NJPW G1 CLIMAX 29 [Day Eleven & Twelve Review]: CHAOS From The Top Down.

DAY ELEVEN – A BLOCK

– Kota Ibushi v Bad Luck Fale – Kota Ibushi in a *1/4 match. Nuff said. – 1.25/5

– Zack Sabre Jr. v Will Ospreay – As great as you’d imagine. Two of the, if not the two best, British wrestlers in the world go full out for 20-minutes. From submission to counter to well-timed strikes to even missing dives (Ospreay’s initial shooting star got reversed into an armbar submission!), this one had it all. Eventually, Ospreay’s Stormbreaker gets locked in the Octopus x Everything and ZSJ gets the much-needed win after working vehemontly on Will’s neck throughout. Great match. – 4.25/5

– Kazuchika Okada v Lance Archer – The Rainmaker continues to be undefeated, defeating a red hot Archer with a Rainmaker reversal of the Everybody Dies Claw. Okada goes to 4-0 against Big Lance, but the big guy looked dominant in the loss, no-selling much of Okada’s best efforts. This was fun. – 3.5-3.75/5

– SANADA v KENTA – SANADA is not having the superior G1 he had last year. This was still a fine match though, and New Japan keeps their own rising talent striving to the top despite KENTA’s recent push. – 3/5

– Hiroshi Tanahashi v EVIL – It took a while to make this main event an exciting one, but eventually did. Like KENTA and Archer, EVIL looked great in the loss. It’d be nice if New Japan finally decided to go the distance with one of these guys… but I get that Okada and Tana are still the top dogs and ain’t done yet. Tana kept countering Everything Is Evil in the match’s final stride to get the win, nailing Aces High and the High Fly Flow for the cherry on top. – 3.75/5

Overall = 3.25/5 Bibles

Solid show.

DAY TWELVE – B BLOCK

– Jeff Cobb v Shingo Takagi – Excellent opening match. The G1 has done a great job, almost nightly, getting red hot matches to begin the blocks (minus Night 11’s Ibushi/Fale contest, of course). Cobb and Shingo exchanges a thousand bombing clotheslines, super hard-hitting. You’d never guess that Shingo was in the Best of the Super Juniors (and finalist) based on this match. The dude is a beast. Sadly for him, Cobb is an even bigger beast, putting Shingo away with a Tour of the Islands after much delay. I mean, Shingo hit Cobb with a Made In Japan! How is he a “junior”? Yeah, no longer. – 3.75/5

– Toru Yano v Jon Moxley – YANO WINS! YANO WINS! YANO WINS! Pretty predictable, if you ask me. I don’t mind the loss, but it sucks that this is how Mox finally loses in New Japan. But storywise, I get it; it’s a frustration loss that knocks Moxley from being undefeated but keeps him strong. – 2.25/5

– Tetsuya Naito v Juice Robinson – Juice has been really pouring it on lately, having another great match last night, and with Naito, that’s no surprise. A late match miscommunication kept this from being ****, as Naito was seemingly waiting on Juice to get in the right place for a Destino attempt. They quickly got over the spot and got into high gear, with lots of great Finisher-counters and smooth reversals. A championship rematch would be great. – 3.5-3.75/5

– Jay White v Taichi – This was about as epic a Red Shoes Ref Bump match as one could get. It was the shits of all shits, and that’s sorta what made this car wreck a fun one. It was bologna after bologna; just a fucking shit-show. I couldn’t keep my eye from all the damned interferance, early-2000s Nitro type shit. Most of the time it’s White or Taichi ruining a G1 match; but this time, they got to ruin each other’s match, so it sorta made it fun. I dunno. You tell me. – 2.75/5

– Hirooki Goto v Big Tom Ishii – Goto and Ishii had one of the best matches of last year’s G1 Climax 28 and almost match it again. A plain-out strong style hoss match which perfectly circles the night around from the opening hoss fight: a million heavy germans, lariats, chestbutts, brainbuster counters, etc. Real fun if you enjoy “CHAOS”. – 3.75-4/5

Overall = 3.25/5

Another solid show, but I can’t help but feel everyone is waiting for the weekend!! See you then.

-Travis Moody

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