The G1 Climax Tournament, one of New Japan Pro Wrestling‘s most exciting events, is coming up in just over a month, and the hype is real. Last year’s tournament featured fan favorite Tetsuya Naito defeating the previous year’s winner, current IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega, in the finals; 2016 included Omega becoming the first ever non-Japanese G1 Climax winner; and every year fans can count on a lot of great wrestling.
How Does The G1 Climax Tournament Work?
From July 14 to August 12, twenty of NJPW’s best (heavyweight division) wrestlers will compete for a shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. The tournament winner also wins a contract, in a Money In The Bank style briefcase that must be defended, for the main event of Wrestle Kingdom.
Like Best of the Super Juniors, the G1 is a round robin tournament, with competitors divided into two blocks. Wrestlers fight to win their block by accruing points during tournament matches, gaining two points for each victory, one point for each draw, and zero for each loss. The winner of each block advances to the finals.
The G1 Climax 28 Entrants
This year’s G1 participants were announced via video package at the beginning of the Kizuna Road show on June 17. Tomorrow (June 18), we’ll find out who is in A Block and B Block, and on June 19 NJPW will announced the cards for the round robin portion of the tournament.
The list of wrestlers in the G1 Climax Tournament this year is below. (Warning: this list contains spoilers for the NEVER Openweight Championship match that main-evented June 17 show.)
- IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kenny Omega
- NEVER Openweight Champion Hirooki Goto
- IWGP US Heavyweight Champion Jay White
- Hiroshi Tanahashi
- Togi Makabe
- Juice Robinson
- Kazuchika Okada
- Michael Elgin
- Tomohiro Ishii
- Toru Yano
- Yoshi-Hashi
- Bad Luck Fale
- Tama Tonga
- Hangman Page
- Tetsuya Naito
- Evil
- Sanada
- Minoru Suzuki
- Zack Sabre Jr.
- Kota Ibushi
This is essentially the lineup regular New Japan watchers would expect, comprised of the heavyweight division’s most prominent performers of the past year with full time NJPW contracts. The only part-timer on the list is Hangman Page, who has been getting something of a push over the past few months, but whose inclusion still drew surprised reactions from the live audience. Page and Jay White are the two wrestlers making their G1 debut this year. Tanahashi, who has participated in the G1 seventeen times in a row, and Makabe, who has participated fifteen consecutive times, are this year’s most experienced G1 vets.
The IWGP Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho‘s absence from the G1 is noticeable, as the IC champ is usually in this tournament. Given that he’s not booked for any upcoming New Japan shows, we’ll see if Jericho continues to announce his presence via surprise attack, or if he becomes the promotion’s Brock Lesnar. For me, it’s more surprising that Taichi, who has experienced a surge in popularity since moving up to the heavyweight division earlier this year, didn’t make the cut. David Finlay is also absent despite a recent singles title shot. In contrast, it’s interesting to see that Yoshi Hashi made the G1 after achieving (in kayfabe) almost less than nothing since Wrestle Kingdom. There was recent speculation on commentary that the Head Hunter was on the bubble for the tournament and might need to go on excursion, so career anxiety/redemption is likely to be his storyline.
Kota Ibushi’s name drew possibly the biggest crowd reaction, and ends the speculation from earlier this year that he might not be able to participate in the G1 due to still being banned from Budokan Hall after moonsaulting off a balcony (what else?) durig his 2012 DDT match with Kenny Omega.
All nineteen G1 Climax 28 shows will air live on NJPW World with English commentary. You can keep up with news specifically about this tournament on it’s official website, separate from the regular NJPW website because it’s such a big freakin’ deal. And, of course, we’ll keep you updated here at With Spandex with the upcoming block announcements, other news, and Best and Worst reports once the tournament gets going.
