NJPW G1 CLIMAX 27, 8/13/17 (Final)
Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan
G1 Climax – Final: Tetsuya Naito vs. Kenny Omega
This was one HELL of a wrestling match. These guys tried to absolutely destroy each other’s 30+ minutes and it was fantastic. Kenny was freaking amazing here in every way and Naito had the crowd in the palm of his hands from the very beginning. The faux-Tranquillo pose into the tope to the outside onto Kenny was brilliant and it caught everyone off-guard. They went for it all here, busting out all of the big moves, and if there was ever a match to do so it would be the G1 Final. Every single thing Naito did focused on Kenny’s neck, weakening him for the Destino. He would even use Kenny’s reverse frankensteiner, off the tope rope no less, and bust out the Stardust press which he hasn’t used in quite a while. Once Kenny realized Naito wasn’t messing around he started bringing the bombs, trying to destroy Naito’s face and neck as well with the Aoi Shoudou neckbreaker and a bunch of PERFECT knee strikes and V-Triggers, weakening Naito for the Katayoku No Tenshi. Naito’s mouth ends up bloodied from all of the strikes. The pacing of the match and the timing between the big spots was great and while the finish was freaking awesome I do feel like they went a bit overkill on the Destino and there was a small slip-up before the spinning Destino that really took some steam away from the finish that they were working towards. Because of that, a bit of the drama at the end was lost for me but everything up until that point was pure fire. Watching live was freaking amazing. I jumped out of my chair several times and even YELLED and held my hands on top of my head like what the HELL is going on. These guys are two of the absolute best in the world right now and this match was a fitting end to an absolutely balls-to-the-wall G1 tournament. ****1/4
