The NJPW G1 Climax rolls into Fukushima, Japan tonight for night five of the tournament, featuring five more matches from the A-Block.
IWGP Heavyweight Champion Okada headlines against Hirooki Goto, who is currently one of the pack leaders with four points. The injured Tanahashi will also look to pick up his first win of the series when he takes on Bullet Club’s Tama Tonga. And of course Tenzan will be trying to keep his hot streak alive in his last G1 tournament ever, taking on the veteran from NOAH, Naomichi Marufuji.
If you’re still awake after all the action from WWE Battleground, or waking up early to kick off your work week, Wrestlezone will have complete live coverage of the show, bell time at 5:30 a.m. ET (2:30PT). Live results will be right here on this page, so feel free to start the discussion early.
Here are tonight’s tournament matches:
- Okada (2) vs. Goto (4)
- Tanahashi (0) vs. Tama Tonga (0)
- Tenzan (4) vs. Marufuji (2)
- Makabe (4) vs. SANADA (2)
- Ishii (0) vs. Bad Luck Fale (2)
DAVID FINLAY vs. YOSHI-HASHI
Finlay got in a few European uppercuts and they brawled on the outside a bit, but this was over in a matter of minutes. Tacos tapped him out with the Butterfly lock in a very abrupt finish. Winner: YOSHI-HASHI.
JUSHIN LIGER, MANABU NAKANISHI, SATOSHI KOJIMA, YUJI NAGATA & KATSUYORI SHIBATA vs. TIGER MASK, RYUSUKE TAGUCHI, JUICE ROBINSON, KUSHIDA & MICHAEL ELGIN
Short match, but pretty fun nonetheless. Elgin’s team actually had a lot of audible communication and did a fair amount of double and triple team stuff, was just calling it in the ring and seemed to be having fun with it. This was basically just to set up Elgin and Shibata for 7/27 and they had a big stare down after the match. Juice hit a nice Jackhammer at the end but Kojima dropped him with a cutter and a lariat for the pin. Winners: Liger, Nakanishi, Kojima, Nagata & Shibata.
CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN & TOMOAKI HONMA vs. YUJIRO TAKAHASHI & KENNY OMEGA
If you thought Captain New Japan wouldn’t let his partner do all the heavy lifting, and then mess it up with the exact same missed top rope splash spot he’s done in every match of the G1 tour so far – well, you’d be very wrong. Not much going on here. Omega was loud and never stopped talking throughout. Funny spot where he yelled “I can do this all night” and then immediately tripped on his way to the second rope moonsault. Takahashi put Captain down with a DDT in a lackluster finish. Winners: Takahashi & Omega.
KATSUHIKO NAKAJIMA, GEDO & TORU YANO vs. BUSHI, EVIL & TETSUYA NAITO
This was great. Not in the traditional sense, but because it was one of the funniest matches I’ve ever seen, and a decent wrestling match accidentally broke out in the process. Naito was in full IDGAF mode, and just sat on the entrance ramp staring blankly, and then took a year to actually get into the ring after that. The first funny moment came when Gedo was trying to throw BUSHI to the floor and Yano, thinking he was being helpful, kept throwing him back in and giving the thumbs up. In one of the best comedy spots I can recall, Yano started screaming when Naito was running at him, Naito stopped running and just kind of starred him down, but Yano kept screaming for a full 30 seconds. In response, Naito did the Tranquillo pose, Yano started yelling at him to get up and fight, but then turned around and got scared of EVIL standing there and freaked out. It got more serious after that, and Nakajima had a few great exchanges with EVIL. BUSHI picked up the win with a Codebreaker on Gedo, and then another one from the second rope. Winners: Los Ingobernables de Japon.
After the match, LIJ beat down their opponents and EVIL hit them all with his STO and was the last guy out, looking strong heading into his match with Nakajima on 7/27. Naito faces Yano that night as well.
TOMOHIRO ISHII (0) vs. BAD LUCK FALE (2)
This was not a great technical wrestling match by any means, but there was a certain spectacle to it. Ishii, who’s a well-built and strong dude in his own right, just bounced off Fale like a sack of potatoes hitting a brick wall. To his credit Ishii sold for the big guy like a million bucks and built up a ton of sympathy for his comeback. He tried to suplex him early on and failed and the size difference made it look completely impossible. Fale hit him with a running splash, the big splash and the Grenade but he kept kicking out. Ishii hit an impressive looking back suplex then kept him off his feet with sliding lariats, and the grand finale was actually hitting the vertical suplex he tried for earlier for the pin. And not just a suplex, but a great looking, slightly delayed one; one of the most impressive feats I’ve seen for a guy giving up 100+ pounds and almost a full foot to his opponent. Winner: Ishii (2).
TOGI MAKABE (4) vs. SANADA (2)
Internet cut out here so I didn’t catch the match, will have to go back and rewatch it later. Winner: Makabe (6).
HIROYOSHI TENZAN (4) vs. NAOMICHI MARUFUJI (2)
Nothing fancy here, just an all-out brawl from start to finish. Very back and forth, mostly based in chops – Tenzan had welts on his chest and marks where the blood was pooling up, and Marufuji didn’t even bust out the big kicks until the end. They beat the hell out of each other for a solid 10 minutes and then started to go for their signature spots, missing, and going back into a brawl. Marufuji went for the tiger knee and Tenzan blocked it with his head and sold it like he got shot; great spot. Tenzan missed a moonsault and Marufuji caught him with a series of kicks, a huge bicycle kick and Sliced #2 for the pin. Good match. The crowd was still on the Tenzan train and sad to see him get his first loss here. Winner: Marufuji (4)
HIROSHI TANAHASHI (0) vs. TAMA TONGA (0)
So much of this was dominated by Tama with flurries of offense mounted by the injured Tanahashi. Of course the big story was Tanahashi trying to prove he can still go despite the injury and looking for his first win; unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards here, and you can see him getting more upset with every loss. Tonga looked excellent, as did Tanahashi in all his brief comebacks, the crowd was really into the story, and the two put on a great match. It looked like he might finally have it off the Slingblade and a Florida Key, but Tama got the knees up on the High Fly Flow and dropped him with a Gun Stun. Winner: Tama Tonga (2).
KAZUCHIKA OKADA (2) vs. HIROOKI GOTO (4)
This was a very targeted, slow-paced Okada style main event match. He dropped Goto with a hard Hangman DDT on the floor early and worked his neck from there with a dropkick, several uppercuts, kicks and even another DDT later on. One of the big spots was Okada kicking him over the barricade followed by a huge running plancha into a section of chairs. All of Goto’s comebacks were big power moves and stiff lariats, so they were short-lived but still had a big impact. Goto countered one Rainmaker and hit a GTR late into the match, leveled him with a bunch of lariats, then countered a second Rainmaker with a headbutt. Picture-perfect late match dropkick. Goto tried for a second GTR but Okada countered with a Tombstone and hit the Rainmaker to put it away. Great match. I thought Gedo was going to have a heart attack on the outside with how hard he was marking out. Winner: Okada (4).
Okada got on the mic and said he will prove how strong the IWGP Champion is, and that it’s a stronger championship than all the other championships. He put over his CHAOS stable mate Goto and said they would have to fight again some day, then turned it over to Gedo who said the Rainmaker will win G1 as the IWGP Champion and make it rain on Fukushima again. That’s the show.
Updated A-Block Standings:
Makabe – 6
Okada – 4
Goto – 4
Marufuji – 4
Tenzan – 4
Tama Tonga – 2
Sanada – 2
Ishii – 2
Fale – 2
Tanahashi – 0
