Cero Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 28 - 7.30

[cero2k]

NJPW G1 Climax 28, day 11
July 30th, 2018
Takamatsu, Japan

Toa Henare & Shota Umino vs Juice Robinson & David Finlay - 4.5/10
Even though the C-Block was never a thing and now their one on one match has been cancelled, Kevin Kelly keeps talking about it. Stop talking about irrelevant things! Anyway, last night, due to Omega winning, Juice and Tama Tonga are officially eliminated.

Match was all Juice doing his cutesy offense on Henare and Shota out-showing everyone in the match. Maybe it should be Shota in the G1 instead of Juice. Finlay pinned Shota with the stunner.

Guerrillas of Destiny vs Tomohiro Ishii & SHO - 5/10
GoD worked over SHO for most of the match. Ishii came in and did little before going back to SHO. Outside the ring Ishii and Tonga brawled while Loa took out SHO with Apeshit.

SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs Toru Yano & Gedo - 6/10
First half of the match was SANADA and Naito working on Gedo's beard. Then Naito and Yano got to do their thing and it was quite entertaining, good working combining Yano's shenanigans and Naito's style. There was a cool spot with SANADA locking the Nudo, but Yano undoes it behind SANADA's eyes and Gedo possumed SANADA into a near fall. Gedo submitted to the Skull End. Yano vs Naito should be interesting.

Naito and SANADA haven't fist bumped since before the G1.

Zack Sabre Jr & TAKA Michinoku vs Kenny Omega & Chase Owens - 5.5/10
Zack and TAKA worked over Chase. Kenny and Sabre got a really small chance to do their thing since TAKA and Chase kept coming in, but it was still a good teaser for their match. We got some good tag team moves. Chase won with the Jewel Heist on TAKA. After the match, Sabre locked in a out of nowhere guillotine, just to get in Omega's head.

Kota Ibushi & Yujiro Takahashi vs Hirooki Goto & YOH - 5/10
Good tag team match, but this got me more excited for YOH vs Ibushi. Yujiro hit Pimp Juice on YOH after a dropkick from Ibushi for the assist. Yujiro looked good here too.

G1 Climax 28 Block A Match
Bad Luck Fale (4) w/Tanga Loa vs Togi Makabe (4) - 6.5/10
Not that it matters since he lost a lot of matches via DQ, but Fale hasn't been pinned this tournament. As usual, match saw Makabe had to fight off both Fale and Loa, but once inside the ring, Makabe fired up and came back with strikes and big lad moves. Somewhat slow, but a good hoss fight, up until Makabe had a near fall that Loa broke up pulling the ref. Fale and Loa tried to double team him, but Makabe fought back and while trying to hit the King Kong Knee Drop, Fale got him, hit him with the chain and got the lackluster pin. Fale remains unpinned, unsubmitted. Fans booed heavily. Even without the cheating, it wasn't that good of a match.

G1 Climax 28 Block A Match
Hangman Page (2) vs Jay White (6) - 8.5/10
Match started kinda hot, quickly going outside so White could ram Page into the guardrails and start working on his back. Back inside the ring, White kept the offense on the back as the match slowed down a bit. Page had some small comebacks, but White kept cutting him until Page finally managed to land the Springboard Lariat to even out things. Page hit his mooustault to the floor, he went for another, but this time White pushed him off into the apron and then the floor, huge bump. White landed a chair shot for a near fall. Jay goes for another chair shot, but the ref takes the chair away, and in the distraction, Page goes for the Angle vs Eddie finish for a near fall.

At the end, White is going for Bladerunner, but Page spits on White's face, so pissed off White goes for a chair that gets superkicked in his face, and now the ref is trying to stop Page from using the chair. Distraction is enough for White to dodge a Rite of Passage, low blow, Bladerunner, and the win. Good match, but not better than the Cow Palace match.

G1 Climax 28 Block A Match
EVIL (8) vs Minoru Suzuki (6) w/El Desperado - 8.5/10
This started off as fight, they immediately brawled to the crowd, we got the usual Suzuki throwing things all over the place, chair shots by both men, and eventually, Red Shoes started counting and both men returned. Inside the ring, EVIL made a comeback and balanced things out until he pissed off Suzuki, and Minoru started beating on EVIL again, working all the time on the arm of EVIL. Suzuki tried to Pillmanize EVIL's arm, but the ref distracted him enough for EVIL to get out and hit the chair baseball swing.

Back in the ring, they got into a strike off and they finally started chasing their finishers with tons of reversals. Suzuki was the first to hit it and one GSP later, Suzuki takes the points. Really liked this match, inside the ring, these guys had a great battle.

G1 Climax 28 Block A Match
Hiroshi Tanahashi (8) vs YOSHI-HASHI (2) - 9/10
This was great match, I liked it a lot more than Okada vs YOSHI. It started similar with Tanahashi underestimating YH, Tanahashi was working over YH and acting confident, but YH kept getting some shots in here and there. YH made a full comeback and they started going back and forward, YH started chasing Karma and hitting a bunch of good moves, bringing down Tanahashi and coming close to finishing him off, but Tana wouldn't give up, and when he could, he would got for moves on his own, a Slingblade for near fall, a High Fly Flow that YH dodged. Finish saw YH go for the Butterfly Lock, but Tanahashi rolled it out into a bridging pin for the out of nowhere win. Good different finish and another great match for both men this tournametn. YH is officially eliminated.

Post-match - It kinda seemed like YH was arguing with Tanahashi that he had him beat and that he had his shoulder up from the mat during the pin

G1 Climax 28 Block A Match
Kazuchika Okada (6) w/Gedo vs Michael Elgin (4) - 9/10
Back and forward match between power and wrestling mastery. They initially went for the quick finish, but Elgin dodged the Rainmaker and hit a powerbomb. They fought outside the ring where Okada dropped Elgin with a Draping DDT. Inside the ring, Okada kept bringing it to Elgin, but Elgin was mostly able to always get out or overpower Okada as counters.

Elgin started hitting Okada with everything he had in the striking department, chops, kicks, lariats, everything, all meanwhile Okada is trying to land the Rainmaker. Elgin started pushing towards his Bombs, dropping Okada with a Splash Mountain for a 2.99 kick out. Crowd is going crazy at this point for Elgin. They reverse each other into some Tombstone positions, Okada being the one that lands it, Okada his his terrible Rotation Rainmaker, and the normal Rainmaker for the win. Great match to close the show.

Post-match - Super cocky and heelish promo saying that he showed the greatness of Okada, he couldn't remember who his next opponents are, and said that NJPW isn't interesting unless he wins, so he was going to win the G1.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Great show by Block A. One of the strongest block shows for this half of the tournament.

A BLOCK STANDINGS
Jay White - 8
Hiroshi Tanahashi - 10
Hangman Page - 2
Togi Makabe - 4
Michael Elgin - 4
Kazuchika Okada - 8
Minoru Suzuki - 8
EVIL - 8
YOSHI-HASHI - 2
Bad Luck Fale - 6

B BLOCK STANDINGS
Kenny Omega 10
Kota Ibushi 6
Hirooki Goto 4
Tama Tonga 2
Tomohiro Ishii 4
Tetsuya Naito 8
Zack Sabre Jr. 6
SANADA 6
Juice Robinson 2
Toru Yano 2