Two wrestling shows in one day, as I watched Fight for the Fallen this morning. That was a good show, I'm sure this G1 show will be too. Let's do it!
Yota Tsuji & Toa Henare & Juice Robinson vs Yuya Uemura & Tomoaki Honma & Hirooki Goto
This tournament is my first good luck at these new Young Lions, and I am liking them so far. They're both quite large, and the beardy one has a good look.
Goto/Juice tomorrow should be great. I really love the way Juice screams his opponents name before he does any move, it's really endearing. Loads of guys in NJPW do it, but Juice's high-pitched scream is great.
Toa Henare got the win after hitting a Toa Bottom on Uematsu. I don't feel anything towards Henare, he hasn't been in anything worthwhile yet so haven't had a chance to make up my mind.
Jeff Cobb & Ren Narita vs Jon Moxley and Shota Umino
Moxley and Umino are amazing together. I am really liking that Moxley is horribly mistreating the Young Lions on the outside, that is one of my favourite things about Minoru Suzuki so I'm glad that Moxley is doing the same.
The match was fine and I'm sure the Moxley/Cobb match tomorrow will be great, but I don't think their styles match too well.
Cobb pinned Shota Umino after Tour of the Islands. Post-match, Moxley carried a barely conscious Umino to the back, it was hilarious.
Jay White & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano & Yoshi-Hashi
Ishii is great and puts on great strong style matches, but I don't think Jay White's whiny bitch persona meshes well. I'm sure their match tomorrow will be fine, but I'm not looking forward to it too much.
Toru Yano pinned Chase Owens after a punch to the dick. Good going Yano!
Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taichi vs Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi & Bushi
Suzuki isn't in the G1 this year and has said he's going to make NJPW regret that decision, so his plan seems to be to raise more havoc than he normally does. I like this plan.
Naito/Taichi is tomorrow, can't say I'm that interested in that after this match.
Minoru Suzuki pinned Bushi after a piledriver. Suzuki is great.
Bad Luck Fale vs Lance Archer
Yep, I didn't really care about this match. Archer beat up about twelve Young Lions on his way to the ring which makes him great in my book. However, he was in the ring with Fale so the match wasn't great.
Archer won with The Claw. Bleh match.
Sanada vs Will Ospreay
This was probably my most anticipated match of the night, and it really delivered. It had a good amount of grappling, a good amount of strikes, and some nice high flying. Commentary said this is the first time these two have wrestled each other but I think they had great chemistry.
It also felt to me like they were holding back in this match, and it ended shortly after the 15 minute call so I could see NJPW setting up a more money match between these two further down the line.
Ospreay wins after an Oscutter-Stormbreaker combo. Excellent match.
Zack Sabre Jr vs Kazuchika Okada
Another match I was looking forward to, ZSJ is awesome and he said that if he wins he's challenging Okada for the title at Royal Quest, a show I'm going to.
ZSJ pulled out some brutal-looking submissions in this, and while I was sure Okada wouldn't tap, he also did some nifty pinning combinations. Okada managed to escape all of them, and pummelled Zack with lots of hard strikes.
Okada won after a Rainmaker. Really good match, though I am selfishly upset at the result.
Evil vs Kota Ibushi
It looks like Ibushi's ankle injury is definitely going to be a major factor going forwards, as the story of this match was Evil attacking the ankle and Ibushi not being able to do his normal offence.
The first half of this match was mostly submissions as Evil worked over Ibushi's ankle. Ibushi got some small offence in but couldn't do much. However, after Evil kicked Ibushi in the back of the head, Ibushi went into serial killer mode and it became a striking match with lots of awesome punch-kick combos.
Evil got the win after Everything is Evil, in what feels like an upset. Ibushi was my pick for winning the block, so I wonder what's going to happen now.
Kenta vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
Kenta appeared to be in much better form than he was last week in his match against Ibushi. Maybe it's because he's actually wrestling in Japan, or maybe it's because Tanahashi is amazing and can bring the best out of anybody, either way Kenta looked really good in this.
Kenta had control for most of this match, and overwhelmed Tanahashi with devastating strikes. Tanahashi worked over Kenta's legs with dragon screws and submissions, but eventually the match turned into a slugfest.
Kenta won after a Go 2 Sleep in what I would also consider a slight upset. Post-match, Kenta went in for a handshake and Tanahashi denied him. Such awesome. Kenta did a promo at the end and he came across really well. Awesome match!
Conclusion
After the show they showed everyone's point totals, and in A block ZSJ, Ibushi, and Tanahashi are the only ones without any points. That's pretty crazy, this block is so stacked and has had some real upsets after 2 matches.
This was a good show, though not as good as Night 1. The block matches that didn't include Bad Luck Fale were all great and worth watching, which is probably going to be my review of all the A block nights. Great show!