It's a battle between the two undefeated from A block, Kazuchika Okada vs Kenta, in Night 9 of G1 Climax 29!
Taichi & Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Jeff Cobb & Yota Tsuji & Ren Narita
Suzuki vs Young Lions Part 827, so I'm fine with this tag match. Suzuki-gun get the jump before the bell and beat everyone down. They take control for the vast majority of the match. Team Cobb barely get any offence in.
Kanemaru pinned Tsuji after hitting a Deep Imact. Suzuki beat up another Young Lion on his way out. I'm not interested in Taichi/Cobb tomorrow.
Jay White & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs Juice Robinson & Tomoaki Honma & Toa Henare
Jay/Juice isn't on the next show but they've been matched up here due to the LIJ tag later on in the show.
Bullet Club spent most of the match dismantling Honma for spare parts. He really needs to retire.
Chase pinned Henare after a Package Piledriver. Post-match, Jay and Chase accosted the commentary team which was great.
Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi
This was an all Chaos match so Yano was supposed to be on his best behaviour.
There was a great moment when Ishii and Yoshi-Hashi traded chops for literally a minute straight, with Yoshi-Hashi coming out on top.
Yano pinned Yoshi-Hashi after a punch to the dick, showing that his best behaviour is being a dirty cheat.
Jon Moxley & Shota Umino vs Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi
Naito walked to the ring as slowly as possible to cause maximum annoyance to Moxley. This entire match was Naito pissing off Moxley and it worked. Mox was getting very annoyed and threw the referee out of the way to get at Naito.
Shingo pinned Shota after a Pumping Bomber. Post-match Moxley went after Naito with a chair but Naito escaped. Moxley/Naito will be aces!
Lance Archer vs Kota Ibushi
Archer beat down three Young Lions during his entrance, I like it!
Archer took Ibushi outside the ring and threw a Young Lion at him, then beat down a couple of others. I wholly approve of Young Lion abuse.
These two put on a very fast-paced match with Archer doing big power moves and Ibushi fighting back with strikes. Archer hit a somersault senton from Bret's rope, and then tried for a top-rope moonsault but Ibushi moved out of the way.
Ibushi hits Archer with the Kamagoye but Archer doesn't go down and instead just laughs, so Ibushi hits him with a second and gets the win. Badass! Good match, Archer has been crazy impressive throughout.
Bad Luck Fale vs Will Ospreay
Chase Owens came out with Fale and jumped Ospreay during his entrance. Ospreay fought back but the damage was done.
This entire match was Fale dominating, Ospreay trying to fight back but Chase and Jado on the outside interfering.
The ending was amazing. The referee went down yet again and all of Bullet Club beat down Ospreay, with Chase hitting a Package Piledriver. Fale covered Ospreay and Red Shoes Unno came down as a new referee, started his count but stopped at two, gave Fale the finger and DQ'd him! It's almost as if he was watching the match from the back. Fale chased Red Shoes around the ring after the bell but Red Shoes ecaped.
Zack Sabre Jr vs Evil
Really good match between these two, it was Zack's windy-man against Evil's power. I thought the two styles gelled really nicely.
Evil gets the win after an Everything is Evil. This pretty much eliminates ZSJ from the tournament which I find surprising. I never thought he'd be winning, but he came 2nd in his block in last year's G1 so I thought he'd do pretty good this year too.
Sanada vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
Pretty good match between these two, but I think they could have done better. Tanahashi seemed a bit slower than he has done in his recent matches, and I don't think it was just selling.
Good back and forth between these two with them both going for the other's legs.
Tanahashi gets the win after two High Fly Flows. This loss practically eliminates Sanada. ZSJ and Sanada being the first eliminated shows how stacked A block in this G1 is.
Kenta vs Kazuchika Okada
These two were both undefeated coming into this match so it's high stakes for both of them.
The match started with them both testing the other out, and Kenta took the upper hand after a disrespectful slap.
Kenta had control for the majority of the match and kept it with a lot of strikes and submissions. He hit a brutal double stomp to the back of Okada's head whilst he was draped on the outside railing.
The match went back into the ring with Kenta hitting all of this big moves back to back. He went for the Go 2 Sleep but Okada countered with a tombstone. Kenta hit some stiff slaps but Okada hit a jumping-spinning tombstone.
Okada gets the win after a Rainmaker. After the match he offers a handshake and Kenta accepts. I felt like these two were both holding back quite a bit, probably for a more money match down the line.
Conclusion
Pretty good show. None of the matches were amazing but all the block matches were good. This show was another casualty of the G1 in the sense that in any other month it would stand out, but here it is just another show. The top 3 block matches are all worth watching.
Having checked the standings at the end, ZSJ and Back Luck Fale are both completely eliminated due to losses to Okada, whereas Sanada needs to win all of his remaining matches and hope that Okada loses all of his from here on out. Which of course isn't happening, so Sanada's gone too.