G1 Climax day 2 results for G1 Climax 25 LIVE!

 

 

After the disappointment of most of Day 1’s card I’m cautiously optimistic about Day 2 of New Japan’s annual wrestling extravaganza. With bouts today from “Violent Cuddle Buddy” Tomohiro Ishii, and  “Greatest Man Alive” Shinsuke Nakamura we should be in for some decent action. Sadly NJPW Champion Kazuchika Okada is bogged down by having to work with “The Non-Threatening Cartoon Bulldog” Michael Elgin, who as you’ll all recall from Day 1 is firmly in Chibi’s Anti-Boy camp. The reasons to hate Michael Elgin are myriad and plentiful, there isn’t time here to list them all but I’ll give you a few:

 

1. His stupid fucking face
2. His boring demeanour
3. His poor twitter game
4. His awful personal brand

 

The main reason however to hate Michael Elgin is, like Mike Bennett, he’s one of those twats who thinks fans shouldn’t use insider terms and still thinks of them as marks. As a wrestling journalist, which I am, they can’t take it away from me now, it just bugs me that in 2015 someone would still have that attitude. Also if anyone is a mark it’s this prick, he was in Japan about 4 days before he had to go and get a Ribera Steakhouse jacket, which didn’t fit. Cunt.

 

Anyway enough of the negatives and on to the positives, without further ado I present to you my completely biased coverage of Day 2 of the G1 Climax Tournament!

 

G1 CLIMAX Day 2 Results for G1 Climax 25

Thursday, July 23, 2015 at Twin Messe Shizuoka

 

Jushin Liger & Tiger Mask vs. Jay White & Yohei Komatsu

Tiger Mask pins Jay White after a Tiger Driver.

 

Togi Makabe & Kota Ibushi & Captain New Japan vs. Bad Luck Fale & Doc Gallows & Cody Hall

Makabe wins with the King Kong Knee Drop on Hall.

 

Toru Yano & Yoshi-Hashi vs. A.J. Styles & Tama Tonga

Yano wins with a schoolboy on Tama Tonga.

 

Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tetsuya Naito & Mascara Dorada vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan , Katsuyori Shibata & Ryusuke Taguchi

The “Emerald Sex-Pest” Ryusuke Taguchi pinned Mascara Dorada after a sliding dropkick.

 

• B Block: Satoshi Kojima vs. Tomohiro Ishii

A decent little match. Started off with a brutal and lengthy strike exchange that immediately got the crowd going. Koji got the better of the strikes and starts working on Ishii. Human Panda Ishii then cut off Kojima with a slam as he was running the ropes. A neat spot then with Ishii chopping Kojima on the floor as he would repeatedly refuse to stay laying down. At this point I started to wonder if Chris Hero got the idea of never doing rest holds from watching Ishii matches? A load of strikes back and forth for a while until they went out of the ring and I could see fuck all because of today’s camera set-up. Back inside an ace crusher from Koji is answered with an Ishii backdrop. Ishii with a sort of delayed suplex but Koji pops up with a lariat. Ishii with a delayed suplex from the ropes gets a nearfall. The finish came when Ishii followed up a Sliding D to a downed Koji with a brainbuster. I love Tomohiro Ishii.

Rating: 3 Segments of heart container

 

• B Block: Yujiro Takahashi vs. Hirooki Goto

A lot of people don’t like Yujiro because he’s a bit shite at wrestling, which is a shame because I fucking love the sleazy wee bastard. Yujiro out with Cody Hall so we can expect some Bullet Club monkey business. FYI 12 Monkeys is the greatest film of all time. Fight goes outside the ring immediately and Yujiro in control when it got back inside. He then learned that taunting Goto was a poor idea but countered Goto’s strikes with a good old Hand bite. Goto back in charge and hits a wheel kick into the corner, a bulldog and then a back suplex. Yujiro hit a nice fisherman buster. There was another wee strike exchange and the match ends when Goto hit a discus lariat, the neckbreaker to the knee and his Shoten Kai.

Rating: 6th match on a 9 match card

 

• B Block: Tomoaki Honma vs. Yuji Nagata

Could this be a win for Honma? Probably not, not up against a veteran like Yuji “Yer Da” Nagata. Nagata looks like he owns a sweet shop on your estate. A kind old fella but one day he found a troublesome local youth trying to break in so he broke his arm. Crowd firmly behind Honma here, because he’s great. Yuji in charge early. Mostly back and forth after that, Honma not missing as many headbutts as you’d expect. Yer Da gets out of an attempted sunset flip powerbomb and throws Honma into the corner with a t-bone suplex. Honma hit a great flying headbutt coming off the ropes and then another to Yuji’s back as he was standing up. Shockingly the then missed the Kokeshi off the top. Yuji launched Honma across the ring with a backdrop and then hit another for the win. Honma’s quest for a victory continues into 2015.

Rating: 3 quarters of a lb of cola cubes

 

• B Block: Kazuchika Okada vs. Michael Elgin

Elgin was pretty good in this match, the gobshite. He showcased his power moves and had the heat for most of the bout. Another good thing about Elgin is that his outfit reminds me of the Natural Disasters (R.I.P. John Tenta). Elgin hit his really long delayed suplex where he lets the lad part way down before lifting him up again, but ruined it by begging the fans to cheer, they didn’t. He hit a great version of the Cesaro suplex from the middle rope to a guy on the outside. The finishing stretch was both guys countering the martinet a few times until Okada hit it and then the Rainmaker clothesline. Good match, I still hate Elgin.

Rating: A moderate personal brand

 

 

 

 

 

• B Block: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Karl Anderson

I’m honestly not sure the ring can contain the levels of charisma on display here. Shinsuke a favourite to win the whole thing and definitely my personal choice. The crowd are painfully quiet here. Let’s never run this building again. Anderson kept throwing Nakamura to the outside to start with, not really attempting for the count out though. He put Shinsuke in the tree of woe and hit three neckbreakers across his knee in a cool looking spot. Crowd mildly booed his impression of Nakamura so he went back on offense for a bit. The presentation of this show is really taking things down a notch. Nakamura got back into it with an enziguri and started hitting his signature spots in the corner. A huge powerbomb by Anderson almost sort of had the crowd buying the nearfall. Anderson rammed Shinsuke’s head into the post and one woman in the crowd popped hard, the rest didn’t care really. Nakamura countered a Gun Stun from the top with a Bomaye knee to the back but missed the follow up. Crowd livened up a bit when Karl hit a low Gun Stun. Shinsuke countered a Gun Stun into a botched backcracker but the follow up Bomaye couldn’t keep Anderson down. After a wee back and forth Anderson hit the Gun Stun for the upset.

Rating: 3 people in the crowd were ok

 

 

 

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