Day 85 of the G1 tournament is here. Fans around the world are salivating in anticipation of finally seeing Tiger Mask & Ryusuke “Peeping through your windows” Taguchi vs. David “Normal Haircut” Finlay & Jay “Mohawk” White on tonight’s card. I actually shouldn’t be so negative, the last show was fantastic compared to how it looked on paper. On top of that some of these tag matches are being used as a way to hype up the following night’s G1 matches. The issue however is the undercard just feels like Groundhog Day. I’m sure I’ve seen every single combination of these men by now. Next year has to switch back to the old formula or I won’t be reporting on it, actually I won’t be reporting on it anyway because I should be in Colombia by then. My life is more interesting than yours, despite me having to watch New Japan undercard matches.
So on to tonight’s card. The main event of “The Greatest Man Alive” Shinsuke Nakamura vs Hirooki Goto should be better than 90% of all the matches in the tournament so far, but that all depends on how Shinsuke’s elbow is holding up. It was really evident on the weekend that he had come back too early, as is the dumb as fuck mentality in this company. Hopefully after a day’s rest he’ll be feeling marginally better. Beneath that match Okada vs Anderson should be a lot of fun, dependent on how much Bullet Club bullshit there is. There are few stables in history as over-rated as the Bullet Club. They’re a one trick pony that was played out a long time ago. We get it, beta males love your t-shirts. Stop fucking up decent matches.
G1 CLIMAX 25 DAY 10 RESULTS
- Taguchi vs. Finlay
Sex Offenders Register Taguchi wins with an ankle lock - Shibata & Komatsu vs. Yano & Yoshi-Hashi
Yoshi-Hashi with the Swanton on Komatsu for the victory - Naito & Kushida vs. Ibushi & Dorada
Kushida forced Dorada to tap with the Hoverboard lock - Makabe & Tanahashi & Tenzan & Captain New Japan vs. Styles & Gallows & Fale & Tonga
Tamma Tonga pinned Captain New Japan with his DDT
-
B Block: Elgin vs. Takahashi
My ANTI-BOY vs Alan4l’s ANTI-BOY. Michael “The woman from League Of Gentlemen” Elgin so far has proved himself to be much better than I have given, or will ever give, him credit for. Yujiro exists to cause arguments on the internet, we won’t be having that here. I don’t think he’s as shite as some people say, and I don’t think he’s as charismatic as some people insist. Elgin did a nice cannonball onto Cody Hall on the outside at one point. That’s all I enjoyed until the finish which saw Elgin decapitate Yujiro with a lariat, hit the buckle bomb and then a sit out powerbomb for the W.
Rating: Tubbs
-
B Block: Honma vs. Kojima
Kojima flexed his pecs early to pop the crowd. Some stuff happened and then he hit today’s worst diving elbow drop. Honma missed a lot of head-butts, no really. Crowd have picked up a bit during this match, they haven’t been awful, just a bit spotty. Honma hit a sunset flip powerbomb for a two count and then looked a bit a like a fish from Super Mario World in disbelief. Honma tried his leaping kokeshi but Kojima hit him with a lariat, it looked shit. Kojima then turned him inside out with another lariat and picked up the victory. Honma was absolutely fucking distraught post-match.
Rating: Super Mario Land
-
B Block: Nagata vs. Ishii
If you ever got beat up as a kid and Yuji Nagata was your dad you just know he would have taken you around to the other lad’s house and then forced you to fight him again on his doorstep. A lot of strikes and no-selling to start until Ishii crumbles your dad with a body blow. Nagata gets back to his feet and Lil Cutie Pie Ishii asks Nagata to kick him in the belly as hard as he can. As you can imagine this match was filled with a million hard strikes and kicks. Nagata hit a lovely T-bone suplex off the ropes for a nearfall. Ishii missed on an enziguri, it’s fucking weird seeing him be able to jump that high. Nice back and forth action until Nagata locks in an arm bar for pure ages. Some more strikes, kicks and no selling in the stretch to the finish culminating in a massive slap exchange. Ishii got a close 2 count with the sliding D, Ishii then hit the brainbuster to win.
Rating: So many strikes
-
B Block: Okada vs. Anderson
Anderson reversed Okada’s “I’m not going to break clean against the ropes, oh wait no, yes I am. Here’s a patronising chest tap” spot early. The crowd popped. This was a solid, if unspectacular match. Quite slow paced but it had the crowd into it and certain spots. The best spot was Okada blocking the gun stun into the tombstone at the end, one rainmaker later and it was all over. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch this again but it was ok.
Rating: A cool martinete
-
B Block: Nakamura vs. Goto
Nakamura wearing an odd pair of pleather tracksuit pants tonight. 4 minutes into the match my internet died. It was probably a decent match. I’ll give it a watch tonight. Gotta go to a Spanish lesson now.
Rating: Elefante!
(Mike: Honestly, Sean, you’d never see me skip covering a main-event …)
Comments 1