito
8 points – 4-4 – Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano
6 points – 3-5 – Jeff Cobb, Juice Robinson, Shingo Takagi, Taichi

Title shots earned:

RevPro British Heavyweight Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi, Sanada, Kazuchika Okada, Evil, Kota Ibushi
IWGP United States Championship: Toru Yano, Jay White, Hirooki Goto
NEVER Openweight Championship: Jon Moxley, Tetsuya Naito, Hirooki Goto, Shingo Takagi
IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Toru Yano, Taichi, Jon Moxley
IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Sanada

I’ll see you back here soon to talk about the G1’s final shows. Maybe Jay White will win and people will throw things in the ring for the second time this year! Maybe Okada will be the first reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion to win the tournament and he’ll pick Yano to wrestle him at the Tokyo Dome! Whatever happens, you’ll get the Best and Worst of it on With Spandex next week.