BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 28: Day 18 (OMEGA VS. IBUSHI!)

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 28: Day 18 (OMEGA VS. IBUSHI!)

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 11th, '18, 22:09

NJPW G1 Climax 28: Day 18 (8/11/2018)- Tokyo, Japan


DAVID FINLAY JR. & MICHAEL ELGIN vs. SHOTA UMINO & TOA HENARE- 4.5/10

BULLET CLUB (Adam Page & Chase Owens) vs. BULLET CLUB FIRING SQUAD (Tanga Loa & Bad Luck Fale)- 3/10
The heels beat Chase up after the match until Page made the save with a chair.

CHAOS (Jay White & Roppongi 3K) vs. BULLET CLUB (Marty Scurll & the Young Bucks)- 4/10
Marty has now become such a joke that he does a Gory Special that purposely looks lame so he can flap his arms while doing it, because all he’s about nowadays is flapping his arm and the finger-breaking spot.
The usual stuff happened, culminating in White not saving Roppongi 3K when he could have, walking out and letting them lose. I didn’t like this. While he still had G1 matches to wrestle it made sense that he as saving his energy and saving himself from injury. Not only is that no longer true here, but he’s in there with the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Champions. Shouldn’t he want to earn a title match? Hell, you could even build a story around him winning the belts with Roppongi 3K and bugging Rocky Romero about it to set up a quick feud with Rocky which White could win to hold him over until you’ve got something bigger for White to do.
Doing the finish they did here just feels like they’re giving me the save thing I’ve seen a million times over the past month because Gedo is too lazy to think of anything else to do.

LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (EVIL & BUSHI) vs. SUZUKI GUN (Minoru Suzuki & El Desperado)- 2.5/10
LIJ jumped the bell on Suzuki-Gun. Weapons were used right in front of the referee, etc. The match almost became decent by the end.

HIROSHI TANAHASHI, TOGI MAKABE, & TOMOAKI HONMA vs. CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, YOSHI-HASHI, & Gedo)- 5/10
This… feels like a waste of Honma’s big return. Shouldn’t it be in a singles match, or at least a tag team match with GBH partner Makabe rather than a six-man tag?
Honma did the regular Honma stuff. I’m glad he’s not paralyzed, but I didn’t like his shtick before and I don’t like it now, either. His neck got worked over by YOSHI-HASHI. Meanwhile, Okada prevented Makabe from running in and making the save simply by staring him down. That was amusing. The match was meh.

BLOCK B MATCH: Toru Yano(8) vs. Tama Tonga(6)- DUD!
Tanga Loa came out with Tama Tonga but was immediately ejected from ringside. Well… at least they finally did SOMETHING. The fact that it happened on the final day of the tournament when it should have happened about shows ago is frustrating, but at least it’s SOMETHING.
As if to prove my assertions that he is the most annoying color commentator not named Matt Striker, Rocky Romero has given the turnbuckle pads names like “Timmy.”
Kevin Kelly assured us that Yano “can outwrestle you when he plays fair” but is instead using “shortcut tactics.” So basically Yano seems to operate by the old adage of “win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat,” which I believe was Jesse Ventura’s famous quote about being a heel… so how the hell is Yano not a heel?
They did stuff. Tama Tonga shoved the referee down several times and was not disqualified. Then Bad Luck Fale and the previously-ejected Tanga Loa came down to ringside but there was still no DQ. Tama shoved the referee down AGAIN but still no DQ. Tama continued attempting to choke Yano to death with his bare hands when another referee got into the ring and pulled Tama’s hair to save Yano’s life. Tama Tonga then gave this referee a Gun Stun and FINALLY got a DQ. Thank G-d the G1 is now over so we won’t have to deal with this stupid bullsh*t anymore. The company big-wigs all came out to yell at the Tongans and force them to the back.

BLOCK B MATCH: Juice Robinson(4) vs. Hirooki Goto(6)- 6.5/10
Goto’s elbow is all taped up so Juice worked that over. The match was good.

BLOCK B MATCH: Tomohiro Ishii(8) vs. Sanada(8)- 4/10
I liked this until it turned into an Ishii match and started doing his dumb no-selling crap where he essentially blocks punches with his face and thinks this is a logical spot in a wrestling match. Yup. We’re in full stupid Ishii no-selling mode now. And the disease is apparently contagious, as now Sanada has it, too.
Dumbf*ck Sanada gave up a perfectly good submission hold to go for a moonsault and not only did Ishii get out of the way but Sanada hurt his knee on the landing and Ishii then started working it over. Now they’re just forgetting about the knee and going back to the head. This was a lot of things that could have made up a good match done in a ridiculous order and then killed by random no-selling spots.

BLOCK B MATCH: Tetsuya Naito(12) vs. Zack Sabre Jr.(10) (w/TAKA Michinoku)- 8.5/10
Being a member of Suzuki-Gun, Zack jumped the bell on his opponent. Zack worked over Naito’s neck and FINALLY won a match with the Michinoku Driver. What was the point of not having Naito win and thus keeping a draw alive as a potential finish in the main event?

BLOCK B MATCH: Kota Ibushi(12) vs. Kenny Omega(12) (w/the Young Bucks)- 9.5/10
They worked over the head and neck and had a bit of a sotry about Ibushi avoiding the One-Winged Angel, but the best way to describe this is to say that it was two men just pulling out whatever crazy ideas they had to try to beat the other. To that end, I think I’ll just leave you with some of my raw notes rather than anything refined and put into paragraphs. Here they are:
Holy sh*t I can’t believe they did that ON THE APRON!
KOTA’S DOUBLE KNEES TO THE CHEST LOOK LIKE THEY HURT LIKE HELL!
Kota appeared to land RIGHT ON HIS FACE when he missed that Phoenix Splash
INVERTED RIGHT OF PASSAGE!
OH MY G-D THAT DROPKICK THING ON THE TOP!

So yeah. That’s the type of craziness you can expect form this match when you go watch it yourself.



You can basically copy and paste my comments from last night’s show onto this one, except that this one was even better on the top end, but its midcard G1 stuff wasn’t as good. I’m honestly just glad this tournament is finally over so storylines can start to move forward.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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