NJPW G1 Climax 28, LIVE AT THE BUDOKAN! 7/14-8/12

[The Natural]

Haven't watched any of the G1 Climax yet. If I want to watch it, I ask here for recommended matches as this is my go to place for a lot of things. What's the must sees then? Thanks.

[peterien]

26 minutes ago, The Natural said:

Haven't watched any of the G1 Climax yet. If I want to watch it, I ask here for recommended matches as this is my go to place for a lot of things. What's the must sees then? Thanks.

Most nights of B Block are worth looking at in full. My picks would be;

Sabre Jr Vs Ibushi 

Omega V Goto

Omega V Naito

Juice V Naito

Juice V Ibushi

Ibushi V Ishii

Ishii V Goto

Page V Okada

Page V Elgin

[Beech27]

-Fucking hell, Ishii and Ibushi. Urgent, crisp, and enthusiastically violent from “go”, with a clever frame of Ibushi needing his acrobatics to even things at first, then rising to and ultimately surpassing Ishii at his own game. Great selling—even the no selling!—all the way, with Ibushi nailing the flash Bomaye as a nice nod to his most famous sadistic slugfest. Ibushi was in that kind of mood tonight, and Ishii is always more than game. MOTG1, for me—probably MOTY so far. I’m gonna watch it again later and it’s so good it’ll make the treadmill fun. It’s a goddamn constellation.

-It’s a good thing Naito was around to follow that, and brought his usual—and ironically—crowd pleasing dickishness. Match was good, and frankly both guys were probably smart to settle there and not attempt to clear Ishii and Ibushi’s gonzo spectacle. 

-I liked Kenny and SANADA a lot, and found it an encouraging display that Omega can punch down a tier without pushing his opponent down in the process. Unable to outclass SANADA, he goes for the knee—not to win by submission or even prevent anything in particular, just to slow the better athlete (an odd position for Omega) down a fraction, which was always enough for Kenny to find space for his offense. SANADA showed good fire again, and the crowd really took to him—yeah, he still hit his stuff, but the knee still mattered when he didn’t land just right. All together I thought it earned the Best Bout Machine Closing Run, and I always love a good struggle over a protected finisher. My one problem here would be I’m not sure if Kenny just no sold the reverse rana or if he was supposed to have somehow landed safely. Maybe it’s hypocritical to love the no selling Ibushi and Ishii did but (potentially) be turned off by it here, but context and feeling matter; this didn’t feel like that kind of match to me, and counters to the OWA need to matter. But again, maybe we’re to believe Kenny avoided the landing somehow, and it just didn’t look like it. On that subject, the Skull End looked remarkably bad tonight; I know we all know that, and maybe it’s me, but I’d love SANADA’s end match scenarios way more if it looked better. But! Still really good. SANADA is growing into himself, and Kenny showed growth as champ in showcasing someone else.

[Pete]

Omega/Sanada was pretty fucking great but they couldn't follow Ibushi/Ishii. Good GOD.

[sevendaughters]

full five for Ibushi-Ishii, instant classic. Will do longer post later. 

[Jiji]

Mission accomplished~! Those two went wild out. Was so great and exactly the kick in the ass Ibushi needed to turn around his tournament in a kayfabe sense.

Omega as impudent, heelish champion after the big turnaround in character earlier in the year is weird. He's even wearing his black tights again. I guess he wore them at Dominion too. But slapping SANADA and going after his knee after SANADA finally got to upstage him and then held the ropes for Omega was classic Cleaner shit. Between the over the top bombastic, self-indulgent promos and his behaviour, Kenny's in a weird spot much like Okada. They're not used to their positions! Anyway, this was an awesome match and probably fringe top 5 of the tournament so far. Loved how their personalities drove the match and SANADA's subtle and pretty consistent selling of the leg was top notch.

Nagoya had the first lively audience outside of Korakuen. They were hot for the tag matches and definitely played their part in the Ishii/Ibushi battle and really got behind SANADA in the main event.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

When he had the title match, he was basically halfway out of the Bullet Club. But then The Golden Elite was formed, and then Cody made peace and so he very much is the leader of the Bullet Club.

[FlaeBlazer]

Hot Take: I thought Ishii/Ibushi was better than Ishii/Shibata.

 

[Raziel]

I dont think that's a hot take.

[FlaeBlazer]

50 minutes ago, Raziel said:

I dont think that's a hot take.

You agree? I dunno, that match is canonized as the pinnacle of NJPW strong style so I thought it would be controversial.

[Beech27]

There’s a novelty to Ibushi going *insert Kill Bill siren here* that I really loved—not that he never does it, but it’s a bit rare, and there’s basically nothing in wrestling more compelling to me than when he loses his mind, and finds the vacancy not occupied by a desire to shoot himself with fireworks but to kick and knee the world to rubble. That he sorta combined the two here, finding some shit to flip off of and then going all black trunks was... yeah. In a way that’s more terrifying than Shibata, who is a known entity, and crazy in basically the same way, every time. On the other hand, Shibata was a cruelly, recklessly violent man, and the meanness of everything he did made his matches uncomfortable in the “you can’t look away” sense. Ishii really showcased that, and both men totally sold the mutual brutality, so the whole thing felt heavier than the flashier counters Ibushi brought. There’s also the fact that one match featured underdog Ishii pinning the bully, while the other featured Ishii putting on the bully hat and drawing out the Golden Star’s supernova. 

So it’s a cop out, maybe, to just shrug and say they’re great and different—but I do think they’re both basically perfect at doing what they set out to do, and I’m gonna watch them both over and over. 

[EVA]

So I was just checking out my list, and we're halfway through this tournament and I don't have a single A Block match in my Top 10.  Looking further down, I can't even find an A Block match I feel strongly enough about to argue for over Omega/SANADA, which is pretty solidly the least of the B Block main events so far.

[FlaeBlazer]

1 hour ago, EVA said:

So I was just checking out my list, and we're halfway through this tournament and I don't have a single A Block match in my Top 10.  Looking further down, I can't even find an A Block match I feel strongly enough about to argue for over Omega/SANADA, which is pretty solidly the least of the B Block main events so far.

Do you think there’s way too much of an imbalance?

Like we’re actually over halfway through block competition and there hasn’t been a single must-see A Block match. Those shows are kinda skippable honestly while B Block is must-see television for me.

But in all fairness, we still haven’t seen most of the A Block heavy hitters go one on one.

Okada still hasn’t wrestled Tanahashi, Suzuki, Elgin, or EVIL who are probably the best wrestlers in the block along with him.

We still haven’t seen Tana vs. Elgin or Tana vs. EVIL either.

[Jiji]

18 minutes ago, FlaeBlazer said:

In all fairness, we still haven’t seen most of the A Block heavy hitters go one on one.

Okada still hasn’t wrestled Tanahashi, Suzuki, Elgin, or EVIL who are probably the best wrestlers in the block along with him.

We still haven’t seen Tana vs. Elgin or Tana vs. EVIL either.

I was going to make a snide remark about looking forward to an Elgin match but I was more taken aback by the fact those two haven't had a singles match outside of the 2015 ROH Global Wars encounter. I don't think it'll be much but we'll see. But, yeah, in my stupidly unnecessarily long ramble last night, I noticed pretty much all of the marquee matches in A Block are still to come. 

There is so much going into scheduling and booking a league tournament like this, it's astonishing everything that needs to be kept in mind. Hometown heroes, avoiding certain matchups while making sure to get some key, big matches to keep things fresh, making sure the standings are dramatic near the end, keeping top guys strong but giving the supporting actors some big moments, making sure to save the bigger matches for the bigger cities, and playing on past meetings. Like EVIL vs. Okada, where is that taking place? Oh, it's in Osaka again just like last year where they had one of my favourite matches ever. Of course, because this shit isn't just thrown together haphazardly. SANADA gets a big win in Niigata, his hometown, over Ibushi. Okada and Ibushi having to win out does seem to take some of the drama out of their matches though. Like, there's now zero chance EVIL or Suzuki beat Okada this year unless Gedo relegates Okada to spoiler in his match against Tana at the Budokan. 

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

On 7/23/2018 at 10:06 AM, Archibald said:

And well something has to happen with them next. If white guy who is literally called White ends up leading them then it does look bad. On the other hand Japan probably has different ideas of what looks and what doesn't look bad than we. But then, what are really the alternatives? Them being released? Balor not resigning with WWE sounds crazy, but maaaaybe?

Balor was making 6 figures in developmental on merch, according to Simon Gotch - who said in a shoot that Finn is consciously doing his money work at this point in his career. Would he even get a bigger push in New Japan anyway? I'm not seeing it.

[EVA]

14 hours ago, FlaeBlazer said:

Do you think there’s way too much of an imbalance?

 

Block B definitely got the lion's share of the top young talent, but I think that's only half the story.  In addition, the booking is really dragging the in-ring action down.  At this point, you're guaranteed that every BC OG and Switchblade match is going to have a screwy finish of some sort.  Likewise, whatever story they're trying to tell with Okada right now seemingly has him  purposely working below his established standards.

On top of that, 2 of the guys they're counting on to carry the block are older (Suzuki and Tanahashi) and you never know when they're going to decide to take the night off to save their bodies.

It's just not a good mix.

[FlaeBlazer]

23 hours ago, EVA said:

So I was just checking out my list, and we're halfway through this tournament and I don't have a single A Block match in my Top 10.  

What’s your top 10?

[matt925]

I watched the entire first show, and then I’ve just watched a few A block matches here and there. I’ve watched almost every B block match. Huge difference between the two blocks when it comes to intriguing matches. 

The only wrestler in B block I don’t care for is Tama (Yano has been a ton of fun so far). So that’s four intriguing matches every show. I can do without half the guys in A block, and like EVA said, Minoru and Tana are getting up there in age, and Okada is in his funk and that’s hurting those matches. And with so much wrestling going on in such a short amount of time it's easy for me to just skip the A block and read the results and not worry about it. 

I know they are way past the point of eliminating wrestlers/shows, but really if they got rid of the positions for Tama and Yoshi Hashi, that’s two fewer shows, more rest for everyone, less burnout for fans trying to watch it all, and higher quality on all the shows. Win win except for business, and they arent eliminating business right now. 

Edit: well thinking about it, I guess they’d have to eliminate four positions rather than two, but it would make the whole tournament so much stronger. 

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Block A definitely patchy, there's some potential tonight but hard to see it not being White, Evil, Tana and Okada not going over. Probably Fale wins too, but who cares?

I'm kinda amused at the prospect of a TAKA/Omega interaction tonight, though we'll see if ZSJ goes for that heel.

[sevendaughters]

On 7/28/2018 at 4:37 PM, sevendaughters said:

full five for Ibushi-Ishii, instant classic. Will do longer post later. 

so

ZSJ-Tama forgettable in the context of the night and tournament, but also while you're watching it in the moment. *1/4

Juice-Yano fun but I wasn't wild about it **1/2

Ibushi-Ishii incredible stuff. Fiery Ibushi is such an incredible thing to behold , dripping with disdain and kicking people in the head. As much as Okada can construct a match, Ibushi (I make the comparison as pretty and reasonably young upper-carders) can sometimes take you places out of Okada's lengthy reach. Ishii is Mr. Reliable, probably going to seal the greatest run of anyone who fails to get into WONHOF, and he just brought it hard here. One thing that really helped this match is that the G1 has not been overwrought with fighting spirit spots, so when Ibushi popped up after that superplex I was just GLUED to the screen. So many great moments. I knew it was getting the full marks when Ishii hit the kamigoye to end a masterful little sequence. Extremely my shit and top of the pile for sure. *****

Naito-Goto tough act to follow but I think they did rather well. ***3/4

Omega-SANADA demands a rewatch, really. I was a bit burned out by this point. Listening to WOR, Dave seems to have preferred this to Ibushi-Ishii on grounds that this was less dangerous and yet just as exciting. What I remember of it felt no worse than a **** match for sure.

 

[Jiji]

I thought Naito and Goto were on different wavelengths throughout much of their match. It was not so good though I do enjoy Naito discrediting Goto as a top ranked opponent. Other than that, I'm with you.

And yeah, the main event was great itself. I feel like SANADA needs another high end move or two if he's going to transition to the top of the card. I don't like arms races but his 200 attempts at the Skull End damages the move's already limited credibility. Maybe something non head drop-based to keep that element going. 

[Beech27]

3 hours ago, Oyaji said:

And yeah, the main event was great itself. I feel like SANADA needs another high end move or two if he's going to transition to the top of the card. I don't like arms races but his 200 attempts at the Skull End damages the move's already limited credibility. Maybe something non head drop-based to keep that element going. 

There's a monster main event pop waiting if he ever lifts someone up from a Skull End struggle and hits a reverse brainbuster/emerald flowsion type thing, though that is of course extremely head drop based, and I also appreciate that he seems disinclined to go that direction. The Naito match feels like a good time to bust out something new, though, whatever that might be.

I know Dave's peculiarities are known and noted, but he's so inconsistent when it comes to matches being penalized--or at least criticized--for their percieved danger, or just shrugging and saying "what're you gonna do, that's the style." I also never felt like Ibushi/Ishii was reckless or stupid, unless pretty stiff toe kicks to a downed opponent are out now. Nobody got planted at a disgusting angle, Ibushi is good at flipping off of things, and the headbutts were clearly of the stomp-and-aim-for-minimal/no-contact variety.

(And honestly, it looked to me like Naito and Goto saw what they had to follow, what was coming, and decided--given their respective workloads--that they'd be better off going about 85%. I'm not sure I can disagree.)

(Today's is the first card I've not caught live, so I'm just gonna post about matches from a few days ago that I loved, apparently.)

[Ryan]

He's losing his mind so effortlessly.

Quote

@reasonjp
Okada: fourth win! FOURTH WIN! 
Okada: how was that everyone? 
Okada asking the crowd if he gets his certificate as proof of his awesomeness. He’s got four wins, two losses, but that’s ok, right? 
He’s got three guys left, doesn’t know who, but that’s ok, right? 
Okada promises he’ll win the G1, no worries. 
Backstage Okada says he just beat the number one idiot in NJPW. So now he’s the number one idiot! Oh wait. What idiot’s next? What flipping idiot? Suzuki? Hahaha.. ha. Anyway, I’m the main event, any idiot, it doesn’t matter. One plus one is..?
(One plus one, by the way,  is Okada effectively telling everyone to ‘say cheese’. Japanese kids get asked ‘what’s one plus one’ for a school photo so they say ‘niiiiiiiiii!’ (Two!))

 

[sevendaughters]

DAY 11 INSTATHOUGHTS

FALE-MAKABE it's all about context. if it was an indie show I'd get it, I really would, but it did nothing for me here. finish was at least ok. *

PAGE-WHITE and this is where the show started to get good. The crowd might not have been hugely into it, nor was F4W's recapper, but I was, especially for a match built around a number of spots outside of the ring or at the very edge of the ring. Page is only a couple of storyline beats from being a babyface proper, and he's learning to make the few memorable things in his arsenal count. White has shades of Guerrero in-ring, HBK with his cut-offs, and Yoshinari Ogawa in his sneakiness. It could have flowed a little better but I thought this did a good job with selling, building, and execution. Bit sad that one of the biggest pops was a referee asserting himself though. ***3/4

EVIL-SUZUKI some rumbling outside of the ring but it was fine even though beyond the pale re: cheating. In fact I really enjoyed the last few minutes in the ring, and it's hard for me to rate a match with a saka otoshi in lower than ***1/2.

TANAHASHI-YOSHIHASHI dickish babyface in white Tanahashi is a marvel and it was judicious deployment against rattled schoolboy Tacos, who did his level best to get the win. The jawing post-match was actually cool and made me want to see the longer-form match, but not enough that I'd want Tanahashi to take a fall. Yoshi actually does moves really well, doesn't he? Tanahashi made him look a threat with good selling and cleverly not trying to go 50-50. It made the ending look like Yoshi had been robbed. I enjoyed this a lot. ***3/4

OKADA-ELGIN I'm not sure anything will make me actually like Michael Elgin in the same way I like 14-15 of the guys here. Ignoring his extracurricular dodginess surrounding his conduct with female fans and public meltdowns, he is to me the very essence of a territories-era big guy, the kind of person you bring in to impress and then shuffle off before their flaws become too exposed. He's solid enough and obviously is very well put together, but I just do not enjoy his work that much and feel much more at peace with this now I realise it. All that notwithstanding I think they had a really good match bcs Okada - well constructed, without too much egregious overkill and thighslapping, and the crowd really seemed to get behind it. But still, it sort of was just a match, with no real focus other than to mimic the build of other main event matches. ****

Best night of Block A.

[Archibald]

Some thoughts about last three days:

1. Ishii has delivered 5 great matches out of 5. He is without a doubt mvp of this tournament and it is not going to matter since he'll stay at his current spot till he retires. I hope Gedo proves me wrong and at least Ishii beats Omega which results in KoPW main event. As for the matches, Goto/Ishii is my favourite so far.

2. While Ishii/Ibushi was a great match, I don't really like Ibushi no selling things. To me it feels like guys like Ishii have built their entire character around no selling at certain points and to me that works. Ibushi on the other hand is different, sometimes at some point he just flips and starts no selling things, in other matches that switch is never flipped and we don't get any of that. And I storta get the idea behind it, but every time it happens I just remember some USA indie wrestlers who flip a lot and suddenly stop selling because it is epic. Minor and maybe irrational problem with the match, but while I still loved it at the same time I wouldn't place it in my MOTYC list.

3. While Ishii is mvp I think that Sanada is the one who, at least so far, got the most out of G1. His sleeper still looks ridiculous and I don't entirely understand sleeper -> moonsault sequence, but it looks like he is getting everything else down and I hope it is only a matter of time before he alters his finishing sequence. . .

4. Interferences got so old that I don't really pay attention to Firing Squad matches any longer. And after today I might stop caring about White's matches too. At first I thought that low blow is going to be something that he uses against top people since he isn't that good yet himself, but it looks like he is going to do it against everyone. It feels a bit like WWE booking to be honest. But he is fucking great in tag matches and how he interacts with Yoh so I hope that this is a work in progress thing and not how he'd like to wrestler for rest of his career.

5. I don't get new Okada, yes old Okada had problems and probably a ceiling, but at least I got it. This on the other hand is just weird. And it is kinda same thing about Omega, he slightly changed now with becoming a champion and I'm not sure if he still hasn't figured it out or if it is something that he actually thinks is cool and works.

6. I probably have hate/love relationship with Yoshi. Okada/Yoshi and Tanahashi/Yoshi were much better than they had any right to be and at times it even looked like he could win. Heck, Tanahashi basically stole it. I don't understand what it is with him, but every now and then he works very well and I start liking him, but then I remember that he is a jobber and I'm wondering again why he is even in G1.

7. I really, really don't like "winner or semi-finalist loses a lot early" booking. When this thing was announced two favourites were Okada and Ibushi. Both ate 2 loses early. And after that they can't really lose more because with 3 loses it is very difficult to get to the finals. Due to that their remaining matches lose lots of drama (best example to me is Okada/Elgin from today vs Okada/Elgin from last year). It also means that other people can't win more matches. Omega has to lose at least once and it ain't going to be Yano so either Ishii or Zack. White needs to lose once more or Okada isn't going to make it. On paper another Okada/Evil G1 match sounds interesting and intriguing, but Okada probably isn't losing more matches... so it is going to be less exciting than their previous G1 match. Previous BotSJ was even worse in that regard with people like Dragon Lee opening with 3-0 and finishing with 0-4 in order not to eliminate block winner.

8. I'm starting to doubt if this year will have any breakout moments. At first it looked like it might be Jay, but due to fuckery happening in every single match and his rather middling performance after first two matches it kinds drowns out to me. And while Sanada got lot out of this G1 it feels more like a steady growth than something big. Last year we had explosions with Evil stopping Okada train, Juice rolling up Omega, Ibushi's return and a victory over Tanahashi and even Eglin's victory over Omega at the time felt like something big. Sure, Zack might win against Omega, but after his NJ Cup win everyone kinda expects that anyway so it probably going to be more of a shock if Omega wins than if Zack wins.