Kevin’s NJPW G1 Climax 30 Night Four Review

NJPW G1 Climax 30 Night Four
September 24th, 2020 | Hokkaido Sports Center in Hokkaido, Sapporo | Attendance: 1,920

The G1 has been good so far. Are we in line for the first great show of the tournament this year?

B Block: Hirooki Goto [0] vs. SANADA [0]
These guys met in the New Japan Cup last year (***¼), the G1 28 (***¼), and the G1 26 (***). Basically, you’re going to get something good but not great from them. Goto looked like Tanahashi out there in that he had his shoulder heavily taped. It’s usually Tanahashi’s gig to be the guy with the injury in the G1. Anyway, this felt like a lot of other SANADA matches. Somehow, the man is both smooth in the ring and has too many spots that look convoluted. He’s a total enigma. Quality back and forth here but Goto kept struggling with that shoulder. Just getting SANADA up for offense proved to be difficult for the former G1 winner. Still, he managed to fire off a flurry that ended with GTR, scoring the win in 11:03. Another solid match from two good wrestlers. Nothing more, nothing less. [***]

B Block: Hiroshi Tanahashi [0] vs. Toru Yano [2]
Yano beat Tanahashi in the 2015 New Japan Cup (**), while Tanahashi beat him at Dominion that year (***) and again in the G1 (***½). That’s what I’ve seen of them but they’ve actually met more than 20 times. Tanahashi wins most of them. Lots of Yano antics here but I loved that Tanahashi took the removed turnbuckle padding and played air guitar with it. I only love one Ace and that’s Tanahashi. He turned things around on Yano and blindfolded him with his own tape. DASTARDLY! Still, Yano managed to go low and rollup Tanahashi to secure the upset in 7:15. Yano remains the GOAT. Look at his G1 track record. Tanahashi, Omega, Moxley, Suzuki, and the list goes on and on. This was fun. [**½]

B Block: Juice Robinson [2] vs. KENTA [2]
This is quite the interesting meeting. KENTA has never faced Juice but Hideo Itami is unbeaten against CJ Parker in NXT. It’s early in the G1 and it’s getting repetitive to say this already but this was another match that was kind of just there. Nothing was wrong with it but it again never quite got into that level you want. The G1 often has undercard gems in the early stages but that’s lacking here. KENTA was a good asshole throughout and Juice is a tremendous babyface but this didn’t have the fire that it could’ve from them. The Hokkaido crowd wasn’t really into it. You got sparks of these guys bringing the energy but it didn’t fully happen. As usual with NJPW, it picked up late as KENTA started firing off strikes but I’m just so over NJPW matches that slog on forever before doing the same kind of hot finish. Left Hand of God and Pulp Friction beat KENTA in a long 17:01. [**½]

B Block: EVIL [0] vs. YOSHI-HASHI [0]
They met in the G1 26 (***½) and again in the G1 28 (**¾). EVIL also squashed him in the NJC this year. Leave it to YOSHI-HASHI to bring the energy tonight. I wasn’t expecting it but he has been on his game to start the G1 and I appreciate it. This had me and the crowd invested in a way that the previous match couldn’t. You can’t help but appreciate HASHI using his staff to combat EVIL’s chair antics. Even Dick Togo getting involved didn’t cause problems because it wasn’t overdone and HASHI actually did well as a sympathetic babyface. Since Gedo has a tendency to book tournament favorites for slow starts, they made me believe that HASHI might pull off the upset. It just wans’t to be. Despite him fighting off Togo a few times, a low blow and Everything is EVIL put down HASHI after 17:21. That didn’t feel like it went longer than the previous match, which is great. A spirited effort by YOSHI-HASHI and EVIL was the great bruising heel that I know he can be. [***½]

B Block: IWGP Heavyweight & Intercontinental Champion Tetsuya Naito [2] vs. IWGP Tag Team Champion Zack Sabre Jr. [2]
Their past is loaded. A G1 27 match (***¾), one in the 2018 New Japan Cup (****), one in the G1 28 (****¼), and one at Power Struggle 2018 (***¾). They enter this at 2-2. Sabre Jr. made note that he was laser-focused on this match as a win over the champion gets him a title shot before WK 15. Surprisingly, Naito took to the mat with Sabre Jr. in the early portions and held his own. Normally, Zack dominates there and gets in trouble when he plays his opponent’s game. I do think that this also suffered from the case of a slow start but it had the sense of building towards something where other matches seem to be filling time. It wasn’t a perfect start but it worked more than others. At times, it seemed like they were trying to tease the draw, which may have held things back in the first half or so. At other times, it felt like a well-thought out chess match. Once they threw out some tornado DDTs, you could feel things click and get going into the next gear. It closed hot and Naito eked out a win with Destino at 28:28. It felt like Naito was too broken down in last year’s G1, where he underperformed. He’s off to a great start here and I think the long break helped him rest up. This wasn’t on the level of the Tanahashi match but it was still great. [****]

A BLOCK	POINTS	B BLOCK	POINTS
Jay White	4 (2-0)	Tetsuya Naito	4 (2-0)
Taichi	4 (2-0)	Toru Yano	4 (2-0)
Will Ospreay	4 (2-0)	Juice Robinson	4 (2-0)
Kota Ibushi	2 (1-1)	Zack Sabre Jr.	2 (1-1)
Jeff Cobb	2 (1-1)	KENTA	2 (1-1)
Minoru Suzuki	2 (1-1)	EVIL	2 (1-1)
Kazuchika Okada	2 (1-1)	Hirooki Goto	2 (1-1)
Tomohiro Ishii	0 (0-2)	Hiroshi Tanahashi	0 (0-2)
Shingo Takagi	0 (0-2)	SANADA	0 (0-2)
Yujiro Takahashi	0 (0-2)	YOSHI-HASHI	0 (0-2)

7.0

The final score: review Good

The 411

We didn’t get the first great night of the tournament but we got another good one. It hit a lull in the middle as Itami/Juice dragged on. Most of the undercard stuff in this tournament has felt like it will just peak at good and never sniff great. HASHI/EVIL stepped up and that main event was great.