NJPW G1 Climax 26 Night 3 Results
(1) Satoshi Kojima, Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask & Manabu Nakanishi def. Captain New Japan, KUSHIDA, Juice Robinson & David Finlay.
(2) Katsuhiko Nakajima & YOSHI-HASHI def. Tomoaki Honma & Katsuyori Shibata. The big story here was Honma and Shibata headlining against one another the night before, as the two have a big rivalry going on right now, and then immediately being booked as partners the following night. As you can expect they weren’t the most cohesive unit. YOSHI-HASHI with the roll-up on Honma to put him away.
(3) Kenny Omega & Yujiro Takahashi def. Gedo & Toru Yano.
(4) EVIL, Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI def. Michael Elgin, Yuji Nagata & Ryusuke Taguchi.
TOURNAMENT MATCHES
Hiroyoshi Tenzan (2) vs. Tama Tonga (0)
Tenzan had a lot of heat behind him and the “Tenzan’s Last G1” story is working much, much better than I think most people expected it to in 2016. Tonga looked good and kicked out of a few of the bigger moves, but Tenzan caught him with a moonsault. Winner: Tenzan (4)
Tomohiro Ishii (0) vs. Hirooki Goto (2)
Basically just a back-and-forth brawl the entire time. Winner: Goto (4)
Bad Luck Fale (0) vs. Naomichi Marufuji (2)
Fale actually looked pretty good here with all his spots, and Marufuji carried him to a decent match. Marufuji kicked out of the splash but fell to the grenade. Winner: Fale (2)
Kazuchika Okada (0) vs. SANADA (2)
Really good match. Both looked great and the match went back-and-forth and because SANADA just scored a major upset over Tanahashi on Night 1, plus his team beat Okada’s team in the undercard on Night 2, there was some legitimate tension that he might be able to pull off another massive upset. Okada ended up catching him with a German suplex and a Rainmaker for the win. Winner: Okada (2)
Hiroshi Tanahashi (0) vs. Togi Makabe (2)
So one of the major stories of the tournament continues to be Tanahashi’s injury and whether or not he came back too soon, as he lost his first match in a huge upset to SANADA, and now has lost again to the veteran third generation star Makabe. Makabe did a Spider German suplex off the ropes and pinned him with a King Kong Knee Drop. Winner: Makabe (4)
Updated A-Block Rankings:
Makabe – 4
Goto – 4
Tenzan – 4
Marufuji – 2
SANADA – 2
Okada – 2
Fale – 2
Tanahashi – 0
Ishii – 0
Tonga – 0
So at the end of night two for the A-Block (night three overall) we’ve got three veterans leading the pack, the IWGP Heavyweight champ breaking even, and three stars still looking to get their first win, one of which is the “Ace” of the promotion. Night three for the A-Block (night five overall) is late Sunday night/early Monday morning, and will feature Okada vs. Goto and Tanashi vs. Fale in the headliner spots, and Tenzan putting the hot streak to the test against NOAH all-star Marufuji.
This was a decent show, and certainly nothing was bad. The undercard was fun enough to get us to the tournament matches, but I think many assumed Okada vs SANADA would have been a potential MOTY candidate, and while it was very good, it certainly wasn’t on that level. The matches were good and stories played out well, and if you were watching some of these guys for the first or second time it was probably a better show than if you went in expecting a few of these to be five stars.
Note: Apologies for missing live coverage of this one. It was my intent to cover each show live, and I still plan on doing as many possible as we’ve had pretty decent turnout so far and I only expect that to continue growing. I’m in the middle of a big cross-country move so last night just got away from me.
