Hirooki Goto vs. Toru Yano – G1 Climax (Block B)
We’ve been blessed with some spectacular Toru Yano matches in this G1 Climax. This was not one of them. The opening handshake bit was admittedly hilarious but what followed was 5 minutes of an average Yano match with Hirooki Goto doing a few Hirooki Goto things. Damn you Toru Yano, why did you have to raise the bar so high? **1/4
Tetsuya Naito vs. Tama Tonga – G1 Climax (Block B)
WHAT A RUN FOR TAMA TONGA! Going after the troops, laying down the law on Roman Reigns and starting a war with the country of Ireland over flaming doritos – dude’s been on fire. Outside of Twitter, he’s been wrestling in the G1 Climax and it hasn’t been great! Thankfully, the power of the Internet seems to have re-energized him (or Gedo’s match-layouts) because this was the most fun Tama Tonga/OG Bullet Club clusterfuck match of the G1 so far.
It definitely helped that a motivated Naito wrestled this thing in super babyface mode and had the whole crowd in the palm of his hand, but I honestly liked some of Tama’s input as well. His disgusted reaction at Naito’s rolling Tranquilo pose was legit great (‘’You son of a bitch!’’), as was him countering Naito’s slingshot dropkick with his own legsweep. Like with EVIL/Fale, I felt like the whole gang warfare bit at the end actually helped the match and really put the babyface triumph over the edge. RAW is SHIN NIHON, baby. ***
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr – G1 Climax (Block B)
These are two guys on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. A brickhouse midget working a hard-hitting style and a tall submission master with protein-deficiency. Therefore I was fully expecting something close to the Ibushi/ZSJ match with Ishii mostly relying on his strikes, but they totally SWERVED ME by working the first dueling limb work ZSJ match of the tournament.
Watching native guys come up with a gameplan to counter Zack’s unstoppable submission onslaught is half of the fun of ZSJ x NJPW matches, and I did not expect the Stone Pitbull to GO FOR THE LEG, Hiroshi Tanahashi-style. And it was awesome! I also did not expect Ishii to be this good at keeping up with Zack’s next level counters and come up with a bunch of creative shit of his own. Was that a freaking pop-up chest headbutt? Jesus.
A bit of nitpicking now, because this is a pro-wrestling review web-site after all and we are terrible nerds. This match made me realize that I’m somewhat ambivalent about Zack’s selling when he’s facing strikers. He is smart enough to put over the body-type difference and instantly go down for most strikes, but his facial expressions are so weirdly-blank that I rarely buy into him being actually hurt. I don’t know if he’s going for subtlety, but it’s not fully registering with me. If I’m not fully buying you’re getting hurt by Tomohiro Ishii chops, something’s wrong.
On the bright side, he was mostly on offense for this match and Ishii sold his wide array of arm-slicing submissions like a real pro. The Triangle choke struggle finish was brilliantly done and Zack synching in that brutal armbar for the INSTA-TAPOUT was a perfect visual. A mostly-great match. PS – Shoutout to Zack for busting out the Minoru Special II. The spirit of Heat LIVES ON! ***3/4
Kenny Omega vs. Juice Robinson – G1 Climax (Block B)
Kenny and Juice were definitely bitter enemies in high school. Kenneth was the socially-awkward Japanophile/anime nerd and Juice managed to win over the popular crowd by being a goofball with dreadlocks that was probably really good at hacky sack, which is something that Baby Omega resented terribly. And as far as ideological showdowns opposing a Yu-Gi-Oh enthusiast against a Korn apologist go, this was a much better match than their 2017 US title bout. Half the length, less overkill, better story. This was all about Juice showing his growth as a wrestler since their last encounter and now having (almost) figured out Kenny Omega.
I liked Kenny being on defense for most of this, selling and bumping like a pinball – Juice cutting off all of his trademark spots and coming off as a big deal. Kenny’s been going back and forth between face and tweener recently – he was clearly in full babyface mode after the Golden Lovers reunion, but has been a little cockier since beating Okada. So his early reluctance to go after the injured hand before eventually giving in and using it as an equalizer against the better-than-expected Juice was some mighty fine story-telling that did a good job getting over his weird heel/face duality.
Also, Juice countering Kenny’s Terminator con hilo attempt with a slingshot spear and just screaming ‘’FUCK YEAH!’’ was tremendous wrestling. The ending stretch was a little bit Kenny by the numbers and I was hoping these guys would come up with something better. Basically lots of V-Triggers and nothing really new. Still, fun was had and a solid story was told. ***1/2
SANADA vs. Kota Ibushi – G1 Climax (Block B)
There are wrestling matches that make you gasp and marvel at the inhuman feats of athleticism unfolding before your very eyes. There are other matches that make you question your sexuality and force you to re-consider all of your life decisions. This was one of these rare matches that accomplished both. A Handsome Battle for the ages where Ibushi, SANADA and their perfectly-sculpted bodies pulled out all the stops for YOU, the gentle reader.
They worked a full-on NJPW main event match with all the tropes and 50% more flips: a chain wrestling opening with an actually exciting Indie Standoff finale, ode-to-Keiji Muto knee work from SANADA complete with questionable selling from Ibu-tan, ramp spots and a late-match forearm strike exchange where both guys had to pull out the last remains of their fighting spirit to prove their worth as true Strong Style Warriors.
As I just mentioned, the selling was a little off in places and SANADA using knee dropkicks to turn the match around would’ve been better if Ibushi had been acknowledging the bad knee at all – BUT, the high-level of execution, molten crowd heat and general feeling of crazy excitement helped make up for most of the wrasslin’ logic gaps.
Fired up SANADA is always something special to witness and Ibushi was definitely able to bring some proper fire out of him. The guy went above and beyond with the Muto fandom in this one, even breaking out the Late-Period/Old Muto rope-draped neck screw. And the crowd went wild for him, the world’s nerdiest wrestling hunk. ****
