G-1 Climax 25 Discussion

[shoe]

Michael Elgin vs YOSHI-HASHI

 

Elgin opens up with some power moves. You can see his confidence growing in each match. Elgin is in control early. Yoshi-Hashi makes a comeback. Elgin's power moves are pretty awesome. The Sumo Hall crowd is treating Elgin like a Doc or Norton. Elgin on this tour has established himself. He seemed to really evolve as wrestler. I'm glad he proved me wrong. 3 1/4*

 

CHAOS (Kazushi Sakuraba, Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) vs. BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi)

 

 

I thought this was terrible. 1/2

 

Hirooki Goto, Katsuyori Shibata & Kota Ibushi def. Tetsuya Naito, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma

 

I enjoyed this a lot. Naito has gotten a ton of mileage during the G1. 3 1/4*

 

Tenyru/Okada angle

 

 

reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) vs The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson

 

The hot potato belts are here. Early shine by reDragon. Dug the Young Bucks mocking pose by RD. Bucks get the heat going. Fish going at it alone since Hall ran to the back with Kyle. Kyle is back to get a hot tag. Loved Fish's diving headbutt to cause Kyle to get the arm bar. This was pretty good. Everyone worked hard. I just hated the Hall taking O'Reilly to the back spot to set up the heat. 3 1/2*

 

KUSHIDA vs Ricochet

 

I'm a fan of both guys. I like Kushida catching him with a drop kick for being overly flashy. Kushida going after the arm is all good with me. Holy crap, Ricochet almost cripples himself. Kushida was an inch from cracking his skull on his flip dive. Loving Kushida going back to the arm. Kushida can get an arm bar out of nowhere. The Nomo forearm was perfectly timed. I'm loving the prevailing story of Kushida going after the arm throughout. I'm digging this. I like how Kushida is telling a story, yet letting Ricochet still look like a million bucks throughout.Give credit to Ricochet for switching to his good arm to raise Kushida's hand in victory. 4*

 

AJ Styles, Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson vs Matt Taven & Michael Bennett & Kazuchika Okada

 

 

Gallows throwing hands. Taven is FIP. The BC do a good job working him over. That was a funny comedy spot with Anderson/AJ and Maria dancing. Plus it wasn't over kill. The Kingdom work over Anderson. Okada's roll through into Red Ink was tight. Bennett throws a terrible punch. As an all action sprint with some fun character added this was a blast.It had a hybird feel to it. Styles and Okada crossing up the finishers was really well done. 3 1/2*

 

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Shinsuke Nakamura

 

This match up was my MOTY last year. Chono is out, crowd goes nuts for Muto. Doing stuff like that makes me love NJPW. Bringing out the vets and giving them respect makes the finals mean 8 billion times more important. I like Tanahashi going after the arm right off the bat. Slow build here. Tanahashi on the leg to a call back. The call backs are great. The table setting to the build is awesome. They might have taken a little too much time in the build. The match suffers by the length, plus at times it feels bloated. Still a really strong match. 4 1/4*

 

 

That was hilarious how Tanahashi's flag pole broke during his celebration. It must have been the moment the world found out about Dylan winning the VOW G1 poll.

[shoe]

So I ended up with 16 four * matches or better during the G1. My top 5 .

 

1. Styles vs Tanahashi 4 3/4* Night 17

2.Shibata vs Ibushi 4 3/4* Night 7

3. Tanahashi vs Shibata 4 1/2* Night 13

4. Styles vs Ibushi 4 1/4* Night 5

5. Tanahashi vs Nakamura 4 1/4* Finals

[El-P]

Didn't watch the whole deal, because I don't have the time, but I watched the final show.
The undercard was the usual mix of good and not so good. Although and even though I don't follow New Japan closely, the product still seemed stale as hell to me. It's like nothing much has happened since the last time I checked. Same kind of undercard, same kind of title matches (with the exception of the junior title and the Naito heel turn). The Bullet Club is a decent heel faction, but at this point, nothing seems fresh anymore, even for someone who doesn't really watch the product.

That Delirious promo had the thing I hate when american are in Japan. You're being translated anyway, speak well, don't use that piss poor English-for-dummies, mixed with "ichiban" because it's the only word you know like Hulk did. Either speak good English or poor Japanese, not *poor English* !!

Anyway.

 

David Finlay, Mascara Dorada & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, Sho Tanaka & Yohei Komatsu

 

Yeah, good opener. A guy being named David Finlay is kinda confusing to me. I even liked Taguchi here. The young lions really look good.

 

TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) & Captain New Japan vs. Jay White, Manabu Nakanishi & Yuji Nagata

 

These matches are like the workrate version of the old veterans comedy matches in All Japan in the 90's. Except nothing here is as funny as Haruka Eigen spit spot. Really, this wasn't very good nor entertaining.

 

Michael Elgin vs YOSHI-HASHI

 

First time I see Elgin. Good match with classic power guy vs speed guy dynamic. Well worked, good impressive spots. Interesting.

 

CHAOS (Kazushi Sakuraba, Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) vs. BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi)

 

The highlight was Yujiro's stripper dressed as a panther. Decent match, but nothing special at all. Can anyone explain to me Yano's gimmick ??? He's a movie producer who fins everything funny ? WTF ? I have seen him a number of times, and I still don't get it. He is funny though. Tama Tonga looks like a great athlete. I guess he's make up is all tribal and shit, but every time I see him he makes me think of a guy from a Polynesian black metal band.

 

Hirooki Goto, Katsuyori Shibata & Kota Ibushi vs Tetsuya Naito, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma

 

Now this is when things picked up. This was really good and I enjoyed Naito's heel act quite a bit. Homna seemed a bit in the back though, and the going ofr the headbutt early is kinda goofy at this point.

 

What happened with Tenryu ? Does he want his retirement match against Okada ? He looked old. But what a boss voice though.

 

reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) vs The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson)

 

Again ? Anyway, this was atrocious. The Bucks have cooled off the crotch chops and suck it chants, thankfully, but their act still is unbearable. Everything has to be cute and silly with them. They could be really good because they have the athetic ability and the comedic feel, but when EVERYTHING is wink wink and idiotic, it's just not funny at all. And as far as doing a trillion spots that you kick out of, well, if that's what ROH brought to wrestling, then really, fuck this indy mentality. Burn though five big spots in one sequence and it's sold like an armdrag. reDRagons are good, but they need to slow the fuck down.

 

KUSHIDA vs Ricochet

 

Wait, I just realized that KUSHIDA's gimmick is basically to be... Marty McFly ???? These Japanese people...

Wait, is this the guy under Prince Puma's mask ? WTF ? You don't put a guy who looks that good and sexy under a fucking panther mask ! I didn't get the criticism of the mask before, although Puma never quite translated as a babyface to me either, but damn, I understand now. This guy is so much better without the mask. Excellent to great match BTW. I enjoyed that trememdously. Thank god the Kenny Omega experiment has ended.

 

AJ Styles, Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson vs Matt Taven & Michael Bennett & Kazuchika Okada

 

Really good and hot match too, and I'm not just refering to Maria, who's stunning. Gotta love those Japanese cameraman too, they just don't give a shit, they know what they're supposed to get on cam. The one comedy spot with Maria was awesome. And since it was only one spit and they let the guys work, it was the best Kingdom match in New Japan that I've seen. AJ Styles finisher is the best protected spot in the world, that's nice.

 

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Shinsuke Nakamura

 

Oh man. MOTYC. Easily. Did they go *that long* ? It sure didn't felt that way. These two guys are amazing workers.

 

So yeah. Smoked SummerSlam, of course (but what didn't ?), and the best stuff was better than on the NXT Takeover. That said, there was some stuff that badly dragged in the low undercard. And that damn Young Bucks match, which was awful as always. Still, with the two big trios matches, the junior match and the G1 Final, one hell of a show at the end of the day.