Hirooki Goto & Jado vs. Toa Henare & Ren Narita
Harmless opener to slowly ease Jado back into the ring after his injury. The crowd was glad to see him back and all of his goofy Flair tribute spots got a good reaction. He also seemed particularly happy to finally get to do the infamous ZANMAI POSE with Goto. Very understandable. Narita took an incredible bump on Goto’s Ushigoroshi that made it look like the hurtiest move ever. That kid gets it. **1/4
Tomohiro Ishii & SHO vs. Toru Yano & YOH
CHAOS COLLIDEZ! I liked how no one was holding back despite this being an intra-faction showdown. Ishii really beat the absolute dog shit out of YOH and SHO didn’t hesitate for one second to dropkick his own partner in the face. Yano and Ishii also had a shockingly competent WRESTLING exchange where Yano put aside his antics for a minute. This gives me hope for their upcoming match. Fun stuff. **1/2
Juice Robinson & David Finlay vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa
David Finlay has new gear that makes him look like an extra in a bad Aerosmith video and weirdly enough, it’s a step up from his previous look. Thank God, Juice is there for us with his mesmerizing American Carebear Pirate entrance gear. This was a bunch of acceptable tag wrestling: GOD working over Finlay, Juice getting the hot tag and popping the crowd with his punches. Randy Orton definitely approved of Tama countering Finlay’s 2nd-rope uppercut with the Gun Stun in mid-air. **1/2
Kota Ibushi & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr & TAKA Michinoku
I’m all about the Ibushi/Zack dynamic because it’s one of the only times in wrestling where Ibushi has a clear power advantage. Speed and fancy flips are great, but straight-up overpowering a dude in a test of strength is where the real money is. Also, Ibushi and Yujiro having a bunch of double-team spots now despite being such a complete mismatch is just adorable. Zack using a Michinoku Driver II finish is inspired on so many levels. **3/4
Kenny Omega & Chase Owens vs. Tetsuya Naito & SANADA
Short and sweet, but a lot of stuff to like while it lasted. Kenny and Naito are really good at playing up the tension between each other. That little staredown they had went a long way in making the upcoming match seem like a big deal. The ‘’How do you even apply a Paradise Lock’’ comedy never gets old for me, so I was all fine and well with Chase repeating that spot here. **1/2
Togi Makabe vs. YOSHI-HASHI – G1 Climax (Block A)
Not gonna lie, this didn’t seem like much on paper but both guys delivered a really solid match. Very back-to-basics Choshu heavyweight wrestling for most part: beefy forearm exchanges, stiff lariats and manly displays of fighting spirit. Despite Makabe being the senior wrestler here, it was YOSHI who controlled most of the action and he convincingly came off as a guy that could pull off the victory against his more experienced opponent. In other words, they worked the match to make YOSHI look strong in defeat and it was resounding success on that front. The build-up to Makabe’s Spider German suplex was great stuff and I loved him ramming YOSHI’s head into the post repeatedly before finally hitting the move near the end. ***1/4
Hangman Page vs. Bad Luck Fale – G1 Climax (Block A)
This was on its way to being a pretty good hoss-fight with bonus indie flips until the screwy run-in finish. I imagine Gedo wanted to clearly get over the fact that Fale was siding with the Tongans in the whole Bullet Club schism story, but I think pretty much everyone had already figured it out. Everything before that was was quite allright. Fale manhandling Page early on and Hangman fighting back with his mix of power offense and Sweet Indie Flips was good stuff. They designed the match to get Hangman over and it worked like a charm: huge pops for all of his offense, especially the Orihara Moonsault and Adam’s Apple. A better finish would’ve helped. **3/4
Michael Elgin vs. EVIL – G1 Climax (Block A)
My main complaint about Elgin’s wrestling is that he relies too much on big finisher-level movez and it tends to drag his matches into overkill territory. Him and EVIL took a completely different approach here and I ended up enjoying this quite a bit. Elgin found himself on the defense, selling his ass off for a full heel EVIL who went after the arm like a shark for all of the match. Big Mike’s selling was on point and his struggle made all of the big spots later in the match so much more meaningful. I thought EVIL working heel was a smart move too. He’s a guy that can more than hold his own when it comes to power fighting, but clearly he anticipated that going blow for blow with Elgin wouldn’t work to his advantage. The crowd ate up all of the huge near-falls with two spoons and the match ended exactly at the right time, Elgin just drilling EVIL with that Crucifix Powerbomb followed by the Elgin Bomb. Dug this one a lot, my dudes. ***1/2
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki – G1 Climax (Block A)
Not on the level of their amazing Sapporo match from earlier this year, but Tana/Suzuki is still one of the most compelling pairings in New Japan so this was evidently quite good. They actually played off their previous encounter quite a bit with Suzuki trying to re-injure Tana’s bum knee right off the bat and this installed the usual dynamic of Minoru bringing the high-level torture and Tana supplying the world class selling. Tanahashi hobbling his way around the ring like a damn cripple, Suzuki endlessly nuking him with brutal forearms and slap onslaughts – these are some quality wrestling tropes that will never get old.
The last five minutes of this thing were pure gold: Tana finally figuring out a way to break through Suzuki’s strike barrage and completely wrecking him out of nowhere with THE MOST BRUTAL REVERSE DRAGON SCREW! Holy shit, that thing looked nasty as all hell and Suzuki sold it like instant death, which was the perfect set-up for Tana going right for the High Fly Flows. I wonder if my enjoyment of this match was slightly affected by the obviously superior, life-altering Okada/Suzuki rain death match that I watched a few days ago? Either way, this was still a blast. ***3/4
Kazuchika Okada vs. Jay White – G1 Climax (Block A)
Jay White really turned a corner with the Juice Robinson match in San Francisco, and although this wasn’t nearly as good, it was another step in the right direction. They kind of lost me during the mid-portion of the match with Jay doing a lot of aimless shit that got zero heat from the crowd, but I thought the opening act was brilliant and the ending stretch was an effective way to get Jay over as a heel.
I was definitely hooked by the whole story of Jay wrestling in an increasingly dickish way as the match progressed and Okada sold it to the crowd perfectly by getting gradually more pissed off and eventually RAMMING Jay in the corner to forearm the shit out of him. White excels at the character-driven stuff and he did a lot of really clever little things in this match like choking Okada with the ring cover only to put it back in place afterwards while staring at Red Shoes, or slapping Okada in the head before applying the Muta lock.
At this point, the main thing he needs to work on is tweaking his move-set in order to keep the crowd engaged. Right now, his only two moves that get any kind of serious heat from the crowd are the Bladerunner and that super rad Flatliner/German suplex combo. Almost everything else falls flat, which is why I suspect he relies so much on floor/apron spots and head-drops. The screwy finish won’t be for everyone, but I thought the two big chair spots (Okada dropkicking the chair, then Jay throwing it right in his face) looked great. They’ll definitely have a better match down the road, but this was very promising. ***3/4
