Csonka’s NJPW G1 28 Undercard Thoughts (Days 8-10)

Welcome back to column time with Larry. Today’s column is all about the 2018 G1 tournament, and more specifically, the prelims from the events on days 8 through 10. I haven’t had the chance to do regular reviews of the prelim matches, because honestly, I don’t have the time to do them for every show, due to my schedule. But the prelims are offering some interesting pairings and story elements, and I don’t want to ignore them, so I plan to get to them in batches like I will do today. I hope that you enjoy, and thanks for following along with my G1 28 coverage this year…

– Night One Review
– Night Two Review
– Night Three Review
– Csonka’s NJPW G1 28 Undercard Thoughts (Days 1-3)
– Night Four Review
– Night Five Review
– Night Six Review
– Night Seven Review
– Csonka: Early Title Match Implications From The NJPW G1 28
– Csonka’s NJPW G1 28 Undercard Thoughts (Days 4-7)
– Night Eight Review
– Night Nine Review
– Night Ten Review

DAY Eight [6.1]

* El Desperado and Minoru Suzuki defeated Michael Elgin and Ren Narita [***]: This was a good and spirited opener, with good attention paid to the build to Elgin vs. Suzuki. Ren Narita continues to have a great tour, working hard, showing great fire, and generally improving at a steady rate. A month or so ago I felt he was way behind Umino in terms of growth and as a performer, but the G1 tour has been so amazing for him, and he’s really starting to catch up. Narita’s growth and performance was the real takeaway from this for me. Desperado put the poor lion away to score a nice win for himself and please his God.

* BUSHI and EVIL defeated Chase Owens and Hangman Page [**½]: Chase Owens and Hangman Page have been really good as a team on these undercard matches, so much so that I want them to get a WTL run just for the fun and match quality we’ll get. The Bullet Club boys were actually undefeated as a team on this tour until losing this match. The set up for Page & EVIL was solidly done, and this was a fine little outing as EVIL pinned Owens to take the win.

* Bad Luck Fale and Tama Tonga defeated Jay White and YOH [*½]: This was a match, not bad, but really nothing there either. It continued two things on this tour, Loa picking up another win and being the best-booked member of Firing Squad, and Jay White being a complete asshole and throwing poor Yoh to the wolves. It wasn’t very good, but again, accomplished its goals well enough.

* David Finlay and Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated Toa Henare and Togi Makabe [***]: This was good overall, with the Tanahashi and Makabe build being mostly solid, but nothing spectacular, just like the tournament matches ended up being. The real fire came from Finlay & Henare, partly because they weren’t saving themselves for the tournament, and also because they are busting their asses to get noticed, and also because they have a match set for the August 11th event.

* SHO and YOSHI-HASHI defeated Gedo and Kazuchika Okada [**¾]: This was setting up the Okada vs. HASHI tournament match, which I thought was very good and had a good story, but was far from HASHI’s best performance as some claimed. This was brief, fun, and really carried by Sho, who was busting his ass here to impress, as he has been all tour long. He even picked up the win over Gedo in the match; I am all in on an upcoming Sho singles run, the dude is money. Unfortunately, his time may come sooner rather than later if Takahashi’s injury ends his career.

DAY Nine [6.3]

* Hirooki Goto and Sho defeated Shota Umino and Toa Henare [**½]: This was a day off for Goto, who was really only here to have some star power in the match. There’s nothing wrong with that as it gives the star a break and allows the young guys to shine. Sho and Henare got the majority of time to shine, while Umino got the fiery babyface spots down the stretch before eventually taping to Sho. This was a nice and solid opening match with the young guys working hard in the spotlight given to them.

* The Guerrillas of Destiny defeated TAKA Michinoku and Zack Sabre Jr. [**¼]: This was an ok match, sadly better than the Tonga vs. Sabre single match it was setting up. I have found that the Firing Squad/Guerrillas of Destiny tags have been harmless, solid, and done way more to make me care about them than their interference filled shit tournament matches. Part of that is that I can buy them in tags, but as singles, they are the shits even with all of the smoke and mirrors. It’s a shame that the Tonga vs. Sabre match ended up being such shit, because they showed some promise here.

* David Finlay and Juice Robinson defeated Gedo and Toru Yano [**½]: This was a brief and fun little outing. David Finlay and Juice Robinson to me are such a fun team that the crowds love ad they really need a WTL run this year, which really should have happened last year, but they instead brought in Sami Callihan who too busy kissing guys and pretending he’s “The Draw.” Anyway, this was short, sweet, and really just fun, like what Juice vs. Yano ended up being.

* Kota Ibushi and Yujiro Takahashi defeated SHO and Tomohiro Ishii [***]: This was the set up for Ibushi vs. Ishii, which WAS FUCKING AWESOME. This match was good; they did just enough to tease Ibushi vs. Ishii, Sho continued to look great and I continue to adore the oddball occasional tag team of wholesome Kota Ibushi and sleazy pimp Yujiro Takahashi. Sho is so great.

* SANADA and Tetsuya Naito defeated Chase Owens and Kenny Omega [***]: This was our set up for Omega vs. SANADA, who actually started thing off and started their build right away. As you would expect with the guys involved, this was good and had the crowd interested from the start. Bullet Club controlled until SANADA eventually locked Chase into the paradise lock. Things broke down as Omega & SANADA did more interaction than most to set up their match the next day, and Naito put away poor Chase with destino, picking up a win he really didn’t need.

DAY 10 [6.3]

* Firing Squad (Bad Luck Fale & Tanga Loa) defeated Togi Makabe & Toa Henare [**]: This was for the build to Fale vs. Makabe on Monday, so to prepare us for that, there were a lot of middle fingers exchanged and brawling. Henare stepped up to his trainer Fale and did well for himself, the action was ok, but had some good intensity to it. Loa picked up another win and in an alternate universe is killing it in the G1. Again, the Firing Squad tags are much easier to digest than the tournament matches.

* Hangman Page & Chase Owens defeated Jay White & YOH [**½]: If you’ve been following these tags with Jay White & YOH at all, even through these write-ups, the story had been White either trying to get Yoh to heel it up and take shortcuts, or White largely leaving poor Yoh out to dry and for the most part, take a young lion like beating. Page and Owes remain a tremendously fun team, and Page really shined again in this match as he feels like the more he’s working here, the more like a star he feels like. White actually saved Yoh here, but poor Yoh eventually fell to rite of passage as White watched on; tough love.

* Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki & El Desperado) defeated Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL & BUSHI) [***]: This was good as they did the usual brawling, but I really liked the intensity of the Suzuki vs. EVIL interactions to set up their upcoming match. They actually interacted more than most doing a lot of these tags, which made it feel more worth the time to watch. It gave me high hopes for their match. Suzuki picked up the win, spiking BUSHI with the Gotch as EVIL was forced to watch on.

* YOSHI-HASHI & SHO defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi & Shota Umino [***½]: The work to setup Tanahashi and HASHI was fine, rather straightforward, but nothing special. Sho and Umino brought the fire here, carrying the majority of the load, and continuing their string of strong performances. For me this ended up as one of the better prelim matches, as it was just a ton of fun with a great closing stretch as Sho locks up another victory.

* Michael Elgin & David Finlay defeated Kazuchika Okada & Gedo [**½]: This was the set up for Monday’s Elgin vs. Okada match, a match that has a real chance to deliver, as Elgin has been really good so far and as we get deeper, I am hoping for Okada to really deliver. This was solid and mostly light-hearted with some beard-based offense on Gedo before we got into the Elgin vs. Okada stuff, which was solid, but not mind-blowing or overly intense. It broke down to Gedo vs. Finlay, and Finlay picking up the win with the stunner. Okada is still looking to get his shit together and fully find his groove, and hopefully, he’s locked in on Monday.

THE VERDICT [6.25]

Overall this is an average set of matches, but the good news is that while this set of prelims didn’t provide anything must-see wrestling wise, it continued its job of setting up the tournament matches, gave guys momentum, solidified alliances, told some fun low-level stories, and continued the new structure of Bullet Club. there is rarely anything bad, as most is ok to good, but unfortunately, nothing must see. If you aren’t watching the under cards but have some time to kill, you need to make time for Sho & Adam Page’s matches, they have been some real bright spots as far as their performances go. Umino and Narita are already so very good and they will end up being great just judging on how quickly they are learning. Henare continues to show great fire, and I really think that the chances of him turning and joining Firing Squad on the 11th when he faces Finlay remain high. Keep your eye on Yoh, Sho may be putting in the better performances overall, but I stand by my thought that even though White treats him like shit and Yoh pretends to be the good boy that when 3k split. It will be Yoh that goes heel and turns on Sho.

– End Scene.

– Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”