It's night 4 of the G1! Yeah!
Kota Ibushi & Jushin Thunder Liger vs Shota Umino & Yota Tsuji
The first major casualty of this year's G1 might be Will Ospreay, he was scheduled to be in this match but has had to pull out due to a neck injury. Thankfully A block are doing tag matches tonight and there's a few days rest until the next show, so he may be able to continue. I really hope he stays in because he's excellent, and it would suck to lose him after only 2 matches.
As Ospreay is out, this match was Ibushi and Liger against the Young Lions, and there was no doubt who would win here. The Lions put up a good fight, Shota Umino acting like a bit of a prick was great, but it was to no avail.
Ibushi tapped out Tsuji with a single legged crab. I hope Ospreay recovers, because then we'll get an amazing Ospreay/Ibushi match on next show.
Evil & Sanada & Bushi vs Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare & Ren Narita
Honma really needs to retire, the guy is so injured he moves like a robot desperately in need of an oil change.
Evil and Sanada have a match coming up but they wouldn't be against eachother in the tags, so they are teaming against non-G1 competitors. There wasn't any tension between the two in this match up until the end.
Bushi pins Narita after an MX.
After the match, Evil & Sanada had a stare down then a little bit of a tussle. Their match next show should be good.
Zack Sabre Jr & Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Kenta & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Karl Fredericks & Clark Connors
On the next show ZSJ is against Tanahashi, and Archer is against Kenta, so here is a huge 8-man tag. The whole thing was chaotic as Suzuki-gun sent everyone into the crowd.
ZSJ shouted some insults into commentary, and then Archer actually joined the English commentary for a minute or so, it was great. Suzuki was also menacing the Japanese commentary team and threw a chair at Milano Collection AT.
On the face team, Kenta and Tanahashi had some tension after their match last night with the two arguing over who should tag in. I liked that.
Kanemaru pinned Connors after a Deep Impact top rope DDT while the rest of Suzuki-gun had everyone else in submissions. That finish was badass.
Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens vs Kazushika Okada & Yoshi-Hashi
Bad Luck Fale against Okada is coming up next which I'm sure will be Okada's worst match of the tournament. And this tag match also has the double whammy of charisma vacuums Chase Owens and Yoshi-Hashi. Blah.
Okada pinned Owens after a Rainmaker.
Shingo Takagi vs Toru Yano
A typical comedy Yano match. Yano took a seat in the crowd and baited Shingo to attack him. Yano then gave Shino a drop toehold on the chair and blocked the path back to the ring, aiming for a count-out. He didn't get it but it was quite funny.
The finish came when Bushi ran down to distract the referee, Shingo hit Yano with a chair and then hit a Pumping Bomber for the win.
Juice Robinson vs Hirooki Goto
Good, hard hitting match between these two. I have been liking Juice more and more recently, and Goto is great. I think this match never hit high gear but I liked it nonetheless.
Juice won after yelling "Eat shit!" at Goto and hitting the Left Hand of God followed up with a Pulp Friction. I'm honestly a bit surprised by this result, Goto got a big win in the main event in his first match so I thought he'd have a strong run. Good match.
Jon Moxley vs Jeff Cobb
Moxley came out through the crowd with Shota Umino in tow again. Cobb knew better than to jump him from behind, unlike Taichi from night 2.
The story of this match is Mox worked over Cobb's shoulder, and brutalised him on the outside. Moxley had control for the vast majority of the match, this was not nearly as close as I was expecting it to be.
Moxley hit a Death Rider with Cobb in the ropes for the win. Good match, if a little short.
Jay White vs Tomohiro Ishii
I don't care for Jay White and his heel-ish actions, I don't think they fit too well in NJPW's style especially with him positioned as a top guy. I think heels in New Japan work best when they're just horrible people, not people who are cowards and cheat all the time.
Having said that, Ishii is no nonsense enough that he doesn't take any of Jay White's shit, and instead just batters him. He's a really good opponent for White in that regard. This was a good, hard hitting match that had some great stuff in, I'm a big fan of Ishii's nasty throat chops, and doing them to White after he'd been mouthing off to Ishii was super satisfying.
Ishii won after a sick lariat followed by a big brainbuster. Good match.
Taichi vs Tetsuya Naito
I like Taichi's character, but I'm not the biggest fan of his wrestling. And honestly I was a bit burned out by too much wrestling these past few days to care too much about this. Naito is someone I only like in certain situations, and I don't think this was one of those situations.
Taichi won after hitting Naito with his iron glove, then doing a Last Ride.
Conclusion
This show was fine. The Ishii/White match was probably my match of the night, but I din't find it amazing. I have seen too many wrestling shows in the past 4 days, and I am glad that there's a few days until the next G1. Everything on this show was good, but nothing was great. OK show.
One quite crazy thing is that the expected final for this year's G1 was Naito/Ibushi, and they both have 0 wins so far. Tanahashi, ZSJ, and Jay White are also on 0. Such a ridiculous start to the tournament, I love it!