BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 25: Day 1

[Big Red Machine]

NJPW G1 Climax 25: Day 1 (7/20/2015)- Sapporo, Japan

DAVID FINLAY, JAY WHITE, MASCARA DORADA, & TOMOAKI HONMA vs. YUJI NAGATA, JUSHIN "THUNDER" LUGER, TIGER MASK IV, & YOHEI KOMATSU- 5.75/10
Nagata sold a slap to the face more than Honma sold missing a falling headbutt.
Yeah I definitely heard the word "WWE" mentioned in close proximity to Liger's name more than once.
This was a decently fun match, and I think I'm getting to the part where I can actually tell the young boys apart.

HIROOKI GOTO & CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN vs. THE BULLET CLUB (Yujiro Takahashi & Cody Hall)- 5.25/10
Heat on Captain New Japan, hot tag to Goto and... holy crap I think CNJ might have actually been the one to get the pinfall!

CHAOS (Shinsuke Nakamura & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. THE BULLET CLUB (Karl Anderson & Tama Tonga)- 6.5/10

MICHAEL ELGIN, STOASHI KOJIMA, & RYUSUKE TAGUCHI vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Gedo, & Tomohiro Ishii)- 6.5/10
Elgin is now sporting a full beard and mustache. He looks like Mike Knox. He had a pretty good showing, aside from the part where he drpped Ishii on his own head while doing his fall-away slam/Samoan drop combo.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK A MATCH: Doc Gallows vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan- 5.5/10
A mediocre match with a good finishing sequence.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK A MATCH: Togi Makabe vs. Toru Yano- 1.5/10
I know almost no Japanese, but sometimes I like to pretend that I do. In this I like to pretend that crowd and the announcers are reciting the Japanese version of the chant that I myself will be chanting while watching this match: “F*CK HIM UP, MAKABE, FUCK HIM UP!”
Chairshot by Yano right in front of the ref. Is he, like, blowing someone in the office to get away with this sh*t? Because I can’t otherwise fathom how the hell he still gets booked.
Anyway, Yano does crap like that which should warrant a DQ but somehow doesn’t. We got one or two Yano roll-ups that had me scared sh*tless that he might actually in, then Makae crushed him with the King Kong Knee Drop.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK A MATCH: Tetsuya Naito vs. Bad Luck Fale- 7.25/10
To add to his gimmick that he doesn’t give a crap, Naito has now added a suit, a skeleton Lucha mask and a women’s head-scarf to his attire. But he’s got his gear on under that. Other than that stupid ensemble, we didn’t see anything of Naito’s new gimmick play out in this match.
What they did do, though, was tell a good story with Naito working on Fale’s knee while Fale worked on Naito’s mid-section. The finishing sequence was very good but the finishing pin it looked pretty bad.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK A MATCH: AJ Styles vs. Katsuyori Shibata- 8/10
Awesome match. It’s always great when a huge first time ever match delivers.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK A MATCH: Hiroshi Tanhashi vs. Kota Ibushi- 8.75/10
The beginning of the match felt a bit repetitive- like it was the same few spots two or three times over- but after that things got NUTS.

A great start to the 2015 G1 Climax.