Cero Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 28 - 7.16

[cero2k]

NJPW G1 Climax 28, Day 3
July 16, 2018
Hokkaido, Japan

Toa Henare & Shota Umino vs Guerrillas of Destiny - 4/10
GoD worked over Umino for a while until Henare came in and both worked over Loa. Tanga Loa won the match pinning Umino. Nothing match.

Zack Sabre Jr & TAKA Michinoku vs Toru Yano & Jado - 5/10
Most of the match was Jado vs TAKA until eventually Yano and Sabre came in. Yano went for his shtick, ref tried to cut him off, but he still end up doing it, but after that, Yano and Sabre started chain wrestling! While all four men where in the ring and among everyone, Sabre locked in Jado on a submission and Yano used the chance to quickly roll up TAKA for the win. Too much time spent on the old timers.

Kota Ibushi & Yujiro Takahashi vs Juice Robinson & David Finlay - 5/10
Kota and Yujiro started strong working over Finlay, then Juice came in to clean house, but once Kota vs Juice started, Kota just beat the shit out of Juice. Finish saw Juice pin Yujiro after a Lung Blower and the Pulp Friction.

SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs Tomohiro Ishii & SHO - 7/10
Fuck yeah, SHO vs SANADA! LIJ worked over SHO for a while early on, Ishii came in with the hot tag and got it on with Naito. They kept SANADA and Ishii away from each other since they're not fighting for a while. At the end all four men where in the ring, Naito and SANADA got rid of Ishii leaving SANADA alone to tap out SHO with the Skull End, but not before SHO got a good near fall out of SANADA. After the match, Naito tried to brawl with Ishii, but Ishii just toss him over the rails.

Hirooki Goto & YOH vs Kenny Omega & Chase Owens - 6.5/10
Kenny and Owens tried to play mind games and jump Goto, but Goto and YOH quickly turned it around. Bullet Club worked over YOH for a while, a lot of mocking and cocky mannerisms. Goto came in with the hot tag, YOH got rid of Omega with a dive to the outside, leaving Owens to be killed by Goto's Ushigoroshi & GTR combo.

G1 Climax Block A Match
Hangman Page (2) vs Michael Elgin (2) - 8/10
Page worked over Elgin's neck, while Elgin just beat the shit out of Page via lariats and slams. Page got a good showing landing some big shots, but Elgin's dominance was felt as he had the bigger spots and bigger counters in my opinion. Elgin won with the usual Elgin Bomb as he countered Page's Rite of Passage. Good match.

G1 Climax Block A Match
EVIL (0) vs YOSHI-HASHI (0) - 8.5/10
Well, YOSHI-HASHI is definitely on a crusade to win my heart back, he's turning a leaf with his wrestling style, more brawler than boring-ass, not let's just work on the look and that terrible Butterfly Lock and we'll back you up into a title win.

Match was in a way similar to the previous one, fast action, tons of striking and tosses, and as the match progressed, the action got better. There was a spot where YOSHI kinda went for a powerbomb or something, but they overdid it and both stumbled down into the floor. After that spot, both men started to chase their finishers, EVIL got out of the Butterfly Lock, reversed Karma for an STO attempt, a Dragon Suplex and STO later, EVIL pinned YOSHI for the win.

G1 Climax Block A Match
Togi Makabe (2) vs Minoru Suzuki (0) w/El Desperado - 7/10
This was an all out brawl. Match saw Makabe outstrike and overpower Suzuki, so Suzuki took the match to the outside where they brawled for a while with chairs. Suzuki had the upper hand outside as he hit several chair shots on Makabe. Once back in the ring, Makabe was damaged enough that they were more even, but Makabe made a comeback leading to him hitting a King Kong Knee on a standing Suzuki, and a follow up one to pin him. The chaos during this match was a nice pace breaker from all the other matches that tend to stick to the ring and wrestling.

G1 Climax Block A Match
Kazuchika Okada (0) vs Bad Luck Fale (0) w/ Tanga Loa- 7.5/10
Story here is that we still have a crazy Okada and between Fale's size and strength, and the outside interference of Tanga Loa, Okada had his plate full. Since Early on, Fale went for the chair and Loa made his presence felt. Okada was thrown into the crowd, slammed around the ring, toss around into chairs, all of it. Inside the ring, Okada made a comeback, but for some reason he is fixed with bodyslamming Fale, which he couldn't. They started going for their finishers towards the end, Okada finally realized that he couldn't pick up Fale and instead of the Tombstone went for the Rainmaker, but Tanga Loa once again got in there, and as Okada was able to take him out, out of nowhere Tama Tonga came out, hit a Gun Stun, and left Okada as easy picks for Fale to hit the Bad Luck Fall for the win. Okada is now 0-2. Good match, but meh finish.

This is the third match of the Firing Squad during the G1 and you can see the trend now, it feels really similar to the OLD school Bullet Club type of interference. As long as they keep translating into wins or good injuries it will make sense, but given that this is a G1 one, expect people to hate all the interference.

G1 Climax Block A Match
Hiroshi Tanahashi (2) vs "Switchblade" Jay White (2) - 9/10
Jay White continued his mean streak, but unlike with Okada, there wasn't any "we're stablemates" part here, White went straight for Tana's injured leg. That leg got stretched, slammed, rammed, pulled, locked, and all other verbs that you can relate to hurting it, to the point that mid match, Tanahashi couldn't even stand on his own.

It took him a while, but Tana finally started to make a comeback as he caught White's leg and hit his signature Dragon Screw. As Tanahashi started hitting more Screws and got momentum, White started chasing the Bladerunner to cut off Tanahashi before it got serious for White.

Towards the end of the match, White started ramming Tanahashi to the guard rails as he's been doing since now and brought him in for the near fall. White hit the Rolling Suplexes (which I think he should name the Three Enemigos btw) and a Kiwi Krusher for another near fall. White got distracted going for a chair, giving time for Tanahashi to recover and hit a Slingblade and get a chair for himself, but morals prevailed and it cost him a low blow, but he got payback on that one at least as he low blows White during a ref bump. We got some more chair shots, ref bumps, Slingblades, too many to count, but at the end, it was a Bladerunner that sealed the deal and gave White the win.

This was a good match, but awfully overbooked towards the end, not that I wanted a DQ, but way too many chair spots and ref bumps one after the other. One ref bump would had been enough.

Post-match - White cut his winner promo telling the fans to see what has become of their Rainmaker, and now what has become of their 'Ace'. Ok stuff, but the strong words were said last time, but hey, two huge wins to start off the tournament.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
A good show for Block A, but we can really see that while Block A is good, Block B will be the great one. Block A does have a lot more storylines going around it feels, which should keep things interesting.

A BLOCK STANDINGS
Jay White - 4
Hiroshi Tanahashi - 2
Hangman Page - 2
Togi Makabe - 4
Micahel Elgin - 4
Kazuchika Okada - 0
Minoru Suzuki - 0
EVIL - 2
YOSHI-HASHI - 0
Bad Luck Fale - 2

B BLOCK STANDINGS
Kenny Omega 2
Kota Ibushi 2
Hirooki Goto 2
Tama Tonga 2
Tomohiro Ishii 2
Tetsuya Naito 0
Zack Sabre Jr. 0
SANADA 0
Juice Robinson 0
Toru Yano 0