#g1finals

[djvillain]

NJPW G1 Climax 31 Finals Review: Triumph and Tragedy

[lostinyourears]

G1 Climax Final Night Recap

Woah! What a final night, with a main event that’s MOTY contender all day long. This was a final night to what has been a great tournament. Is it the greatest tournament ever? I think that might be a little hyperbolic and obviously only time will tell with those sorts of claims, but goddamn was the main event hot from bell to bell! So without anymore rambling let's get to the card! 

Suzukigun (Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi, El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku) vs KUSHIDA, Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask IV & Hirai Kawato, It was a fun little match to kick off the show and seeing Tiger Mask and Liger beat up Taichi will never not be fun. Pretty skippable though as nothing of great importance was had here. The Young Lion as always took the fall here. 

Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa) vs Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, more of the same as stated above. I don’t know much or anything about Nakanishi, but commentary sold him well. Made me want to learn more, the best part of this match was after the finish when GOD gave respect to Nagata who had a great showing this year at the G1 Climax. 

CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Togi Makabe & David Finlay, If you’ve read my G1 Climax posts. You are probably well aware that I’m not exactly sold on Goto or Hashi. So overall this match was pretty bland for me. I’d recommend skipping it wholesale, nothing too shocking took place. 

Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Juice Robinson vs Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens), Juice is really the standout talent here, which should be no surprise to anyone who watched his G1 performances. It doesn’t hurt that he is teaming with one of the best tag teams to ever grace NJPW. They looked dominate here, which also isn’t surprising since they are fighting Bullet Club’s C team members.   

The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) (c)  vs. Taguchi Japan (Ryusuke Taguchi & Ricochet) for the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championship, The Young Bucks rarely disappoint so it’s not surprising they put on a great match with two other great Jr. Division workers. Ricochet looks pretty flawless here like always and the drama in this match was on 10 throughout. Thanks to great selling and great targeting at Ricochet’s damaged leg throughout the match. 

War Machine (Hanson & Raymond Rowe) (c) vs Bullet Club (Cody & Hangman Page), this match was great, but might have been better if the challenging team seemed more like a team that would stay together. While I love Rhodes and Page, Rhodes just seems above being a tag team champion atm since he is ROH champion. Still, the match had plenty of great spots and Warmachine are quickly becoming a favorite of mind as they continue to deliver great tag team battles. 

Suzukigun (Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr. & Takashi Iizuka) vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi & Michael Elgin, pretty standard 6 man tag match. Many Suzuki Gun detractors will probably decry all the usual Suzuki Gun shenanigans, but I think it was worth all of it to set up the two title matches they did. NJPW for sure planning ZSJ vs Tanahashi for the IWGP IC belt and also penning in Elgin vs Suzuki for the Never OPENweight championship. Those should both be fantastic, but this match wasn’t. I’d recommend it for story reasons, but the match wasn’t must-see by any margin. 

Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA, EVIL, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi) vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano & Gedo), pretty fun 8 man tag team. Ishii really got to shine going wild on the entirety of LIJ. Still, just like the previous match this was mostly to set up Okada/Evil in the near future with everyone else being more of an afterthought. Still, when guys like Okada, Ishii, Evil and Takahashi throwdown it’s worth watching and with that I’d recommend this more than most of the throwaway tags on this card. 

Tetsuya Naito defeated Kenny Omega, MOTY and I don’t even think it’s that close. There isn’t much to say as it’s like describing color to a blind man. You just have to see it for yourself, it’s beyond great into the stratosphere of great wrestling classics, despite it being almost 6 in the morning, I’m contemplating watching it again, because it’s that damn good! Blew the rest of the matches this month out of the water and is a must watch for any wrestling fan worth their weight in salt in 2017. 

A great G1 and I had lots of fun covering it, if this blog and my twitter are still a thing a year from now, I will gladly cover G128 with even more enthusiasm as I did G127. Hope you guys liked the coverage and hope you keep tuned for the rest of the crazy year 2017 is going to be for wrestling! My coverage of NJPW will sadly probably end at the end of this month. It’s still my 100$ goal on patreon, but until that is met I cannot really swing the 10 dollars a month for a NJPW World subscription since I’m currently looking to do this full time and don’t really have another revenue stream.

Highlights: 

I didn’t catch every big moment cause most of these were done live. Just go watch Naito/Omega as it’s that good you should see the whole thing not just the highlights I got. The rest of the card is hit or miss, but the Main Event is MUST WATCH imo, and probably most people's opinions who saw it. 

[lostinyourears]

THE G1 HYPE TRAIN #5 :  G1 Climax 2007 Finals

Card with Guide

I didn’t really mean to look at 2 Yuji Nagata finals back to back, but looking at a final from 10 years ago seemed like a good choice and Nagata just happened to be in it. I can’t really complain though as I enjoy watching his work and this G1 is obviously an important moment in the career on Hiroshi Tanahashi. So I felt like I should cover this one even if it might feel redundant doing 2 Nagata G1 highlights back to back.

The 2007 G1 Climax Finals!

Tournament format : 

This years G1 had 2 blocks of 6 with the two top point earners of each block going vs the top 2 point earners of the other block in Semi-Finals and Finals after that on the same night. Earlier in this night before these finals Yuji Nagata went over Shinsuke Nakamura while Hiroshi Tanahashi went over Togi Makabe in his semi finals match earlier this same night. 

Yuji Nagata vs Hiroshi Tanahashi (Link for those with NJPW World)

Who’s who?

Yuji Nagata has the nickname Blue Justice which of course in reference to his blue trunks and boots. He was also IWGP Heavyweight Champion here, having the belt for the 2nd time. 

He briefly was in WCW from February 1997 to August of 1998.

Despite his short stint he garnered a North American following after feuding with other Japanese talent Ultimo Dragon and teaming with Kensuke Sasaki to win a WCW tag team tournament that garnered them the #1 contendership though they would fail to win vs the champions.

If you read the last G1 Hype Train you’ll be aware that Nagata won the 2001 G1 Climax over Keiji Mutoh, that would help propel Nagata bove his previous position on the card. Which lead to the great 2002 reign, NJPW giving Nagata bout of the year in 2001(G1 Final) and 2002(Title defense vs Chono). 

Going into this 2007 G1 Climax Nagata had a decent amount of momentum having won the New Japan Cup in March of 2007. Which gave Yuji Nagata a title shot vs the recently first time crowned champion Hiroshi Tanahashi. Which Nagata won and was still holding the IWGP Heavyweight Title during this G1 Climax. 

Hiroshi Tanahashi was a rising star. He was the guy NJPW was pushing as the young new breed of NJPW after the strange years of 2005-2006 when Brock Lesnar left NJPW with the title and refused to return it instead working for Inoki in his new Inoki Genome Project promotion. So with a vacant belt someone new needed to be crowned and that man was Hiroshi Tanahashi who was having a good reign before New Japan Cup winner Nagata dethroned him to capture the belt for the 2nd time. 

At this point in Takahashi’s career he hadn’t won many belts outside of this IWGP Heavyweight championship. He had won the New Japan Cup in 2005 though and was twice IWGP Tag Team Champion with both Shinsuke Nakamura and Yutaka Yoshie in the early 2000′s.

How’s the match?

Fantastic! It’s a pretty great length for any match which is about 20 minutes. Long enough to get invest and see all their great spots, but no so long as to feel like a chore to get through like some matches can feel when they balloon up to 40-60 minute lengths. It also makes sense these two wouldn’t go that long since both men fought earlier in the night. 

This mirrors Nagata/Tanahashi’s G1 bout this year. The old standard bearer vs the new standard bearer, but a decade earlier. It’s very interesting to me that Tanahashi is in a similar spot now to the position Nagata was here. Perhaps even past it at this point Nagata was on his last IWGP run while Tanahashi may never get that belt again now that his epic storyline with Okada has finished and Okada seems to be the office new Ace of NJPW. 

These two guys mesh really well and this is the most competitive bout I’ve seen between the two yet. After this and their G1 match, I think I’ll find myself watching the title matches they had vs one another. I assume those will have a similar quality and want to see these guys clash again and again and again. 

I particularly love the use of the Dragon Screw by Tanahashi throughout this match. It’s an underused move and I think Tanahashi might be the master of it or one of the masters of it as he and Dr. Wagner Jr. both do great variations of it, though I don’t know if Wagner has ever done the neck variation that Tanahashi whips out from time to time... pun not intended. 

I’m not sure how I’d rate this compared to the other G1 Finals I have looked at. One thing I did like is that it was more varied in its offense. Where some of them like Hashimoto/Tenryu or the Inoki years tend to be one note sometimes where they are all strikes or all submissions. This one struck a good balance between the two styles. 

[lostinyourears]

Inoki eats a lariat from Masa Saito and collapses off the apron