NJPW 2017 G1 Climax 27

[quackhell]

Sanada leaving/getting kicked out of LIJ and evolving his character while mixing it up with his former stablemates seems like a solid and time tested way to go.

[Beech27]

-Put me in the more-pro-SANADA-than-not camp. He's still six years younger than Naito, four younger than Omega, etc. So although he's still more parts than sum at this point, I'm confident it can come together. The counter would be: I expected him to have a stronger G1, and instead EVIL got the big push. Meanwhile, the commentary took basically every chance to repeat Omega's criticism that, if you can't tell what he's feeling, it's hard to feel for him. 

-Since it was discussed here earlier, I think it's interesting to note Naito suggested shortening the G1, during his presser. Or rather, he suggested putting only wrestlers who "deserve to be there" in it, then scheduling matches accordingly, rather than seeking out enough people to fill blocks. Basically, if everyone knows you aren't winning it, what's the point? Of course, he immediately says no one will listen to him. 

Two things about that:

1) I always wonder how much direction guys like Naito are given, and how much this is something he actually believes. 

2) Though the reality of booking a tour makes it hard, maybe you could lessen the workload on guys who are already wrestling high profile singles matches by promising spots people who had "earned them"--say, every heavyweight singles title holder, last year's winner, etc.--and having qualifiers for the rest of the field. But there are problems with that approach too, of course. 

-The worst news:

-New Japan also posted the Omega/Ibushi backstage video. We can't hear what they say, but it's all very melodramatic. 

 

[Red is Dead]

I'm finding Toru vs Omega more entertaining than I possibly should. 

Yes, it's not a classic by the standards of the G1, but I'm cackling like a loon at work...

[The Natural]

I have issues with Naito vs. Omega as others did here, particularly the overkill, dangerous moves and going longer than it needed. My least favourite of the G1 Climax 27 matches I've watched.

[The Natural]

My top three matches in the tournament:

1. Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega *****

2. Kazuchika Okada vs. Minoru Suzuki ****3/4

3. Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi ****1/2

[Jiji]

Man, Bucks came off very Shane Douglas "he's shooting! He's shooting!" during the Golden Lovers bit. Put a damper on what otherwise was a neat organic, real feeling moment. I thought Kenny would've been more negative than that. Reunion if there's anything left following their match!!! 

[Beech27]

New Japan cards basically require everyone to be in a faction, a Bullet Club-exiled Elite will need (at least) one more member, Ibushi's faction-free, and both he and Omega must have quite a bit of creative leverage at this point. So I'm hopeful. But admittedly--and as a warning for future tour threads--I'm totally incapable of being objective about this. 

[Jiji]

Can you imagine how crazy some of the high end 8 man tags would be with Bucks, Ibushi and Omega on one side? Mind shattering. 

Also, I like Tana going back to his old 2002 era hair style. Don't get me wrong, the long locks were luscious but I think it was time for a change. 

[Ace]

I'd put the G*L in the Tag League.

 

[The Iron Yuppie]

So, I avoided the site until I was completely caught up. I'm now quite sad that I'm all the way through the tournament. My goodness, this was the most fun I've had watching wrestling maybe ever. Perhaps -- no, definitely I'm more generous with my stars than @The Natural, but by my own scale, there are four matches from this G1 I'd rate at 5 stars: 

- Okada vs. Suzuki

- Naito vs. Tanahashi 

- Okada vs. Omega (best series since Steamboat and Flair)

- Naito vs. Omega

The low-key gem of the G1: SANADA vs. Juice Robinson. 

Breakout star: EVIL 

Tear-jerking moment: Yuji Nagata's farewell 

 

[The Natural]

14 hours ago, The Iron Yuppie said:

So, I avoided the site until I was completely caught up. I'm now quite sad that I'm all the way through the tournament. My goodness, this was the most fun I've had watching wrestling maybe ever. Perhaps -- no, definitely I'm more generous with my stars than @The Natural, but by my own scale, there are four matches from this G1 I'd rate at 5 stars: 

- Okada vs. Suzuki

- Naito vs. Tanahashi 

- Okada vs. Omega (best series since Steamboat and Flair)

- Naito vs. Omega

The low-key gem of the G1: SANADA vs. Juice Robinson. 

Breakout star: EVIL 

Tear-jerking moment: Yuji Nagata's farewell 

 

I may watch Okada vs. Suzuki and Naito vs. Tanahashi again, I won't revisit Naito vs. Omega.

Dave Meltzer stole my stars ; ). Speaking of Dave, when will his ratings for the rest of the G1 Climax 27 be up?

[Belgian_Waffle]

According to Dave,  "everyone" thinks the ringpost DDT spot was a botch? Really??  Kind of hard to believe.  I get how the piledriver off the table to the floor looked kind of botchy but if anything the ringpost DDT struck me as too laboured and choreographed.  Also no more "worked botch"  spots ever,  please...the crazy shit they do that is meant to look intentional is dangerous enough.  The more I look back on Naito/Omega the more I dislike it,  especially as it capped off such a great and historic three weeks of wrestling.  

[The Natural]

; )

[The Natural]

; )

[Michael Sweetser]

To me, the piledriver on the table looked like Omega kicking his legs knocked Naito off balance just enough to fuck up the landing.  Thank god it didn't end up as bad as it could've.  (This is why you stay still during a move like that, kids.)

I think the DDT on the top would've been less obvious if Naito's head went into the top of the post instead of the side - may have just been a victim of a bad camera angle.  

[peterien]

Got around to watching the last 3 nights today;

Tana/Naito was a great match. The cloverleaf spot at the end was great tension.

Okada/Omega was great,Kennys desperation growing and growing throughout the match made it really interesting to watch and yeah its the perfect trilogy. I rate it 1.Dominion 2. WK11 and 3.G1 Night 18

Omega/Naito was good but they tried way too much stuff. The ddt on the post looked nasty but I dont think it was a botch, the table piledriver however......

Great to see Naito win as he's white-hot at the minute and I've no doubt a win at WK12 blows the roof off the Dome.

Overall I'm just glad nobody leaves the G1 seriously injured, and not just the top 4 guys either everyone bust their asses through a grueling schedule. That said, the top 4 (Omega,Tana,Okada,Naito) have to be the most banged up some of the neck bumps and hits they took were insane. Its great to watch and its the best wrestling in the world today but you have to worry how their necks will be in 5-7 years time.

What a few weeks to be a wrestling fan.

[Beech27]

Tried and failed several times to put together a top ten, and then a top twenty. I'm left with the distinct impression that the past Puro MOTY polls I took part in, as compelling and invested as they were... I couldn't possibly have seen enough. I know I said so at the time, as did others, but I don't think I totally grasped the impossibility of doing something like that comprehensively. Not to say it wasn't worth it, or that smaller promotions didn't get their due. Mashimo & Madoka vs Teioh & Shinobu won in 2008, after all.

Still, from this one tournament in this one promotion, I can't quite sort how to rank or even really compare Kojima/Nagata's dual "do not go gently" story; Sabre/Juice/EVIL's ascendance; Ibushi/Ishii's versatility; Okada's touring champ routine; Omega/Naito's whole persona which they can't help but force on every match, but I can't help but love; Tanahashi (still, quietly, if that's possible) being one of the best in the world; I'm shameless a Suzuki fan, even at his most petulant and selfish; and... probably a hundred other things I'm forgetting, off the top of my head.

I've tried to rewatch some things, but some matches really do need the tension you only get with a first viewing. Naito/Omega is probably the best example, since "who will win?"/"what the hell are the doing?"/"god someone might die" were very compelling in the moment, but the small cracks become canyons when you're trying to watch with a critical lens. Does that negate me jumping off the couch and shouting at my phone, in the moment? There's no answer; or rather, the answer is a novel that could be condescend to a shrug emoticon. Maybe I was better at ranking things in 2008, because I was 20 then, in college and better able to complete assigned tasks with imposed parameters. At 29, I'm (obviously) still happy to write papers about this stuff and discuss things endlessly (even critically), and I've tremendously enjoyed reading everyone's rankings/lists. Still, at this point, I'm happy enough to call a tie between Omega/Okada and Okada/Suzuki for MOTT, say I loved too many other matches that are basically in a 4-plus star wash to know where to draw the line without feeling it's excluding one match I just have to mention, and tap Ibushi as my overall MVP, while at the same time granting some of that might be novelty and influenced by his post tournament crypto-queer-angst tweets. Which, hey, a tag derived from the Men's Club angle was my #1 in 2008, so maybe that one thing hasn't changed.

Anyway, enough navel gazing, I suppose. Wrestling can be pretty good, sometimes. 

[Infinit]

Maybe I'm overthinking things...

Fale and the GoD gave Nagata loads of respect at the end of the G1. What about Nagata as the new "general" of The Bullet Club if The Elite break off? 

Just a thought.

[Jiji]

That would go against Nagata's entire career's worth of character work. If anything, it would be likelier for Fale and GOD to leave BC and return to the regular army or whatever. Far likelier, they wanted to give props to a mentor and somebody who has given his all to New Japan for 25 years.

[Spritenaut 32]

9 hours ago, Infinit said:

Fale and the GoD gave Nagata loads of respect at the end of the G1. What about Nagata as the new "general" of The Bullet Club if The Elite break off? 

[Ryan]

Biz Cliz Blue n' White forming soon.

[sevendaughters]

the DAVEs are in for the last few days of the G1 at Sumo Hall

Day 17 - Nagata-Fale - 4.25 / YOSHI-HASHI-Makabe - 3.5 / Ishii-Sabre Jr. - 4.25 / Ibushi-Goto - 4.25 / Tanahashi-Naito - 5
Day 18 - Juice-Elgin - 3.75 / SANADA-Tonga - 3.75 / Yano-Suzuki - 3 / EVIL-Kojima - 4 / Omega-Okada - 6
Day 19 / FINAL The Young Bucks-Taguchi Japan - 4.25 / War Machine-Bullet Club - 3.75 / Omega-Naito - 5.75

I think he's sincere about all this stuff so not going to accuse him of trolling at all - he genuinely thinks Omega-Okada is scale-busting work of the best trilogy ever. I'm always going to prefer the methodical, psychological - perhaps uncool? - style of Tanahashi to the wild-eyed MOVEZbeast of Omega, so I prefer the Tana-Naito trilogy more. But my main takeaway is that this is an era that will be looked back on like AJPW in the 90s and we're experiencing it LIVE.

[Beech27]

Beyond being really, really good matches, I think it's pretty remarkable to consider how significant they are--and might be, depending on how New Japan's United States business goes. They'd lost Styles and Nakamura, two of their biggest stars in general and possibly the two most popular stateside. And while this isn't at all scientific:

The January spike is bigger than ever; but more importantly, we see a surge around Dominion that actually exceeds it--although the relief is less--which is unlike any previous interest. Of course the US Special then exceeds even that, and the G1 proper peaks nearly as high. Of course the general trend is positive, even between big shows.

Again, I know this isn't financial data, and could be a whole lot of sound a fury, signifying nothing. Certainly I want to avoid hyperbole. But it certainly feels like the matches--and absolutely, Dave's reaction to them--have mattered more than even your "average" classic. (So we can get into a weird feedback loop, wherein Dave, who considers "context", adds to the context himself, thus making the ratings higher by... making them higher. But I'll avoid thinking about that.)

[RIPPA]

Something I might be reading into to but it seemed in like reading the new WON that Dave has decided to use a 6 star system for New Japan and 5 stars for everything (because he made some passive aggressive comment about the Roode/Strong NXT match and how it was 4 1/4 starts on the WWE scale or something like that).

Again - should you get worked up over it? No but just providing a little more content into his possible motivations

[sevendaughters]

He definitely likes New Japan more in the same way that he clearly though AJW and AJPW were redefining wrestling in the late 80s/early 90s. I don't see this as a failing on his part, nor did I think any differently of him when he was hot for Ring of Honor when I thought it was just a solid indy, nor when he would give top quality RINGS matches like **1/4 because he just fundamentally did not get or like the style. 

The thing that slightly annoys me - and I love Dave and think star rating is like way down on the list of reasons why I like him - is when he does that slightly trolling Twitter language in WON. It's alright to burn those losers who still think that his job is to rate matches and report scoopz on Twitter because they're clearly not readers.

But in WON I'd like to see him write things like that with a lot more clarity. Dave often reports the story. But in recent times he has become the story. So the question of scales and ceilings is one that is bugging a lot of people. Not me, particuarly, he can rate NJPW prelims 23 stars and WWE main events DUD for all I care.

What I take him to mean is that WWE's matches, with their seeming inability to book long-term with their full-time roster, the restrictions on what guys can do, and the particular Kevin Dunn presentation style, have a ceiling that NJPW - with its great long-term booking, classic presentation style, and lack of restrictions - just does not have.

Both he and I agree that WWE's roster is incredible. With AJ, Joe, Brock, KO, Bryan (yes), Sami, Roman, Cena, Rollins, KENTA, Nakamura, Gargano, Balor, Rusev, Cesaro, Neville, Harper, Gable, The Miz, and Matt Hardy you could have a tournament that put the G1 Climax to shame in terms of star power and equal it in terms of general match quality, variety, etc. And sure, tournament wrestling is more of a Japanese thing, but it's an example of how WWE won't push match quality or complex booking under the current regime.

That's fine, some will say. Vince makes money and enjoys a comfortable first place even in Japan. But I know it'll gnaw at people inside the company that the critics don't love them. Maybe Dave's prodding will push WWE to make their matches better. It is within their grasp. I hate not being a WWE fan. My life would be so much easier if I enjoyed watching it.