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

[Sublime]

I can see the finals going so many ways. I'm really excited going into the tournament. 

Originally I thought Block A was weak and predictable but now with how things have played out I could see Okada, Tana, White or Fale making the finals and wouldn't find it too shocking if Suzuki or EVIL did either. 

Block B is probably between Ibushi and Naito but that's the block where the match quality is gonna be higher. I'm really interested in how the Omega/Tama match goes now after the Firing Squad angle. It's also interesting that the block has all the singles champs in it.

I think my prediction is Okada over Naito in the finals, Naito sneaking into the finals via Ibushi and Kenny going to a draw the final night of the block. But Naito still wins the belt at KoPW and we get Okada/Naito at WK again but with roles reversed. If not that I'm hoping for Fale/Ibushi final with Ibushi going over setting up Kenny/Kota at WK.

[OSJ]

First, I am totally psyched for this event as I have a feeling that it will wind up being the showcase for Naito and Knife Pervert that they've earned. 

Secondly, for being one of the most talented wrestlers in the world Kenny Omega has some horribly bad habits that prevent me from enjoying his matches as much as I'd like to. He is so damn self-conscious that he completely destroys the illusion of an athletic competition and brings it down to the realm of an exhibition. The looking at the monitor, the grotesque face pulling at entirely the wrong times, and the inconsistent selling (which at times is as goofy as Kobashi's was), all serve to remind one that they are watching a worked fight. 

I don't hold the comedy stuff against him, hell, it's NJPW, that's what they do from time to time. What I do object to is his inability or unwillingness to rein in his goofy stuff in main event event matches, He's not some kid who doesn't know better, he's a veteran who is usually in the discussion for best in the world; with that sort of pedigree, there's no excuse for it.

[Beech27]

It took him a bit to balance the goofy antics with serious, explosive violence, but I think Kenny ultimately defined "The Cleaner" really well, as both bratty and petulant, in order to facilitate the kind of athletic pyrotechnics he needed in order to really prove himself. It was all, fundamentally, from a point of insecurity.

Even as "The Best Bout Machine", he could evolve this template against Okada, against whom he was an underdog. Obviously, this worked really well. But it doesn't, really, against anyone else--save maybe Ibushi, who prompted his whole identity crisis and compared to whom he's always felt lesser, and Naito, who beat him in last year's G1 finals and is yet more popular.

It'll be interesting to see how he works with that since his character is now basically "I'm the best, I know it, and I'm generally happy about life, having my friends and bf (best or boy, you decide) by my side again". He's a nice weirdo and easy to root for, so bumping around and firing up should work ok, but that doesn't fit the typical New Japan ace template or the notion that he's superior to everyone. It may also be that he's reached the Stephen King point, wherein no one dares edit him, and he's so popular as to be insulated from meaningful criticism.

All of that said... he's still one of my favorite people to watch, and he's proud and experimental enough that I think he'll keep trying things, and land on a lot that works.

[OSJ]

I think you just nailed the problem (and as a pro writer, it's one that's close to my heart), Kenny has for better or worse reached the Stephen King level of being so popular that no one is going to tell him when to tone it down.  Let's look at the writing analogy a bit more... I've been a pro since 1995, before that I had ten years of publishing and editing behind me. I'm good, and I know it; when I'm on my game I can hang with the best in the business, when I'm off, I'm at least professionally competent. That said, I wouldn't think of submitting a story that hasn't passed muster from a couple of colleagues whose opinions I trust and even with that, I'm always grateful for any editorial suggestions that make a good story better (yeah, there are also boneheads out there, but I know when criticism is justified and when someone's pulling their dick).  This is called respect for your craft and being willing to grow and improve. I really hope that I'm  a better writer at 65 then I was at 55. The stuff that Kenny does that annoys me are easy fixes, it's just a matter of whether or not he cares enough to make those fixes.

[Archibald]

1 hour ago, Oyaji said:

They've all but sold out the final show anyway, so really how big of a risk is it? The more established guys near the top the better, within reason of course.

I think fear might be that if they don't deliver a big match then fans might be reluctant to buy next year. And I remember same things being said about finals last year too, don't need a big match since it is sold out already, but we got Naito/Omega. I kinda wonder if ticket sales would be going as well if last year we got something smaller.

And well you build a pattern and then you can do a surprise here or there (like Omega/Goto finals) without really hurting the bottom line.

As for Omega, this year is going to be interesting to me because we will be able to compare him to Naito and Ibushi since they'll be facing same opponents. Last year he was with Okada in same block and I think that Okada had better match with every opponent, only arguable case being Omega/Juice mainly due to surprise finish. I expect Omega to fare much better this year.

And yeah, I think he probably has lots of creative control and he is not going to change his matches unless he is facing someone like Okada/Naito/Tanahashi who likely have some veto power.

[Tromatagon]

I want Suzuki to win so much that I don't want to imagine other scenarios.

 

[Ryan]

I don't think it's the Japanese fans that hate on YOSHI-HASHI, so much as it's Western fans.

[Ryan]

Oops. Pretend this post is a video of OSJ dancing a jig.

[Jiji]

The crowd reaction, or lack thereof, to his G1 announcement would suggest otherwise. When Naito calls you a jabroni and asks why you're in the tournament only to lose all but a couple of your matches, how the hell is anybody supposed to get excited for him? The world wants Taichi and his tiny trunks.

[Ryan]

I think you're showing some bias. Anti-giant hair, pro-tiny trunks bias!

[Tromatagon]

I thought Oyaji would love Yoshi-Hashi for making Knife Pervert only the second shittiest member of Chaos

[Jiji]

Where did Hirooki Goto disappear to? And as much as I adore Gedo's booking and old school in-ring shtick, he ended Milano Collection AT's career, damn it. So Jay White is clearly MIDDLE OF THE PACK in Chaos. Plus, he's just using them and biding his time, as a knife pervert is apt to do. 

[Tromatagon]

Goto has a win over Minoru Suzuki so that he could get an even more dope haircut.  If Jay White got one over MInoru I'd stop watching.

[Ryan]

I hope the Sword Deviant wins out his whole block and wins the G1 just to spite all of us.

[Beech27]

42 minutes ago, Tromatagon said:

Goto has a win over Minoru Suzuki so that he could get an even more dope haircut.  

That is the most hilariously Goto thing about that match: He gets a Wrestle Kingdom win over one of the company’s biggest stars... and circumstances are such that that guy—not Goto—gets the bigger pop out of it. And it was the second year in a row you could say that happened. There’s “you can’t win for losing”, but Goto can’t win for winning.

[Archibald]

10 hours ago, Ryan said:

I don't think it's the Japanese fans that hate on YOSHI-HASHI, so much as it's Western fans.

NJPW's youtube video comments are dominated by Japanese people. I think it is reasonable to expect that since they comment the most then they are the ones giving most likes/dislikes as well. Besides, Taichi has mentioned multiple times in his post match interviews that NJPW fucked up and people now are pissed.

Sure, all this is circumstantial "evidence" at best. For all we know Taichi is lying because he is a heel and most of those dislikes/apathy is coming from western fans or Japanese fans who don't attend big shows either way. But at the same time we don't have any "evidence" that anyone actually likes Yoshi so I'm more eager to believe Taichi in this case.

[OSJ]

10 hours ago, Ryan said:

Oops. Pretend this post is a video of OSJ dancing a jig.

You want to crash the fucking board or what?

[Ryan]

Yes.

[Beech27]

Well, I watched the presser.

-Absolute respect to Hangman Page and his bolo tie; Lynching Enthusiast doesn't really work for me, and he looks much better as the nice young man who walks Grandma to her car after church, and she winks and says something about "Oh, if I were a few decades younger", and he treats it as a nice compliment and laughs, saying "I don't think I could keep up with you now!", and doesn't make it weird.

-I also enjoyed EVIL and SANADA as Industrial Band Roadie Number 4 (now with red hair tips, honoring Hiromu) and Aspiring Yacht Owner, respectively. I guess it's more important that they mentioned one another by name, but only called Naito "the other guy", etc. Are we headed for LIJ ~Civil War~ too? Did they need Hiromu around to keep everyone friendly? Naito did say Hiromu's Super Junior's win inspired him, and reiterated that the field is too big, that there are too many guys who you know aren't winning.

-On the subject of faction dissolution, all the Bullet Club guys made faces at all the Firing Squad guys, who basically ignored them, except for Tama, who said Kenny should thank him. Kenny, for his part, still doesn't quite look like a natural suit wearing champ; he also took a promo photo of he and Ibushi equally holding the IWGP title... foreshadowing? Ibushi is tagging with Yujiro, which is hilarious, and Kenny gets Chase Owens, with whom he's always been good. Chase switches to Ibushi, however, and teams with Marty Scurll against The Elite the night before the block finals.

-ZSJ said the G1 is coming home, which probably does not bode well, considering. (Or it does, because home would be Japan? Right?)

-Okada has red hair now. Jay White left before hearing everyone speak, because he's mean. SHO and YOH are mostly apart and sometimes opponents on this tour; I think YOH has the right kind of weirdo charisma to make a fun heel (and he's tagging with Jay, so), and SHO is obviously the powerhouse babyface, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

-Rey Mysterio is gonna wrestle on the final night. Against someone. Henare and Finlay are also getting a 20 minute singles match to determine the C Block Champion. Taichi and Chase Owens deserved a shot too.

-Probably a hundred other things, but I don't speak Japanese and so have to rely on people pointing things out on twitter while watching. I'm reminded how useful the Lion Marks blog was last year, though maybe a subtitled version will be released.

[Archibald]

NJPW released translated promo videos and I found Page's pretty good. It is about stepping out of the shadow of The Elite guys and I think it makes sense. But funny thing, hist last match is with Yoshi. I wonder if they both won't go 0-8 till last day?

[Jenalysis]

Jay White made a case for being top 10 in the world tonight.  This was better than the Juice match, Okada's better than Juice, but Jay combines the just outright detestability of the Miz with the ability to be vicious and athletic that Miz could never be.   For someone who is 25, he still doesn't know entirely what he shouldn't be doing, but he already seems to know all the little things he should be doing.   

 

Tanahashi/Minoru felt like a rushed ending - I'm wondering if they're starting a changing of the guard in NJPW across all the factions, with ZSJ eventually turning on Minoru?  I so want to see ZSJ/Minoru try to break each other.

 

 

[Beech27]

Since I wouldn’t shut up about it, I can hardly call White over Okada an upset. (And yeah, Jay looks a star.) But Page over Fale? Didn’t see that at all, even given the circumstances. Don saying Kota is hot enough to make up for a lack of women on Yujiro’s part makes me glad to have checked in on the English commentary.

[OSJ]

3 hours ago, alstein said:

Jay White made a case for being top 10 in the world tonight.  This was better than the Juice match, Okada's better than Juice, but Jay combines the just outright detestability of the Miz with the ability to be vicious and athletic that Miz could never be.   For someone who is 25, he still doesn't know entirely what he shouldn't be doing, but he already seems to know all the little things he should be doing.   

 

Tanahashi/Minoru felt like a rushed ending - I'm wondering if they're starting a changing of the guard in NJPW across all the factions, with ZSJ eventually turning on Minoru?  I so want to see ZSJ/Minoru try to break each other.

 

 

A few days ago I said something about Knife Pervert's potential to grow into something really special. Forget that shit, I was wrong. The kid has arrived, and arrived big-time! Yeah, there's still some improvements to be made, but as in the case of Kenny, they are very easy fixes and I think Jay is dedicated enough to his craft and still willing to learn that he'll make the fixes, whereas Kenny has no real reason to. 

It's funny, but of the five wrestlers that I'm most enthused about these days, only one hails from the US and none are on WWE's main roster, and only one is past thirty years of age. In case anyone cares, in no special order:

Tetsuya Naito

Pete Dunne

Mustafa Ali

Switchblade Jay White

Buddy Murphy

Let it not be said that I don't love the work of Okada, Sabre jr., Suzuki and some others, but they've established what they're going to do (and they do it well), but these five guys (even Naito) are capable of surprising me.

[EVA]

I couldn't disagree more with the Jay hype coming out of that match.  Okada gave him the match, and I thought it was a fairly meandering affair until all the shenanigans at the end.  He's gotten very good at being a dick heel,  but he still doesn't have much of an idea of how to fill up the middle of a match without Juice leading him by the broken hand.

MOTN was weirdly EVIL/Elgin, as EVIL was somehow able to rein Big Mike in and tell a solid story around arm work that built up to Mike's stuff for the finish, as opposed to your standard Elgin bombfest.

Suzuki/Tana seemed like a reheated version of their IC title match back in February. I still love Minoru, but he's slipping into this kinda lackluster formula where he takes the whole match and then eats as little offense as possible before losing.  Although his sell of the inverted dragon screw at least made the abrupt finish a little more viable than, say, the brainbuster that led to the finish against Naito.

Fale/Hangman was really well booked.  Page got a lot of shine, and even the win, without making Fale look bad.  I was kinda bummed about the DQ finish at first, but it makes sense that, when things started to go bad for Fale and Tanga, Tama would elect to just nix the whole thing and go for the beat down rather than suffer the embarrassment of Fale dropping a clean fall to the lowest guy in the Elite.  I really do think Page could be a great southern babyface.

Makabe/Yoshi-Hashi was...fine.  Not the dumpster fire it could have been.  I did think it was interesting that commentary was putting over how Hashi might be holding himself back because of his unwillingness to push the line.  Foreshadowing Hashi joining Switchblade's side in the coming CHAOS war?  Freshening him up as a heel is probably the one thing they have left to try to salvage him.

[S.K.o.S.]

Oh, you thought you got G1 burnout just from watching NJ World?