Pantoja’s NJPW G1 Climax 36 Night 7 Review

NJPW G1 Climax 36 Night Seven

July 26^th, 2026 | EBARA WAVE Arena in Tokyo, Japan | Attendance: 1,580

It’s B Block today, which means only four matches. With another STARDOM show for me to cover, this will be on the shorter side in terms of reviews.

B Block: Aaron Wolf [4] vs. OSKAR [4]

This match followed a simple concept. OSKAR used his size advantage, forcing Wolf to find creative ways to utilize his technical acumen to fight back. Both guys also threw some solid strikes throughout as well. These aren’t the two most polished workers, but they made the idea work well enough. OSKAR wore him down with elbows, while Wolf responded by applying a triangle choke that got a good pop. He crowd seems relatively into Wolf. OSKAR blocked the Angle Slam and applied the Nightmare Sleeper, leading to the referee calling for the bell in 9:50. That’s an impressive way to beat an Aaron Wolf. Solid little opener. [**¾]

B Block: HENARE [6] vs. Ren Narita [4]

Guys, I just don’t have the energy to do even a short write up here. It’s hard to really grasp how tedious the House of Torture schtick is unless you’ve been watching it consistently for several years. Everything Ren did was boring and it didn’t even matter because HENARE mostly no sold it all. I get that it’s part of his thing but I think he does it a bit too much. Anyway, the HENARE Bomb got him the win after a dull 10:59. [*½]

B Block: Callum Newman [6] vs. Drilla Moloney [6]

I was interested in this one because both guys are kind of in the same boat for me. I like Drilla more but they’re both dudes who can be hit or miss for me and I want to see them hit that next level for me. Anyway, this was about what I expect from them as it was solid. They had some good back and forth action while incorporating some fun spots like the Satelitte DDT and Newman’s bump onto all the chairs. I still don’t love how much of Callum’s offense feels like Will Ospreay cosplay. Drilla added some vicious bits, including some major snap on things like his popup powerbomb. There was a bit too much interference here with Zane Jay and Daiki Nagai both getting involved. I don’t think that was needed. The Drilla Killa secured something of an upset for Moloney in 14:12. A good semi-main event here. [***¼]

B Block: Gabe Kidd [6] vs. Zack Sabre Jr. [2]

This one has the potential to be the best match of the tournament. Their meeting in the G1 2024 was spectacular (****½). That went 16:20 and this one went much longer. That was a mistake. New Japan has this thing where all main events have to be long and often longer than they need. This had some good physicality and it was worked more towards Gabe’s style than ZSJ’s, which was the right move. The issue was that it seemed like they had 15 or so minutes of ideas and stretched that out. There were awesome moments here like the apron Tombstone and the slap exchange late, yet there were also pockets where nothing of note happened and the action dragged. That aforementioned slap exchange saw Gabe bust out a knee strike and then hit a couple of piledrivers to send Zack further towards the bottom of the standings in 25:47. There’s a great 15-17 minute match in there but going 25 dragged down the score. [***¼]

 

A Block	Points	B Block	Points
Konosuke Takeshita	6 (3-1)	Drilla Moloney	8 (4-1)
Yota Tsuji	4 (2-2)	Gabe Kidd	8 (4-1)
Ryohei Oiwa	4 (2-2)	HENARE	8 (4-1)
Boltin Oleg	4 (2-2)	Callum Newman	6 (3-2)
Jake Lee	4 (2-2)	OSKAR	6 (3-2)
Hirooki Goto	4 (2-2)	Ren Narita	4 (2-2)
SANADA	4 (2-2)	Yuya Uemura	4 (2-2)
Yuto-Ice	4 (2-2)	Aaron Wolf	4 (2-2)
Great-O-Khan	4 (2-2)	Zack Sabre Jr.	2 (1-3)
Shingo Takagi	2 (1-3)	Shota Umino	0 (0-9) Injured

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Yeah, this was a night that shows the lack of star power in New Japan. Nothing jumps out at you, it feels like a bunch of midcard guys, and even the matches that had potential to deliver didn’t live up to their potential.