NJPW G1 Climax 27, Day 8

Suzuki-Gun (Zack Sabre Jr & El Desperado) vs Shota Umino & Ren Narita - 4/10

Interesting that they're not building any G1 match here. I feel this is Narita's main show debut, maybe I missed him in the Kizuna Road shows. Young Lions fighting each other to be the ones to start the match agasint Sabre, did they not see what he did yesterday to Fale? Anyway, this was a good Young Lion's match, they manage to get some offense on both Sabre and Desperado at times. Desperado tapped Narita with a Stretch Muffler.

Yuji Nagata & Hirai Kawato vs Togi Makabe & Ryusuke Taguchi - 5.5/10

Most of the match was Taguchi and Makabe killing Kawato until he made a small comeback (with a dropkick that even Okada must be in awe of, it was beautiful). Both Makabe and Ryusuke took their turns to disrespect Nagata in their own ways., and that what tomorrow's match will mostly be about. Taguchi tapped Kawato with the Ankle lock. Good match. After the match Nagata and Makabe brawled, there was a pull apart. As much as Makabe was the one making fun of Nagata, Makabe was the one that ended pissed off the most. Should be a good match between these two.

Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi, & Chase Owens) vs Kota Ibushi, Katsuya Kitamura, & Tomoyuki Oka - 6/10

Oh boy, Oka and Kitamura opposite of Fale! Ibushi and Fale started the match with a glimpse of their chemistry, Ibushi is a lot faster than Fale, but his strikes are not as lethal when connecting with him, and then you have Fale, who has a lot of trouble catching Ibushi, but when he does, it hurts badly.

Match was BC double/triple teaming Oka and Kitaruma (it's the only way really) in separate occassions. Finish was Owens dropping Oka with the package piledriver, but it looked terrible, like Owens didn't fully had his weight and Oka being so much bigger, it looked like he was dropped straight on his head. Ibushi and Fale faced off a bit after the match.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI) vs CHAOS (Tomohiro Ishii & Gedo) - 6.5/10

Everytime Gedo was inside the ring, it was comedy, and every time that Ishii was inside the ring, someone was getting their ass kicked left and right. The match got really awesome after all 4 men started fighting around, there were some great double team spots and Gedo actually had some good stuff. BUSHI rolled up Gedo for the win. Naito faced off with Ishii at the end, their match should be awesome.

CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Taguchi Japan (Hiroshi Tanahashi & David Finlay) - 6/10

So Goto can't do opening matches to hype his match against Sabre? Match was mostly CHAOS working with Finlay and Tanahashi just coming in for the hot tag towards the end. Tanahashi and YOSHI-HASHI did their thing for a few minutes before Goto defeated Finlay. Tanahashi should really spot doing certain moves if he's selling the arm.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
Tama Tonga (2) vs Juice Robinson (2) - 7.5/10

As expeced, it didn't take long for Tonga to target the leg. They started the match grappling in the mat, after that is when Tonga had to change the pace. Once they were all in, Robinson actually had some good offense that didn't require him running or doing anything that would jeopardize his selling (see Tanahashi), or at least moves that you could believe he can pull off in his state just using sheer strength.

Last show I said that Juice just wasn't doing it for me this tournament, but I do have to say that the last minutes of this match had me at the edge of the seat. Juice had a great comeback and was coming really close to defeating Tonga where even a roll up had me popping. Tonga did eventually defeat Juice who is starting to fall in the table, only over Kojima who he defeated. This was pretty great.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
Toru Yano (2) vs SANADA (2) - 7/10, but a brilliant finish!

SANADA should have an entrance where we can only see his black silhouette against a white background and we just see a man with huge horns. Story of the match is that SANADA actually has a answer or can anticipate most of Yano's cheats, for everything that Yano pulls out, SANADA gets rid of it. Yano does manage to constantly roll up SANADA for HUGE near falls, at this point we're all expecting Yano to win by roll up anyway. The finish of the match was a brilliant combination of Yano and SANADA when SANADA ties Yano in the nudo, but with Yano's tape from Omega's match, and he just leaves him in the ramp for the countout! Fucking brilliant!

G1 Climax 27 Block B
EVIL (4) vs Minoru Suzuki (4) w/El Desperado - 8.5/10

Both guys usually start their match jumping their opponent, so they both jumped each other and went straight for the brawl. In the first few minutes they traded their heel spots with Suzuki taking EVIL to the back and killing him with chairs, and later on stabbing him with a pen; EVIL on the other hand, did his chair around the neck batting spot. It's really funny to see EVIL try to be diabolical and mean when he's fighting Suzuki, who could be drinking coffee and be far scarier than anything EVIL could do.

They were fighting toe-to-toe, but as EVIL starts to gain momentum, Suzuki pushes the ref in front of EVIL who runs him over. Desperado runs in and attacks EVIL, so BUSHI runs in for the save! So now Taichi attacks EVIL and Hiromu comes out for the save too! I Fucking Love LIJ! EVIL and Suzuki exchange some moves before desperately trying to finish their opponent, EVIL being the one who finally do it for the win. This was a shorter match, but I loved it.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
Kazuchika Okada (6) vs Satoshi Kojima (0) - 8.5/10

Cocky Okada started as all fun and games for him, just dominating Kojima, and for some reason watching Tenzan care about his friend pissed him off and Okada was challenging him to fight. Okada is mocking all the support Kojima gets. This crowd is totally behind Kojima.

After dominating for a while, Kojima manages to make enough of a comeback to really bring down the champ, including a top rope cutter, a brainbuster, and a freaking rainmaker of his own, for some really close near falls. With all of that, and he still couldn't defeat the champion, who lands several Rainmakers for the win. Okada is now 4-0. This was probably my favorite Kojima in the tournament.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
Kenny Omega (6) vs Michael Elgin (2) - 9.75/10

This was considerably better than their Long Beach match. Omega now comes in a lot more focused and lacking the Young Bucks, so he was definitely more precise and constant with his offense. In Long Beach, Omega was a bit showboaty, now he didn't get his eyes off Elgin.

Story of the match was that Omega was wrestling just on point, everything seemed perfect, his knee was healed, and he was as agile as ever, but he is fighting the strongest man in the whole tournament, that only needs to find an opening to decapitate you, which he did on several occasions. Elgin would slam and drop and drive Omega over and over again throughout the match

The last few minutes of the match was a constant trading of each man's biggest weapons, constant V-Triggers and Powerbombs, from all angles. Elgin takes the win after that whole exchange and finally puts down Omega for the 1-2-3. When this whole exchange was going on, I felt this was my second perfect 10 from the tournament, but something happened with that last set of moves (and I don't mean Omega losing), but at the end it just didn't feel perfect. Still fucking amazing and worth going out of your way to watch.

My whole idea of Okada and Omega racing to their match is now misshapen, now Omega is running behind with 3-1 and so either Okada loses 1 match, or Omega comes in as the underdog into their match which I'm 99% sure he'll win.

Post-match - Elgin cuts a promo saying he'll win the G1 Climax.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Awesome show, probably one of the best nights til now. The whole Block match set is awesome and worth checking out, even the Yano/SANADA match that is comedy. Undercard was somewhat irrelevant storyline-wise, nothing major happened. We're also now starting to see the points game take shape, Kojima/Nagata are virtually eliminated unless they win the rest of the tournament and the top guys start losing. Okada is the only one that has reached 8 pts so far, really making some distance, but it's still anyone's game with 5 shows left to go per block.