Cero Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 31, 10.3

[cero2k]

NJPW G1 Climax 31, Day 9
October 3, 2021
Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Japan

Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Kosei Fujita - 6/10
Really similar to the Oiwa match from the 1st, Kanemaru doing a lot of the offense and Fujita having a couple of comebacks. Good showing for Fujita.

Toru Yano [4] vs. BUSHI - 3/10
Not great, a lot of the spots pushed the limit of credible comedy in New Japan, it was a lot of blindfolds and weak knots on the rail. Yano won with a low blow and roll up.

G1 Climax 2021 Block A Match
KENTA [4] vs. Great-O-Khan [6] - 7.5/10
Prior to the match starting, both guys challenged each other that whoever loses, must vow to the other.

The match was a great struggle between two styles, trying to pull their opponent into their match. O-Khan kept trying to keep KENTA grounded and force him to grapple, while KENTA kept pushing for a striking battle. Both men got their moments, but at the end, the match came down to a referee bump, where KENTA ended up using a chair on O-Khan and later a baseball bat, which O-Khan blocked, but in the distraction with the referee and O-Khan trying to explain it wasn't his fault, KENTA rolled O-Khan for the win.

Post-match - KENTA sat on a chair in the ring until O-Khan vowed to him, it was painful for O-Khan since he had lost due to KENTA's cheats, so he hit the Eliminator on KENTA instead.

G1 Climax 2021 Block A Match
Yujiro Takahashi [4] vs. Tanga Loa [2] (w/Jado) - 7.5/10
I keep getting surprised by Loa's matches, he was unproven in singles in New Japan (or WWE for that matter), and while I was more hopeful than others that the matches wouldn't all be Jado interference matches, I definitely wasn't expecting his matches to be so competitive in the ring. This match went down with zero shenanigans, they teased each other early in the match with a too sweet, but that was it. I'd even argue that this was one of Yujiro's strongest matches in the tournament. They didn't exactly isolate a limb in the match, but both guys did work their ways to their signature moves, ending with a sequence of counters until Loa dropped Yujiro with Apeshit for the win.

G1 Climax 2021 Block A Match
Tomohiro Ishii [2] vs. Zack Sabre Jr. [8] - 8.5/10
This was great, as you would expect from both guys, Sabre is having a great tournament, and Ishii, while he hasn't been winning that much, tends to be the highlight of any G1 show he is in. These two have had really strong stories leading up to this match, and the clash at this point made for a perfect turning point.

From the beginning, Ishii's arm and hand have been hurting, he's been selling swelling since his match with Shingo, and injury that arguably cost him the first 3 matches of the tournament. Whereas Sabre has been on a path of destruction, tapping out everyone he takes on, defeating the top names in the block. The match obviously saw Sabre go after Ishii's arm, but what should had been an easy target for Sabre, ended up firing up Ishii to the point that he fought through the pain and kept using the same arm to bring down Sabre over and over until he landed the Brainbuster for the win.

This was Sabre's first loss in the tournament, we all knew he needed to slow down eventually, and I think they planned it out for it to happen with the best opponent.

G1 Climax 2021 Block A Match
Shingo Takagi [6] vs. Kota Ibushi [4] - 8.5/10
This went down exactly how it needed to. This was a match that we were promised many moons ago for Shingo's title, but Ibushi got sidelined and the match ended up getting cancelled twice. Since we all know the title match is imminent, the only smart option to do here was have Ibushi beat Shingo and let us all believe that if not for getting sick, he'd be champion by now.

The match played out like an Ibushi match for the most part, with him getting beat up for a while until he makes his comeback with strikes, and then take it towards the back and forth sequences, that mostly relied on Ibushi going after Shingo's head and progressively getting closer and closer to Kamigoye for the win.

At one point of the match I did started to think of the possibility of the time limit draw, which could be an acceptable finish to this match for the sake of building up to that rematch, the only hiccup I saw there was that Sabre already had a strong finish over Shingo, so building up another match would probably necessitate a finish at that level to give it equal importance.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Good G1 show. A more mixed show than yesterday, with different styles and stories throughout, it did a better job at developing some G1 stories towards the second half of the tournament, and beyond it. I'm just sad Sabre is not undefeated anymore.

Block A
Great-O-Khan - 3-0-2 -- 6
KENTA - 3-0-2 -- 6
Kota Ibushi - 3-0-2 -- 6
Shingo Takagi - 3-0-2 -- 6
Tanga Loa - 2-0-3 -- 4
Tetsuya Naito - 0-0-5 -- 0
Tomohiro Ishii - 2-0-3 -- 4
Toru Yano - 3-0-2 -- 6
Yujiro Takahashi - 2-0-3 -- 4
Zack Sabre Jr. - 4-0-1 -- 8

Block B
Chase Owens - 0-0-4 -- 0
EVIL - 3-0-1 -- 6
Hirooki Goto - 0-0-4 -- 0
Hiroshi Tanahashi - 3-0-1 -- 6
Jeff Cobb - 4-0-0 -- 8
Kazuchika Okada - 4-0-0 -- 8
SANADA - 2-0-2 -- 4
Taichi - 2-0-2 -- 4
Tama Tonga - 2-0-2 -- 4
YOSHI-HASHI - 1-0-3 -- 2