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NJPW G1 Climax 30.


The Natural

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One of the very few matches Kazuchika Okada didn't hit a Top Rope Elbow Drop or the Rainmaker. Ibushi/Okada was nowhere near the Wrestle Kingdom 14 level. Figured Ibushi would get his win back here.

Edited by The Natural
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Very very good first night of action. 

Spoiler-free thoughts:

Young Boys match was perfectly cromulent. I'm looking forward to seeing more out o these guys as the tournament goes on.

Ospreay has obviously added a LOT of muscle to his frame, but he can still fly.

Jeff Cobb has a very weird-looking body, like he's made of stuck-together parts of different action figures. He hit some very impressive-looking power moves in his match with Taichi. 

MiSu v Ishii was everything i hoped it wold be. They just beat the living shit out of each other. It was glorious. Totally agree that it was MOTN.

I am one of the very last people to jump on the Jay White hype train and I have been disappointed by his p[erformance fairly often in the past, but I really liked his match v Shingo. It suffered a little by going for "hard-hitting" in the wake of the previous harrowing battle, but they both looked pretty damned good in there anyway.

I was sure that Okada v Ibushi was going to be a "NJPW Epic Match Spectacular" and I literally made some (microwave) popcorn and settled in to watch it. To my surprise, the match felt succinct (and suitably violent) to me. Looking at the clock I'd say they went about 20 minutes but it felt shorter than that to me. The finish felt abrupt, in a good way. I was really pleased that they didn't go in for finisher overkill. Not a big fan of Okada going for the Cobra Clutch so often, but I still enjoyed this match a lot and it didn't overstay its welcome. 

Great start to the tournament.

 

 

 

 

Edited by gordi
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People are speculating that maybe this is some storyline with Okada being in a slump, but I'm not sure how you'd explain it. When he lost the title to Omega there was clear a shift in behaviour, but his matches were still solid. Now he acts same as always yet his matches are not as entertaining. And its not only cobra clutch, there is way less explosiveness in earlier parts of the match as well. I still liked the match, but I think it was entirely Ibushi and probably their weakest singles match (including DDT and Tiger Mask W ones).

Ospreay/Yuji was fine. Cobb/Taichi was surprisingly solid. Ishii/Suzuki MOTN easily, while White/Shingo was second best match on the show for me and much better than their G1 match from last year.

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Night 1 was good. Ishii-Suzuki, I have nothing more to add really. Great match you'd expect these two to deliver. Suzuki has the best evil smirk.

Okada-Ibushi was not at the level of their last two matches but it was still good. Okada feels kind of directionless during the pandemic era. I'd rather someone new win the G-1. Not sure what the big Dome main event is or what Okada does if he isn't in the main event. 

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20 hours ago, The Natural said:

Those elbow shots halfway through. Could hear the smack of them.

93 million drunk stars to the Suzuki/Ishii match. Just got done watching it.

If there is a greater joy as a pro-wrestling fan than hearing the sound of a Suzuki forearm strike landing, I haven't found it. 

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Just caught up on the first two days now. With the shows so compact, there’s time to take in the Young Lions battles. Was very psyched for Suzuki/Ishii and did not disappoint as everyone else shared. Great to see the gaijin back in the Japanese arena, and the audience felt the same way, even with Jay White. Keeping spoiler free,  highlights so far are the aforementioned forearms, Shingo not taking Jay’s shit and tossing him across the ring by his mane, the Windy Man handling Togo’s shenanigans and Taichi stepping up to Cobb.

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I didn't enjoy Night 2 as much as I enjoyed Night 1, and Misu v Ishii is still my favourite match of the tournament by a wide margin (and to be honest it will be very very tough to top)... but there was still a lot to like. 

I loved Liger on commentary, "boo-humming" (hum-booing??) and getting very into everything. 

I loved that Osaka crowd, doing the very best they could under the circumstances. 

There were some really surprising finishes as well as quite a few near-falls and false finishes that I bought into, which is something i always enjoy. 

Tana's high fly flow to the floor was a truly spectacular spot. It's pretty tough to "wow" me these days, but that totally did it.

I sincerely enjoyed the finishes to Yano v SANADA and EVIL v ZSJ. 

I have a few "Old Man Yells at Cloud" opinions about Night 2, though:

Did Juice and SANADA have a backstage bet about who could put on the stupidest ring entrance outfits? It's a pretty tough choice, there.

It was very cool that Juice got the Osaka crowd into it... and I'm hoping that some day he'll be able to get me into one of his matches, too. I like his left hand punches, but everything else he does in there seems to ripped off directly from a "Best of the SmackDown 6" comp tape. Can somebody maybe send him a "Barry Windham in the 4 Horsemen" comp or something? I'd like to see him do a few basic wrestling moves or holds. (Like I said: "Old Man Yells at Cloud")...

KENTA v Goto just went on and on, from where I was sitting. I've liked both guys a lot at various times (like, for example, Goto's amazing WK 12 match v MiSu) but I just couldn't get into what they were doing tonight. They looked a little rusty, to be honest.

I liked the "technique v power" story that EVIL and Zach told in there. I wish they had teased out the "unprotected turnbuckle" spot a little, but otherwise it was a fine match. If we are definitely going to have interference in every BC match... I guess I slightly prefer Dick Togo interfering to Gedo interfering.

I could see people who are really into "Epic" matches preferring tonight's main event to Suzuki v Ishii. I'd have to imagine that Naito v Tana is Meltzer's match of the tournament so far, for example. It's still not close, though, for me. I guess I'm really into the whole brevity thing these days.

Obviously, the main event went really long... and it's not like those guys aren't great at "Epic." The match had enough drama and excitement to pretty much fill all that time. It was nice to see Tana not looking all banged up in there, too. I just hope that Naito doesn't try to do this every night that he's working in this tournament... but I am kind of afraid that he will.

 

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