With this show we've passed the halfway mark of this year's G1, and tonight there is some B block action.
Ren Narita vs Yuya Uemura
It's a Young Lions match due to a full faction tag match coming up. I like Uemura, he has Bruce Lee hair that looks really cool.
Narita pinned Uemura after a Northern Lights Suplex. Fine match.
Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens vs Kota Ibushi & Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare
It feels like there's been loads of Robot vs Slobman tag matches this G1, and here's another one. This is setting up an Ibushi match I don't care about, and typing those words hurts my soul. Damn you Fale!
Yujiro pinned Honma after a DDT. Bullet Club jumped Ibushi after the match and did a tiny little beat-down.
Zack Sabre Jr & Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay & Yoshi-Hashi & Shota Umino
Suzuki-gun versus Chaos! This match started very reserved but quickly descended into chaos.
Archer went on commentary which he has done before and it's really cool. He has quickly become one of my favourites.
Kanemaru pinned Umino after the Deep Impact DDT. Nice chaotic tag match. ZSJ/Osparey and Archer/Okada next show will be fun.
Evil & Sanada & Bushi vs Kenta & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Karl Fredericks
This was a tag match involving competitors who will be facing off in block matches on the next show. It's also very possible I missed it...
Bushi pins Fredericks after an MX. This was probably fine.
Toru Yano vs Hirooki Goto
These two are both in Chaos and Yano acted like he wanted a clean match. The two went in opposite corners to start a "Chaos" chant, but Yano got sneaky, wrapped a t-shirt around Goto's face and tried a roll-up.
Goto kicked out, there were a few back-and-forth roll-ups, then Goto did a very fancy roll-up for the victory. This was fine.
Tomohiro Ishii vs Juice Robinson
Ishii and Juice started off ramming into each other to see who is the toughest, but it quickly turned nasty with Ishii hitting Juice with a whole bunch of chops to the throat.
The match was filled with hard-hitting stiff strikes, the two trying to one-up the other with violence.
The closing sequence was great, with lots of no selling big moves and manly shouting.
The end finally came after Ishii hit a Brainbuster and got the win. Awesome match! This has got to be Juice's best match ever, I can't think of any other that even comes close.
Taichi vs Jeff Cobb
Why would you following up Juice/Ishii with this, urgh. This was quite good, but nowhere near the previous match.
The match started with Taichi getting Cobb on the outside and beating him down with weapons. They quickly went back into the ring and the match stayed there for the rest of it.
Cobb won after a Tour of the Islands. Fine match but such a deflation from Juice/Ishii.
Jay White vs Shingo Takagi
I find myself liking Jay less and less as this tournament goes on. His heelish bullshit is really good sometimes, but when it ruins what could be a great match it gets so annoying.
Shingo held his own against Jay who was constantly trying to be sneaky. There was a great spot where Shingo fought out of a Blade Runner by hitting a bunch of stiff forearms, it looked incredibly badass.
Jay eventually won with a Blade Runner. Good match, despite Jay's antics.
Jon Moxley vs Tetsuya Naito
Naito took his time with his entrance, it took nearly five minutes for him to get to the ring as he tried to work Moxley up. Once he got to the ring he very, very slowly removed his fancy suit, taking extra care with his popper trousers. Once he was done taking them off he threw them in Mox's face and jumped him. Naito is such a great asshole.
Naito then refused to come into the ring for a good few minutes, making Moxley even more agitated. Moxley eventually caught him and tossed Naito all over the ringside area. He threw him into the crowd and smashed him over some barricades.
The entire match was Naito disrespecting Moxley, trying to throw him off his game. It was great throughout as Moxley got more and more annoyed with Naito's shit.
The match finally ended with Moxley getting the win after two Death Riders. Really good match. This result is a total shock to me, I thought for sure he was losing here, but now Moxley is at the top of B block with a 4 point lead!
Mox cut a promo in the ring afterwards and there was no way anyone in the arena knew what he was saying, but they politely clapped after each sentence anyway. It was hilarious. In his backstage interview he got Shota to cut his promo for him and afterwards called him "a real panty dropper". Just awesome.
Conclusion
The was a really good show, definitely better than yesterday's. All the block matches were good, with Juice/Ishii and Mox/Naito being great.
Having checked the stats, technically nobody is eliminated in B block yet, but if Moxley gets one more win he knocks out half the block. His next match is against Toru Yano so if there's a time for him to lose it's now.