I've gone three days without a G1 show to watch, I haven't known what to do with myself. But now we have Night 5 with some A Block action. Yeah!
Jon Moxley & Shota Umino vs Tomohiro Ishii & Yuya Uemura
Moxley/Ishii is coming up tomorrow and this tag match has me very hyped for it. The Shota/Mox pair is still great, there was a good spot in this match where Mox and Ishii traded slaps, then the Young Lions came in and tried to do the same but were much less impressive. It was great.
Shota Umino pinned Uemura after a Fisherman's Suplex.
Hirooki Goto & Jeff Cobb & Yoshi-Hashi vs Juice Robinson & Toa Henare & Yota Tsuji
Juice/Cobb is tomorrow and that should be good as both have had a nice tournament so far. This match was nothing.
Yoshi-Hashi tapped out Tsuji with a Butterfly Lock.
Jay White & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs Toru Yano & Tomoaki Honma & Ren Narita
Jay White shouted "Fuck off you decrepit old man" to Honma and now I love Jay White. He also assaulted Rocky Romero on commentary on his way to the ring. I really like Jay when he's being a hateful prick, but I just don't care when he's in the ring.
Slob master Owens got the win after a Package Piledriver to Narita. Fine.
Taichi & Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi & Bushi
Minoru Suzuki was the best part of this match. He took Naito outside the ring to beat on him, and then started beating on the Young Lions at ringside. Him destroying everything this tournament is great.
Minoru Suzuki got the win after piledriving Yoshi-Hashi.
Lance Archer vs Kenta
This match started off with Kenta kicking the hell out of Archer, until Archer turned it around and chokeslammed Kenta to the floor through some Young Lions. Archer took control and kept calling Kenta by his WWE name of Hideo which I thought was awesome. Archer continued to be awesome and the crowd were solidly behind him, even though he is essentially a horrible psychopath.
At one point the ring announcer started the count for a countout and Archer took the mic from him and told him to shut up, it was great.
The match went on with Kenta struggling to put up much of a fight until he reversed a chokeslam into a submission and got the win. Really good match.
Sanada vs Evil
Los Ingobernales de Japon stable mates face off in this match, with Sanada's speed versus Evil's power. This had a lot of good back and forth action with two guys who never go against each other.
This was a good match with both using the other's moves against them; Evil put Sanada in the Paradise Lock, Sanada hit an Everything is Evil, good stuff.
Evil eventually got the win after an Everything is Evil. Good match, thought I think it could have been better.
Bad Luck Fale vs Kazuchika Okada
Awesome start to this match as during Fale's entrance he pulled a sneak attack on Okada and kicked him down the entrance way. Okada never even got his music, it was great!
Fale had control for most of the match with Okada struggling. Okada eventually got the upper hand but the ref went down and fatlad Owens came in to interfere. Owens is trash so he didn't do too much.
Okada sat down on Fale and got a sneaky win. After the match Fale tried to jump Okada but Okada drop kicked him. Better than expected match.
Zack Sabre Jr vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
A battle between two guys that both have two losses, whoever loses here is practically eliminated from the tournament. They're both big names so I am genuinely surprised this situation is happening.
Zack had control for most of the match using his typical windy-man goodness. However, Tanahashi did well to counter and started to gain back control with a nasty dragon screw.
The finish came with ZSJ countering the High Fly Flow into a triangle choke, but Tanahashi rolling him up for the win. Really good match!
Will Ospreay vs Kota Ibushi
Blimey, what a match. Ospreay missed the tag mach at the last show due to injury so him competing in this was up in the air, but he was able to compete. Ibushi also has an ankle injury so both came in not at 100%.
The first half of the match was very safe which made me think their injuries were actually quite severe, but then it went into high gear and that thought went out the window. There were a number of brutal stiff strikes, and some high flying to the outside.
Ibushi hit a sickening reverse piledriver thing on Ospreay that looked crazy dangerous. Ibushi got Ospreay in a tree of woe and there was a brilliant spot with them doing the NJPW slap-fight whilst Ospreay was upside down. Ospreay fought back and hit an insane Hidden Blade that looked like it killed Ibushi.
The match continued until the timekeeper announced only three minutes remaining, and Ibushi hit a Bomaye followed by Kamagoye for the win. Excellent match! Probably my favourite of this year's G1 so far.
Conclusion
Good show with an amazing main event. I think a couple of the block matches under-delivered somewhat, but Ospreay/Ibushi was amazing and more than made up for it. Definitely go out of your way to see that one. G1 rolls on tomorrow with Ishii/Moxley, can't wait!