It's the A block finals from the Nippon Budokan. Oh my!
Jon Moxley & Shota Umino vs Juice Robinson & Ren Narita
Moxley and Juice is going to be great tomorrow, and they started this match going hard against each other. Juice's knee is still hurt from his match against Jay on the last show so Mox went after that.
Shota pinned Narita after a Hart Attack followed by a Fisherman's Suplex. After the bell Moxley went ater Juice's knee and put him in a Figure Four. Nice heeling from Mox.
Jeff Cobb & Toa Henare vs Toru Yano & Tomoaki Honma
This was a match. Yano was in with Cobb and all he did was eye rakes, it was pretty great.
Cobb pinned Honma after Tour of the Islands.
Taichi & Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Tomohiro Ishii & Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi
Ishii/Taichi doesn't interest me that much, but Ishii is amazing so it will probably be fine.
Minoru Suzuki got beat down much more than i expected he would in this match. He's been dominating in tag matches this tour but in this match Yoshi-Hashi got some revenge.
It wasn't for long though as Suzuki pinned Yoshi-Hashi after a Piledriver.
Jay White & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs Tetsuya Naito & Shingo Takagi & Bushi
White/Naito is probably going to be the deciding match tomorrow, and my prediction is White wins.
I missed most of this due to laundry. Sorry!
Shingo pinned Bushi after Made in Japan. After the match Jay was talking shit to Naito, but Naito was telling him to be tranquilo.
Lance Archer vs Evil
Archer took out 15 or so Young Lions on his way to the ring, and during the match beat them all up again. He then hit Evil and the pile of broken lions with a moonsault from the apron, it looked badass.
Evil did his move where he throws the opponent's leg for the referee to catch, but Archer instead kicked the ref out of the ring, it was hilarious.
Archer got the win with the Claw. Good match! The crowd were cheering really loud for Archer. He is right at the bottom of the block, but he's been incredibly impressive, I can see him getting a nice push after this.
Bad Luck Fale vs Sanada
This was a very good Fale match. Before Chase and Jado got the chance to interfere Sanada gave them splashes over the ropes.
Sanada kept trying to slam Fale but couldn't pick him up.
Sanada put both Jado and Chase in the Paradise Lock to keep them occupied, but then Fale got a sneaky win with a rollup, and the crowd shit all over it. That was hilarious.
Zack Sabre Jr vs Kenta
Really good match! Much more strike heavy than I was expecting, it wasn't the usual ZSJ submission-fest.
Kenta kept winning the strike bouts as ZSJ was actually striking back rather than trying for submissions. He did start to counter them into submissions as the match went on, primarily targeting Kenta's surgically repaired shoulder.
Zack won with one of his crazy submissions, whilst also stamping on the back of Kenta's head. It was awesome. Really good match between the two.
Will Ospreay vs Hiroshi Tanahashi
Holy hell! This match was better than I expected and I had very high expectations.
Ospreay hit some high flying moves to start, but Tanahashi dropkicked Will's knee and then worked it over for the rest of the match. It was very good with Will trying to hit his usual offence but the injured knee slowing him down.
The ending sequence was rad. Tanahashi went for a High Fly Flow on a standing Ospreay but Will rolled through. Tanahashi picked Will up and did the pose he does before going for a Slingblade, but Ospreay hit a hook kick that was literally the best hook kick I've ever seen from him. He then hit a nasty Hidden Blade and got the pin after Stormbreaker. Awesome match.
Ospreay has a had a great showing in this G1, I reckon he'll drop the Jr title to whomever wins the upcoming Super J Cup, and then move up full time to Heavyweight.
Kota Ibushi vs Kazuchika Okada
The winner of this goes through to the finals! It's very high stakes.
This match was paced very slowly to start, with Okada gaining the upper hand and trying to keep Ibushi grounded.
Eventually things started speeding up and Ibushi hit loads of big moves, my favourite was when he countered Okada's dropkick into a powerbomb.
Okada managed to hit a Rainmaker, but didn't go for the pin. Ibushi pulled himself up and Okada hit another Rainmaker. It didn't keep Ibushi down and when Okada attempted another Rainmaker Ibushi countered with a V-Trigger!
Ibushi won after hitting Kamigoye. Okada kicked out at 2 and Ibushi immediately hit a second for the pin. Really good match, but I do think they were holding back somewhat, Ibushi never hit Bomaye for example. It was still great, but it can be greater!
Conclusion
Really good show, all the block matches were good with the last three being totally awesome.
Ibushi is in the finals which I think is great. My prediction is Jay White wins the B block and then Ibushi wins the final.