[2018-07-15-NJPW-G1 Climax 28] Hirooki Goto vs SANADA

[MoeTWrestling]

I know I'm overrating this match, but I loved this with all the counters and reversals with a great closing and some great near falls. Love these 13 minute type sprint matches that make the G1 great. ****

[soup23]

Very good match for two guys I am pretty blah on. I thought the sequences and counters they got to for this type of hard hitting style match were very logical and they didn't overextend themselves into no selling or blowing through their entire arsenal. THis was just what I want from a third match from the top in a g1 show. ***1/2

[ShittyLittleBoots]

Very uninteresting match layout - just a bunch of counters, and back & forth control swifts. It can work, but I didn't find this one compelling at all. One cool sequence towards the end w/ SANADA locking in the Skull End for a brief moment, but other than that, yeah, not interesting whatsoever. *1/4

[asteroidcitizen]

This was fine, kinda meandering back-and-forth stuff for the most part but I did think they got some good drama going down the stretch with some nice reversals that didn't look too contrived. Nothing I'll remember by the end of the first week, though.

[G. Badger]

Although I like both Goto & Sanada (at least when he was in AJPW), I agree with soup23. This was what it needed to be where it needed to be on the show. 

[Boss Rock]

The first half of this was sort of just whatever but man did they absolutely kill it in the finishing stretch. Though counters on top of counters is pretty typical for a NJPW finishing stretch, this stuff felt even more urgent than usual with Goto doing everything in his power to escape the Skull End and SANADA desperately trying to avoid the GTR. That urgency and desperation is what made an average a good match.

[nivvad]

Goto and SANADA are two guys who I did not expect to have great chemistry with each other. Very good wrestlers on their own, but they went out there and tried to steal the show considering the hype of the semi-main and main events. Fast pace with a lot of cool counters and sequences. Still as hard hitting as it could get. Would love to see these guys go at it again in a bigger match situation, ****1/4.

[WingedEagle]

This is your prototypical mid-card G1 match.  Solid work that built to a hot finishing stretch without rising to the level that you'll remember anything about it when the tourney is done.  The one mark against it is that the execution and technique had more holes than you'll usually see from this crew.  That finishing run more than made up for it, but these issues really stood out along the way because of how rare they are in New Japan.

***1/2

[Wahoos Leg]

For the most part, this was what I figured Elgin and EVIL would be: a somewhat meandering match between two guys who are just there to fill out the blocks. They spun their wheels for a while, it seems, but man, that finishing stretch was really good.