New Japan Pro Wrestling announces G1 competitors

[Big Red Machine]

https://vip.pwtorch.com/2022/06/12/new- ... mpetitors/


BY ZACK HEYDORN, PWTORCH ASSISTANT EDITOR

June 12, 2022


New Japan Pro Wrestling has released the names of this year’s G1 Climax participants. The company made the announcement during the Dominion show.

This year’s G1 format will be different than years past. Instead of two blocks, the tournament will feature four blocks of seven competitors. The winners of each block will square off in a semifinal with a shot in the finals on the line. The winner of the G1 will still win a shot at the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleKingdom in January.

The list of participants is as follows:

Kazuchika Okada
Tama Tonga
Hiroshi Tanahashi
Tom Lawlor
Jonah
Yoshi-Hashi
Hirooki Goto
Toru Yano
Tomohiro Ishii
Jeff Cobb
Bad Luck Fale
Chase Owens
Juice Robinson
Taichi
Zack Sabre Jr
Lance Archer
David Finlay
El Phantasmo
Great O-Khan
Will Ospreay
Aaron Henare
Shingo Takagi
SANADA
Tetsuya Naito
Jay White
EVIL
KENTA
Yujiro Takahashi

The G1 Climax 32 round robin tournament begins on July 16 and wraps up on August 18.

[Big Red Machine]

Good to see that Gedo is finally using that idea I had about five years ago when the block sizes started to get ridiculous.

[XIV]

This is what annoys me about the current (interim) AEW title picture. Tanahashi isn't going to win the title just to disappear into the G1, so the match is predictable before going in. Which gives us Moxley as Champion and boy do we not need that.

Should have waited a couple of weeks and had Danielson be the out and out challenger, because A he has the star power to hold that title and B, he can also work a much better with the Japanese guys, and ultimately C, you build Danielson and finally have that Punk v Danielson blockbuster we all want to see on return.

Who gives a fuck about Moxley vs Tanahashi? Who then cares about Moxley or Tanahashi vs CM Punk? Nobody. But Danielson vs Punk would have been the perfect return for Punk.

Now, You can have Punk come back and immediately win over Moxley, great, you're back to where we were, but if he loses, but nobody wins because Moxley vs Punk is a one match maximum feud.

But, you can have Punk come back and lose to Danielson in the unification, thus starting a mini feud where a smart-ass heel Danielson prevails over Punk first time but is lead in to a best of 5 or 7 series of matches (maybe a submission match in there, maybe an I quit or something) which culminates at whatever PPV of choice at 2-2 or 3-3 into an Iron Man match or something of equivalence where we find out once and for all who the victor is.

[Big Red Machine]

In their defense, they have been building up Moxley vs Tanahashi for a year and y half or so.


They've been doing it rather poorly, but they have at lt been doing it.

I wouldn't mind Nox as champion again, but I totally agree about Tanahashi being in the title match, and that's the biggest issue because that's what you're trying to sell a PPV on

[XIV]

In their defense, they have been building up Moxley vs Tanahashi for a year and y half or so.


They've been doing it rather poorly, but they have at lt been doing it.

I wouldn't mind Nox as champion again, but I totally agree about Tanahashi being in the title match, and that's the biggest issue because that's what you're trying to sell a PPV on

I didn't notice they were particularly building it prior to this! So I won't be alone.

I just don't see Mox as a good rival for Punk on that return.

[Big Red Machine]

I just don't see Mox as a good rival for Punk on that return.

i hadn't thought about that particular aspect of this. And, thinking about it now, I'm not really sure who is a good opponent for Punk other than Adam Page.

[XIV]

I just don't see Mox as a good rival for Punk on that return.

i hadn't thought about that particular aspect of this. And, thinking about it now, I'm not really sure who is a good opponent for Punk other than Adam Page.

That’s why all signs pointed to Bryan Danielson

[Big Red Machine]

I just don't see Mox as a good rival for Punk on that return.

i hadn't thought about that particular aspect of this. And, thinking about it now, I'm not really sure who is a good opponent for Punk other than Adam Page.

That’s why all signs pointed to Bryan Danielson

He doesn't seem to fit, either, though

[XIV]

i hadn't thought about that particular aspect of this. And, thinking about it now, I'm not really sure who is a good opponent for Punk other than Adam Page.

That’s why all signs pointed to Bryan Danielson

He doesn't seem to fit, either, though

I'd put a strong disagree on that, granted they've started him down this combat club thing route. But he's the most able to pull off being a smarmy heel that'll stretch you because hes better than you and act a prick about it, so when the babyface triumphantly returns, somebody wants "the best in the world" to give Danielson all the payback from the beatings he's dished out.

He'd work better with the japanese guys than Moxley and would be the better "blockbuster" return match for Punk.

[cero2k]

but do you really want Danielson's first reign to be an interim title? or Mox's second (first two-timer in the company ) for that matter?

The fact that Mox took the spot tells me they didn't have many plans for him as either the champion, or a big time match at FD. Danielson was ALWAYS going to be Sabre, it's the dream match that everyone has been asking for for years.

[Big Red Machine]

That’s why all signs pointed to Bryan Danielson

He doesn't seem to fit, either, though

I'd put a strong disagree on that, granted they've started him down this combat club thing route. But he's the most able to pull off being a smarmy heel that'll stretch you because hes better than you and act a prick about it, so when the babyface triumphantly returns, somebody wants "the best in the world" to give Danielson all the payback from the beatings he's dished out.

That scenario does work (although they've tried heel Dragon and the fans haven't taken to it at all, which caused problems for Hangman, and could for Punk as well).

THIS is the biggest argument against it:

but do you really want Danielson's first reign to be an interim title? or Mox's second (first two-timer in the company ) for that matter?

[XIV]

He doesn't seem to fit, either, though

I'd put a strong disagree on that, granted they've started him down this combat club thing route. But he's the most able to pull off being a smarmy heel that'll stretch you because hes better than you and act a prick about it, so when the babyface triumphantly returns, somebody wants "the best in the world" to give Danielson all the payback from the beatings he's dished out.

That scenario does work (although they've tried heel Dragon and the fans haven't taken to it at all, which caused problems for Hangman, and could for Punk as well).

THIS is the biggest argument against it:

but do you really want Danielson's first reign to be an interim title? or Mox's second (first two-timer in the company ) for that matter?

I don’t think it matters if someone’s first reign is interim or not. They still work to get into that position and then face the “real” champion down the road.

Nobody questions a UFC interim champion as to whether their first reign matters or not.

I think with the right two guys putting it over, you can run a compelling story on this.

[Big Red Machine]

I'd put a strong disagree on that, granted they've started him down this combat club thing route. But he's the most able to pull off being a smarmy heel that'll stretch you because hes better than you and act a prick about it, so when the babyface triumphantly returns, somebody wants "the best in the world" to give Danielson all the payback from the beatings he's dished out.

That scenario does work (although they've tried heel Dragon and the fans haven't taken to it at all, which caused problems for Hangman, and could for Punk as well).

THIS is the biggest argument against it:

but do you really want Danielson's first reign to be an interim title? or Mox's second (first two-timer in the company ) for that matter?

I don’t think it matters if someone’s first reign is interim or not. They still work to get into that position and then face the “real” champion down the road.

Nobody questions a UFC interim champion as to whether their first reign matters or not.

I think with the right two guys putting it over, you can run a compelling story on this.

I think it kind of does matter. Wrestling is a work, so we know that an interim reign was never the plan, and so if you don't validate it by having that person beat the champion, it feels- lacking a better term- fake.

I think with the right two guys putting it over, you can run a compelling story on this.

I'm actually not sure you can, or at least certainly not in the kayfabe environment that AEW has.
The issue with an interim title is that in order to validate the entire concept, you need to have the unification match as soon as the "rightful" champion gets healthy again, so there is no real time to build it. The only way to do it is to have the "rightful" champion on commentary constantly saying "that guy's belt is fake. I'm the real champion," but 1) there are only so many weeks you can have someone say that before it starts to get grating (because the story inherently isn't capable of progressing while the "rightful" champion is injured), and this is even more of a problem with a babyface as the "rightful" champion because he/she should understand the situation, and the more he/she says that sort of thing, the more heelish he/she starts to sound.

People will point to Shawn and Razor as an example of how you can do this, but the key difference between that situation and this one (even more so than Shawn being a heel and a Punk being a face) is that in that situation, there was no interim champion. Razor was the only officially recognized champion, and therefore there was nothing absolutely necessitating* that Shawn vs. Razor match occur right away, which is what gave them the time to build it up.

The only circumstances I can think of where an "interim champion" kind of thing can really be made to work are the insanely unique circumstances that ROH had where the company was taking a big hiatus and you had an unforeseen circumstance at the very last show create a situation where you needed to create to create an interim title, as you then not only had a reason to have an interim champion, but the fact that you weren't going to be running any shows for a long time allowed you to have a reason for why you weren't unifying the titles as soon as you could (because ROH's sanctioning body would want it to happen at an ROH show) while also creating a situation where both guys could go around defending their titles he and there and claiming to be the rightful and defending champion.


Even just a general "two belts" situation really shouldn't happen in most situations. If you have a babyface promotion, they should be prioritizing resolving any controversy around the title in an efficient manner, so it would never get to the point where someone feels a need (or really even has the time) to get their own belt made (that was one of the big flaws with the Matt Taven angle in ROH). If you have a heel authority figure, a babyface who got screwed and is walking around with a belt and calling himself champion seems like the kind of thing a heel authority figure would put a lot of effort into quashing quickly (especially if the heel authority figure is specifically aligned with the heel champion). You'd need an environment close to lawlessness to make it work, where management either completely apathetic because they just care about making money (or have some ulterior motive to everything, a la Dario Cueto... but even in that situation, a shrewd promoter would eventually just book the unification match at the point he/she things it would make him/her the most money).




*I would argue that in a situation with a babyface in authority, the genera principal that Shawn never lost the belt should have been enough to necessitate a rematch being a priority, but I'm willing to give WWF something of a pass there because the required pace really just wasn't how TV was done at the time, and I understand that they wanted to get Shawn back in the ring and making money as soon as possible to keep him happy because, if I remember correctly, he had shoot quit over the steroid suspension that the injury was a cover for, claiming that he had never taken steroids, and they needed him back because they didn't want him going to WCW.
Then again, there are ways to make it work, like Shawn engaging in some sort of bad behavior where management is punishing him by not giving him a title shot, until Razor eventually demands that Shawn be given a title shot. Even then, though, I really can't see how they could have delayed the match to any later than the Rumble without it feeling too repetitive. Maybe you could do a regular match at the Rumble ending in some sort of screwy finish involving the belt(s), like they wind up on the outside after the ref-bump, and Shawn's getting his butt kicked and in desperation he grabs his belt and hits Razor with it, and as he crawls back to the ring, the ref recovers and Shawn gets the win by count-out. That way Shawn can go on TV and say that he beat Razor and because he is the rightful champion, he should have had the champion's advantage, not Razor, but management disagrees and Shawn gets upset, so next week he attacks Razor with the belt and tries to injure Razor so that management will be forced to take the title off of Razor and give it to him, and that's your big angle to set up the Ladder match (because with the belts hanging above the ring, they won't be able to be used as weapons)?
But, looking at the Rumble 94 card, do you really want to do that kind of finish in the IC Title match when you're already doing sh*t finish in the world title match and a freakin' tie in the Rumble itself (and babyfaces losing clean in the tag title match, too)? It's kind of funny, because the 2022 (or even 2005) answer would just be to do the Ladder match as the main event of the Rumble, but that would never have happened back then. Thinking about it a little more, in a modern environment you could probably buy yourself a little more time by establishing a grueling scheduling of defenses/other matches for Razor to create a reason for why Shawn isn't getting his title shot, and you can probably even delay Shawn actually bringing his belt back for a few weeks until he starts to think that management won't actually give him a rematch.

Anyway, that was a fun tangent.