Kevin’s NJPW G1 Climax 30 Finals Review

NJPW G1 Climax 30 Finals
October 18th, 2020 | Ryogoku Kokugikan Sumo Hall in Tokyo, Japan | Attendance: N/A

It all comes down to this. Reaching the end of the G1 is always bittersweet. It’s the end of some really good wrestling but you’re also kind of happy that it’s over. It’s an odd feeling. We’ve got a G1 Climax 30 final that I’m less than thrilled about, but their last meeting was good. So let’s see how this goes.

DOUKI, El Desperado, Taichi and Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano and YOSHI-HASHI
Some of the best G1 Climax 30 performers are in here. Taichi and Ishii were top of the line, Sabre Jr. was good, Yano was a blast, and HASHI was a huge surprise. Goto was there too. It’s good to have El Desperado back as well. One would assume that the outcome here would have title implications unless DOUKI or Desperado ate the pin. The match itself was your standard NJPW multi-man tag. It had fine action and was mostly here to simply set something up for the near future. YOSHI-HASHI is still a giant geek even after his G1 performance, eating the pin to DOUKI, who is bottom of the barrel in NJPW. There was help from the tag champs but still. The whole thing went 10:34. [**¼]

Post-match, Ishii got hit with a pipe in the knee and Suzuki-Gun beat up CHAOS before DOUKI challenged for the NEVER Openweight Six Man Titles.

Hiromu Takahashi and Shingo Takagi vs. Minoru Suzuki and Yoshinobu Kanemaru
It looks like the Shingo/Suzuki rivalry will continue. Hiromu busted out an Ultimate Warrior style entrance. Shoutout to Shingo and Hiromu, who are, in my opinion, the two best wrestlers in the company in my opinion. Ishii, White, and Tanahashi probably round out the top five off the top of my head. I know the focus here was on Suzuki/Shingo but I think my favorite exchanges were Suzuki and Hiromu. That would be a wild match. Hiromu put down Kanemaru with Time Bomb at the 11:55 mark. It was probably done to set up Kanemaru & Desperado/Hiromu & BUSHI. Not new but fine. The match itself was good. [***]

Gedo, Jay White, KENTA and Taiji Ishimori vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jeff Cobb, Juice Robinson and Master Wato
I totally forgot that Master Wato was a thing. A lot of the focus is on the possibility of Bullet Club dissension. Again, this was another quality NJPW multi-man tag. Jay White continues to excel with character work and Ishimori is probably only behind him as the best guy in the Bullet Club, so it was nice to have him there. KENTA was a dick to Tanahashi, building towards another match between them most likely. Cobb and Juice also did their thing, while Wato was kind of just there with Gedo. Speaking of Gedo, he was the guy to take the loss here, tapping out to Tanahashi’s Cloverleaf in 9:12. A fun little tag that accomplished what it needed to and gave the good guys a win. [***]

Tanahashi seems to be challenging KENTA for his US Title shot. I think that makes sense, especially since KENTA pinned Naito. He can maybe get another top title shot, while Tanahashi wins the US Title shot and maybe faces Jon Moxley given his random connections to AEW.

It was announced that Wrestle Kingdom 15 will again be a two-night event. Intriguing considering the attendance restrictions.

The Great-O-Khan and Will Ospreay vs. Kazuchika Okada and SHO
Will Ospreay and Bea Priestley are horrendous people. Had to get that out of the way. O-Khan looked cool yesterday but he was back to his goofy gimmick here and looked like a joke. The only positive about Bea being around is that she came out with the SWA Title and I’m all for them getting more exposure. The two best wrestlers in this match are the CHAOS boys and I actually prefer SHO. I loved that Okada started this by jumping Ospreay. He should be pissed about yesterday. They’re lucky they put O-Khan in there with a junior because he’s supposed to be a monster, yet isn’t very big. In fact, SHO looks like he could legitimately kick his ass. SHO took most of the heat and Okada did his thing when he got tagged in. After some involvement from Bea, Willy won with the Figure Four on SHO in 12:35. As a match, it was bland. For story purposes, it sets the stage for Okada/Ospreay, most likely in the Tokyo Dome. I like that there’s a new faction because NJPW is incredibly stale at times but this is not off to a great start. Will is unlikable so he fits the role but O-Khan is lame so far. SHO is awesome, though. [**]

BUSHI and Tetsuya Naito vs. EVIL and Yujiro Takahashi
Yeah, I don’t really have much for this. The Naito/EVIL angle was good on paper but hasn’t really done it for me. BUSHI and Yujiro were clearly there to be the fall guy and nothing more. A bland match that saw EVIL win by making BUSHI submit to the Darkness Scorpion in 14:14. I couldn’t get into this and hopefully we only have one more EVIL/Naito match on the horizon. Just blah. [**]

G1 Climax 30 Finals: Kota Ibushi vs. SANADA
They’ve split their two meetings, both coming in the G1. The 2018 outing (****) was better than the 2019 one (***¼). Man, SANADA is progressively worse against everybody isn’t he? Commentary noted that the shortest G1 Finals in recent memory went 18 minutes in 2014 between Okada and Nakamura. We need more of that these days. You could tell these guys were going long and that’s not a good recipe for SANADA. Ibushi went after the arm, which was an interesting choice. Apparently, SANADA is a dummy as he didn’t really target the leg much. Ibushi had it taped up and was clearly favoring it but it took a while for SANADA to really go after it. The whole match should’ve been built on that. As we neared the 25-minute mark, I was surprised. This wasn’t dragging but it also didn’t feel like a whole lot happened in that time. That doesn’t make sense but it’s this match. As usual, the finishing stretch was pretty strong but this whole thing was just so odd. It was disjointed and didn’t make a ton of sense, yet still had aspects that I enjoyed. I don’t know. Ibushi won with Kamigoye after 35:12 to win back-to-back G1s. A hard match to rate. At times, I dug it and others, it was really bad. [***]

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

That was kind of lame, wasn’t it? Even if you enjoyed the main event more than I did, the whole show was pretty bland. There weren’t any standout matches or even any major angle development. It just felt like a show where not much of significance happened. This came across like a “Road to” show and nothing more.