NJPW G1 Climax 29: Day 16

NJPW G1 Climax 29: Day 16NJPW G1 Climax 29: Day 16

By Big Red Machine
From August 08, 2019
Discussion

REN NARITA & SHOTA UMINO vs. YUYA UEMURA & YOTA TSUJI - 4/10


Fine for the time it got

LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (Sanada, EVIL, & BUSHI) vs. BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens, Yujiro Takahashi, & Bad Luck Fale) (w/Jado) - 4/10


Bullet Club sneak attack their opponents, then we spill to the outside for the usual bullsh*t. Chase Owens tried to do that move to Sanada where you trap a supine opponent's leg between your own legs and fall to your knees, he and Sanada f*cked it up very badly, to the point there it was pretty much a phantom move. We got some stupid comedy with Chase then trying to put Sanada in the Paradise lick and having to constantly ask Millano Collection AT how to do it. Owens pinned BUSHI.

CLARK CONNORS, KARL FREDERICKS, & KENTA vs. SUZUKI-GUN (Minoru Suzuki, Lance Archer, & Zack Sabre Jr.) - 4.5/10


Suzuki-Gun jump the bell on their opponents, then we spill to the outside for the usual bullsh*t.

TOA HENARE, WILL OSPRAY, & KOTA IBUSHI vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI & CHAOS (YOSHI-HASHI & Kazuchika Okada) - 6.75/10


Very good for a G1 undercard match.

BLOCK B MATCH:
Toru Yano vs. Taichi (w/Miho Abe & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) - 0.5/10


I found it utterly ridiculous that Yano couldn't extract himself from the ring skirt being wrapped around his legs like a towel. They then wasted almost a minute playing catch with a turnbuckle pad while the referee told them to stop. This is all crap they did last night, too, so it's not even new dumb sh*t. They proceeded to do some stupid dog and pony show stuff until Yano wrapped both Kanemaru and Taichi up in the ring skirt and Taichi got counted out. Look: Yano is in a position where he could theoretically win the block. We all know he won't... but can't they at least pretend that they might go with him and let him pin f*cking Taichi cleanly? Please?

BLOCK B MATCH:
Jeff Cobb vs. Tetsuya Naito - 8.75/10


I do so love it when Naito gets to be a luchador facing a big scary monster. This was fantastic!

BLOCK B MATCH:
Hirooki Goto vs. Jon Moxley (w/Shota Umino) - 6.5/10


They both worked the head and traded strikes. Goto got the win keeping himself (and several others) alive.

BLOCK B MATCH:
Juice Robinson vs. Jay White (w/Gedo) - 8.5/10


Same sh*t different day. Gedo causes a distraction to allow White to take control of the match. This time he works the knee. Nice of them to remember that Jay White has a submission finisher that they made such a big deal out of earlier this year. They're on the outside forever without getting counted out. Tonight's stupidity was highlighted by Red Shoes standing there and watching White drop Juice's knee onto a chair, and then refusing to count Juice out because White dropped Juice's knee on a chair. If you think dropping someone's knee onto a chair is so unsporting that you need to bend the rules to give the offended party time to recover, WHY DIDN'T YOU TRY TO STOP WHITE FROM DROPPING JUICE'S KNEE ONTO THE CHAIR IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

They started to have a great match using the story of the injured knee when they decided to go to the outside (and again they were there forever without getting counted out) because G-d forbid a single match go by without someone getting whipped in the barricades. Juice was the one on offense here and he worked over White's knee by slamming it into the ringpost a bunch until, once again, White took over after Gedo caused a distraction.

The match got awesome again until the last few minutes when- you guessed it- Gedo caused a distraction. This time he distracted Red Shoes by hopping up on the apron. Everyone on the internet seems to love Red Shoes because he "doesn't take crap from the heels," but if that were true, he would have ejected Gedo from ringside after the first time his distraction affected the match. It's not like he doesn't have a clear track record of causing distractions in matches this tournament.

But no. We can't have the referee do his job properly because we had to set up for our f*cking ref bump. Chair shenanigans happened, and White won via submission. If not for all of the poor refereeing and annoying overbooking, I probably would have given this match a 9/10. Instead, we got all of that crap, and I went down to 8.5/10. I am hereby coining a term for this phenomenon. In all future instances, this shall be known as a match "New Japan-ing itself" out of a higher rating.

BLOCK B MATCH:
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Shingo Takagi - 8.75/10


This was an awesome match, and I've reflected it as such in my rating, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it passed a point of diminishing returns on the lariat kick-outs. The match went about five minutes too long. I also despised the Ishii no-selling and similar crap. This might have also had my least favorite spot of the year, in which Ishii hit a brainbuster... but instead of going for the pin, he waited for Shingo to get up and invited Shingo to forearm him in the face so he could show how tough he was. That's not professional wrestling anymore because in professional wrestling you're trying to win a match. That's professional being a mark for yourself.

Ishii's loss here eliminates him from the tournament completely unnecessarily before for the final day. His match against Taichi tomorrow now means nothing, when it could have actually meant something if Ishii had won here. Hopefully this will at least lead to a NEVER Openweight Title match between these two with Shingo taking the title and defending it against both heavyweights and junior heavyweights like a real "openweight" title.

Final Thoughts
This was a great show from New Japan. It was a much better offering than we've usually been getting from Block B, and you'll like it even more if Shingo vs. Ishii is more to your tastes than it was to mine. Hopefully this is the start of Block B finally hitting their stride as we head into the home stretch.

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