wrestling / TV Reports
Kevin’s NJPW G1 Climax 29 Night Nine Review
Loading...NJPW G1 Climax Night Nine
July 27th, 2019 | Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium in Nagoya, Aichi | Attendance: 6,142
After a few days off, we’re back with weekend G1 Climax action. The A Block is at it again. Headlined by the two undefeated guys going at it, the show looks to be a good on paper. Let’s see if it delivers.
A Block: Kota Ibushi [4] vs. Lance Archer [4]
Last year’s G1 runner-up against a guy who has been surprisingly good in this year’s tournament. We were treated to bully Archer in this and it worked very well. As good as Ibushi is, he has battled an ankle injury in this tournament. That makes him vulnerable in a way that he usually isn’t. The best spot had to be when Archer was looking for the Derailer and Ibushi just jumped over him with a double stomp. It looked really cool. Ibushi showed off his strength by powerbombing Archer. It put Archer in new territory for this match. I also liked Archer avoiding Kamigoye with a brutal knee of his own for a great near fall. Archer kicked out of Boma Ye and didn’t go down when hit with the Kamigoye. It made for a cool moment. Ibushi removed the knee pad and hit a second to win his third straight in 11:42. One hell of a match. Archer has impressed immensely so far in this tournament and this was arguably his best singles match to date. I’d rank him above Fale, Ospreay, SANADA, and probably even EVIL and Okada in terms of top performers in the block. He’s been that good. [****]
A Block: Bad Luck Fale [2] vs. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Will Ospreay [2]
Ospreay beat Fale during the New Japan Cup (*¾) in what wasn’t a good contest. Chase Owens jumped Ospreay before the bell, Jado used the kendo stick as a weapon, and Fale wore down Ospreay with slow offense. That’s this match in a nutshell. It was worse than the New Japan Cup outing. Like, I enjoy seeing Ospreay get beaten up (watch Minoru Suzuki do it at the RevPro show in New York earlier this year) but this was just the pits. Ospreay isn’t good enough to carry Fale to something good the way Tanahashi or Shibata has in the past. Throw in all of the Bullet Club shenanigans and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Fale eventually got disqualified and none of it mattered in 9:08. Garbage match. The worst of the tournament so far and that doesn’t surprise me at all. [DUD]
A Block: EVIL [4] vs. RevPro British Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Jr. [2]
It’s their third meeting, all coming this year. EVIL won at New Beginning (***¾) and Sabre Jr. won in the New Japan Cup (***¾). This was kind of the quintessential G1 Climax match. It featured some really good wrestling, a solid crowd, plenty of counters, and there wasn’t really anything that stood out as being wrong with it. But it also seemed to lack some heart and energy. That’s what a lot of the G1 is, with the stellar matches and the stuff like the previous match being exceptions. And that’s okay. In the middle of a long tournament, these things are expected. EVIL picked up the win after some good back and forth with Everything is EVIL in 16:00. Good old fashioned pro wrestling, but they’re capable of better. A good, yet forgettable match. [***]
A Block: Hiroshi Tanahashi [4] vs. SANADA [2]
This is the pairing that makes SANADA look like a star. Every encounter with Okada is underwhelming, but Tanahashi has him looking like a million bucks. SANADA beat him in the G1 26 (****¼) but Tanahashi evened the score at Power Struggle that year (****). This year, SANADA took a 2-1 lead with a New Japan Cup Semifinal win (****¼). Unfortunately, this was easily their worst outing together. It feels like this was another to suffer from being placed in the middle of the G1 Climax. Even with the lighter schedule, it’s understandable that guys have to take it easy at points and that is usually reserved for the middle of the tournament. A few of their exchanges weren’t nearly as smooth as we’ve come to expect from them. Some of the Skull End stuff saw them slip and their strike exchanges didn’t seem to have anything behind them. Tanahashi picked up his third straight victory with High Fly Flow after 18:07. A major disappointment, but not a bad match. It was kind of lifeless. [***]
A Block: IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada [8] vs. KENTA [8]
4-0 against 4-0. Before the tournament, I picked KENTA to win this purely to set up a title match in the next few months. But with both unbeaten, I came in knowing how this would go. Anyway, a lot of this was typical Okada formula. It started quite slow and picked up late. What helped the early stages were the bits of personality thrown in. Okada gave a clean break and KENTA teased one, only to slap him. KENTA doing the Rainmaker pose was fantastic. I love that KENTA is an asshole. As expected, the stuff near the end was very well done. There were plenty of counters but my favorite part had to be KENTA just walloping Okada with some stiff shots. As if he wasn’t out to play any of those games with him. Okada survived the sleeper and countered the Go to Sleep into a spinning Tombstone. The Rainmaker followed and he moved to 5-0 after 26:53. That was very good, but didn’t quite reach the level of being great. Again, the early stuff was kind of pointless, so this would’ve worked better if you trim that and got this to 20 or so minutes. Still, the action was strong and it made for a quality main event for this point in the G1. [***¾]
| A BLOCK | POINTS | B BLOCK | POINTS |
| Kazuchika Okada | 10 (5-0) | Jon Moxey | 8 (4-0) |
| KENTA | 8 (4-1) | Juice Robinson | 6 (3-1) |
| EVIL | 6 (3-2) | Shingo Takagi | 4 (2-2) |
| Hiroshi Tanahashi | 6 (3-2) | Toru Yano | 4 (2-2) |
| Kota Ibushi | 6 (3-2) | Taichi | 4 (2-2) |
| Lance Archer | 4 (2-3) | Tetsuya Naito | 4 (2-2) |
| Will Ospreay | 4 (2-3) | Tomohiro Ishii | 4 (2-2) |
| SANADA | 2 (1-4) | Hirooki Goto | 2 (1-3) |
| Zack Sabre Jr. | 2 (1-4) | Jay White | 2 (1-3) |
| Bad Luck Fale | 2 (1-4) | Jeff Cobb | 2 (1-3) |
