YOSHI-HASHI vs. Bad Luck Fale and Minoru Suzuki vs. Hangman Page (with Page going over!) were the other matches.
1. G1 Climax – Block A: Togi Makbe vs. Jay White
JIP. This is Makabe’s FIFTEENTH STRAIGHT G1 CLIMAX. And I’ll tell you what, man – Togi Makabe might have pulled off the most crowd-invested Jay White match of the G1. This crowd was just hanging on THEIR BOY, and his no-selling of the Jay White lariats was very nice. And then chairs got involved and White won and whatever.
2. G1 Climax – Block A: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Michael Elgin
All that stuff last year with him being at best a self-important turd didn’t help, but there’s a lot of reasons that I do not give one single iota about most Michael Elgin matches. If you’re gonna be a big American boy in Japnese wrestling you should at least be a bit of a badass, not this awkward shy guy trying to be tough bullshit. He doesn’t look like some cool weightlifter, he looks like the guy that processes your gym membership. There’s nothing he pulls off that YOSHI-HASHI or some shit can’t. So Michael Elgin sucks. And given this fact, I just didn’t care about this match. They locked up. They did moves. Tanahashi was there! But I was just too distracted by not caring about any of it.
Until the last few minutes. That got pretty good! **
3. G1 Climax – Block A: Kazuchika Okada vs. EVIL
Red-hair Okada continues to be jarring to watch and I think I like that but it also makes for a lot of Just Good matches. This was another one of those. I don’t know what to tell you. The work was solid, good even, but it just didn’t hit. I liked their IWGP Heavyweight Title match, but this wasn’t really saying anything new, other than when Okada hit that running dropkick on the ramp as if he had just finally gotten his mojo back. Some tremendous Rainmaker’s at the finish too. ***1/4
