I watched the seventh and eighth nights of the thirty-first G1 Climax from a cabin, in a car, and at a Citgo gas station with a built-in McDonald’s.
“Outdated map crumpled in my pocket…”
NJPW G1 CLIMAX 31 NIGHT 7 (9/30/21)
1. Yujiro Takahashi vs. BUSHI
The old joke goes that there wasn’t much special about this Special Singles Match. BUSHI doesn’t totally make the case for junior heavyweights in the G1, though Yujiro rarely makes his own case and he’s in every year now. This is what happens when standards regress. Still though – solid finish. **1/2
2. G1 Climax – Block A: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tanga Loa
I don’t know enough about pro wrestling to tell you with any certainty that Tama Loa is a bad wrestler, but I have seen him wrestle a few matches in the last week and it hasn’t been good. Tonight he faced Ishii though, and Ishii is always up to the task. He puts Loa through a good old-fashioned beating and makes Loa look like a threat too: wobbly sell after an elbow exchange, hard bump into the post, a chinlock sell where he contemplates life itself.
The finish keeps moving too: instead of Loa stalking around, he and Ishii are using the momentum of the ropes to get big pops off both a Loa dropkick and clothesline. A good match but an Ishii masterpiece. ***1/4
3. G1 Climax – Block A: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Great-O-Khan
ZSJ has been on a run this G1 because of some very good wrestling but also because in a year that feels especially stale, he’s doing something different. In contrast, besides some shrieking and Mongolian chopping the first three nights saw Great O-Khan mostly going along with the plan. Here he plays the mat game with ZSJ and uses a diverse wrestling background and straight-up weight to get the better of him. Guys don’t usually get the better of ZSJ, so it’s something different on top of something different.
ZSJ tries to play the strike game too and isn’t very successful, and around it they stay true to just having a good straight-up G1 match. O-Khan eventually just grabs ZSJ’s face and pulls him into a cobra twist, but ZSJ is able to twist him into a something or another. If it’s not a hard fought battle for points, the New Dynamic is what the G1 is all about — this delivered. ****
4. G1 Climax – Block A: Kota Ibushi vs. Toru Yano
In the semi-main event of Korakuen Hall, Kota Ibushi got extra weird with Toru Yano — bag over head, rollup on floor mat — then hit a Kamigoye after 4 minutes. *
5. G1 Climax – Block A: Shingo Takagi vs. KENTA
Everybody’s going after poor Shingo Takagi’s arm now, and you know KENTA will take any opportunity he can to debilitate an arm for 20 minutes. The man loves it and the man lives for it. He also gets a moment of slapping the shit out of Shingo, who has admirably taken on the role of guy who closes shows but sometimes the obstacles — clap-crowd, formula matches, slow KENTA — are too much to overcome past merely ***1/2.
NJPW G1 CLIMAX 31 NIGHT 8 (10/1/21)
1. Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Ryohei Oiwa
Kanemaru works a leg, Oiwa gets a flurry, Kanemaru turns a single-leg crab hold into a figure-four leglock – these are the days of our lives.
2. G1 Climax – Block B: Jeff Cobb vs. Tama Tonga
Tama Tonga gets so fired up when he has a good exchange that I think, why not more man? Then I go back to half-watching his wrestling match. Cobb brings the suplexes and clotheslines, Tama brings a very pretty Superfly splash. He jumps too high for a Stun Gun and gets German suplexed, then falls to a Tour of the Islands. **3/4
3. G1 Climax – Block B: EVIL vs. Chase Owens
There is a Bullet Club Civil War going on within an existing Bullet Club Civil War on top of another Bullet Club Civil War that right now is more meta in nature — I think I got that right. Here in the New Japan G1 Climax, it isn’t making for the best matches. EVIL demands Chase lays down and gets slapped in the face for the lazy trope, then Chase proceeds to bring so much heat EVIL’s way that I think maybe babyface Chase is the ideal but before I can convince myself a low blow decides his fate. **3/4
4. G1 Climax – Block B: YOSHI-HASHI vs. Taichi
Babyface Taichi is cool, but heel Taichi is the real deal. YOSHI-HASHI is all pissed off and fired up with confidence too as they brawl on the floor before Taichi wraps his arm around the post and goes to work. They go 20+ and have a kind of half-epic, milking near falls out of a stretch plum, half-nelson suplex, Axe Bomber, backdrop suplex, and eventually one off a Canadian Destroyer from YOSHI that causes him to slam the mat and wonder just what he has to do in this modern wrestling hellscape to win. Turns out the answer is absorb a kick, hit an Axe Bomber, and hit Karma. So good. ****
5. G1 Climax – Block B: Kazuchika Okada vs. Hirooki Goto
The two pals kept it all respectful-like early on before a well-placed dropkick to Goto’s neck signaled it was on. Goto took a beating here to the point where Okada was looking over him with pity, but he was able to break even with a discus clothesline and the wheel kick to bulldog combo that felt a little reckless but only out of love. They had a good if not unremarkable match until Goto’s G1 remained in tatters with an Okada rollup. ***1/4
6. G1 Climax – Block B: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. SANADA
Here are two men who know how to do a lockup, a headlock, and a Paradise Lock. They stuck to the mat for a good while here, and Tana can keep a mat game interesting. They battle for supremacy if not the win, with Tanahashi eventually going at SANADA’s leg and SANADA… strumming the guitar and going for a hurricanrana, among other things. He actually avoided getting put in the Texas Cloverleaf, then did that rana and got caught in one anyways.
SANADA is always willing to play along right up to his opponent’s level, and Tanahashi is still pretty high-level. They had a nice match here, counters and near falls aplenty towards the end and Tanahashi one of the chosen few that can make the Skull End a threat. ***3/4
Happy Thoughts: Zack Sabre Jr./Great O-Khan and YOSHI-HASHI/Taichi were a pair of gems on this pretty low-level pair of G1 shows. 2.5 / 5.0
