The Best And Worst Of NJPW: G1 Climax 28, Part 5

Previously on NJPW: Sanada and ZSJ put on a European classic, Goto and Ishii put on a Japanese classic, and the decline of civility in Bullet Club continued.

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And now, the best and worst of Nights 8-9 (July 26-27, 2018) of G1 Climax 28, in Nagaoka and Hamamatsu.

The Annual Two Minute Yano Match

Every NJPW tournament has to have a two minute match or three. They usually involve our good friend Toru Yano, and this one also involves our friend’s dad who we secretly wish was our dad, Hirooki Goto. It’s not the best or funniest of this type of match that they’ve done, but Goto comes out looking strong with a fast, but not fluke, victory (with a GTR after blocking a low blow.) The Fierce Warrior gets some momentum back after losing to Ishii, and gets revenge for losing in under two minutes to Yano in the past. Functionality!

Best/Worst: Gang Warz, Part II

Tetsuya Naito and Tama Tonga enter their match with the same average amount of f*cks given at any given time (zero), the same amount of scruples about breaking the rules (also zero), but with very different priorities. The stakes keep rising for Naito in this tournament due to circumstances he can’t control. Even if Naito wins the rest of his matches and Kenny Omega loses one of his, Omega holds the tiebreaker over him and will win the block. Naito seems confident he can keep winning, but Kenny Omega losing twice is the key to his fate and his redemption. That, or Kenny winning and picking him as his Wrestle Kingdom challenger, but I don’t think that’s how Naito would prefer this to go down.

Meanwhile, Tama Tonga seems pretty pleased with himself for becoming “the most hated man in professional wrestling” (according to Kevin Kelly.) Rocky Romero says he has “nuclear heat,” including on Twitter, and Tama references this during his entrance by doing the signature fist cock of one of his Twitter nemeses. He gets a louder reaction than usual during his entrance, with some cheers mixed with the boos because you can’t be a really obnoxious heel without some people rooting for you. Basically, despite a dismal singles win-loss record, he’s setting himself apart!

The most fun part about this match is that Naito is the tranquilo king of the trolls, and he manages to outsmart the G.o.D., and piss them off while doing it. Usually when he does the running the ropes tranquilo taunt these days we see it coming from the beginning, but he gets in it here after believably teasing a high-flying move to both brothers outside the ring, drawing a great, “Son of a bitch!” reaction from his legal opponent. But Naito isn’t invincible to their chicanery, and eats a painful-looking Gun Stun on the ropes and powerbomb on the ramp from Tanga Loa.

Back in the ring, Tama blocks a Destino by throwing a pretty badly beaten up Naito into referee Marty Asami, cuing Tanga Loa to start beating up the face of L.I.J., and cuing the run in parade to begin! Notably, Sanada again doesn’t come out to help his teammates. Also notably, this is a FOUR MASK DAY FOR BUSHI because he had two entrance masks in the A Block preview tag and is now wearing a different regular fightin’ mask. BEHOLD:

With the ref still out of the ring, both our upstanding G1 B Block competitors exchange low blows. Naito recovers first to land a Destino and make the pin just as Asami gets back in the ring. The Tongans are getting good-ish at cheating to win matches sometimes, but Naito and L.I.J. have been doing this for years, and that pays off.

Backstage, Tama cuts a promo as entertaining, low stakes, and silly as the match he just staggered away from, calling Naito a “cheating son of a gun,” while he has been nothing but a “man of honor… this whole entire tour,” putting on “five star” matches. Naito says that Tama had no chance against him, no matter what his goals were. Similarly to Evil’s promo on Fale, though, Naito seems to get what the BCOGs are doing, and gives his opponent some advice: “You can’t just become like me three years ago when I started LIJ… Just because you made a bit of a splash doesn’t mean you can make a wave. You should think about that during this G1 Climax.”

Best: Embracing Body Diversity

As someone who always needs help suspending thier disbelief that ZSJ can wrestle as a heavyweight, I’m impressed by how well the Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tomohiro Ishii rivalry, including this match, works for me. It works, basically, because these performers are so dang good at their jobs, which includes being aware of their own limitations and respectful of what their opponent brings to the table. ZSJ chooses his submission holds intelligently, mostly targeting Ishii’s right arm, the one he uses for strikes. When he is struck by the Stone Pitbull, though, he crumples to the ground, and he gets knocked about a mile sideways by shoulder tackles.

Ishii tries to weaken Zack for high impact moves even more with an ankle lock, and it’s fun, as always, to see the Submission Master get trapped in a submission hold for a while. He mostly absorbs Zack’s kicks and strikes, but has trouble escaping those inescapable-looking holds. The time spent on the ankle lock was probably a mistake!

A lot of the drama in the match comes from the feeling that there’s no way Ishii will tap out (commentary tells us the last time he tapped was to Sanada in 2016), but after multiple nearfalls and rope breaks, he taps when Zack transitions into an armbar on that already weakened right arm. It’s a huge win for ZSJ, and huge loss for Ishii, who leaves the ring looking as distraught as he gets and holding his arm. He presumably tapped to save it for the rest of the tournament, but it looks like the damage may have already been done.

Backstage, Sabre says tapping out the toughest man in New Japan shows he’s not just the Submission Master, he’s the Wrestling Master. Could he be being built up to hand Kenny his first L? Given how Zack’s been booked against top NJPW talent here and in RevPro so far, it wouldn’t be all that surprising.

Worst: Champion Vs. Champion Community Theatre

More surprisingly than Sabre vs. Ishii working so well for me, Juice Robinson vs. Kenny Omega doesn’t at all. I so thoroughly disliked this match between two performers whose in-ring work I usually enjoy that I wondered if I was just depressed or something. I don’t think I was!

The setup for this match is solid. During last year’s G1, Juice (at 1-5) defeated Kenny (at 5-1) with a rollup out of a One Winged Angel, and it was the biggest point differential upset in G1 history. This year, both men are champions with cheesy entrances at opposite ends of the likability spectrum (Kenny’s just keeps getting longer, and now has a weird “Here’s Johnny” curtain peak at the beginning, and Juice makes a kid’s whole life by giving him his hat and light-up glasses.) Juice is a much stronger wrestler than last year, but an injury is once again severely damaging his G1 record. Kenny seemingly can’t lose, and while Juice is at the advantage of being one of the few wrestlers on the roster Kenny respects (to the point where he wouldn’t go after his broken hand), he’s at the disadvantage of having revealed his new finisher to a wrestling genius before they faced off one-on-one. Many possible outcomes of this match could make sense!

However, a lot of things during the actual match feel off. The opening feels somewhat choreographed, but that might just be because it’s right after Ishii vs. ZSJ. Juice dominates the match early to a surprising degree, and Kenny sells very, very dramatically. He seems more effected by Juice’s offense than everyone else on the tour so far. His oddest moment of selling is when he collapses to the ground, screaming in severe pain, after being whipped into the turnbuckle. Kevin Kelly tells us this is because of a heel injury he revealed on the latest episode of Being The Elite. I hope the Japanese commentary team also informed the audience of that, because otherwise that came out of nowhere, and you really can’t assume that everyone watching the G1 keeps up with BTE in a timely way.

The crowd isn’t super into this match (between two people who usually get big crowd reactions) until Juice does those punches that you can chant along with. Kenny gets a bit more ruthless, softening up Juice for the One Winged Angel with a V Trigger and neck work. He switches to targeting Juice’s arm for a while and gets close to working his broken hand, but doesn’t really go in on it. They’ve both gotten a fair amount of offense on each other when Juice tries the Juice Box, but Kenny has it scouted from the tag match, and easily counters with a reverse rana. That’s doesn’t suck as much as someone kicking out of a just-debuted finisher, but it still kind of sucks to see a new move just thwarted immediately, and then not work later in the match in a different way or anything.

The race to the finish of the match, with Juice barely escaping some Kenny Omega classics, is its most exciting section, but also, jeez, Kenny’s facials just don’t stop being crazy. Soon Juice is out on his feet from a V Trigger and can’t escape the OWA, so his losing streak and Kenny’s winning streak continue. The outcome makes sense, but I did not enjoy watching how we got there.

The post-match comments, however, are the Best for both performers in this G1. Juice always wears his heart on his sleeve, but he opens up even more than usual here. He’s afraid he’ll lose all his G1 matches and his first title defense, and if that happens he’ll just go home to Chicago. He puts Omega over super hard, saying his title only means something because Kenny won it first, and he’s the guy every gaijin coming into New Japan should try to be like.

Kenny doesn’t seem to realize it, but he gives us a clear look at his incredibly unhealthy mindset. He says the second he slips up he’ll fall from best wrestler in the world to a distant second place, and people will say he sucks, and THAT’S WHY EVERY NIGHT HE PUTS ON SUCH A HIGH QUALITY PERFORMANCE. Kenny isn’t performing for the fans; he’s barely performing for himself; he’s performing for the critics and to shut up people who don’t like him. This is why he’s been getting so worked up over every single thing that happens! He says he knows other wrestlers lay awake at night looking back at their bodies of work (this sounds like projecting), and wishing it could be as good as his, and he needs for that to continue forever! The classic Kenny Omega combo of narcissism and self-loathing are at an all-time high, and, especially considering a later Ibushi promo, it looks like they’re going to lead to a spectacular crash and burn.

Best: Cold Skull Hot Streak

In Night 8’s main event, hometown hero Sanada and everywhere hero Kota Ibushi tear the house down in front of an extremely hot crowd. Everyone there loves both these guys, and the atmosphere is electric even as they face off in opposite corners. They start off with a few basic holds, but then Sanada flips out of one and everything gets super fast and crazy, and in a very evenly matched way.

These two men can pretty much do everything athletically, and they do in this match. They exchange submissions, then take things outside for Sanada to dodge a Golden Triangle and land his own moonsault, then take things to the ramp. Back where wrestling is actually supposed to happen, Sanada (like ZSJ) targets Ibushi’s leg, and though he doesn’t stop Ibushi from kicking and springboarding through the rest of the match, it’s a good enough effort to slow him down for a while. They proceed to wear each other out with moonsaults, dropkicks, German suplexes, and more, until all they can do is strike each other. Ibushi gets a nearfall after a Last Ride powerbomb and teases a Kamigoye knee strike. That would be the end, but Sanada dodges it, and locks on a Skull End in the center of the ring. After Ibushi is safely out, but apparently not to the point of ref stoppage, Sanada hits a final moonsault for the win.

Sanada’s hot streak continues after an awesome match, and both of these performers continue to absolutely kill it in this tournament. Sanada gets on the mic afterwards for a rare moment of public speaking, and gets huge cheers from his hometown. Another B Block show closes with great wrestling and a happy crowd.

Afterwards, the points for the block look like this, with a lot of intrigue on the 6 and 4 point levels:

• 8 points – 4-0 – Kenny Omega
• 6 points – 3-1 – Sanada, Tetsuya Naito
• 4 points – 2-2 – Hirooki Goto, Kota Ibushi, Tomohiro Ishii, Zack Sabre Jr.
• 2 points – 1-3 – Tama Tonga, Toru Yano
• 0 points – 0-4 – Juice Robinson

Here Are The Highlights Of A Pretty Dismal Tag Match Lighting Round

Night 9 in Hamamatsu ends up being, I think, the worst of the tour so far. The crowd doesn’t really heat up until the main event, and I feel like there was a viscious cause and effect cycle between that and how engaging most of the matches are. The tag matches are extremely short and throwaway this time too, but they have some fun and interesting moments that I’ll talk about now!

Goto and Yoh defeat Shota Umino and Toa Henare to preview Goto vs. Naito, which means that once again Naito is tagging with Sanada to preview his upcoming match rather than the other way around. Naito does troll the Fierce Warrior a bit in his promo after that tag match though, because he may be ingobernable, but he’s a gosh dang professional.

Two very supportive family tag teams face off as Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa defeat Taka Michinoku and Zack Sabre Jr. In his hype man promo, Taka calls Zack a “pro wrestling master” rather than a submission master, like Zack said backstage after defeating Ishii. Tanga Loa cuts a surprisingly good, extremely Usos hype man promo of his own. The crowd definitely does not understand “bitch-ass hoes and flamin’ Doritos,” but Taka definitely understands “We are the G.O. suck on that motherf*ckin’ D,” and hates it so much that he immediately attacks the much larger Tanga Loa.

The match doesn’t look like it will be bad, and it seems like there are a lot of ways it could play out. ZSJ has a lot of momentum right now, but, as Rocky brings up, re: Tama, ” You gotta put some Ws in the column, right? Or is it just me?” Unsurprisingly, the most fun thing about these guys facing each other is the trash talk, with Tama telling Zack, “You better gain 35 pounds of muscle by tomorrow,” and ZSJ replying, “You better f*ckin’ wrestle me.”

Juice is on the bubble now, and his next opponent is Toru Yano. It’s really fun to see a heel get eliminated by Yano (SUZUKI), but for a beloved babyface to go out like that would just be depressing. Backstage, Juice is still really down, saying, “Stick a fork in me; I’m done.”

After Yujiro Takahashi and Kota Ibushi defeat Sho and Tomohiro Ishii, it looks like Ibushi vs. Ishii is going to be THE HOTTEST OF SUPER HOT FIRE. Their brief strike exchange and staredown are insanely intense, and somehow bring out more of Ibushi’s alien properties than usual.

Backstage, Ibushi lays some groundwork for how incredibly intense his match with Omega is going to be. He doesn’t necessarily want Kenny to lose, but he wants to get to the final more than anything, and he says he absolutely will not lose to Kenny. (Ibushi won their legendary DDT match six years ago, and in that match became the only person to have kicked out of a One Winged Angel.) If Kenny still has the mindset about the G1 we heard about in his previous promo, this match and its fallout might burn down Budokan or something.

Speaking of Kenny, he has Sanada up next, so we get to see this amazing graphic of guys doing gross, toothy poses vs. cool guys who keep their mouths closed:

Kenny does that new curtain-peak portion of his entrance again, but because of the lighting it looks more like Tessa Thompson looking out of her girlfriend’s suggestive pants than Here’s Johnny. Uh, depending on your set of cultural references. Chase and Kenny keep up their effective, old school heel tag team tactics, tagging each other in and out quickly to get maximum double team time. They need it for their double rowboat groin attack, which includes singing, because of course it does.

We see Naito and Omega face off again briefly, and again see Sanada leave Naito hanging for a fist bump in the ring after a tag match

Worst: Eh Block

Michael Elgin defeated Minoru Suzuki during last year’s G1, which led to them having a pretty bad lumberjack deathmatch for the NEVER Openweight Championship at Destruction in Fukushima. Despite the bad memories of that feud and general dislike of watching Elgin wrestle, it’s cool to see them face off during the preview tag. Elgin shows some personality by doing Suzuki’s excited tongue thing back at him during a strike exchange, and we haven’t really had a slugfest in A Block yet. After the match, Elgin actually sticks up for Young Lion Tsuji by hitting Suzuki after he hits the kid, and the furious Suzuki has to be pushed up the ramp out of the arena by another poor, doomed trainee.

Backstage, Suzuki just verbally destroys Elgin, vowing to piledrive “that crap pig bastard” to make his “short neck” even shorter. He forces a cameraman to get on his knees and not look directly at him, and generally terrorizes the press, and it’s awesome. Elgin recalls their NEVER championship history, and gives a pretty good speech about how he was bullied as a short, fat kid in school, and how bullies are actually weak. That’s nice, but this is New Japan, and Naito just proved that bullying is actually cool and mutually beneficial, actually.

Suzuki vs. Elgin is a match about technique vs. power, and the King quickly uses his superior technique to decrease some of that power. The first two-thirds of this match is my favorite Elgin match of the G1, because he actually logically sells his right arm. He kind of has to after Suzuki works it against the ringpost, locks in that crazy chair-assisted submission in the crowd, and works it agains the barricade. Elgin mixes struggling and failing to do some manuevers with doing some of his regular moves and selling the arm significantly afterwards. Suzuki clearly takes pleasure in breaking down the injured man, and gets some nearfalls.

Then, suddenly, the match completely falls apart because Elgin stops the selling. With both arms hurt, mostly relying on kicks, he suddenly does a perfect Tiger Bomb, and his strikes are at full strength. I get that Hulking Up is a thing, but if someone is going to Hulk Up I need to actually see them push through the pain and get to that next level of power of whatever. I’m really glad this babyface comeback section of the match doesn’t last long before Suzuki hits that dropkick, lights up Elgin with a combo, and escapes Elgin’s high impact moves until he can hit the Gotch.

Minoru Suzuki, having saved us from No Sell-gin and reinforced the important lesson that bullying is a great way to get ahead, has a fantastic exit too, wiping his face on the towel of the one kid with a Suzukigun towel and tossing it back to him over his shoulder, right into the kid’s hands. And on the way out of the press room, he steps on a wrestling journalist, which I’m sure was 100% deserved because we’re all dirtbags. This dude is probably a babyface now.

Evil pins Chase Owens to win the Evil and Bushi vs. Owens and Hangman Page tag match, and makes me realize how incredibly easy it is to counter the Jewel Heist into an STO smoothly. The King of Darkness therefore exits the preview tag looking strong, and exits the post-match promo looking even stronger after wishing Page a happy birthday in the exact same tone with which he delivers his catchphrase.

As you would expect, Evil vs. Hangman Page gets hard-hitting early. Page quickly has to powder out, continuing the theme of this G1 debutant fighting hard and being athletic, but also finding himself out of his depth in pretty much every match. He’s back to being a full heel, yelling at fans cheering for Evil, and for some reason commentary says, “We might be seeing a bit of a mean streak in Page,” as if his whole character until like two matches ago wasn’t that he’s always in or on the verge of a murderous rage.

Ultimately, I think these guys might just not have good chemistry together. The match feels slow in a bad way, and isn’t very exciting. My favorite thing about it is honestly how much they both sold on offense. The crowd is so dead for must of the match that I felt bad for Evil and Page, but they finally wake up after that Buckshot Lariat nearfall. There are a few cool athletic moments, but overall this match just falls flat. Evil wins with Everything Is Evil, and ascends (from Darkness World, maybe?) to the top of A Block.

Bad Luck Fale then defeats Jay White in a match that has a lot more shenanigans than wrestling. It’s not “good,” but it has some entertaining parts, and is really interesting from a storyline perspective.

This is first time two New Zealanders have ever faced off in the G1, and Fale and White have more in common than just nationality. Kelly brings up some key (shoot) specifics: White linked up with Prince Devitt when he was an indie wrestler, and Devitt linked up White with Fale, and White trained at the Fale Dojo for a bit, which led to him entering the New Japan Dojo. In kayfabe, this is more than just a fun fact, especially because Kenny Omega tried and failed to recruit Switchblade to Bullet Club on January 5, 2018. In the post-match comments after the G.o.D. and Fale won back their NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships on that show, Tama Tonga shaded Kenny’s efforts, saying “I see Switchblade didn’t want to join Bullet Club. Maybe we had the wrong guy trying to recruit him.”

When you think about it, White could be a more likely BC recruit and Henare a red herring (although they could always just acquire two guys in quick succession), because 1) they need an ace unless Tama’s going to start winning a lot more, and 2) White isn’t happy with the direction of Chaos and is trying to push them in a darker direction to no avail so far. White brings up he and Fale’s past backstage, and Fale straightforwardly tells his fellow kiwi that he should Good Brother up, asking him, “Whose team are you on anyways?… Your teammates don’t seem to be helping you. Why don’t you just f*cking join us then?” and tells him to think about it after he kicks his ass the next day.

And Fale does end up kicking Switchblade’s ass the next day! White tries to out-strategize the BCOGs by attacking Tanga Loa before the bell, and shows a lot of urgency in his striking against his much larger opponent, who he already showed himself to be intimidated by in the preview tag. White gains some ground attacking Fale against the barricades and in the chairs, using the Young Lions as human weapons, Kanemaru style. Both men continue to fight dirty back in the ring, but even though White hits his trusty low blow on Fale, he eats a Gun Stun from Tama, giving Fale time to recover and land a Bad Luck Fall for the win just as Red Shoes is able to count it.

Because Chaos (including Yoh and Rocky Romero, very close to ringside on commentary) didn’t come to White’s aid (probably because he made himself a pariah in their locker room by being terrible), the extremely points-focused White has a way more difficult road ahead of him if he wants to win A Block. White calls them out on it in his backstage promo, saying Chaos left him out to dry “after all that I’ve done for them.” He’s been working hard at his Make Chaos Heel Again plan for a while now, and it’s believable that he would be hurt by this (though mostly by the loss of points.) The BCOGs, in sharp contrast, are very supportive of each other, with Tama telling Fale that Not Dave Meltzer gave his match five stars, “and Tama Tonga’s going to add another star to that, because you are a star!” Besides the seemingly not caring about points, this group could look very appealing to Switchblade right now!

Best: The Years Start Coming And They Don’t Stop Coming

The night’s semi-main and main events are way more straightforward, quality wrestling matches, both given more weight by the long histories between the opponents. Togi Makabe vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi is a matchup between the most mainstream popular stars on the roster, and their past includes Tanahashi debuting against Makabe, and Makabe winning A Block of the 2009 G1 Climax over Tanahashi via coin toss.

Both men start the match aggressively, and look evenly matched. Makabe actually works a rare submission targeting Tanahashi’s knee, and Tanahashi looks frustrated about not immediately dominating and/or the Hamamatsu crowd being way quieter than Nagaoka was for their preview tag. The match is solid throughout, with Makabe getting in a lot of high impact offense, but Tanahashi dodging a King Kong Knee Drop to land a slingblade and two High Fly Flows for the win.

With one more show before they face each other, Tanahashi is now tied with Evil at the top of the pack. His Ace powers seem to be fully charged lately, judging by all the Ws and by the sheer amount of Tanahashi towels he’s been using to wipe his glorious sweat as he exits after matches. I hope the blessed owners of those towels never wash them again, and also use them to dry their dishes, causing the food they eat off of them to be infused with Ace sweat and make them more beautiful and strong.

The night’s main event is Kazuchika Okada and Yoshi-Hashi’s first match since Wrestle Kingdom 6, when Okada, newly the Rainmaker, had just returned from excursion in TNA, and Yoshi-Hashi had just come back from CMLL. Yoshi-Hashi, the first recipient of the Rainmaker finishing move, looks as fired up as he should be during their warm-up tag match. Backstage, Yoshi-Hashi thinks he could kick out of a Rainmaker now since he could counter Elgin’s clothesline recently.

Okada, after giving Yoh, but not Rocky, a balloon, starts the match by throwing his shirt at Yoshi-Hashi, which prompts the Head Hunter to just go for him. Okada throws Yoshi-Hashi deep into the chairs and attacks him on the mat when he’s almost made it back to the ring. Okada is serious about not losing to freakin’ Yoshi-Hashi, and he never plays nice with people who could make him look bad by beating him.

Okada works Yoshi-Hashi’s injured shoulder, and the crowd starts to get behind the extremely under underdog. Yoshi-Hashi soon starts to get actual momentum with a Bunker Buster, a Head Hunter, and a dropkick that looks so much better than others we’ve seen from him this G1. The match turns, and Okada gains momentum. But Yoshi-Hashi kicks out of one Rainmaker, and counters another Rainmaker attempt with his own Rainmaker in his first truly badass moment of the tournament and also maybe his entire life.

Then Yoshi-Hashi makes the odd decision to transition the next Rainmaker attempt into the Butterfly Lock. He manages to get it back on after Okada escapes once, and it looks a lot better than it did on Suzuki, but Okada taps out so rarely that I have no idea why Yoshi-Hashi, of all people, would think he could tap him out. Once the submission attempt is over, both Yoshi-Hashi and Okada are more aggressive, and their exchange of strikes truly feels like a fight rather than a match. Yoshi-Hashi gets in some more offense, but can’t hit Karma, and Okada pins him after two Rainmakers in quick succession.

I don’t know if this Yoshi-Hashi will show up for the rest of the tournament or if his suppressed rivalry with Okada was the only thing that could bring this side of him to the surface. But I know Okada, despite being on a bonafide winning streak now, is still not okay. His speech to the crowd sounds unhinged and weird, and he tearfully thanks them when they applaud to signal they thought his match was good. He sounds the most like the old Okada when, backstage, he says this match being good must mean Yoshi-Hashi is catching up with him, and “I’m not comfortable with that.”

After this lackluster Night 9, A Block is finally shaping up the way most people expected, possibly with the exception of Evil at the top:

• 8 points – 4-1 – Evil, Hiroshi Tanahashi
• 6 points – 3-2 – Jay White, Kazuchika Okada, Minoru Suzuki
• 4 points – 2-3 – Bad Luck Fale, Michael Elgin, Togi Makabe
• 2 points – 1-4 – Hangman Page, Yoshi-Hashi