NJPW G1 Climax 29 Night 5: Ibushi and Ospreay tease draw in outstanding Korakuen Hall main event

Night 5 of the NJPW G1 Climax 29 tournament kicked off its first of three nights at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and featured the next round of A-Block matches, with Ibushi and Ospreay delivering a classic in the main event.

Results roundup:

• Jon Moxley and Shota Umino def. Tomohiro Ishii and Yuya Uemura
• Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Jeff Cobb def. Juice Robinson, Toa Henare & Yota Tsuji
• Jay White, Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens def. Toru Yano, Ren Narita & Tomaki Honma
• Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru def. Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi & BUSHI
• A Block: KENTA (6) def. Lance Archer (4) by submission
• A Block: EVIL (4) def. SANADA (2)
• A Block: Kazuchika Okada (6) def. Bad Luck Fale (2)
• A Block: Hiroshi Tanahashi (2) def. Zack Sabre Jr. (0)
• A Block: Kota Ibushi (2) def. Will Ospreay (2)

Jon Moxley and Shota Umino def. Tomohiro Ishii and Yuya Uemura

The show opened with a wide shot of the sold-out Korakuen crowd, whispering. Jon Moxley’s fresh NJPW theme song ripped through the Hall, that blistering guitar solo bouncing off blue concrete and wood.

As production zoomed in on a salaryman wearing a fresh MOX t-shirt over a collared dress shirt, the crowd roared, and it wasn’t for said salaryman; Moxley and his summer intern, Shota Umino, entered from the south side of the building, up in the plastic orange seats where many a Japanese wrestler has brawled over for a half-century.

“Somethin’s gonna give, baby.” Moxley looked directly into the camera and said that seemingly off the cuff. It’s the type of thing rock stars say before a big gig. He was intense but giddy, that infectious kind of excitement that makes you shut your fists and brace yourself for whatever happens next. The crowd chanted his name as he and Umino hit the ring.

Yuya Uemura hit the ring and kept a distance from Tomohiro Ishii, a man already on fire in this summer’s G1 with two big wins over Jeff Cobb and Jay White. Once Ishii stepped foot in the ring he ripped his t-shirt off and at threw it right at Moxley. Ishii blasted Moxley with a few forearms. Mox shoved Ishii in response and from here it started looking more like a bar fight than a wrestling match.

The jaw-jacking looked and felt awesome, authentic. Mox even pushed the referee aside so that he could pound on Ishii from the mount until the Young Lions had to peel both apart. Moxley then flipped the double bird before exiting to the apron.

“Shooter” Umino and Uemura were terrific as they’ve often been. Once Uemura tagged out Ishii stormed back in and spit at Moxley on the apron. The two went at it again and it was a nice little preview of their upcoming B-Block match this weekend. Moxley is much less explosive and slower than the New Japan guys and it sort of shined through here. It’s not a bad thing necessarily, but it’s noticeable, and will likely be part of the workaround in their bout tomorrow.

The match wrapped with a sudden pin on Uemura after Shooter planted him flat with a textbook fisherman’s suplex. Mox and Ishii had a great pull apart afterwards. Japanese announcer Miki Motoi did a terrific job selling the intensity of the match and would quietly shriek in fear as the violence inched closer to the Japanese announce table. This was good stuff all around.

Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Jeff Cobb def. Juice Robinson, Toa Henare & Yota Tsuji

Standard G1 undercard fare in this match. Everyone faced off before the bell, each opponent paired with either whomever they’re going to wrestle this weekend or just, you know, whomever.

Goto and Henare were in first and displayed natural chemistry. The same idea applies to Henare and Cobb. I’ve said it before but Henare really needs to be in the G1 next year.

This was a nice preview of the upcoming Cobb vs. Robinson B-Block match, though crowd was fully in support of the “flamboyant” one here. There was a loud call for Yota Tsuji midway through this. That guy is going places once he’s assigned signature ring gear. YOSHI-HASHI picked up the win for his team when he tapped Tsuji with a butterfly lock.

Jay White, Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens def. Toru Yano, Ren Narita & Tomaki Honma

Jay White is so effective as a heel in Japan that it induced Toru Yano to kinda-sorta play a more serious (for Toru Yano) role of justice-server. Not much silliness from him here, just the basic Sneaky Style NJPW’s fans have come accustomed to. The crowd ate this up. He called out White before the match (they’ll wrestle on Friday), but White passed on the opportunity and tagged out to The Tokyo Pimp himself, Yujiro Takahashi.

Once the match was underway I found that I had almost nothing else to write about because while things happened, things didn’t happen, either, if that makes sense. A static match. It was all functional, all meant to tease Night 6’s Yano vs. White match and everything in between was good fan service filler. At one point Yano shoved White into the ref and school boy’d him for a close two-count.

The crowd loved CHAOS and was almost as loud for Tomaki Honma as they were for Yano and sounded stoked when got to see him finally land his Kokeshi falling headbutt. After this, the match broke down into bedlam and ended with Chase Owens scoring the pin on rookie Ren Narita with a package piledriver.

Minoru Suzuki, Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru def. Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi & BUSHI

This broke down into another bar fight and pretty quickly. Like almost every single Suzuki-gun multi-man tag match, they ambushed their opponents as the bell struck. That’s almost always the style of match LIJ and Suzuki-gun have if the stakes are low.

It’s formulaic but it always works live, especially at Korakuen Hall, simply because it’s fun to watch people beat the tar out of each other right in front of you. The catch is that the effect isn’t there on television all the time, or if you’ve already seen a number of matches between the two teams.

Tonight, the focal point of the match was between Shingo Takagi and Taichi, who’ll wrestle Friday. Actually, this felt more like a loose version of what we may end up seeing, as Taichi and Takagi were almost exclusively inside the ring for this match while everyone else fought all over the venue.

I couldn’t get a good read on how they’ll be together on Friday; Takagi pretty much always delivers regardless of who he’s with, but Taichi is Taichi and there is a ceiling of quality when it comes to his matches. The crowd was mostly behind the Dragon but there were definitely some passionate calls for the New Japan’s edgiest edgelord.

BUSHI was legal in the ring for what had to be under 60 seconds as he ate a Gotch-style piledriver from Suzuki for the sudden win. This was fine but predictable, and, if you’ve seen it before, skippable.

A Block: KENTA (6) def. Lance Archer (4) by submission

A killer but short match. It was about 60–40 in favor of Lance Archer on offense, and this crowd absolutely loved him. The visual of KENTA looking up at the new and improved Archer at the beginning of this was something else. Archer shoved KENTA so hard he fell to the ground. KENTA responded by chopping the mammoth Archer down with stiff low kicks to Archer’s legs; Archer responded with a running shoulder tackle and an attempt at chokeslamming KENTA from the apron to the floor.

LA Dojo rookies Clark Connors and Karl Fredericks were in the way and Archer screamed at them to move but they didn’t, so he chokeslammed KENTA onto them. The rookies caught KENTA, so the 6-foot-8 Archer did a somersault senton onto all three wrestlers. Then he screamed at the timekeeper as he voiced the referee’s count out call and even grabbed his microphone so that he could say “SHUT UP,” which ironically popped the Tokyo crowd. Korakuen loved both he and KENTA tonight.

Back in the ring, Archer taunted KENTA: “You’re HIDEO.” KENTA responded with a rough slap, so Archer responded with a massive pounce. KENTA fought back with high boots that legitimately reached Archer’s face (KENTA is about 5-foot-9, a foot shorter than Archer), and even a snap powerslam on the big man. There was a “Let’s go Archer!” chant midway through this, after KENTA picked up momentum. Who’d have thought?

When Archer went for the Claw KENTA blocked it, so instead he plastered KENTA with a lariat. KENTA reversed Archer’s Blackout attempt with a choke sleeper and attempted to transition to the GTS but Archer slipped out and landed a Musclebuster for two.

KENTA reversed a chokeslam into a triangle and transitioned to a LeBell Lock for a sudden tap from Archer. This one flew by, but I’d love to see these two go at it again.

A Block: EVIL (4) def. SANADA (2)

A killer match, as one might suspect. Things have been touchy between EVIL and the rest of LIJ lately, especially between he and regular tag team partner SANADA. We’ve touched on it over the past few weeks, but tonight was to be the big blowoff. The two had a great stare-down in their opposite corners before the bell, but as soon as it rang SANADA got a modicum of revenge with two sudden dropkicks that took EVIL off his feet. He went for a moonsault but EVIL slipped out of the way; SANADA landed on his feet.

EVIL rolled to the floor to collect himself. He grabbed a chair from under the ring and slid it inside, a distraction for SANADA who picked it up then tossed it to referee Marty Asami before being tackled by EVIL. They tussled over leglocks, SANADA teasing the Paradise Lock, EVIL trying to slap on the Scorpion Deathlock. EVIL then locked SANADA in the signature lock. He really functioned like the big, mean heel here though a good portion of the crowd was also behind EVIL.

The story here was that EVIL knew all of SANADA’s tricks because they’re tag partners. He bullied SANADA until the blonde space pirate was somehow able to lock EVIL into an inverted Paradise Lock with the bottom rope. The crowd then switched over to chanting for SANADA. Quite fickle for a New Japan crowd.

SANADA made a comeback at about 10 minutes into this, but EVIL returned the attack with a Magic Killer with the involuntary help of referee Asami. Later, the two had an awesome sequence that had to have teased more than 10 different moves until it finished with SANADA hitting EVIL’s finisher, Everything is Evil, for two. SANADA then went for a moonsault but EVIL got his knees up. Korakuen was rocking by this point.

SANADA landed a Tiger Suplex for two after a good striking sequence between he and EVIL. EVIL returned with Darkness Falls at around 17 minutes in. Both traded very close inside cradle near-falls. EVIL’s intensity was awesome in this. After dusting SANADA with a lariat that turned him inside out, EVIL finally planted SANADA with Everything is Evil for the clean win over his tag partner.

EVIL put his fist out to SANADA after the match and SANADA accepted the bump. Apparently EVIL’s recent LIJ spiciness was all a ruse in the name of sportsmanship.

Kazuchika Okada (6) def. Bad Luck Fale (2)

This was a long 10-minute match.

Beforehand, Jado and Chase Owens came out of the far entrance and did the Too Sweet thing. They did this as a diversion for Fale because he actually attacked Okada backstage, and the attack spilled out from the opposite side of the wrestler’s entrances, away from Jado and Owens. The crowd barely reacted; they sounded either to be in shock or in polite dissatisfaction, or a mix of both.

This was awkward until they made it into the ring and the match was underway. Without commentary the crowd had no idea as to what was happening, so they stayed silent until the bell rang. People cried Okada’s name throughout this as Fale tortured Okada. He used a number of forearms to the lower back, one of the most authentically heelish strikes in pro wrestling.

Okada mostly got beaten up in this. He teased bodyslamming Fale and finally did a few minutes into the match, then did a big tope con giro onto the Bullet Club members outside the ring. For Okada diehards in the crowd this must have been really cool because Okada almost never does dives like this anymore, not even in his prime-time matches.

When Okada went for the Rainmaker, Fale spun out of it and grabbed Red Shoes by the collar and tossed him. This was surprisingly graceful. Chase Owens then snuck into the ring and started beating on Okada while Red Shoes was down. Superhero Okada took both Fale and Owens out with dropkicks as a lot of women in the crowd shrieked.

As the 10-minute call sounded Okada somehow pinned Fale out of nowhere with a shrimp hold pin. Fale went after Okada after the match so as not to lose his heat, but Okada again fought back and saluted the Bullet Club on their way out.

Hiroshi Tanahashi (2) def. Zack Sabre Jr. (0)

This blew their MSG match out of the water. Tanahashi nearly made a woman in the front row almost fall out of her seat swooning before this even started. Sabre was his nasty self and lately it’s been so, so good. Lots of mat work early on, not just from Sabre but from Tana.

When Sabre is on and rolling with someone like Tana, someone who has a natural knack for how a grappling bout should feel, it allows the match to look like a really exciting jiu-jitsu flow roll, tons of fluid countering and creative thinking on the fly. It’s almost hypnotic.

The first five minutes of this was pure chess, all modern mat work that never lost the crowd. Compared to Okada and Fale, this absolutely flew by and neither of them were even taking bumps. They exchanged Cobra Twists. This style suits Tanahashi so well and not just because he’s so good at it, but because it doesn’t expose how banged up his knees and biceps are.

A few quick pins and near-falls built the tension here. They built that to crisp European uppercuts. There was a tiny pocket of fans in support of Sabre here, and they sounded like females. These two also got about a minute or so of heat from them fighting over a backslide. Genius.

ZSJ locked in the brutal modified octopus hold for a while as the crowd screamed and squirmed. Sabre twisted Tana’s fingers. Once Sabre let up on the submissions he started laying in harder strikes, like low kicks and open-handed slaps, though Tana muscled through it all and dragon screwed Sabre’s knee.

The venue sounded like it was about to to explode when he went for the High Fly Flow until Sabre put his knees up and transitioned into a triangle choke, but Tana rolled through using a variation of jackknife pin and scored the surprise victory in a fantastic finish. ZSJ threw a Minoru Suzuki-esque temper tantrum after the match. He’s now 0–3 in the G1 so far, while Tanahashi scored his first two points of the summer here.

A Block: Kota Ibushi (2) def. Will Ospreay (2)

This was one of the best matches of 2019.

Ospreay’s neck and shoulders were covered in kinesio tape. He suffered a stinger in his recent A-Block match with SANADA and was off the card this past Monday.

There were main event-sounding chants for both wrestlers beforehand. The first few minutes of this were slow and steady, very deliberate. Things heated up when out of a counter-sequence, Ospreay went for an Os-cutter but Ibushi blocked it. From here things quickly spilled out onto the outside.

Ospreay went after Ibushi’s left ankle for a long while. He smashed it on the guardrail and against the ring post. After working the leg for a while, Ibushi returned the offense with a hard roundhouse kick. He went after Ospreay’s neck with a number of submissions, head scissors and such. The first 10 minutes of this were more Wild Pegasus vs. Black Tiger than what you’d expect from Ospreay vs. Ibushi.

Ospreay built to the Space Flying Tiger Drop midway through this. The crowd was split but never silent and they sounded like they were constantly flip-flopping between who they were rooting for. The chants would often overlap.

When the timekeeper announced that 15 minutes had passed I got the feeling these two were going long tonight.

They started exchanging more power moves from here. Ibushi spiked Ospreay with something that looked like Hangman Page’s Rite of Passage. Everyone gasped. Ibushi planted Ospreay with a Last Ride for only two. Ospreay returned with Cheek Nandos kick. Ospreay went for a Stormbreaker but Ibushi snuck out, and a few moves later Ospreay slid out of Ibushi’s grasp and somehow landed a spiral Liger bomb — insanity — for another two.

Ospreay blasted Ibushi with dozens of strikes as he lay prostrate. Ibushi got up and returned artillery with sick kicks and palm strikes until Red Shoes peeled him off for a rope break. The crowd was fully split at this point.

Ibushi went for a super German suplex off the middle ropes but Ospreay moonsaulted out of it and landed on his feet, then blasted Ibushi in the face with a not-so-Hidden Blade elbow strike. Ibushi was out but was able to grab the ropes to break the pin.

Ibushi blocked an Os-Cutter but Ospreay stuck it on the next try. Ibushi went for Kamagoye but missed and then used a Michinoku Driver II for two. High spots, high spots, high spots, bang, bang, bang. Ospreay whipped his elbow pad off and teased an exposed Hidden Blade but Ibushi blocked it and destroyed his life with a lariat and then an insane Boma-ye for two.

Just after this count the timekeeper made the call that just three minutes were left and the crowd crackled with the news. The chants overlapped each other. Ibushi exploded Kamagoye into Ospreay’s face and with a pang of compassion in your heart the match was over. Ibushi wins.

Check back tomorrow for more results from the second night of G1 Climax 29 at Korakuen Hall.

Current G1 Standings

A Block

Kazuchika Okada 6

KENTA 6

Lance Archer 4

EVIL 4

SANADA 2

Bad Luck Fale 2

Hiroshi Tanahashi 2

Will Ospreay 2

Kota Ibushi 2

Zack Sabre Jr. 0

B Block

Juice Robinson 4

Jon Moxley 4

Tomohiro Ishii 4

Hirooki Goto 2

Toru Yano 2

Shingo Takagi 2

Taichi 2

Tetsuya Naito 0

Jeff Cobb 0

Jay White 0