Cero Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 29, 7.29

[cero2k]

NJPW G1 Climax 29, Day 11
July 29, 2019
Takamatsu, Japan

CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) & Yota Tsuji vs. Tomoaki Honma, Tomohiro Ishii & Yuya Uemura - 6/10
Ishii vs Goto is gonna be awesome, there rest were just there. Tsuji vs Uemura was far better than Honma vs YH, but that's obvious. YOSHI submited Uemura with the Buttergeek Lock.

Ren Narita & Toru Yano vs. Jon Moxley & Shota Umino - 5/10
This was something, I feared that Mox and Yano wouldn't clash if Mox was all snob about doing comedy, but he actually played his part well. This was a good combination of showing the contrast between Mox's aggressive side, and Yano's comedy side, like the standoff of chair vs soft and fluffy corner pad. The match was mostly both men trying to steal roll ups, one up each other, and at the end, Yano rolling up Umino after he shoved him into Mox. Narita and Umino were good here too. I do fear tho that with Yano picking up the win here, Mox is going to beat him and also eliminate half of the block. Okada vs Mox at the G1 finals sounds abysmal to me right now. Too soon.

BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens, Jay White & Yujiro Takahashi) (w/Gedo) vs. Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) - 5/10
Taichi and White paired up nicely, I actually found myself cheering for White for some reason, and I'm someone who actually likes Lord Taichi. Having said that, once again, I find myself wishing we were getting Suzuki vs White here instead. The rest were good, but nothing special, Owens pinned Kanemaru with the PP.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) vs. Jeff Cobb, Juice Robinson & Toa Henare - 6/10
The best thing here was actually the battle between Henare and Shingo, that was fucking awesome. This, however, failed to get me excited about Juice vs Naito, and only slightly about Cobb vs Shingo, which I think has more potential given their respective strengths. Shingo pinned Henare with the Pumping Bomber.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
Bad Luck Fale [2] (w/Chase Owens & Jado) vs. Kota Ibushi [6] - 7.5/10
This was good for what it was, probably one of the better Fale matches this tournament. Fale jumped Ibushi and worked over his back all match, a bunch of slams and planchas, and Ibushi sold it really good. We obviously had the Owens and Jado interference, but it wasn't as bad as with Ospreay at least. Ibushi ended up winning with Bomaye and Kamigoye.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
Will Ospreay [4] vs. Zack Sabre Jr. [2] - 9/10
This was as awesome as I hoped it would. This was more of the style of Sabre, with him working over Ospreay's neck. The match was A LOT of counter, transitions, reversals, and what not. Ospreay really held his own when going move-by-move in the mat. Towards the end, Sabre started also working on Ospreay's arm, so that when he went for Strombreaker, Sabre countered into an Octopus Stretch, transitioned into a tighter hold, and Ospreay immediately tapped out. Great stuff, and for once in a Sabre match, I kinda hoped Ospreay was winning.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
Kazuchika Okada [10] vs. Lance Archer [4] - 9/10
This was another great match with a superhero fighting a giant. Archer worked over Okada for a long while, similar to Fale vs Ibushi, and Okada made a great comeback and won with the Rainmaker. This was text book on how a giant should be booked and I loved that Okada sold the match and offense like if he had been run over by a monster truck. Last minutes were pretty intense because Archer kept hitting a lot of big moves on Okada, and given Okada's points, he can take a loss anytime now. He ended up winning with a Rainmaker.

Archer at one point did his Old School move and ended with a fucking moonsault. Fucking Archer watching too many Brian Cage matches. I did hope that given the wrist control of that move, that Okada would counter it into a Rainmaker.

With this win, Okada just eliminated Ospreay, SANADA, Sabre, Archer, and Fale. Kinda upset about some of those, not that I expected any of them to win, but I thought that Ospreay and SANADA should have been alive at the end, surely over EVIL at least.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
KENTA [8] vs. SANADA [2] - 8/10
I liked this match, but I don't think it was close to it's potential. If anything else, I saw it more as a bit more character building for KENTA and SANADA, who played to the crowd. Match was a lot of athletic stuff and striking until they started chasing their respective finishers and they started trading reversals. There was some botches here that seemed more as both men just being really tired of wrestling everyday, which is something i've started to notice where a lot of the talent, not just here. SANADA won with the moonsault after Skull End.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
EVIL [6] vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi [6] - 9/10
This was a really good match, and what I thought helped a lot was not knowing who was winning, especially knowing that whoever lost would be now so far from Okada's 12 points.

This pair up really helped EVIL look strong and fast since Tanahashi is now on the slower side of the spectrum, so EVIL looked dominant when he was working over him. This was easily the best EVIL, and likely Tanahashi matches so far in the tournament, it was straight up main event worthy. The crowd was going crazy towards the end.

Continuing from his match with SANADA, Tanahashi sold his knee, which EVIL worked in the teaser and here. He went for submissions, strikes, and big moves, slowing down Tanahashi more and more, who fought with heart, went for EVIL's legs and head with his usual arsenal. They played into Tanahashi's tournament where he has been losing the matches where he fails to hit the second High Fly Flow, but he managed to kick out after his fail, and regain himself to hit it one more time later on for the win. This was top match Tanahashi.

Post-match - Tanahashi played guitar and said that this is where he belonged, the main event. 11 dates in and Tanahashi, just now, got to play his guitar. Times are a-changing.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
This was a consistently good show, but not a blow away show that will be talked about since there wasn't any particular match that stood out. I'm not gonna lie, seeing Okada eliminate so many people with so much tournament left kinda got me, we're now talking several shows left were not all matches will be spoiler matches.

POST SHOW POINT STANDINGS

Block A Block B

Kazuchika Okada [12] Tetsuya Naito[4]

Hiroshi Tanahashi [8] Jon Moxley[10]

Kota Ibushi [8] Tomohiro Ishii [6]

KENTA [8] Hirooki Goto [4]

Will Ospreay [4] Toru Yano [4]

EVIL [6] Jay White [4]

SANADA [4] Shingo Takagi [4]

Zack Sabre Jr [4] Jeff Cobb [4]

Lance Archer [4] Taichi [4]

Bad Luck Fale [2] Juice Robinson [6]

[Big Red Machine]

I do fear tho that with Yano picking up the win here, Mox is going to beat him and also eliminate half of the block. Okada vs Mox at the G1 finals sounds abysmal to me right now. Too soon.

Too soon? For what? I highly doubt Moxley is going to be around for any longer than KOPW (and to the Tokyo Dome at the latest). It's not too soon to do a match you probably won't get another chance to do (remember that Moxley theoretically has that US Title to defend).

How can you possibly crap on WWE and then advocate for the comedy geek beating the hottest comedy in wrestling? You're basically saying "SummerSlam is too soon to do Adam Cole vs. Daniel Bryan for the world title. It would be best to have Cole job to R-Truth here so that he doesn't advance to the #1 contendership match.

[cero2k]

I do fear tho that with Yano picking up the win here, Mox is going to beat him and also eliminate half of the block. Okada vs Mox at the G1 finals sounds abysmal to me right now. Too soon.

Too soon? For what? I highly doubt Moxley is going to be around for any longer than KOPW (and to the Tokyo Dome at the latest). It's not too soon to do a match you probably won't get another chance to do (remember that Moxley theoretically has that US Title to defend).

How can you possibly crap on WWE and then advocate for the comedy geek beating the hottest comedy in wrestling? You're basically saying "SummerSlam is too soon to do Adam Cole vs. Daniel Bryan for the world title. It would be best to have Cole job to R-Truth here so that he doesn't advance to the #1 contendership match.

Moxley is most definitely going all the way to Wrestle Kingdom, and most likely doing the Jericho schedule beyond that, there's always time to do Okada vs Mox later on. If Moxley intends to have more time with New Japan, no need to rush all matches in one month. Furthermore, Moxley is definitely not the right answer to win the G1 at all, for the sake of New Japan's future, Mox is the last person that should get a push.

Because Yano has a history of the biggest upsets in wrestling, no one has ever been hurt by a loss to Yano, especially in the G1 where everyone is expected to lose here and there. As much as you hate New Japan's comedy, neither Yano, or Taguchi, or whoever else, is treated as jokes. R-Truth (and WWE for that matter) has a history of making sure that their comedy acts are the lowest in the totem pole, and their comedy is to make fun of people, not as a wrestling style to outsmart your foes. Your example with Cole and Bryan would indeed get shit on, by a lot of people, because in WWE, you really can't trust that losing to Truth would build to anything, or matter in the long run.
In my Okada vs KENTA review I said that New Japan is one of the only companies that can still manage to do actual dream matches. I don't mind rushing Cole vs Bryan at Summerslam, because in WWE, they're all just a bunch of the same talent pool, Cole vs Bryan is not a dream match because WWE doesn't build 'dream' wrestlers. But answer this, would you be perfectly ok if they just do Cole vs Bryan at a random smackdown after both men got a couple of wins? If Moxley is indeed the hottest commodity and Okada the greatest wrestler of our generation, then anyone knows you MILK the anticipation to that match. I'd find WWE stupid if they had something like Styles vs Bryan and they just did it at a random smackdown.

[Big Red Machine]

I do fear tho that with Yano picking up the win here, Mox is going to beat him and also eliminate half of the block. Okada vs Mox at the G1 finals sounds abysmal to me right now. Too soon.

Too soon? For what? I highly doubt Moxley is going to be around for any longer than KOPW (and to the Tokyo Dome at the latest). It's not too soon to do a match you probably won't get another chance to do (remember that Moxley theoretically has that US Title to defend).

How can you possibly crap on WWE and then advocate for the comedy geek beating the hottest comedy in wrestling? You're basically saying "SummerSlam is too soon to do Adam Cole vs. Daniel Bryan for the world title. It would be best to have Cole job to R-Truth here so that he doesn't advance to the #1 contendership match.

Moxley is most definitely going all the way to Wrestle Kingdom, and most likely doing the Jericho schedule beyond that, there's always time to do Okada vs Mox later on. If Moxley intends to have more time with New Japan, no need to rush all matches in one month. Furthermore, Moxley is definitely not the right answer to win the G1 at all, for the sake of New Japan's future, Mox is the last person that should get a push.

I think AEW will get in the way of Moxley sticking around too much as my guess is that when Moxley's deal was signed, they had a much better idea of the situation than when Jericho did. And AEW would be completely right to do so.
I agree that Moxley shouldn't win the G1, but I don't think it would hurt to have him be the guy Ibushi beats in the finals I mean... who else is enough of a threat? White theoretically would be, but with the story they've been telling with him so far he almost becomes a sort of babyface for his big comeback story. Other than that they have Ishii, who they've proven time and again they won't have challenge Okada. There is Naito, who could conceivably win but I just don't see it this year. I think they'll wait another year before going back to Okada vs. Naito at the Dome. They're not going to give it to Cobb or to Shingo or Juice or Goto and certainly not to Yano, so who else is left besides Moxley?

Because Yano has a history of the biggest upsets in wrestling, no one has ever been hurt by a loss to Yano, especially in the G1 where everyone is expected to lose here and there. As much as you hate New Japan's comedy, neither Yano, or Taguchi, or whoever else, is treated as jokes. R-Truth (and WWE for that matter) has a history of making sure that their comedy acts are the lowest in the totem pole, and their comedy is to make fun of people, not as a wrestling style to outsmart your foes. Your example with Cole and Bryan would indeed get shit on, by a lot of people, because in WWE, you really can't trust that losing to Truth would build to anything, or matter in the long run.

Yano is pretty much the lowest guy on the totem pole other than the young-boys. Mikey Nichols and Chase Owens have gotten featured singles matches on non-tournament tours this year. And he is treated as a joke. The way the announcers go out of their way to tell us about how Yano used to be a great brawler and has great amateur skills are no different than Michael Cole reminding us that R-Truth or the B-Team or Heath Slater are former champions of one sort or another in order to give them some credibility even though we see them lose very often or at least never win fairly. And while Yano does not lose all the time, he rarely wins fairly, and part of his lack of losing is that NJPW's system is designed to minimize everyone who isn't young-boy or the Chase Owens/YOSHI-HASHI style of designated fall guy doing jobs. And there is a downside to that, too, and that is that while Yano does fewer jobs than, say, the B-Team, on the rare occasion that the B-Team do get to wrestle on the undercard of a big show, their match usually feels a lot more important than the match Yano gets to be in on the big shows. New Japan basically has entire undercards full of Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royales.

Similarly, while losing in G1 rarely hurts people, I don't think that's actually a good thing, because it makes the opposite also true, and a specific G1 win doesn't elevate people anymore, either. When you know Tanahashi or whoever was booked to job to Tama Tonga just to keep the standings even or just to set people up where they need to be in the standings for the final night, it devalues the win if you don't follow up on it (and NJPW rarely does) because the win comes across not as a big achievement for the winner but as something the booker did because that's what he needed to do. You say that you don't trust that Cole jobbing to Truth would lead to anything in WWE, and I agree with that, but I feel pretty much the same way about a lot of these G1 upsets (or even matches between guys at the same level if one of them is, say, the US or NEVER Openweight champions).

I completely disagree with the assertion that Yano "outsmarts" his opponents. I've got a thing on this coming in my review for Yano vs. Moxley, but essentially it feels like when someone wrestles Yano they engage in his dumb sh*t so that they can be in a position where Yano takes advantage, but not with any actual prompting from Yano. Why would any wrestler respond to Yano running over to try to untie a turnbuckle bad by running over to untie the other one? Why not just attack Yano from behind? Why would you try to get a pad- which is illegal- to hit someone with, when you could do more damage by punching him with your fist?
And the rules of the match bend around Yano, too. It doesn't feel like you're outsmarting your opponent if the referee just lets you tape him to the barricade when he normally wouldn't, or the reason he can't get back into the ring in time is because this time the referee decided to start counting when you were both on the outside when he usually waits until one person is back in the ring to count. The low blows fall into this category, too, because half the time he does them in front of the referee (or at least tries to hit them right in front of the referee). You're not "outsmarting" your opponent if you go for a move that would get you disqualified if the referee decides to do his job. And, quite frankly, you're not "outsmarting" your opponent if you cheat.
And yes, it's supposed to be cheating, because these Yano losses are all part of Gedo's booking scheme where he does whatever he can to avoid having people do jobs. We're supposed to think of it as a BS win, but it serves his purposes in the G1 to give people losses without actually beating them. Yano is essentially in the G1 because he's a human plot device.

In my Okada vs KENTA review I said that New Japan is one of the only companies that can still manage to do actual dream matches. I don't mind rushing Cole vs Bryan at Summerslam, because in WWE, they're all just a bunch of the same talent pool, Cole vs Bryan is not a dream match because WWE doesn't build 'dream' wrestlers. But answer this, would you be perfectly ok if they just do Cole vs Bryan at a random smackdown after both men got a couple of wins? If Moxley is indeed the hottest commodity and Okada the greatest wrestler of our generation, then anyone knows you MILK the anticipation to that match. I'd find WWE stupid if they had something like Styles vs Bryan and they just did it at a random smackdown.

I agree with most of what you say in this paragraph, but NJPW didn't build KENTA, either. Cole and Bryan is a dream match not because of their WWE runs (although I think I've enjoyed Cole as a promo more in NXT than anywhere else, and babyface Bryan, too), but because of their indy runs, and we've never seen the match. Just like it would have been a dream match if WWE gave us Dragon vs. Angle at Mania, or if they give us Dragon vs Balor or Balor vs. AJ or whatever else they might give us.

You say you should milk Moxley vs. Okada to build ip the anticipation? DUDE... that's what the G1 is all about! You take the best wrestlers in the world, see who the best guy is in each block or the course of a month and a half, then those two fight each other to see who is the best wrestler in the world.
And if it's a situation (like I think this one is) where you don't know if you'll have one of the guys around for long enough to build up to the biggest matches for as long as possible, you do them quickly, like ROH did with Joe in 2015, or the Hardys in 2017.