NJPW was at the Hiroshima Sun Plaza Hall on Wednesday for Night 8 of the NJPW G1 Climax 29 tournament and featured the next round of B-Block matches, including Tetsuya Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii going head-to-head in the main event.
Results roundup:
- Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi (w/ Pieter) def. Will Ospreay, Tomaki Honma & Yuya Uemura
- Lance Archer, Zack Sabre Jr. & Minoru Suzuki def. EVIL, BUSHI & SANADA
- Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shota Umino def. Kota Ibushi and Ren Narita
- Toa Henare YOSHI-HASHI Kazuchika Okada def. KENTA, Clark Connors & Karl Fredericks via submission
- B Block: Juice Robinson (6) def. Toru Yano (4)
- B Block: Taichi (w/ Miho Abe) (4) def. Hirooki Goto (2)
- B Block: Jay White (2) def. Jeff Cobb (2)
- B Block: Jon Moxley (8) def. Shingo Takagi (4) by submission
- B Block: Tetsuya Naito (2) def. Tomohiro Ishii (4)
Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi (w/ Pieter) def. Will Ospreay, Tomaki Honma & Yuya Uemura
The Hiroshima Sun Plaza Hall looked great on camera, glossy and professional. The crowd stayed relatively quiet for five minutes or so until Ospreay tagged in and volley’d himself in and around the ring. He and Chase Owens had a nice chemistry together.
Uemura hit a double-overhook suplex on Takahashi, but later Takahashi used his Pimp Juice DDT on rookie Uemura for the pin. Fale and company beat on Ospreay outside the ring after the match. Those two will have an A-Block match together in Nagoya this Saturday.
Lance Archer, Zack Sabre Jr. & Minoru Suzuki def. EVIL, BUSHI & SANADA
A fine match, short with no surprises. Suzuki-gun ambushed Los Ingobernables de Japon before the bell like they usually do in six-person tags. Sabre and EVIL were the in-ring focus of the match as the others brawled into the the crowd. Suzuki bashed BUSHI with a chair. EVIL looked dominant throughout this. He’s up against ZSJ this Saturday in an A-Block bout that should be good.
These two were the only real highlight of the match and both have been on rolls with regard to G1 performances this summer. Suzuki pinned BUSHI after a Gotch-style piledriver. Archer used the EBD Claw on SANADA during the pin. Suzuki-gun beat people up afterwards and Suzuki threw a guardrail. EVIL and ZSJ talked trashed while Sabre strutted to the back.
Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shota Umino def. Kota Ibushi and Ren Narita
On paper, you’d expect more from all involved. That said, this wasn’t bad, just short and very much a house show match.
The two G1 Climax 28 finalists, Tanahashi and Ibushi, were in first, but we didn’t see too much action between the two. Narita and Umino were in together next. Umino was flailing so violently on the mat that Narita had to wait for him to stop selling to lay in a stomp. It’s negligible but I wanted to mention it to contrast their intensity with Ibushi and Tanahashi on their “off-night.”
Umino landed a spinebuster one Ibushi and tagged out to Tana. They went at it with a bit more intensity until Narita tagged in and did his best to tear Tanahashi down at the knees. He locked in a Boston Crab until Tana broke out. They exchanged hard slaps and then, abruptly, Tana pinned Narita after a slingblade.
Tanahashi had words with Ibushi after the match. Their G1 singles rematch will be on August 3 in Osaka.
Toa Henare, YOSHI-HASHI & Kazuchika Okada def. KENTA, Clark Connors & Karl Fredericks via submission
KENTA will wrestle Kazuchika Okada at Aichi Taikai this weekend. Okada is from Aichi, in the prefecture of Nagoya, one of the bigger cities in Japan. He and KENTA were first in here and Okada looked beyond excited to get this match going, almost giddy in a non-kayfabe way. The “O-ka-da” calls were pretty loud before they locked up.
They started at it with the elbows early on. Okada was grunting like Monica Seles with all of his strikes. He tends to constantly tweak something in his character with each match in an attempt to adapt and refine each of his matches. KENTA, too, looked great, and more and more like the older version of KENTA in terms of timing and explosiveness. He even did the Rainmaker pose at one point.
Fredericks and Henare were in next. Henare carries with him the same intense fighter vibe that both Fredericks and Connors have cultivated in their training. No nonsense ever, no BS ever, just wrestling.
Fredericks tagged out to Okada, who promptly dashed to KENTA’s corner and took him off the apron with an elbow. KENTA returned with a sneak attack of his own and decked Okada off the apron while he was tagged out and continued to savage the IWGP Heavyweight Champion on the floor.
Clark Connors used a picture-perfect hiptoss on Henare midway through this. Connors and YOSHI-HASHI later exchanged strikes until YH applied a Butterfly Lock for the quick tap. KENTA and Okada had a staring contest after the match. This was the best bout of the night up to this point.
B Block: Juice Robinson (6) def. Toru Yano (4)
Yano was really popular in Hiroshima on Wednesday. Robinson kept mouthing “no bulls–t” before they shook hands; Yano replied with “JUST FRIENDSHIP!” Yano then spun Robinson around and school boy’d him for an early nearfall that the crowd bought.
He apologized to Juice, then went to tear off the pads on the corner ring posts, so I guess he didn’t mean he was sorry. He tried blocking one of Robinson’s punches with the pad but it didn’t do anything because, well, they’re made to protect you. Robinson chucked the pad out of the ring and Yano rolled him up once again for another close two-count.
Yano threw Juice to the floor and whipped him into the guardrail, then tried using white athletic tape but Robinson grabbed it and threw it into the crowd. Yano whipped Robinson into the rails again and tried to score a win via countout but Juice made it back just in time.
Referee Marty Asami then went to double-check Yano’s tights for any more hidden goodies and found another roll of athletic tape. How come he couldn’t find that before the match? Yano said “I didn’t know!” and insisted Asami check Robinson’s tights so that he could try another school boy pin, again for two.
When Yano went for a low blow, Robinson saw it coming and went for Pulp Friction which they fought over. Yano again went for a low blow but this time Juice blocked it, landed the Left Hand of God haymaker and finally Pulp Friction to win this extra-long Toru Yano match.
B Block: Taichi (w/ Miho Abe) (4) def. Hirooki Goto (2)
LA Dojo-edition Goto went after Taichi before the match. He went after Taichi in the same way any other of Suzuki-gun member would go after their opponent. This quickly spilled to the floor with Goto dominating things until Miho Abe stood in front of Goto, a diversion for Taichi to sneak away and come back with a sucker-attack from behind.
Back in the ring it was all Taichi for a long while. Yeah. Once he whipped his parachute pants off Goto was able to land an ushigoroshi. Taichi was booed but it was mild, and the same went for Goto, at least until towards the end of this. Goto landed an inverted GTR for two. Later Taichi shoved ref Marty Asami into Goto, who was running the ropes, and knocked Asami out for a few moments; Taichi used a backdrop driver on Goto when he was distracted.
Taichi went to use the mic stand but Goto blocked the attack and threw it to the floor. He landed a hard kick and then went for the GTR, but Taichi grabbed a hold of Asami and shoved his head away so Asami wouldn’t see Taichi’s low kick to the groin on Goto. Taichi then used the Gedo Clutch to pin Goto.
B Block Jon Moxley (8) def. Shingo Takagi (4) by submission
This was a good match, though the chemistry wasn’t quite there between the two, not yet — or not like it was between Mox and Ishii last week.
Moxley and Shota Umino entered through the crowd again, and Umino wore Moxley’s US title over his shoulder for him. During the match announcements, Moxley and Takagi were face-to-face, or really face-on-face, similar to the beginning of Mox’s match with Ishii last week.
Big elbow exchanges to start with. This apparently didn’t satisfy Moxley so he began biting Takagi, who quickly returned the attack with a flurry of chops and right hooks in the corner, Genichiro Tenryu-style. Mox went for a tope suicida to the floor but Takagi caught him and drilled him with a Death Valley Bomb on the floor.
The crowd seemed less familiar with both wrestlers because this would have been on fire last week at Korakuen Hall. Even still, the crowd was intrigued with pretty much everything, oohing and aahing at almost everything Moxley did.
He set up a table on the floor, adjacent to the apron and guardrail, but moves through it were only teased at first. Moxley worked over Takagi’s leg inside the ring and Takagi later sold it like he couldn’t walk. He limped around the ring for much of this match, actually.
Takagi went for a running seated clothesline but Moxley caught him. He continued working over Takagi’s knees — the main story of the match, really — dropkicking him low and even locking Takagi in a figure-four against the ring post, just like Bret Hart.
Midway through consisted of a lot more back-and-forth, but Mox continued punishing Takagi’s knee. When Moxley went for a running knee, Takagi countered and landed a Gory Special bomb, then two Pumping Bombers. The second Bomber carried with it so much impact that a cloud of sweat exploded from Moxley’s chest. He then went for Last of the Dragon but his knee gave out so he couldn’t swing it. The crowd was staunchly behind Takagi at this point.
Whenever Moxley teased the Death Rider the crowd didn’t react. This whole tournament has been one long debut for him. Outside, he used a knee-crusher onto the aforementioned table, then blasted the same knee with a folding chair. Moxley went to the corner to wait for Takagi to re-enter the ring. Takagi’s selling was masterful here, and even though NJPW has been abusing the 19-count spot lately this somehow felt fresh. Takagi barely made it back to the ring but Mox was waiting for him with an exposed knee strike to the face.
After a few more exchanges Takagi landed Made in Japan for two. He went for Last of the Dragon but his knee gave out again. Moxley landed two more Boma-ye-esque knees that looked kind of funny, then locked in a Texas Cloverleaf. The story was that since Takagi’s knee was so torn up that he had to tap. Takagi being so much faster than Moxley made for a different feel, not completely awkward but not entirely smooth, either. Nitpicks aside, this was still really good.
B Block: Jay White (w/ Gedo) vs. Jeff Cobb
When the bell rang White rolled out of the ring. He climbed back in, Cobb hit a shoulder block, and again, White was back to the floor. Once Cobb was finally able to keep White in the ring he landed a big dropkick. When they were back on the floor, Gedo kept trying to involve himself so Cobb tossed him into the ring, but the long diversion finally paid off and White attacked Cobb from behind. He ripped the trim off the apron and smothered Cobb with it, then did a falling neckbreaker to Cobb from the apron to the floor.
White worked over Cobb with a steady pace for a few more minutes until Cobb landed a bear hug suplex, and later a side saito suplex and standing moonsault for twos. Momentum shifted between the two until White scored a backdrop suplex and a big uranage for his own nearfall. Cobb takes moves like these just like someone who’s 200 pounds.
He returned White’s attack by launching Switchblade over his head with a fallaway slam. When Cobb did a deadlift swinging back suplex, Satoshi Kojima said on commentary how he’d never seen a move like that before and that it was very impressive. Milano Collection A.T. had similar feelings.
The place lost it when Cobb used his deadlift superplex on White, something I think is more common to see in the States these days than in Japan. Next he put White in a fireman’s carry but White put him in a crucifix and started landing Gary Goodridge-style elbows. Cobb accidentally knocked White into referee Red Shoes and here was when Gedo went to use brass knuckles on Cobb, but no dice: Cobb landed a powerslam.
He almost pulled off the Tour of the Islands on White next, but White snuck in a low blow. He used a head-and-arm suplex on Cobb who quickly returned with a snap German suplex. But in the end all the reversals were for naught as White was able to stick the Flatliner finish for the pin and the win. Another really good one with a hot ending.
B Block: Tetsuya Naito (4) def. Tomohiro Ishii (4)
So Naito likes to toss his IWGP Intercontinental belt into the ring like he doesn’t care about, and he did it here in Hiroshima tonight. But when Ishii came out with his NEVER openweight title, he took it from his shoulder and laid it side-by-side with Naito’s belt. The camera stayed on both belts lying vertical next to each other for a few moments.
This tiny piece of storytelling that was most likely ad-libbed was ingenious. It added that extra spice to heighten any oncoming drama in their match, and it’s not like one would have to deeply explain the story; two champions not fighting for belts, but for ego, pride and integrity.
Naito was wildly over in Hiroshima and he often is because of his undying love for the Hiroshima Carps, a pro baseball team based in the prefecture. Once the bell rang the two went after each other with elbows until Naito got the better of the exchange, spitting on Ishii before he rolled to the floor.
Naito was particularly relentless from the beginning in this. He used a tight cravat hold that brought Ishii to his knees and then flat on his back. His plan was to continue working over Ishii’s neck, even though I’m pretty sure Ishii’s neck disappeared into his torso years ago.
Ishii rallied back early with a big powerslam. He continued punishing Naito, screaming at him, hammering him with forearms. He blasted him with the Tenryu-styled chop-n-punch in the corner. Things began to heat up when Naito countered or blocked pretty much everything Ishii would throw at him until he was able to land a walk-up swinging DDT.
The two jostled with each other on the top rope until Naito was able to pull off a Frankensteiner. The crowd was nearly the hottest they’d been for any match all night. Naito later used a reverse-Frankensteiner that spiked Ishii on the top of his head, though Ishii still pretty much no-sold it and blasted Naito with a lariat.
Ishii later landed a massive superplex, a proper one where both wrestlers were launched from the top rope. After a two-count Naito slapped Ishii, who responded with a brutal headbutt. The crowd began peaking here. Ishii called for the brain buster but he couldn’t swing it and Naito was able to swing into a Destino for a very close two-count. Hiroshima was swelling to the tune of “Na-i-to! Na-i-to!”
When Naito went for an inverted swinging DDT, Ishii was able to counter it into a brainbuster attempt, which Naito then re-countered with a DDT on the way down; Ishii no-sold it, bounced off the ropes and landed a Sliding D lariat for another nearfall.
Naito returned with a Northern Lights Bomb for two. Ishii was gagging and spitting until Naito stuck another Destino to put Ishii away for good. He sold Destino after the match like he was drunk and out on his feet, using the guardrails, not humans, to help himself to the back.
This was far and away the best match of the night, and probably Naito’s best match of the entire G1 so far. As for Ishii, he’s simply on fire once again this summer with unstoppable performances.
The G1 tournament will be back this weekend for two separate nights in Aichi, which you can catch on either NJPW World or AXS TV.
Current G1 Standings
A Block
- Kazuchika Okada 8
- KENTA 8
- Lance Archer 4
- EVIL 4
- Hiroshi Tanahashi 4
- SANADA 2
- Bad Luck Fale 2
- Will Ospreay 2
- Kota Ibushi 2
- Zack Sabre Jr. 2
B Block
- Jon Moxley 8
- Juice Robinson 6
- Tomohiro Ishii 4
- Shingo Takagi 4
- Toru Yano 4
- Taichi 4
- Tetsuya Naito 4
- Hirooki Goto 2
- Jeff Cobb 2
- Jay White 2
Next. NJPW G1 Climax 29 Night 7: Okada vs. Ospreay. dark