It's the G1 Climax 29 final. My long journey of reviewing all of the G1 shows has finally come to the end.
Clark Connors & Karl Fredericks vs Ren Narita & Yota Tsuji
This was the US Young Lions against the Japanese Young Lions.
The Americans had control for a large portion of this match, and were being very heelish.
The finish came when Connors put Tsuji in a Boston Crab, and kept dragging him into the centre of the ring when Tsuji went for the ropes. Eventually he tapped and the Americans won. There was a big brawl afterwards and all of the Young Lions at ringside joined in with it.
Lance Archer & Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Jeff Cobb & Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask
This was a fine match with Liger and Tiger Mask getting to show off their old man skills, it was fine.
Cobb pinned Kanemaru after Tour of the Islands. I guess NJPW are high on Cobb and will be using him more. I hope they do some more with Archer too as he has been great this tournament.
Yujiro Takahashi & Taiji Ishimori & Chase Owens vs Will Ospreay & Sho & Yoh
This match was good. I really like Ishimori, I wish he was featured more.
There was a nice spot early on when Ospreay, Sho, and Yoh all were planning to do dives and amped up the crowd, but they all got pulled out of the ring by the heels. The crowd booed the hell out of that.
Ospreay instructed Roppongi 3K to do stereo dives on Ishimori and Chase, and pinned Yujiro after a Stormbreaker.
Juice Robinson & Toa Henare vs Jon Moxley & Toa Henare
Mox jumped Juice during the entrance and he and Shota targeted Juice's knee.
Eventually it came down to Toa and Shota, and Toa outclassed the Young Lion.
Toa won with the Toa Bottom on Shota. After the match Moxley hit Juice with the US title, hit Death Rider on Toa, then uranage'd Juice through a table. I'm guessing Juice and Mox will have another match for the US title soon.
Toru Yano & Hirooki Goto & Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma & Ryusuke Taguchi vs Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi & Evil & Sanada & Bushi
Ten-man tag chaos!
The match opened with LIJ taking forever doing their fist bump, with Yano shouting at them to hurry up.
Sanada put Yano in the Paradise Lock on the entrance way, and he was stuck in it for a couple of minutes before Goto noticed and freed him.
I really like Taguchi, his thing of just hitting people with his arse is amazing.
Sanada pinned Honma after a moonsault. Chaotic match, it was good.
Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs Tomohiro Ishii & Kenta & Yoshi-Hashi
This match was fine, what happened afterwards was excellent.
Ishii was being beat down and he went to tag Kenta but Kenta jumped off the apron and watched at ringside. After Ishii made a comeback on his own Kenta ran back in and hit the Busaiku Knee and Go 2 Sleep, allowing Tama Tonga to get the pin.
Kenta joined the Bullet Club in beating down Yoshi-Hashi and the US Young Lions at ringside when out ran Katsuyori Shibata to clean house. Shibata has been retired for a couple of years after suffering a brain haemorrhage that left him in a coma, so him getting physical is a huge shocker. He dropkicked Kenta in the corner and went for a Penalty Kick, but Jado hit him with a kendo stick, allowing Kenta to hit a PK instead.
Bullet Club beat down Shibata and Kenta sat cross legged on Shibata's body, doing Shibata's pose. Such brilliant disrespect. Kenta is now part of Bullet Club which is great, he's been getting booed throughout the G1, and the crowd absolutely hated him here. Shibata was also much more physical here than I would have expected, I have to wonder if he's possibly been cleared for some sort of return, even if it's only a short one?
Zack Sabre Jr & Minoru Suzuki vs Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuchika Okada
Zack and Suzuki had control of Tanahashi for the start of the match, working over every body part they could. Tanahashi tried to fight back but wasn't able to.
Okada eventually came in and cleaned house but Zack countered his moves into more submissions.
Suzuki had Okada in a rear naked choke, Tanahashi tried to break it up but Zack flew in from out of nowhere and put him in a guillotine choke. Suzuki then hit a piledriver and pinned Okada! After the match he got on the microphone and said he wants the title! I really hope he challenges at Royal Quest.
Jay White vs Kota Ibushi
Jay came out with the entirety of Bullet Club, but Red Shoes made all of them except Gedo go to the back.
The match started and within the first minute Gedo grabbed Ibushi's ankle which Red Shoes saw and sent him to the back too.
Ibushi started the match strong but Jay started hitting the ankle, smashing into the ring posts, and generally being a horrible person. Ibushi went for his standing kneesaults but Jay rolled out of the way so Ibushi landed on his knees. That looked really painful.
Jay threw Ibushi into the ref and Gedo came back out. Gedo held down Ibushi which allowed Jay to hit him in the leg with a chair. Jay then did even more damage to the legs and put Ibushi in his TTO submission.
The ref came back and saw Ibushi kicking Gedo in the face and asked Rocky Romero from commentary to get Gedo out of there. Rocky happily obliged.
The finishing sequence had an exchange of big moves and reversals, with the Kamigoye reversed into Blade Runner and back, but Ibushi hit a Bomaye, then a Kamigoye, and finally another Kamigoye and got the win. Ibushi is the G1 Climax 29 winner! This match was quite good.
Conclusion
Lots of good things about this show. Kenta's heel turn and joining Bullet Club was awesomely done. Shibata doing moves after a few years of nothing was a huge surprise, and if it's possible he can have a match with Kenta, that will be wonderful.
I thought the main event was good, but not great. I've said before that I like Jay White, but I think his style of being a massive piece of shit is conducive to having great NJPW-style matches. I don't know what they can do about that, as if he wrestled the hard-hitting New Japan style, it would ruin his excellent character of being a cowardly piece of shit.
All in all, this tournament has been excellent. This is the third time I've seen the G1 all the way through and this is the best. The match quality was incredibly high throughout, however I don't think anything this year matched the highs of last year. Nothing was as good as last year's final, but that was one of the best matches I've ever seen so I can't be too shocked.