Tom Lawlor on Joining the G1 Climax, How No One Embodies Strong Style More Than Him

– As previously reported, NJPW revealed the 28-man field for the 2022 G1 Climax 32 tournament. Among them are former NJPW Strong Openweight Champion Tom Lawlor, who spoke on joining this year’s tournament field during an appearance on this week’s Figure Four Daily. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Tom Lawlor on entering the 2022 G1 Climax Tournament: “How about that? Filthy Tom Lawlor in the G1 Tournament 2022, the 50th anniversary of New Japan. Who embodies strong style more than me? I don’t know if you can find many more people. If you think about it, it’s based upon is legitimate martial arts fighting skill. Everybody thinks strong style is beating each other up and head dropping each other and nailing each other unprotected. No, no, no. Strong style is about legitimate martial arts techniques, fighting spirit.”

Lawlor on what he knows on the block arrangements: “I have an idea, but I wouldn’t even consider that information to be reliable because the information I had going in wasn’t necessarily 100%. I wasn’t surprised to see my name, these things do take time and has been in the works for a while. I just got my visa back recently, very recently. I had information that ended up being what was not provided on the broadcast. The number of people, stuff like that.”

This year’s tournament will kick off on July 16 and run through August 18. This year’s 28-man tournament will be made up of four blocks with seven men each. Details on the matchups and block lineups will be announced later.