New Japan Rumble: Michael Elgin vs. Billy Gunn vs. BONE SOLIDER vs. Cheeseburger vs. Hiro Saito vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. Manabu Nakanishi vs. Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Scott Norton vs. Tiger Mask vs. Yoshitatsu vs. Yuji Nagata 25:13
Tiger Mask W vs. Tiger The Dark (ACH) 6:34
IWGP Junior Tag Title Match: Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs. Beretta & Rocky Romero 12:57
NEVER Openweight 6 Man Tag Title Four Way Gauntlet Match: David Finlay & Ricochet & Satoshi Kojima vs. BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA vs. Jado & Will Ospreay & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Bad Luck Fale & Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi 16:06
Cody vs. Juice Robinson 9:37
ROH World Title Match: Kyle O'Reilly vs. Adam Cole 10:14
IWGP Tag Title Match: Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma 12:24
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu Takahashi 16:15. Takahashi returned to New Japan after a 3 1/2 year foreign excursion that was forgettable when he wasn't wrestling Dragon Lee, but as with Okada that didn't actually matter, with a lot of hype & an immediate title reign, a star was born. This was a lot more Takahashi's up & down, action & inaction match than KUSHIDA's. When it was good, it was really good with explosive high risk offense, but it should have been a lot more explosive given it wasn't particularly long & Dome junior matches tend to emphasize spectacle above all else. They get off to such a great start with Takahashi jumping KUSHIDA before the bell, knocking him off the top rope while he was posing, but KUSHIDA stopped his dive with a handspring kick & hit a tope con giro then went right into his arm work. Takahashi came back with his sunset flip powerbomb to the floor, & was so excited he completely laid KUSHIDA out he proceeded to sit in the ring, giving him nearly 90 seconds to recover. The match just continued in this vein, doing a great move then just laying around with Takahashi holding his arm whenever he was waiting around for KUSHIDA to recover rather than working some more subtle selling into some actual action. KUSHIDA did a lot of good things in this match as you'd expect, mixing great athletism with a focused arm attack, and Takahashi was fun when he was doing the spots he'd probably be healthier not doing, but the match wasn't really flowing at all because it was all stops & starts, super fast/athletic then dead, with KUSHIDA basically regaining the offensive because Takahashi wouldn't really do anything until KUSHIDA was actually up & ready to counter him. They did a few tremendous sequences when they were good & ready though. KUSHIDA countering Takahashi's 2nd attempt at the sunset flip powerbomb by backflipping off the apron then countering Takahashi's missile kick off the apron with a flying armbar was truly awesome. KUSHIDA began hitting the payoff to all his armwork, his hoverboard lock (Kimura) finisher, which he'd visibly counter himself by putting Takahashi's arm in front of his stomach. There was a nice segment where Takahashi tried to time bomb his way out, but KUSHIDA turned it into a cradle & reapplied. KUSHIDA even had the hoverboard lock on the middle rope before they went to the finish with Takahashi punching his way out then hitting his wheelbarrow victory roll, Death Valley bomb into the turnbuckles, & the time bomb. KUSHIDA, of course, looked a lot better than Takahashi here, leading Takahashi through the match to the point he was providing answers when Takahashi was taking too long to do so on his own, and showing a lot more credible striking. Takahashi has the makings of a fine champion with a lot of charisma in addition to some great moves though, and the Tokyo Dome is always a great place to put the belt on a returning up & coming wrestler, so this was a good move to put the second useful native in the junior division on the map. ***1/2
NEVER Openweight Title Match: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hirooki Goto 16:17. I was really looking forward to this match of the former Meiyu Tag, who won the IWGP tag titles at this event 2 years ago, because these two have such no nonsense styles. Shibata is at his best when he can do his ultra violent match, while Goto is at his best when he can do an opponent's match but add to it, so it was just a great pairing that really delivered. Shibata may never have been comfortable as a mixed martial arts fighter, but he does a great job of bringing a precise, direct, no b.s. Bruce Lee style to pro wrestling, complete with the confident & cocky mannerisms. What's so great about Shibata is the urgency he brings to every big match, like KENTA he fights with such intensity & desperation that you can't help buying into the match. They did a ridiculously stiff, technical match as expected, with Shibata being a step ahead in the striking & grappling but Goto having enough schooling & wisdom to stay competitive until he found his openings. Goto wasn't matching Shibata's impact early, but Shibata made him keep hitting him (by no selling & sitting there) until he upped his weight of shot to the suitably brutal. Still, Shibata hits so insanely hard that even Goto's lariats didn't seem too electric, but as running strikes gave way to signature moves off the catch, Goto began to shine, finally doing real damage countering into his hairpull neckbreaker & had a great near fall turning a vertical suplex with his shouten kai. Shibata just keeps coming until he can't, so of course he still got right up in Goto's face begging for more & forcing Goto to up his game, but Goto actually beat Shibata in a headbutt exchange, pretty much headbutting the life out of Shibata so he could no longer defend against Goto's finishers, putting him away with the GTR to capture the NEVER title for the 1st time. This wasn't the best match they could do because it was only 16 minutes, but, as usual with Shibata, they wasted no time & did nothing superfluous, so it was at least close to the best they could do given where they were on the card & what they had to work with, and certainly another great performance by Shibata. ****
IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi 25:25. Excellent match.
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega 46:45. Great match.
Blue Panther Jr. & Henare vs. Ephesto & Will Ospreay 6:36
El Soberano Jr. & Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask vs. Gedo & Jado & Raziel 6:40
Hechicero & OKUMURA vs. Maximo Sexy & Stuka Jr. 6:34
BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito & Rush vs. Atlantis & David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA & Ryusuke Taguchi 10:35
Euforia & Kazuchika Okada & Ultimo Guerrero vs. Juice Robinson & Mistico & Volador Jr. 13:32
Hiromu Takahashi vs. Titan 14:57
CMLL World Lightweight Title Match: Dragon Lee vs. El Barbaro Cavernario 20:20
Gedo & Jado & Ephesto & Raziel vs. Blue Panther Jr. & Henare & Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask 6:51
Stuka Jr. vs. OKUMURA 7:55
Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay & El Barbaro Cavernario vs. El Soberano Jr. & KUSHIDA & Ryusuke Taguchi 9:42
BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs. David Finlay & Dragon Lee & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Juice Robinson & Titan 8:57
Euforia & Ultimo Guerrero vs. Mistico & Volador Jr. 13:39
Rush vs. Atlantis 10:46
CMLL World Heavyweight Title Match: Maximo Sexy vs. Hechicero 15:59
Gedo & Jado & El Barbaro Cavernario vs. Blue Panther Jr. & El Soberano Jr. & Henare 7:44
Jushin Thunder Liger & Stuka Jr. & Tiger Mask vs. Hechicero & OKUMURA & Raziel 6:58
BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Dragon Lee & Titan 9:07
Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay & Ephesto vs. Juice Robinson & Maximo Sexy & Ryusuke Taguchi 8:17
EVIL & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito & Rush vs. Atlantis & David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA 9:58
Mistico vs. Euforia 11:24
Volador Jr. vs. Ultimo Guerrero 15:50
El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Hirai Kawato & KUSHIDA 7:34
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Yuji Nagata vs. Henare & Tomoyuki Oka & Yoshitatsu 7:48
Gedo & Jado & Will Ospreay vs. Jushin Thunder Liger & Katsuyori Shibata & Tiger Mask 6:47
YOSHI-HASHI vs. Takashi Iizuka 7:00
Dragon Lee & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Manabu Nakanishi & Michael Elgin & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito 13:03
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Match: Beretta & Rocky Romero vs. Taichi & TAKA Michinoku 13:37
NEVER Openweight Title Match: Hirooki Goto vs. Juice Robinson 14:41
IWGP Tag Team Title Three Way Match: Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Lance Archer 13:35
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada vs. Minoru Suzuki 40:46
TAKA Michinoku vs. Henare 4:38
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. KUSHIDA & Yoshitatsu 6:57
Juice Robinson & Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask & Yuji Nagata vs. Gedo & Hirooki Goto & Jado & YOSHI-HASHI 7:51
Minoru Suzuki & Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Beretta & Kazuchika Okada & Rocky Romero 10:27
NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Title Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi & Manabu Nakanishi & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA 12:15
RevPro British Heavyweight Title Match: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Will Ospreay 13:51. They used a submission basis & built the striking & Ospreay's flying sequences out of it. Ospreay tried to avoid the striking because it obviously wasn't to his advantage against Shibata, he was more the one that was pushing the submissions as a way to keep Shibata out of his standup game, but of course got sucked into banging, & generally mauled for his efforts. Ospreay landed a fair about of strikes, but mostly because Shibata was brushing them off & waiting until he got bored to start blowing Ospreay away. Though both had their strengths, their styles blended together really well & it never felt like one or the other, as they used well timed counters to keep both styles active. The problem here is this was a midcard match that was close to 10 minutes shorter than would have been ideal, and yet somehow there was still more stalling than in Ospreay's longer UK main events. The whole part where Ospreay KO'd Shibata with a high kick on the floor & then couldn't decide what to do didn't work at all, and, in general, the match had a hard time building momentum as NJ matches tend to do because they're too often more worried about the crowd than their opponent. The match had some amazing spots from Ospreay such as the Sasuke special & air assassin, but despite Shibata's usual brutality was shockingly lacking in intensity for a Shibata match, and too often felt more like a performance than a fight (and I don't mean because of the high flying). Ospreay was allowed to be a competitive heavyweight, but ultimately went down fairly easily as there weren't many near finishes. ***1/4
IWGP Tag Title Three Way Match: Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Takashi Iizuka 12:31
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Hiromu Takahashi vs. Dragon Lee 18:23
IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Tetsuya Naito vs. Michael Elgin 36:17
Manabu Nakanishi vs. Tomoyuki Oka 7:11
Gedo & Hirooki Goto & Jado & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. & El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & TAKA Michinoku 8:47
Bad Luck Fale & Kenny Omega & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi vs. David Finlay & Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask & Togi Makabe & Yuji Nagata 11:16
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Match:Beretta & Rocky Romero vs. Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
RevPro British Heavyweight Title Match: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Zack Sabre Jr. 12:36
IWGP Tag Title Match: Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima 12:28
BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Juice Robinson & KUSHIDA & Michael Elgin 11:44
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Hiromu Takahashi vs. Ryusuke Taguchi 17:42
Kazuchika Okada vs. Tiger Mask W 27:03
Jushin Thunder Liger & Yuji Nagata vs. David Finlay & Tiger Mask 5:46
Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Hirai Kawato & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima 6:18
BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA & Michael Elgin & Ryusuke Taguchi 9:57
Gedo & Hirooki Goto & Jado & Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano vs. El Desperado & Taichi & TAKA Michinoku & Takashi Iizuka & Yoshinobu Kanemaru 10:18
New Japan Cup 2017 First Round Match: Juice Robinson vs. Yujiro Takahashi 10:21
New Japan Cup 2017 First Round Match: SANADA vs. YOSHI-HASHI 13:57
New Japan Cup 2017 First Round Match: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Minoru Suzuki 19:44
New Japan Cup 2017 First Round Match: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kenny Omega 29:45
David Finlay & Juice Robinson & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Hirai Kawato & Katsuya Kitamura & Yuji Nagata 9:32
Gedo & Jado vs. El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku 7:29
Minoru Suzuki & Taichi & Takashi Iizuka & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask 10:01
Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA & Michael Elgin & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito 11:22
Hirooki Goto & Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Kenny Omega & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi 12:44
New Japan Cup 2017 Semifinal Match: Bad Luck Fale vs. EVIL 12:20
New Japan Cup 2017 Semifinal Match: Katsuyori Shibata vs. Tomohiro Ishii 22:32. Great match.
David Finlay & Jushin Thunder Liger & Manabu Nakanishi vs. Hirai Kawato & Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka 7:00
Chase Owens & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Tiger Mask & Tiger Mask W & Togi Makabe & Yuji Nagata 8:40
Beretta & Rocky Romero & YOSHI-HASHI vs. El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & TAKA Michinoku 6:50
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Match: Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Gedo & Jado 10:26
Bad Luck Fale & Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano 10:15
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Juice Robinson & Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito 11:30
IWGP Tag Title Match: Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe 14:06
NEVER Openweight Title Match: Hirooki Goto vs. Zack Sabre Jr. 16:16
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Hiromu Takahashi vs. KUSHIDA 1:56
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada vs. Katsuyori Shibata 38:09. Amazing performance by Shibata, probably the best of his great career and, even in a world where this is the case anytime Okada is involved in a notable match, one of the all-time great one-man shows. Shibata's ultra violent matches usually go 15 minutes rather than 30+ minutes for a reason. Forced to do an "epic" main event against an opponent that was completely clueless in his style, he nearly killed himself delivering what would have been an all-time classic if he had a viable opponent who actually learned even the most basic answers at some point rather than a Gedobot who just lay around malfunctioning while Shibata did his best to drag him through. Excellent match.
Hirai Kawato & Yoshitatsu vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka 7:54
CHAOS (Will Ospreay & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. BULLET CLUB (Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi) 6:53
Tiger Mask & Tiger Mask W & Togi Makabe vs. Jushin Thunder Liger & Manabu Nakanishi & Yuji Nagata 7:06
CHAOS (Beretta & Hirooki Goto & Jado & Rocky Romero & Toru Yano) vs. Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & Taichi & TAKA Michinoku & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) 12:20
Cody vs. David Finlay 7:31
Los Ingobernables de Japon (Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito) vs. Juice Robinson & KUSHIDA 9:00
IWGP Tag Title Three Way Match; War Machine (Hanson & Raymond Rowe) vs. TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) vs. Guerrillas Of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa) 11:43
NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Title Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA) 15:48
Kenny Omega vs Tomohiro Ishii 23:55. Great match
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada vs. Bad Luck Fale 21:47
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: TAKA Michinoku [2] vs. Jushin Thunder Liger [0] 8:33
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Volador Jr. [2] vs. Tiger Mask [0] 9:48
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Ricochet [2] vs. Taichi [0] 8:56
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: ACH [2] vs. BUSHI [0] 10:47
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: El Desperado [2] vs. KUSHIDA 11:43 [0]
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Marty Scurll [2] vs. Will Ospreay [0] 12:11. There's no denying Scurll has geniune wrestling talent, but there's also no denying he negates it by being such an annoying clown who insists on turning every situation & mannerism into a cartoon so his match has no intensity & can't be taken seriously. Ospreay hammed it up because what else can you do against a guy who insists on flapping his arms.
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Ryusuke Taguchi [2] vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru [0] 11:27
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Dragon Lee [2] vs. Hiromu Takahashi [0] 18:56. It was no surprise that this match was quite good, these two had a strong program in CMLL for the last 3 years that they'd already taken to NJ since Takahashi returned, and being among the few guys in the tournament under 25 (or 30 for that matter), they are still working hard to prove themselves & raise their stock. Nonetheless, I was losing faith in NJ's ability to present an actual league match that was serious & looked like both guys gave a shit about winning after Desperado's endless shenanigans & Scurll's perpetual arm flapping cartoon were both rewarded with upset victories, but these two came out with an ignited fuse & went at it fast & hard like there was something on the line that was worth struggling for. There was more intensity in their opening head to head staredown than in those two matches combined, and the urgency kicked in from moment 1 as they just hammered each other with chest slaps you could hear across the hall before getting into the athletic counters. They started stalling on & off after Lee hit his awesome running Frankensteiner & no touch tope con giro, but they'd already got my attention & drawn me in, so I was confident they'd at least make up for it later. It didn't take long as Lee used Takahashi's sunset flip powerbomb off the ring apron on him. Takahashi also used Lee's double stomp on him. These two know each other so well, and were able to use that to their advantage, both in the moves they did & the general timing & chemistry they had in performing them. This actually wasn't as crazy as some of their previous matches, but it was an excellent rivalry match with a lot of parity, including a lengthy exchange of released German suplexes & Takahashi ripping Lee's mask. There was so much great stuff throughout that they seemed to have trouble figuring out how to close it out. Takahashi leaping off the 2nd into a Canadian destroyer seemed like it would have been the finish in Mexico since the move is so feared there, but they had more in store, with Lee using Takahashi's running Death Valley driver into the turnbuckle then finishing Takahashi with his Dragon driver to avenge his 2/11/17 loss & hand the IWGP Junior Champ his first singles defeat of 2017. The fans were really into this match, and it was nice to see Lee get a lot of applause throughout rather than the crowd being really pro native. Lee made a couple mistakes here, but was the slightly better of the two apart from that, and has the higher ceiling in my opinion so of all these upsets this was the one to be excited about even beyond the fact that it was an actual match rather than just 10-12 minutes meandering to an end. ****
Hirai Kawato & Tiger Mask & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Shota Umino & Tetsuhiro Yagi 6:26
Suzuki-gun El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. ACH & Volador Jr. 8:30
Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi vs. War Machine Hanson & Raymond Rowe & David Finlay 6:39
BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs. Juice Robinson & KUSHIDA & Ryusuke Taguchi & Satoshi Kojima 9:22
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Taichi [2] vs. TAKA Michinoku [2] 9:30
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Dragon Lee [4] vs. Marty Scurll [2] 13:09
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Hiromu Takahashi [2] vs. Jushin Thunder Liger [0] 8:05
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Will Ospreay [2] vs. Ricochet [2] 27:27. Two of the best acrobats in the sport fired up for a New Japan main event & delivered a fantastic athletic encounter & a great mirror match where they tried to one up each other in technical wrestling, striking, & high flying, but predominantly it boiled down to who was the slightly more athletic of the most athletic. These two have great chemistry & were motivated to push the boundaries of just how many moves they could land on their feet to counter. The match started out with an off the charts display of athletic counters, which for me was actually the peak of the match. I didn't even matter what they were trying for, and it was more thrilling to see them not hit these holds than actually hit them because that kept the struggle alive. They eventually switching to striking, deciding the more sane solution was to try to wear the opponent down so they might actually hit something later, but then they were inexplicably selling huge after just a few strikes rather than waiting until they'd earned it. While I liked that the match was about parity, standing around waiting to be hit seems the worst possible complement to a match where they used their agility to avoid everything, and the striking, when they weren't doing midair spins, was very slow paced from the get go, with a lot of dead time to pad the match time. For a couple of guys who are known for their flips though, they really laid into each other, and this was an all around really high impact encounter. Things got really insane in the 2nd half when they decided escalated their battle of top this to landing on their feet for a Frankensteiner with both standing on the top rope & a reverse Frankensteiner off the 2nd. They were having so much fun they started trying goofy things like the 619 from the floor through the bottom rope & a float over overhead belly to belly on the ring apron seemingly just to see if they could pull them off. Even though the match was first & foremost spectacle, partially because it was really hard hitting & partially because they were putting so much effort into having a great match, it had good intensity throughout & never felt like an exhibition. There was so much great stuff, and it wasn't one of those matches where they did 6 moves too many, yet there also wasn't a great climax either. I mean, there were great moves throughout, and it felt like the match had to end sometime so a finisher was, well, a logical enough place for it to stop. Ricochet randomly used Ospreay's own OsCutter on him but couldn't get the finish, & soon Ospreay hit an amazing Dragonrana & his own OsCutter for the win. Normally I'd consider Ospreay to be vastly better than Ricochet, but given they were doing a match where they were trying to show who was better while actually essentially being equal, both kind of found the midpoint between them so the differences were less noticable. The match felt a little more toward Ospreay's overall as it wasn't purely a spotfest this time & was more striking oriented (for better & worse), but in the end, it was more that Ospreay has more drive & verve, which you'd expect from the younger guy who is now starting to beat all his heroes. ****
5/20/17
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Yoshinobu Kanemaru [2] vs. ACH [2] 10:26
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Tiger Mask [2] vs. KUSHIDA [0] 10:41
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: El Desperado [4] vs. BUSHI [0] 9:47
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Ryusuke Taguchi [4] vs. Volador Jr. [2] 9:58. Despite being the featured match of the night, it was just Volador doing his signature spots & Taguchi doing his ass comedy with Taguchi randomly winning before the 10 minute mark.
5/21/17
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Will Ospreay [4] vs. TAKA Michinoku [2] 8:46
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Marty Scurll [4] vs. Jushin Thunder Liger [0] 12:16
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Taichi [4] vs. Dragon Lee [4] 9:04
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Ricochet [4] vs. Hiromu Takahashi [2] 12:15. These two are kind of similar in that they're really only interesting when they are doing crazy things, but Ricochet is a far superior athlete & is capable of good striking & stretching the interesting parts out with athletic counters. They would do something notable on a big show because they'd do more spectacular sequences & less filler, here there was enough to be entertaining but, it was really up & down. To their credit, they did half a match here, starting & ending well, which was way more than we were getting on these undercards if not also even in the main events, but Takahashi isn't the guy to get things out of Ricochet or anyone else for that matter, and it was deadly dull when Takahashi was on offense, standing over Ricochet doing annoying boot scrapes & nudges out of the '97 Otani playbook. In the end, it never felt like a match, just some tossed in between the time killing.
Hirai Kawato & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Shota Umino 6:57
Taichi & TAKA Michinoku vs.Jado & Will Ospreay 8:02
Marty Scurll & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe & David Finlay & Ricochet 8:55
Dragon Lee & Juice Robinson & Jushin Thunder Liger & Satoshi Kojima vs. EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito 10:35
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Yoshinobu Kanemaru [4] vs. Volador Jr. [2] 9:41. Another match that should be useful, but it was just Volador's greatest hits in between Kanemaru using stomps & rest holds.
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Tiger Mask [4] vs. ACH [2] 11:40
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: El Desperado [6] vs. Ryusuke Taguchi [4] 12:38
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: KUSHIDA [2] vs. BUSHI [0] 15:51. Pretty much the same thing as Volador/Kanemaru except unlike Kanemaru, who actually has talent, BUSHI actually tried somewhat but has nothing going on. KUSHIDA did a few hot moves between BUSHI using weapons, cheating, and stalling, with some hard strikes thrown in. There wasn't much in the way of sequences, and the match had no flow because, for the most part, when something did happen, they then laid around forever. KUSHIDA looked good when he was doing something, but the match was mostly BUSHI, and his lack of actual skill was readily apparent despite all the shenanigans to try to mask it. The match was important because both needed to get their 1st win, but I never believed BUSHI was winning, it was the classic by the numbers match where the star takes a bunch of the underdog's offense until he gets bored & just randomly puts them away with a move or 3. Mildly entertaining, at best.
5/23/17
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Marty Scurll [6] vs. TAKA Michinoku [2] 8:52
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Will Ospreay [6] vs. Jushin Thunder Liger [0] 10:10. Reasonable undercard league match. More deliberate than normal from Ospreay since Liger is more than twice his age, but they did a real match. It was short, but they put effort in from start to finish. The biggest problem is Liger needed the win to stay alive, but you never felt Liger could win.
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Hiromu Takahashi [4] vs. Taichi [4] 14:13
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Dragon Lee [6] vs. Ricochet [4] 13:07. Ricochet is capable of much better athletic counters than Takahashi, but when Lee was doing them with him it always felt like a show because they'd stop after each one to pose and/or play to the crowd. They did some cool things, but it always felt like an exhibition rather than something to take seriously.
5/25/17
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Yoshinobu Kanemaru [6] vs. Tiger Mask [4] 8:42
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Volador Jr. [4] vs. El Desperado [6] 8:03
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: BUSHI [2] vs. Ryusuke Taguchi [4]
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: ACH [4] vs. KUSHIDA [2] 14:44
5/26/17
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Taichi [6] vs. Marty Scurll [6] 9:25
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Ricochet [6] vs. Jushin Thunder Liger [0] 9:04
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Hiromu Takahashi [6] vs. TAKA Michinoku [2] 9:25
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Will Ospreay [8] vs. Dragon Lee [6] 10:05. Brief but spectacular athletic contest. It's kind of lame for even the featured tournament match of the day to be a lightning match, but I'd rather get this 75% effort for 10 minutes than a 50% effort for 15 or 20. I liked how after all the early land on the feet counters when Ospreay had Lee on the middle rope he faked the clean break, but then knocked him to the floor with an elbow (he likes to fake hitting the guy in the ropes but then stop his arm just short of contact) to set up his shooting star press off the apron. I feel like this version of Lee's running Frankensteiner with the opponent standing on the floor looks cooler, but the one with the opponent on the apron seems more damaging. They did a good job of making most of what they tried come back to haunt them, with even Lee's attempt to throw Ospreay through the middle rope to the floor resulting in Ospreay countering with his handspring enzuigiri. Later Ospreay tried to shoot Lee over the top to the floor, but Lee handspringed off the apron onto his feet only to get hit with a tope anyway. Ospreay took a couple of Lee's finishers then did a somewhat clunky reverse Frankensteiner to escape the Dragon driver & finished Lee off with the OsCutter. I really want to see these two get the opportunity to expand this match into something more complete & significant, but at least they made the most out of the time they had. ***
5/27/17
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: ACH [6] vs. El Desperado [6] 9:56
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: BUSHI [4] vs. Volador Jr. [4] 10:53
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Ryusuke Taguchi [6] vs. Tiger Mask [4] 9:29
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: KUSHIDA [4] vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru [6] 13:17. KUSHIDA was really in a hole here with just one win on day 9 & having to take out the 7 time GHC Junior Champion to stay alive. The deck was really stacked against him, as Kanemaru punked KUSHIDA early, and then when he'd make a comeback Suzuki-gun was there to ruin the match, not that it was all that amazing without them, most of it seemed contrived & artificial.
Taichi & TAKA Michinoku vs. Dragon Lee & Shota Umino 6:03
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA vs. Hirai Kawato & Juice Robinson & Ricochet 7:50
Hanson & Raymond Rowe & David Finlay vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi 7:46
Bad Luck Fale & Kenny Omega & Marty Scurll vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay 12:41
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Tiger Mask [6] vs. El Desperado [6] 10:20
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: BUSHI [6] vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru [6] 9:27
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Volador Jr. [6] vs. ACH [6] 12:02. I was really excited Volador was in the Super Jr, but then they stuck him in the block was the has-beens & never-wases & had him doing 10 minute matches on the undercard. This 12 minute semifinal was a veritable marathon in comparison, though they didn't exactly try to make the most of their time. They did cool things when they actually did something, but ACH was posing after every spot, and even Volador was shaking hands with the ref after hitting a no touch tope con giro. The first 3 minutes had more stalling than in the entire series of Volador/Sombra matches when Volador was the rudo, but then ACH literally hit 5 topes in a row. They flying was excellent, as you'd expect, and the stiffness was impressive as well, but like Scurll, ACH just seems like he's auditioning for EWW cartoons.
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: KUSHIDA [6] vs. Ryusuke Taguchi [6] 22:53. Taguchi was in the right place at the right time in his heyday, kind of the last prime years aged native under exclusive contract standing when they decided everyone else was a heavyweight regardless of their actual size. He had a good tag run riding the coattails of Devitt (and Golden Lovers in their famous trilogy), but has increasingly become a comedy wrestler. Though he was never a great singles wrestler, he can still lose the schtick & show up to be carried when he needs to, and this was his moment of 2017. The fans were all the more into it because at this point fighting serious puts Taguchi in the underdog role, but KUSHIDA was actually in the underdog role because he was trying to dig himself out of the B Block cellar, so the fans fervently supported both. It was easy to get behind them because while this wasn't the most awe-inspiring match of the tournament by a long shot, it was the 1st match I've seen so far that was about telling stories, thinking beyond the current moment, & using sequences of counters to further the match rather than just two guys having cool things to do & sometimes figuring out how to set something up in the present that's momentarily pretty sweet. These two were really on the same page, mirroring each other & playing off one another to the extent of their abilities. Granted, in Taguchi's case, those abilities don't reach an extremely high level, but they worked hard to overcome that, using the mental over the physical, and through those means they really managed to overachieve and actually notch the best match of the tournament so far. They know each other so well that they were able to not only counter each others signature spots building up to actually hitting them, & use each others signature spots on each other, but do so in a way that added to the focus of their appendage attack, which they went back to time & time again in new ways. Taguchi tried to get his hip attack going early, but KUSHIDA used his own at the same time then turned Taguchi's hip attack off the apron into an armbar to launch his arm attack. Taguchi came back working the knee when KUSHIDA contrived an injury landing on his feet for a suplex. KUSHIDA tried the cartwheel + dropkick he has to do every match, but Taguchi amazingly wasn't surprised & countered with an ankle lock. When Taguchi finally landed a few hip attacks, they did a really cool, if a bit contrived, sequence where KUSHIDA was again able to turn the hip attack, this time a swandive variation, into the armbar, but Taguchi countered with an ankle lock only to have KUSHIDA roll through into his own ankle lock, which Taguchi countered with his own armbar only to have KUSHIDA get to a knee & counter with a figure 4. I didn't believe the sequence, but it was a great sequence for a match where one guy was working the arm & the other the leg, and both guys wanted to make the opponent pay for said attacks. This was a big match because with everyone but KUSHIDA at 6 points, KUSHIDA needed the win to tie & stay in the hunt & Taguchi needed the win to pull into the lead going into the final day. They did a good job of portraying the urgency, and escalating it down the stretch with more frantic & scrambly sequences of counters hitting their finishers & their opponents until KUSHIDA finally won with his back to the future. KUSHIDA may have got the full 1.21 gigawatts on that move, but in a high end technical match that was mainly trading arm & leg locks, the culmination should have been a submission rather than a random head drop. Admittedly, I never went out of my way to watch Taguchi's big matches even in his heyday such as it was or beyond, but this is the best singles match of his that I've seen so far. He didn't suddenly become great, but I feel they set things up in a way that they were able to overcome his not exactly being the best athlete or slickest worker. It was also a nice change of pace to see a cohesive, well built technical heavyweight style match amidst these all these 8 minute half efforts with some random cool moments. ****
El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. ACH & Volador Jr. 7:56
Juice Robinson & KUSHIDA & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA 8:42
Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe & David Finlay 6:03
Kenny Omega & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada 8:34
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Jushin Thunder Liger [2] vs. Taichi [8] 10:02
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: TAKA Michinoku [4] vs. Dragon Lee [8] 9:20
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Marty Scurll [8] vs. Ricochet [8] 13:31
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block A Match: Will Ospreay [10] vs. Hiromu Takahashi [8] 15:19. This was the kind of effort I'd been waiting for on the WORLD shows. It may not have been a perfect match, but there's no question they have talent, the question was whether they were going to use it. That's always the most important question in any match. While the debate for almost all the league matches on the streaming shows would be whether they were even half efforts, this is the only one you could argue was in the ballpark of a full effort. You knew this would be one of Takahashi's good car crashes when you saw how these two were shot out of a cannon. They set the tone immediately, getting some dives in early, including Takahashi's sunset flip powerbomb, as well as some stiff striking. Fittingly, Ospreay even created some wreckage setting Takahashi on a chair & taking out a couple rows with a running dropkick. The match was pretty similar to Takahashi's vastly overrated match with Ricochet in that it had a fast start & finish & he meandered somewhat during the middle, but they gave 10x the effort & were actually able to not only create intensity & urgency with their initial surge but actually even maintain most of it by bothering to tell the story of Takahashi trying to wreck Will's knee. Hiromi is hardly amazing when he's not doing something fast & wild, but the storyline made his walking around in circles between stomping the knee a little less annoying. For the most part, he did keep on Ospreay during the slow parts, & Ospreay was certainly always in go mode when he regained the offensive. Ospreay was really jacked up & hyper today, and that was both good and bad. Although this was something of a showcase for him, he mostly just stole the show because he outclassed Takahashi, which maybe not in the way you'd like was still making the match a lot better than what Takahashi was doing on the streamed shows. On the other hand, Will was also hurting the match by overdoing his acting, he's fairly good & consistent when it comes to gesturing to signal the knee is shaky, limping & whatnot, but his vocal selling was at its all-time worst, screaming like a banshee when Takahashi had any kind of submission that targetted the leg in addition to his usual swearing that doesn't offend me but he's not exactly Joe Pesci in making it become the performance either. Ospreay made a big comeback from the leg attack, but when you're the Aerial Assassin, it's hard not to use your legs, and just about everything he was doing was hurting him almost as much as Takahashi. I felt like he did a reasonable job of playing his game even though he was "injured", and even though the body of the match wasn't fully fleshed out by any means & it never felt like Takahashi would win, the explosive action made up for it. There were a few execution issues, but the level of difficulty was high & it was great to see Ospreay hit shooting star press off the apron as well as his imploding 450 splash before putting Takahashi away to advance to the final. ***3/4
Taichi & TAKA Michinoku vs. Hirai Kawato & Jushin Thunder Liger 6:44
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA vs. Dragon Lee & Juice Robinson & Ricochet 7:06
Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe & David Finlay 7:19
Kenny Omega & Marty Scurll & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay 11:18
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Yoshinobu Kanemaru [8] vs. El Desperado [6] 9:39
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: Ryusuke Taguchi [8] vs. ACH [6] 13:41
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: BUSHI [8] vs. Tiger Mask [6] 12:08
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Block B Match: KUSHIDA [8] vs. Volador Jr. [6] 15:44. Volador's bad rap in this tournament was unjustified because the cryptonite to his perpetual motion style is a lazy opponent, and night after night he was in there with guys that didn't want to put any effort in, plus ACH who still tries but is your generic American poser. Volador's thing is to go, and with KUSHIDA, he finally had an opponent that would move with him from start to finish. When you're working fast like Volador always does, familiarity is key because the style is based on timing & chemistry, so you have to anticipate where they're going to be & what they're going to do. These two had a couple matches in Mexico last year, so while wrestling each other is hardly second nature like many of Volador's best CMLL rivals, they were much closer to being on the same page throughout even if it was still somewhat deliberate by Volador's standards, and as such Volador's execution was closer to its usual level than in his earlier tournament matches. The match was an exciting all action match that was good from start to finish like Volador's best matches, pretty much in his style with KUSHIDA again doing a great job of adapting to what his opponent can do. If this match happened earlier in the league, it would have been ideal. It's exactly the kind of energetic action this tournament was supposed to be delivering, but actually wasn't. The problem here is it was the final match of the league with the winner advancing to face Ospreay in the finals. While that should be a good thing, after all you have the two best workers in the block going at it to see who moved forward, but they weren't able to take things to the next level & give the match an aura of importance. The match was consistent, but that was both good & bad. They did a bunch of great high risk moves including exchanging Frankensteiners with both standing on the top, and although the setup was a bit awkward from time to time, the issue here was the match didn't really build or climax. KUSHIDA made some crazy armbar counters to Volador's flying here, hitting it off Volador's swandive & handspring, but it wasn't as though you felt he was going to get Volador with one of these, they were just answers. Both men had plenty of answers, and that's one of the reasons the match was good, but the match wasn't building to someone not having an answer, it wasn't really building, and just kind of ended with KUSHIDA hitting his Back to the Future without generating the kind of urgency it needed. ***1/4
Shota Umino & Tomoyuki Oka & Yuji Nagata vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Manabu Nakanishi & Tetsuhiro Yagi 7:58
Jado & Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. Hirai Kawato & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Togi Makabe 7:24
Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask & Volador Jr. vs. El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku & Yoshinobu Kanemaru 5:46
Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi vs. War Machine Hanson & Raymond Rowe & ACH & David Finlay 10:06
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Suzuki-gun Minoru Suzuki & Taichi 12:13
BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs. Dragon Lee & Juice Robinson & Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi & Satoshi Kojima 12:19
Kenny Omega & Marty Scurll vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada 13:04
Best Of The Super Junior XXIV Final: KUSHIDA vs. Will Ospreay 27:59. It's great to see the two guys who delivered the best matches in the league portion getting to square off in the final. Even better is this battle between the current IWGP champ KUSHIDA & defending Super Jr. champ Ospreay, which had interesting implications in that Ospreay was looking to become the 1st foreigner to win back to back Super Jrs (Tiger Mask is the only one to ever succeed) but he'd have to beat the guy who stopped him in both of his IWGP Jr Title bids, actually got plenty of time. Only 2 matches in the league portion exceeded 20 minutes, KUSHIDA/Taguchi & Ospreay/Ricochet, and they were also the 2 best matches of a tournament where most matches were about 10 minutes long. The length should have been more important for Ospreay because it theoretically gave him the opportunity to show more aspects of his game, in the UK he's expected to show some chain wrestling because they have the long history of counter grapping, but as was the case with Kota Ibushi before him, for the most part NJ seems to just want him to be a flippy guy rather than doing that much striking or technical wrestling. This match was really no different in that regard, as although the early portion had tremendous potential with the quick technical counters being right up KUSHIDA's alley as well, in the end they rather briefly shifted from the mat to striking to flying. Granted, the more important thing to point out is they did this all very organically with great timing & chemistry as they become more & more familiar with one another, and one of the reasons this great match stands out among the pack in NJ is you actually have two guys who can be individually great working together to reach a higher level through constantly adding to & answering what the other has to offer. This wasn't challenger of the month nearly killing themselves to carry Okada through a match where they do all the work then lose to a champ who actually has no answers to most of what they throw at him, it's hard to say who was better here because both were setting each other up & adding to what the other was trying to do rather than simply looking to the opponent & Gedo for the answers they should have themselves. Sure, the various parity sequences, especially on the mat, could have been better developed rather than going into kind of a throwaway version of the predictable KUSHIDA injures Ospreay & tries to slow him down, but Ospreay comes back with his flying anyway. What was great about the early portion is you had to have an answer, once they slowed down there was no sense of urgency as one guy would do a move & then stand around waiting for the other guy to recover enough to do another move to him. The other thing that was weird is KUSHIDA hurt Ospreay's knee then arm on back to back moves, and kind of dabbled into working on both throughout the match without ever really committing to either. The mistake with this match is to try to make it into something it isn't though. It wasn't an all around match or a story match. It wasn't about selling or lack thereof. It's not a heavyweight match or a British style match or whatever. It was simply a longer, all out version of the greatest spectacle they had to offer, which is close to the greatest spectacle on earth, with the slower portion in the middle mostly just being something of a breather in between the hot opening & the amazing lengthy closing. This match is this generation's Kanemoto vs. Samurai final. It's all about being exciting & over the top, and the athleticism here is so outstanding that a lot of the other stuff didn't matter that much in the end. These guys may not have been pushing their all around boundaries, but this was one hell of a difficult match that they made look easy because they're such great athletes & were on top of their game, working together so well that the match didn't come off as the absolute choreographed spectacle it actually was. My friends reaction "they're doing shit I fantasized about, thinking damn it's too bad this is impossible to do in real life" describes the action here better than I can. I can tell you Ospreay was just backflipping all over the place, hitting a no touch moonsault attack to the floor, countering KUSHIDA's charge with the Spanish fly, etc, but that doesn't begin to give you an idea of the kind of fantastic athletic contest this was because these spots were pulled off with such effortless efficiency in the context of a match that was reacting to whatever openings the opponent was giving & taking advantage of the opponents positioning to hit your move instead they generally didn't feel like stunts or ballet, they didn't feel different than the early athletic counters, just an extension of them. The action was really explosive, and they had each other scouted well from their previous encounters with spots such as Ospreay hitting a running shooting star press only to have KUSHIDA get his knees up for the corkscrew moonsault. Ospreay nearly got a countout after following the burning star press with a reverse Frankensteiner on the apron then nearly finished KUSHIDA with the Essex destroyer only to have KUSHIDA turn is Oscutter into an armbar. Ospreay turned KUSHIDA's diving move into a cutter, but when he went for the proper Oscutter again, KUSHIDA avoided & seemed to be countering with a handspring kick, but turned it into a cutter instead. After KUSHIDA had nearly knocked Ospreay out ending their exchange with a big punch to the neck then nearly submitted him with his Kimura, you thought the match was going to end with his Back to the Future, but Ospreay turned it into a cutter & got a near fall with his reverse firebird splash. One cool thing here is that even though KUSHIDA has been the face & top working native in the jr division for some time, the fans were also cheering for Ospreay from the outset to the point that, while KUSHIDA still had more support, it really just felt like they wanted to see a great match & didn't care who won. These two are definitely capable of a few different matches from this, and they may well even be greater, but they were super energized & when you thought they might slow down, they managed to amp it up yet another notch & exchange even more fiercely. The match was dramatic because they had so many answers & it went on for so long that both legitimately could have won a handful of times. Eventually Ospreay tried to up the ante with a cutter off the middle rope, but KUSHIDA stopped it & hit his Back to the Future off the 2nd & then a regular one just to be certain to take the league. Definitely the match of the league. ****1/2
David Finlay & Shota Umino & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Hirai Kawato & Katsuya Kitamura & Tetsuhiro Yagi 7:37
Tiger Mask & Tiger Mask W & Togi Makabe & Yuji Nagata vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Jushin Thunder Liger & Manabu Nakanishi 7:01
NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Title Five Way Gauntlet Match: BUSHI & EVIL & SANADA vs. CHAOS Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Bad Luck Fale & Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Juice Robinson & Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi 18:39
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Match: Beretta & Rocky Romero vs. Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson 14:14
IWGP Tag Title Match: Hanson & Raymond Rowe vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa 10:43
Cody vs. Michael Elgin 11:53
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Hiromu Takahashi vs. KUSHIDA 19:12. The most explosive & brutal of their matches by far, and a tremendous improvement over their Tokyo Dome match as they just packed so much more action & violence into this one. It was a spotfest to be certain, but more of a heavyweight style one with both going all out to deliver a great match & KUSHIDA being at his most aggressive, having a chip on his shoulder & a lot to prove after his humiliating subsequent 2 minute loss to Hiromu at Sakura Genesis. There was plenty of KUSHIDA influence with the lengthy strike exchange & the usual Kimura focus, but it seemed more toward Hiromu's car crash style with the stunts really standing out. Hiromu may not have improved as a wrestler in the past 6 months, but his standing has greatly increased with 2 big wins over KUSHIDA in a row, and already this seemed like a battle between the top 2 natives in the division rather than Hiromu being another guy who just briefly kept the belt warm for KUSHIDA so the division has something going on & they didn't burn KUSHIDA out making him the junior Okada. It had the aura of a huge match, and the intensity to back it up. The first 3 minutes were essentially just exchanging elbows then chops, starting at a furious pace then slowing down as they wore down some. The match slowed down with Hiromu's stalling once KUSHIDA, as everyone else, predictably didn't know enough not to charge Takahashi when he was near the corner, but it was basically full on aggression outside of these few minutes. KUSHIDA redeemed himself having an answer for the sunset flip powerbomb (which Hiromu later connected with), and began to get his arm storyline going countering with an armbar on the apron. KUSHIDA did some vicious kicks to the arm, & after taking a dynamite plunger, turned Takahashi's attempt to do it off the top into an avalanche style Kimura. Aside from Hiromu's usual dangerous moves, the insanity included KUSHIDA springboarding off a chair for a dropkick over the guard rail & the key spot of the match, KUSHIDA hitting an avalanche style Back to the Future that vanquished Will Ospreay to earn him this title shot for a teased double knockout. This set up the finish as once they recovered, they exchanged strikes on their knees until they made their way back to their feet & then Takahashi beat KUSHIDA to the Masahiro Tanaka but, of course, just stood there & waited for KUSHIDA to answer with 2 of his own to set up the finish where KUSHIDA kept stomping him in the face endlessly, which drew boos, until Hiromu was in no condition to fight off the Kimura. The rivalry was really heated throughout, with the finish further exemplifying the lengths KUSHIDA was willing, and forced, to go to just to beat this young punk. Not as good as KUSHIDA's Super Jr. final with Ospreay the week before, but after their previous two meetings, it's awesome that they're even worth putting in the same sentence. ****
NEVER Openweight Title Lumberjack Death Match: Minoru Suzuki vs. Hirooki Goto 16:00
IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi 25:56
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega 60:00
Beretta & Rocky Romero & Will Ospreay & Briscoe Brothers Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe vs. Bad Luck Fale & Marty Scurll & Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson & Yujiro Takahashi 9:21
BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA vs. Dragon Lee & Jushin Thunder Liger & Titan & Volador Jr. 6:44
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Tournament First Round Match: Jay Lethal vs. Hangman Page 8:30
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Tournament First Round: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Juice Robinson 10:04
David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jay White & KUSHIDA vs. Sho Tanaka & Yohei Komatsu & Billy Gunn & Yoshitatsu 9:40
IWGP Tag Team Title Match: Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe 11:06
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Tournament First Round Match: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tetsuya Naito 15:51
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Tournament First Round Match: Kenny Omega vs. Michael Elgin 22:31
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada vs. Cody 27:12
David Finlay & Jushin Thunder Liger & KUSHIDA vs. Sho Tanaka & Yohei Komatsu & Yoshitatsu 8:52
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Tournament Semifinal: Kenny Omega vs. Jay Lethal 12:56
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Tournament Semifinal: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr. 11:42
Dragon Lee & Jay White & Juice Robinson & Titan & Volador Jr. vs. BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito 12:28
Hangman Page & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe & Michael Elgin 11:17
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Match: Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs. Beretta & Rocky Romero 22:41
Bad Luck Fale & Cody & Marty Scurll & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay & Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe 16:00
IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Billy Gunn 14:25
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Tournament Final: Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii 31:20
Ren Narita vs. Shota Umino 10:00
TAKA Michinoku vs. Tetsuhiro Yagi 6:08
Dinosaur Takuma & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Manabu Nakanishi 9:25
Dick Togo vs. Hirai Kawato 9:27
Satoshi Kojima vs. Tomoyuki Oka 7:27
YOSHI-HASHI vs. Koji Iwamoto 12:46
Yuji Nagata vs. GO Asakawa 12:21
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Jushin Thunder Liger vs. David Finlay & Juice Robinson & Michael Elgin 7:48
El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & Taichi vs. Chase Owens & Kenny Omega & Tama Tonga 7:04
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi vs. BUSHI & SANADA 6:52
Jado & Toru Yano vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada 7:49
G1 Climax 2017 Block A: YOSHI-HASHI [2] vs. Yuji Nagata [0] 16:29. Your basic Nagata striking match with some exceptionally hard hitting to differentiate it. YOSHI-HASHI is a decent enough worker, but while he followed adequately & I commend his willingness to take a bunch of potato shots, Nagata could basically have had the same match with Kota Ibushi's doll. It's supposed to be a veteran vs. young lion bout (though YOSHI-HASHI is 35...), but YOSHI-HASHI has no roar. He just lacks anything to distinguish himself or earn the respect of Nagata or the attention of the audience, who theoretically should be reacting strongly to him, either pulling for him because of his fire (if he had any) & heart or rooting against him because Nagata is the sentimental favorite & he drew Nagata's ire. Nagata was really nasty here, bullying YOSHI-HASHI the whole match, so YOSHI-HASHI did score points for not wilting, but he didn't do so in any manner that would connect with the audience. The match wasn't completely one-sided by any means, but YOSHI-HASHI's cute more lucha oriented offense didn't really register compared to Nagata's brutal blows. The idea was that YOSHI-HASHI would somehow survive this whipping & score the dramatic upset, but the match just showed what we already know, that Nagata still has it & YOSHI-HASHI never will. Granted, Nagata at his peak is the best native heavyweight on the roster, but even if we try to look past that & see him as an old man in his final G1 Climax, still nothing that takes place in the ring makes him losing to this guy credible. That being said, I commend Nagata for being humble & "doing the right thing", though honestly keeping himself strong would make the losses to guys like Sabre & Ibushi that actually can do something with the wins over him be more meaningful & compelling. In any case, this is the kind of match that elevates the entire tournament in general. It's not a great match by any means, but with a 50-year-old who has a lot of hard matches on the docket against a never was, it's a match that has every right to be the sort of somnambulism we see on the Best of the Super Jr. undercards, except Nagata instead tried to steal the show & carried YOSHI-HASHI to one of the best matches of his career. ***1/4
G1 Climax 2017 Block A: Bad Luck Fale [2] vs. Togi Makabe [0] 9:25
G1 Climax 2017 Block A: Hirooki Goto [2] vs. Tomohiro Ishii [0] 13:43. You know what you're going to get from these two, and they delivered as always. Nothing fancy in this collision, but an energetic, no b.s. slugfest where they pounded one another until someone finally caved. Though Ishii kind of only does one souped up Choshu match, Goto does that style really well also, and can also add some more counters in & out of the big moves to make it a little more diverse with more emphasis on the power moves & less on the striking exchanges. Still, it built to the big elbow exchange as the final burst before the finish. I don't feel like there's a ton to say about the match since it was pretty narrow & straightforward, but these are the kind of matches we watch both Ishii & the G1 Climax for, where even though it's not the main event fought really hard from start to finish & did what they do well. ***
G1 Climax 2017 Block A: Zack Sabre Jr. [2] vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi [0] 17:18. Sabre kicked around NOAH for years, but only had a couple undercard matches that even registered. It's not because he didn't have the talent as he was delivering elsewhere (although obviously he's gotten a lot better during & since that time), but throughout the years NOAH would almost never book the gaijins that were under contract with another indy league in anything beyond undercard walk throughs with the likes of Izumida & Masao (their relationship with ROH produced classics for ROH because when the match was in ROH it was treated as an all out big match rather than filler or at best a good match). I'm a big fan of NJ's booking here, taking a guy who has potential to be a main eventer & establishing him right away with a huge win in his first ever G1 match. Tanahashi was a good opponent for Sabre because even though there's a lot of differences in their technical wrestling style & the way they approach their matches, they both want to be using their grappling to break down a body part & thus tell a story. You could guess how this match was going to go down given Tanahashi had a torn bicep for Sabre to attack, hence his excuse for losing, & Tanahashi, like his idol Muto, has never really been able to think outside the knee attack box. Sabre's first big moment came when he turned Tanahashi's elbow drop into an armbar. Sabre still manages to be somewhat unpredictable, especially compared to Tanahashi, because he's about being opportunistic, and he doesn't need every move to work toward accomplishing the same goal, he just needs to eventually counter or chain his way into that 1 deep lock. The bout was kind of slow early even for a technical match, making me think the issue was Tanahashi really laboring, though it's possible that this is simply a big match for Sabre but not for Tanahashi. Tanahashi's effort, whether a necessary evil or not, was definitely a limiting factor one way or the other, as the intensity wasn't near the level that Nagata, Goto, & Ishii produced earlier, so the match lacked aura to the point of not feeling like anything out of the ordinary even though it was quite good in its own right. Tanahashi was more than fine though, it's just that Sabre's matches are more interesting when the opponent is countering him all the time as well rather than what we got here, which was the younger, quicker, and far more diverse Sabre just outmaneuvering Tanahashi time and time again, sometimes getting caught, but more often than not being a step or two ahead & seeming to just be toying with Tanahashi. Sabre did most of the work stretching & contorting Tanahashi, and Tanahashi, who was clearly putting himself in the underdog babyface role as the wounded warrior, did a lot of good selling, & exploded into a Dragon screw or one of his usual tropes now & again to stay relevant. The match built slowly, and while it was interesting & good, it just lacked the juice to come off as much more. Tanahashi finally had a nice run, but Sabre got his knees up for the high-fly flow & slapped on the Jim Breaks armbar. I didn't expect this to be the finish as the match was built as though it were going another 5 or 10 minutes, but Tanahashi had no answer, and Sabre as some nice touches took Tanahashi's support off, ripped at the ace bandage, and then just started contorting his wrist at every nasty angle until Tanahashi finally surrendered. Desperado briefly interjecting himself before the finish took the match down a notch because this had been like a real Sabre match you'd see elsewhere rather than the usual Suzuki-gun EWW chicanery, and that was really important because in order for the result to be meaningful Sabre needed to earn it on his own merit, which he has plenty of, but at least Desperado was typically completely ineffective & useless, so Tanahashi didn't waste any more time disposing of him than he probably would have showing off for the crowd. ***
G1 Climax 2017 Block A: Tetsuya Naito [2] vs. Kota Ibushi [0] 24:41. While Nagata vs. YOSHI-HASHI & Goto vs. Ishii were nice examples of what a simple, high effort undercard matches can be, this was a not nice example of what an overblown, contrived, low effort, endless main event can be, an exhibition in taking a few minutes of interesting & potentially meaningful material & stretching them out over 25 pointless minutes so as to do a lazy match that perhaps sounds good because they have talent & wow, they were out there for so long something must have happened, and maybe a dozen impressive things did such as Ibushi's piledriver off the 2nd. It's really frustrating because these guys can go when they want to, and they wouldn't have done many more big spots if they were going all out, it's not the lack of wow moments, its that the match was literally devoid of anything in between. Rather than set anything up or work them into something that seemed like a match, they just laid around except when they were doing some spectacular signature move. It took 2 minutes from when Naito was introduced for him to disrobe & get around to locking up, then he did his pose & avoided locking up a 2nd time... By the time he bothered to get around to fighting, I could have seen a round of a real fight & actually enjoyed myself instead of wasting my time with this EWW nonsense. Naito finally did a good move, a reverse neckbreaker on the apron, but then walked around in circles, did some stomps & rest holds. Surely RAW's commercial break should have been over by now, but apparently the entire night's sponsorship was lined up for this one match... Ibushi finally came back with a dropkick, and Naito sold it like a shotgun blast so he could lay around longer, but then immediately tried to comeback only to get caught in a Frankensteiner & golden triangle moonsault. More than 9 minutes into the match, there was finally something that, albeit brief, could be described as an actual wrestling sequence where both men did something. The whole match was just so amazingly contrived because there was no pace or sense of urgency, they did high risk, hard to set up moves when they eventually got around to it, and in the meantime they just laid or wobbled around for what could have been several 40 counts if the ref was actually going by the book. For instance, there was almost 90 seconds between Naito's gloria & his avalanche style reverse Frankensteiner, and all Ibushi did was lay there then stand on the 2nd rope waiting for Naito to finally get around to climbing the ropes & knocking Ibushi off his roost. I'm fine with selling when actual action leads to it & it's not forced hokem, but this was a 25 minute match with maybe not even 5 minutes of actual wrestling & the rest was just seeing how many ways Naito could find to not actually do anything. Ibushi, as always, looked great when he did something, but this was Naito's match through & through, and random stunt here & there wasn't going to be enough to make it compelling. People rag on US indy wrestling as empty stuntfests, and that's often not unwarranted to be certain, but at least those matches have some semblance of pace, tempo, & momentum, they're contrived exhibitions where they actually keep doing more contrived things, and because they push forward there's a sweep to them that creates a suspension of disbelief & provides the feeling of an athletic contest, even if it's just top this. This lacked any such momentum or any kind of set up to make the moves even plausible theatre, as they instead spent a minute telling you not to care about what they were about to do before they finally did it because the move, the outcome, nothing actually mattered & the opponent was just going to stay in their prone perch & let them do it anyway when they finally felt the urge to get it over with. I had the urge to get this over with within 2 minutes, and the fast forward button was getting worn out...
El Desperado & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hirai Kawato & Kota Ibushi 10:20
Tiger Mask & Togi Makabe & Yuji Nagata vs. Gedo & Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii 8:51
Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens vs. David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi 8:29
BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito vs. CHAOS Jado & YOSHI-HASHI 8:34
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Juice Robinson [2] vs. Satoshi Kojima [0] 11:48. Kojima seemed to be structuring the match to get Juice over early on, but then since it wasn't that long of a match & the finish was him just randomly losing because he's the old guy, shifted to doing his greatest hits before Juice put him away with one move. This was fine, but as with the Nagata/YOSHI-HASHI match, it was the veteran who showed the talent only to lose to the stroke of the pen.
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Tama Tonga [2] vs. Michael Elgin [0] 13:46
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: SANADA [2] vs. EVIL [0] 15:48. SANADA has always been a guy who seems to possess the tools to be a standout, but rarely puts it together for an entire match. He can be good, as he was here, and when you see this kind of match you might once again think he's ready to break into the top tear, only to probably have him go back to his usual skating by on his natural ability rather than finally harnessing it to greatness. EVIL doesn't have the luxuries that SANADA does, he's a lot less impressive than most guys on this roster when he's doing the usual half speed tags because he's not an amazing athlete & is rather straightforward & methodical, if not outright bland & lumbering, but he was willing to grind it out tonight. This was EVIL's match done at EVIL's pace, a steady contest that was built around a couple crazy spots, as well as the tempo changes when SANADA used his athleticism for his bursts of offense. Despite being in the same heel stable, SANADA is actually quite a nice opponent for EVIL because his explosions were a perfect counterbalance to EVIL's consistency, and they just fought an actual hard fought straight match that put the cartoon schlock their lazy leader delivered on day 1 to shame. There was some early brawling on the outside with one of the key spots being EVIL injuring SANADA's neck swinging a chair to send the chair that was around SANADA's neck flying off into the cameraman, but rather than fighting friendly then devolving to brawling as most matches would, this was more to establish right off the bat that EVIL wasn't going to let up on SANADA just because they were pals. EVIL came off as better prepared & more a student of the game, but SANADA has a lot more ability to just use his athleticism to adjust. SANADA has a much easier time impressing because he's such a good athlete that performing the maneuvers comes easy, while EVIL can even struggle to even get anything behind his strikes. These guys fought really hard though, and one of the best qualities of the match was that they really made you believe they were going all out for the victory. The highlight was definitely SANADA hitting an Ace crusher off the apron with EVIL was on the middle rope. The finish was a bit anticlimactic as SANADA's skull end was so sloppily applied EVIL's head was essentially not even involved in the move until SANADA realized & reapplied, but the moonsault looked nice. I feel like I was more impressed with this match than the matches from day 1, but I think it's because my expectations were low & the match definitely overachieved, whereas matches such as Sabre/Tanahashi & Goto/Ishii sounded a lot better on paper, and while good, were hardly at the optimal level. The main drawback to SANADA/EVIL is it had the feel of a match that wanted to go 20 minutes that just kind of came to a conclusion because it's just the start of a long, hard tournament, but I'm definitely a lot more pleased that they actually fought the whole time they were out there than worried whether the finish seemed conclusive enough. ***
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kazuchika Okada [2] vs. Toru Yano [0] 10:31
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kenny Omega [2] vs. Minoru Suzuki [0] 21:24. The best match so far, but more because you had great talents who did enough well to overcome the goofiness than because it was firing on all cylinders. It was a lot more Suzuki's match than Omega's, as Suzuki was able to eliminate much of Omega's ability to perform his stunts by destroying his knee. They started off with a striking base, but would explode into a big move or submission to keep things lively & moving until they got into the main story, which they stuck to very well outside of one nonsensical diversion. Omega stopped Suzuki's whip into the guard rail, but when he tried to counter with a moonsault off the rail, Suzuki kicked him off & injured his knee with an ankle lock around the bar & some chair work. Omega's selling was both brilliant & terrible as he lacks subtlety, but while his spasm after Suzuki's strikes early on was comical, once he got into his method acting with his limping, he had a lot more to work with & was able to add nice touches rather than generic convulsions. Omega wasn't straightening the knee & even did his moonsault off 1 leg after the knee didn't hold up to the landing on his crucifix roll. Just when I was really getting into a nice story match where we were going to see whether Kenny could overcome his knee injury, they totally lost the plot with the EWW nonsense of Red Shoes getting taken out when Suzuki pulled him in front to shield him from Omega's v-trigger, then all the dead weight flooded the ring & Omega eventually took out the 3 stooges with a swandive plancha. Suzuki just held Red Shoes endlessly until Omega was finally back to the top rope & seemed to walk right into his flying move, but at least countered it with an Achilles' tendon hold to try to regain the actual plot. Suzuki then spent the next several minutes chaining submissions to destroy the knee some more & beating him up with his strike combinations, which just made the runins more pointless, as everything Suzuki did on his own served the purpose of making Kenny a well supported underdog. The way the match was worked, Kenny really should have lost, and this one just ending would actually have worked quite well. For instance, when Suzuki countered katayoku no tenshi with an ankle hold, but Omega increasingly has the Okada superhuman booking where his mere presence means he'll survive everything & eventually win, just because. And that's just what he did, eventually coming back with an enzuigiri & hitting a couple v-triggers & the katayoku no tenshi for the win. I'm not complaining Omega won, he's the guy that needs to be in the finals, especially out of this weak block, but the favorite getting destroyed the whole match then hitting a couple moves for the win isn't one of the better scripts, though their injury focus was a done a lot better than usual. ***1/2
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi vs. David Finlay & Juice Robinson 7:13
Minoru Suzuki & Taichi vs. BUSHI & SANADA 8:13
Kenny Omega & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Chase Owens & Tama Tonga 7:45
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Michael Elgin vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano 8:12
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hirooki Goto [4] vs. Yuji Nagata [0] 15:02. A Block is pretty stacked, but if there were blue, or hell, any kind of justice in the world, these guys wouldn't be on first when you have stiffs like Makabe, Fale, & YOSHI-HASHI kicking around. Surely Tanahashi was going to take the night off after doing a real match against Sabre, and Naito pretty much does that regardless, but what's important is these guys proved their worth to anyone who was paying attention. The match followed a similar formula to Nagata vs. YOSHI-HASHI in that the younger wrestler pulled the fight out of the older one by underestimating him. The difference is that Goto commands to be taken seriously, so there's a different vibe to him running over you. Nagata fired up in both cases, & really brought the heat on his strikes, but this was more that he had to up his game against a top wrestler who has become one of the more underrated in the promotion as nonsense has increasingly become valued over no nonsense, than trying to make sure a guy who never amounted to anything didn't suddenly do so at his expense. The early portion was rather routine, but the match really picked up when Nagata got going after Goto woke him up chopping him on top of his head. This was much more violent than Goto vs. Ishii, as Nagata was just brutal to the point that Goto's strikes looked mediocre in comparison. Goto is generally a better striker than this, so I suspect he may have been going a little "easy" on Nagata while giving Nagata the green light to do his worst. In any case, Nagata's intensity was really resonating, and he was super over, with the fans really pulling for him & reacting to everything they did. This may not have been the most skilled or original match, but you had to love all the extra effort these guys put into it. It felt special because Nagata was busting his ass, and delivering a match that not only felt as though it was from the pre Tanahashi era of New Japan, not only stylistically but even quality wise was more toward what we saw from him at the height of his powers. Once it got going, they match never slowed down & really felt urgent. It was basically a 10 minute burst that came to a halt with Goto's GTR. There weren't a lot of amazing counters or any deep story, they just did a great job of beating the hell out of each other. ***1/2
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tomohiro Ishii [2] vs. Togi Makabe [0] 15:51
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Kota Ibushi [2] vs. Zack Sabre Jr. [2] 15:51. A rare opportunity in NJ for Ibushi to do a technical match rather than just be a spot merchant. Sabre was clearly the star in what was more toward his style, but Ibushi has a lot of ability here that isn't consistently fleshed out, and their skills meshed well. They were able to deliver a dynamic match that showcased their strengths & talents well. Sabre was just contorting & manipulating Ibushi's body every which way until he could find a submission, making Kota work harder here in the slowest minute than he did in Naito's entire 25 minute cartoon stallfest on day 1. What's so great about Sabre's style is while others mostly use submissions to rest, grabbling an appendage with little resistance & just holding the position for at least 45 seconds after the opponent would have tapped in real life (assuming they're using a move that actually has merit), he's just getting started when he gets hold of you, and is always tweaking or advancing to something better that requires a different answer. As soon as Ibushi began to shut one lock down, if not even before, Sabre had already made the adjustment & moved on. Sabre controlled the early portion, as while Ibushi was hanging with him on the mat, Sabre had the counter to his counter, & was simple a step ahead. Kota's strength in the Hard Hit style wasn't his submissions though, and once he got his striking going that gave him a decided advantage because Sabre's strength lies in his ability to progress through the possiblities & chain them together until he finds something, but he can't do that unless he already has a hold of you. The match was constantly evolving, but they came back to a couple spots. One was Ibushi's standing moonsault, which Sabre turned it into a triangle early, a key spot for him here. Sabre continued to counter Kota anytime he tried running or jumping, including getting an ankle lock off a later standing moonsault attack. Ibushi, in turn, had mutliple counters for Sabre's European uppercut, turning it into a sweet released German suplex & setting up the finish by getting a backslide position off it but holding on to Sabre's arms so when he escaped the pin he could level him with a knee. What made the match so good is it wasn't about setting up or countering a few big spots, but rather that it was always fluidly flowing & moving through the various possibilities, expanding rather than getting stuck. It was unpredictable, and a lot more than the sum of its parts, which were quite good on their own. The match seemed to be building up to be a classic, but as with the majority of the G1 matches so far, rather than a spectacular near finish laden climax or even something that just felt like a conclusive ending, they just wrapped it up when someone hit a finisher around the 15 minute mark. It wasn't quite that bad because Sabre's triangle had been something of a theme, so when Sabre stopped Ibush's last ride powerbomb & hit a flying triangle there was something real going on there, and Ibushi was able to overcome it by powering out & smashing him with the last ride he'd just countered for the win. This was the best match thusfar in the tournament, but it probably only scratched the surface of the great potential these two have together. ***3/4
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi [2] vs. Bad Luck Fale [2] 11:05
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tetsuya Naito [4] vs. YOSHI-HASHI [2] 22:19. YOSHI-HASHI doesn't get a main event often, and had aspirations of doing a match where something actually happened, unlike what we saw from Naito on day 1. He gave a much better performance than he did in his far superior match with Nagata, and Naito showed up for this match to an extent. Naito was really slow to move to the next move/sequence, but they did a number of running sequences where he was exploding, and he has enough natural ability to skate by on these bursts of effort where he does look impressive. The match lacked intensity & didn't build any momentum, but it would have been a nice undercard match in the 12 to 15 minute range, as there was enough good action for it to be more than acceptable if it didn't have to follow better wrestlers who were really busting it. The biggeset problem here is even though he was giving a lot closer to his best effort, the fans don't take YOSHI-HASHI seriously, or really take to him at all, so instead of pulling for the underdog babyface to will his way to the big upset as they would with say Ishii, they instead pulled for the heel to just take care of business, which lessened the drama of a a match that wasn't ripe with it to being with. YOSHI-HASHI really blasted Naito in the mouth with a high kick, and you could see he just kind of stopped to check that he didn't injure him for real. Naito sold for him during much of the 2nd half (then just put him away once he went on the offensive), but when the fans reacted, it was just pulling for Naito's comeback. YOSHI-HASHI was pretty good here, and honestly the main difference between the two is one guy is over & the other isn't.
David Finlay & Kota Ibushi & Togi Makabe vs. Gedo & Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii 7:06
El Desperado & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Jado & YOSHI-HASHI 7:43
Tomoyuki Oka & Yuji Nagata vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Katsuya Kitamura 8:58
BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito vs. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi 7:33
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Toru Yano [2] vs. Satoshi Kojima [0] 9:12
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: EVIL [2] vs. Juice Robinson [2] 11:46. Mostly a sprint pitting Juice's athleticism vs. whatever EVIL felt like doing, including devoting a 1/12th of the match to a chinlock. Match was good if a bit cutesy when Juice was on offense, but EVIL's offense could be summed up as, you eye rake, I eye roll. EVIL did do a supposed big suplex, a released fisherman into the corner except all that actually happened was the back of Juice's boot hit the top rope, so deadly they did nearly a minute double sell... EVIL picked it up considerably for the last few minutes, which were pretty hot.
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Minoru Suzuki [2] vs. SANADA [2] 11:22. Basic sprint. Energetic, but 85% striking until the last 2 min, and Sanada's striking isn't a strength. Pretty good, but hard to take seriously.
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kenny Omega [4] vs. Tama Tonga [2] 11:41. Tonga walking in circles yelling at the fans while Omega oversold his lame offense.
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kazuchika Okada [4] vs. Michael Elgin [0] 25:49. A match that was supposed to be amazing, the effort was there and at least the announcers if not the crowd were going wild, but you had such a stark contrast between Elgin bombing away at Okada to the point you wondered if Okada was even going to survive, but still somehow doing an even match & losing to a much smaller guy who relied on strikes that he had nothing on. This wasn't the usual Okada match where he just got murdered so the match was mostly as good as the opponent, who was super fired up for their moment in the spotlight, was able to carry him to. If that were the case, the match might have been excellent, as Elgin looked about as impressive as any big man of today or even yesterday. Okada actually got a lot of his lame offense in though, regularly countering with some kind of strike that was like Diaz Brothers level if the Diaz's just threw one shot & then expected the opponent to somehow be stopped dead in their tracks. Regularly having a mammoth like Elgin be slowed down by these awkward fly swats that would make little an impact on a strawweight was tough to take. They did a pretty active match with a lot of standing sequences, but it was like, Elgin would murder Okada with a titanic powerslam, while Okada would slip out of a suplex & come back with that corny upper to the chest that Elgin should just be laughing off. As Okada was doing more, that meant he was also telegraphing the transitions even more than usual, for instance his feet were a good 5 feet apart for his supposed missile kick, so he was literally just taking a plunge off the top rope into Elgin's powerbomb from the start. This sort of sloppiness, if that's the word for it, just makes it hard to buy into the match because it feels like a performance. I know that's what wrestling is, but better wrestling allows you to ignore the cooperation. I liked the early portion of the match quite a bit, as Elgin wasn't merely overpowering Okada, he also had an answer for most of what Okada tried, using his size & strength for leverage as well as brutality. There was a nice spot out of the ring where Okada tried a running body attack over the guard rail, but Okada just wasn't budging Elgin, who easily caught him & slammed him back over the guard rail. Once they got into the body of the match, they rather predictably went back & forth in a scripted manner (Elgin countered Okada's flying move, so Okada comes back with a dropkick for Elgin's, that sort of thing) with all the highlights rather predictably coming from Elgin, who pulled out all sorts of huge throws & slams. What's good about Okada is as sketchy as everything he does is technically, the effort is always there, and this was the 1st match of the league where they were going for a match of the year candidate. If Naito gave this effort, it would have been a great match for sure, but Naito has the talent, Okada has the effort, both are unfortunately only halves. This match is hard to rate because at least 10 other guys in this tournament would have had a classic with Elgin if they gave this amount of effort over 25 minutes, they would have actually brought good things & done them well, but tryhard Okada is what we always get, and thus it's how much does the A game of the opponent outweigh the mediocrity of the man? ***1/2
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Michael Elgin 4:41
El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & Taichi vs. David Finlay & Hirai Kawato & Juice Robinson 8:31
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Chase Owens & Tama Tonga 5:10
Kenny Omega & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Jado & Toru Yano 6:29
BUSHI & SANADA vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada 5:43
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Zack Sabre Jr. [4] vs. YOSHI-HASHI [2] 11:48. Sabre pretzled YOSHI until he got bored & taunted him into a comeback. Match was fine, but mostly on autopilot with Sabre wasting his energy trying to conform to the lame NJ heel style rather than telling a story or coming up with clever counters.
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi [4] vs. Yuji Nagata [0] 14:47. Tanahashi was demoted to the 2nd match for perhaps the final chapter in the fued of his great career. It differed considerably from Nagata's previous two matches in that it wasn't all Nagata or nearly as stiff & intense, but Tanahashi's matches don't really change, so it also looked like the matches they had in their heyday, minus the crowd buzzing from the opening bell. If anything was different it was that Nagata was the semtimental favorite now to the point Tanahashi was booed when he did his pose, so Tanahashi adopted a more subtle heel role (the kind that actually works without detracting from the match by making it silly & contrived). Nagata kicked it up a gear after escaping Tanahashi's early knee work, and Tanahashi matched his fierce blows with big slaps, accidentally cutting him under the eye in their 2nd big exchange. Nagata did a few moves to Tanahashi's bad arm such as countering a lariat with the Nagata lock IV, but this wasn't a theme, with Nagata instead bringing out some of his bigger moves such as the avalanche style exploder to supplement his striking game & Tanahashi not seeming to be struggling to get around his arm injury as he had in the previous 2. Their formulaic match was obviously better a decade ago when it was a fresh battle of the top guys in the company in the big main event, thus they pulled out more stops & there was more drama to the contest & energy in the building. That being said, they were still able to perform at roughly the same level, if anything this match is sort of more impressive because it didn't have the additional factors propping it up & forcing them to push harder. ***1/4
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Bad Luck Fale [4] vs. Tetsuya Naito [4] 11:55
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Kota Ibushi [4] vs. Tomohiro Ishii [2] 17:14. Ibushi is one of the chameleons in the tournament who will not only do the opponent's style, but do it well & add diversity & shades to it. He brought some finesse & evasion to Ishii's slugfest, making it a lot less predictable by working more moves, sequences, and explosive counters into the beatdown in a manner that was still true to what an Ishii match is. Even though Ibushi wasn't doing his flips, his athleticism was a formidable part of the match, as it gave him ways to counteract the straight on brute force of Ishii even while staying within the context of Ishii's high impact strike oriented match. One of the more impressive spots had Ibushi poised to turn a lariat into a wakigatame, but instead of going with the momentum he just stopped it to hold Ishii prone & deck him with a huge right hand. Still, it wasn't super clear why Ibushi was able to beat Ishii at his own super physical game. The match always felt like one that should be excellent, but again the matches in this tournament just seem to lack a climax, instead feeling like they're booked on a you have X minutes mode, and when that point comes someone just randomly hits a finisher & we move on to the next contest. ***1/2
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Togi Makabe [2] vs. Hirooki Goto [4] 16:55. Makabe gets another undeserved main event because he's local, and is as unimpressive as ever with all his terrible punches & silly shoulderblocks. He's like Ishii minus the effort, ability, technique, & heart, and trying to follow Ishii produced the expected lacklusted results. Goto was solid as always, but had to slow & tone his game down for Makabe to the point it was just a walk through.
Ryusuke Taguchi & Togi Makabe vs. Kota Ibushi & Shota Umino 7:31
Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka 7:58
Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito vs. Hirai Kawato & Yuji Nagata 8:17
Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs. El Desperado & Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr. 5:37
David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Hirooki Goto & Jado 7:09
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Michael Elgin [2] vs. Satoshi Kojima [0] 13:09. Kind of an odd match because Elgin was trying to impress, and Kojima responded to that, but they still seemed to be on different pages. Not that they didn't work well together, it was an energetic hard hitting match that was never dull, but Elgin was trying to construct a high quality match with Kojima where they set things up & played off one another, while Kojima seemed to not so much be doing a match with Elgin as just running through his routine, trying to get pops for his same old greatest hits package. The effort was there from both, but their mentality was just completely different. It still came together just well enough though. The highlight was Kojima elbowing his way out of a German suplex on the apron & hitting a DDT then Elgin avoiding a plancha & avenging with a powerbombing onto the apron. ***
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: EVIL [4] vs. Tama Tonga [2] 10:27
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Minoru Suzuki [4] vs. Juice Robinson [2] 11:23
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kenny Omega [6] vs. Toru Yano [2] 11:31. Yano wasn't a G1 level competitor in his prime, much less at 39. He should not be in the G1, and G1 matches should be serious, but getting that out of the way, this was a reasonably entertaining way to justify Yano being able to compete with Kenny. It could have been a good comedy match if Omega didn't overact to Dean Ambrose proportions, turning potentially funny into a mockery. Omega tried to refuse the DVD Yano gave him at the start of the match, then reluctantly accepted only to threaten to throw it into the crowd. Eventually, he got conned into opening it, and it was filled with powder, which Yano promptly knocked in his face then took advantage of his blinded opponent who didn't know him from the ref. This would have been a reasonable way for Yano to just win the match in 2 minutes, as he tried to do, but once they settled on doing a regular length comedy match, all the worst aspects of Omega's overacting came to the forefront, and he overdid every gesture to make sure no one at the outer reaches of the Pantheon missed just how preposterous it all was. Their endless hair grabbing & releasing exchange where they obviously didn't actually pull any hair would be shameful even by the standards of the worst catfight. The referee finally ending this misery with a patented double axehandle off the middle rope was good until Omega started bicycling his legs to oversell it. Once Omega's vision was restored, Yano taped his feet together, but Omega responded in kind, so they pogo'd around, with Omega still managing a pretty good full nelson suplex. Owens gave Kenny a pair of scissors to cut himself free, and while Yano got them from him, Omega laid him out with a flying knee before he could use them & quickly finished him off via ring out. If we look past the fact that these were 2nd match on the show ideas, the match is reasonable on paper, it mostly just sucked because of Kenny's buffoonery. *
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kazuchika Okada [6] vs. SANADA [2] 20:49. This mix of running sequences that never felt fluid & filler to pad the match to 20+ should be a lot more at home as the opening match at your neighborhood armory than a G1 main event. It started out so deliberate I had to check that I didn't accidentally have the slow motion on, and Sanada seemed to feel the same way as he couldn't wait for Okada to actually jump at him with the elbow to get out of the corner to avoid it. Even when it picked up, it was so telegraphed & obvious that there's no illusion, it was just painfully obvious exactly how they were faking everything, mostly because Okada is so mechanical. The match didn't get better when Okada let SANADA take over though, as SANADA just threw in the eye rake & a bunch of rest holds then let Okada pick things back up with his hokey jumping elbows & uppers. SANADA had a few moments where his athleticism took over & Okada didn't have much opportunity to make it look bad, for instance his moonsaults. For the most part though, even when when they did something decent they just laid around for a while, so it never gained any kind of momentum until the final few minutes or rose above the level of a half speed exhibition where one guy was obviously letting the other do something that had no real impact, for instance SANADA laying around so Okada could eventually hit his flying elbow to the canvas then laying around some more while he posed.
Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi vs. David Finlay & Juice Robinson 5:55
Jado & Toru Yano vs. BUSHI & SANADA 0:45
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki & Taichi 7:28
Michael Elgin & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Chase Owens & Kenny Omega 7:20
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada 5:21
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tomohiro Ishii [4] vs. YOSHI-HASHI [2] 15:43
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Zack Sabre Jr. [6] vs. Bad Luck Fale [4] 9:02
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Togi Makabe [4] vs. Kota Ibushi [4] 13:20
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tetsuya Naito [6] vs. Yuji Nagata [0] 15:16
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi [6] vs. Hirooki Goto [4] 17:22
El Desperado & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Ren Narita & Shota Umino 6:11
Ryusuke Taguchi & Togi Makabe vs. Hirai Kawato & Yuji Nagata 6:51
Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Kota Ibushi & Tomoyuki Oka 7:14
BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito vs. Gedo & Tomohiro Ishii 6:22
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi 7:18
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Tama Tonga [4] vs. Juice Robinson [2] 10:36
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: SANADA [4] vs. Toru Yano [2] 4:33
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: EVIL [4] vs. Minoru Suzuki [4] 8:38
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kazuchika Okada [8] vs. Satoshi Kojima [0] 15:26
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Michael Elgin [4] vs. Kenny Omega [6] 24:39
BUSHI & SANADA vs. David Finlay & Michael Elgin 5:14
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Hirai Kawato & Katsuya Kitamura 5:09
Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki & Taichi 5:24
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Chase Owens & Kenny Omega 7:25
Gedo & Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano vs. Juice Robinson & Ryusuke Taguchi & Tomoyuki Oka 8:25
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Togi Makabe [6] vs. Yuji Nagata [0] 10:45
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Bad Luck Fale [6] vs. Kota Ibushi [4] 11:37
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hirooki Goto [6] vs. Zack Sabre Jr. [6] 10:10
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi [8] vs. YOSHI-HASHI [2] 13:34
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tomohiro Ishii [6] vs. Tetsuya Naito [6] 20:58
Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi vs. David Finlay & Katsuya Kitamura & Tetsuhiro Yagi 5:45
El Desperado & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Shota Umino & Togi Makabe 7:23
Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Tomoyuki Oka & Yuji Nagata 7:04
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Hirai Kawato & Kota Ibushi 8:50
Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito vs. Gedo & Hirooki Goto 8:24
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: EVIL [8] vs. Toru Yano [2] 1:33
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Minoru Suzuki [6] vs. Tama Tonga [4] 10:29
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: SANADA [6] vs. Michael Elgin [4] 15:06
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kenny Omega [8] vs. Satoshi Kojima [0] 16:42
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kazuchika Okada [10] vs. Juice Robinson [2] 20:29
Jushin Thunder Liger & Michael Elgin vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Shota Umino 7:08
El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & Taichi vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima 6:53
BUSHI & SANADA vs. David Finlay & Juice Robinson 4:35
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Chase Owens & Kenny Omega 5:20
Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano vs. Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi 6:47
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: YOSHI-HASHI [4] vs. Bad Luck Fale [6] 10:21
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Zack Sabre Jr. [8] vs. Togi Makabe [6] 9:30
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tomohiro Ishii [6] vs. Yuji Nagata [0] 13:51
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tetsuya Naito [8] vs. Hirooki Goto [6] 13:30
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Kota Ibushi [6] vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi [8] 20:40
Shota Umino & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Ren Narita 5:33
Kota Ibushi & Tiger Mask vs. Hirai Kawato & Yuji Nagata 7:49
Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi 7:44
El Desperado & Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito 6:10
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Jushin Thunder Liger vs. David Finlay & Togi Makabe 6:36
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: SANADA [8] vs. Juice Robinson [2] 13:48
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Toru Yano [4] vs. Michael Elgin [4] 2:58
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Minoru Suzuki [8] vs. Satoshi Kojima [0] 10:13
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kazuchika Okada [12] vs. Tama Tonga [4] 11:22
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kenny Omega [10] vs. EVIL [8] 23:33
Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka 6:23
El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & Taichi vs. Hirai Kawato & Michael Elgin & Tiger Mask 5:52
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon 7:15
David Finlay & Juice Robinson vs. Chase Owens & Kenny Omega 5:19
CHAOS Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi 5:21
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Kota Ibushi [8] vs. Yuji Nagata [0] 15:54
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Bad Luck Fale [8] vs. Tomohiro Ishii [8] 11:58
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hirooki Goto [8] vs. YOSHI-HASHI [4] 11:26
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tetsuya Naito [10] vs. Zack Sabre Jr. [8] 14:20
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi [10] vs. Togi Makabe [6] 13:34
Chase Owens vs. Katsuya Kitamura 4:57
El Desperado & Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Shota Umino & Tetsuhiro Yagi & Yuji Nagata 7:01
Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Tomoyuki Oka 7:41
BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito vs. Hirai Kawato & Tiger Mask & Togi Makabe 7:03
Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi 7:15
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Toru Yano [6] vs. Tama Tonga [4] 3:15
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Satoshi Kojima [2] vs. SANADA [8] 12:09
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Michael Elgin [6] vs. Minoru Suzuki [8] 11:13
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Juice Robinson [4] vs. Kenny Omega [10] 15:36
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: EVIL [10] vs. Kazuchika Okada [12] 22:47
David Finlay & Juice Robinson vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka 5:27
EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi vs. Hirai Kawato & Michael Elgin 4:55
Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima 8:34
BUSHI & SANADA vs. Chase Owens & Kenny Omega 5:06
Gedo & Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano vs. El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & Taichi
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Yuji Nagata [2] vs. Zack Sabre Jr. [8] 15:08
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Kota Ibushi [10] vs. YOSHI-HASHI [4] 14:28
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Bad Luck Fale [10] vs. Hirooki Goto [8] 9:34
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tetsuya Naito [12] vs. Togi Makabe [6] 11:31
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi [12] vs. Tomohiro Ishii [8] 23:30
Chase Owens vs. Tomoyuki Oka 5:36
El Desperado & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Shota Umino 5:30
Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Yuji Nagata 6:48
Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Hirai Kawato & Kota Ibushi & Togi Makabe 7:35
David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito 6:58
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Tama Tonga [6] vs. Satoshi Kojima [2] 10:43
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Juice Robinson [6] vs. Toru Yano [6] 4:25
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Michael Elgin [8] vs. EVIL [10] 11:07
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kenny Omega [12] vs. SANADA [8] 15:03
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kazuchika Okada [13] vs. Minoru Suzuki [9] 30:00
El Desperado & Minoru Suzuki & Taichi vs. Hirai Kawato & Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka 6:18
Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. BUSHI & SANADA 5:22
Juice Robinson & Satoshi Kojima vs. EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi 5:14
Hanson & Raymond Rowe & Michael Elgin & Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Chase Owens & Cody & Hangman Page & Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson 11:22
Kazuchika Okada & Toru Yano vs. Kenny Omega & Yujiro Takahashi 5:54
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Bad Luck Fale [12] vs. Yuji Nagata [2] 11:56
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Togi Makabe [8] vs. YOSHI-HASHI [4] 11:28
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Zack Sabre Jr. [10] vs. Tomohiro Ishii [8] 15:52
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Hirooki Goto [10] vs. Kota Ibushi [10] 11:03
G1 Climax 2017 Block A Match: Tetsuya Naito [14] vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi [12] 26:41
El Desperado & Taichi & TAKA Michinoku & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Hirai Kawato & Jushin Thunder Liger & KUSHIDA & Tiger Mask 7:04
Hirooki Goto & Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Chase Owens & Tanga Loa & Yujiro Takahashi 7:20
Takashi Iizuka & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Togi Makabe & Yuji Nagata 6:16
Bad Luck Fale & Cody & Hangman Page & Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe & Katsuya Kitamura & Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi 8:14
David Finlay & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi vs. BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito 6:57
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Juice Robinson [8] vs. Michael Elgin [8] 11:48
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Tama Tonga [8] vs. SANADA [8] 11:59
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Toru Yano [8] vs. Minoru Suzuki [9] 6:56
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: EVIL [12] vs. Satoshi Kojima [2] 14:23
G1 Climax 2017 Block B Match: Kenny Omega [14] vs. Kazuchika Okada [13] 24:40
El Desperado & Taichi & TAKA Michinoku & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Hirai Kawato & Jushin Thunder Liger & KUSHIDA & Tiger Mask 6:06
Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Manabu Nakanishi & Yuji Nagata 7:40
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. David Finlay & Togi Makabe 6:33
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Juice Robinson vs. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi 7:18
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Match: Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs. Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi
IWGP Tag Title Match: Hanson & Raymond Rowe vs. Cody & Hangman Page 16:19
Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kota Ibushi & Michael Elgin 13:42
BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano 10:32
G1 Climax 2017 Final Match: Tetsuya Naito vs. Kenny Omega 34:35
Hirooki Goto & Jado & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask 7:20
David Finlay & Juice Robinson vs. Bad Luck Fale & Leo Tonga 4:32
Beretta & Rocky Romero vs. Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi 6:55
Kota Ibushi & Michael Elgin & Togi Makabe vs. Minoru Suzuki & TAKA Michinoku & Takashi Iizuka 8:09
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Match: Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru 15:41
IWGP Tag Title Three Way Match: Hanson & Raymond Rowe vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Lance Archer vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa 11:05
BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano & Will Ospreay 12:17
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: KUSHIDA vs. El Desperado 16:56
IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Zack Sabre Jr. 30:13
Hirai Kawato & Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka 5:42
Jushin Thunder Liger & Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi & Tiger Mask & Togi Makabe vs. El Desperado & Taichi & TAKA Michinoku & Takashi Iizuka & Yoshinobu Kanemaru 7:17
Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens 5:41
Beretta vs. Yujiro Takahashi 13:21
IWGP Tag Title Three Way Match: Hanson & Raymond Rowe vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Lance Archer vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa 13:34
Hiroshi Tanahashi & Michael Elgin vs. David Finlay & Kota Ibushi 12:01
Rocky Romero & Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano vs. BUSHI & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito 11:56
Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay vs. EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi 12:39
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Match: Kenny Omega vs. Juice Robinson 32:55
BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA vs. Bad Luck Fale & Leo Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi 6:44
Hirooki Goto & Toru Yano vs. Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. 9:18
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Title Match: Ricochet & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. SHO & YOH 14:52
IWGP Tag Title Three Way Elimination Match: Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Lance Archer vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa 16:10
Cody & Kenny Omega & Marty Scurll vs. Beretta & Jado & YOSHI-HASHI 13:42
Juice Robinson & Kota Ibushi vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe 10:26
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: KUSHIDA vs. Will Ospreay 15:32
IWGP Heavyweight Title #1 Contender Match: Tetsuya Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii 23:56
IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada vs. EVIL 33:26
David Finlay vs. Katsuya Kitamura 5:32
Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson vs. Dragon Lee & Titan 7:18
Hirai Kawato & Juice Robinson & Jushin Thunder Liger & KUSHIDA & Tiger Mask vs. El Desperado & Taichi & TAKA Michinoku & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr. 5:19
Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Togi Makabe vs. Chase Owens & Cody & Yujiro Takahashi 8:11
Super Junior Tag Tournament 2017 Final Match: SHO & YOH vs. ACH & Ryusuke Taguchi 15:51
Gedo & Hirooki Goto & Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI vs. BUSHI & EVIL & Hiromu Takahashi & SANADA & Tetsuya Naito 12:07
NEVER Openweight Title Bullrope Death Match: Minoru Suzuki vs. Toru Yano 15:21
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Will Ospreay vs. Marty Scurll 17:28
IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Match: Kenny Omega vs. Beretta 21:33
IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi 29:26
RevPro British Cruiserweight Title Three Way Match: Josh Bodom vs. Ryan Smile vs. BUSHI
Gedo & Toru Yano vs. Gideon Grey & No Fun Dunne
Matt Riddle vs. El Desperado
Tetsuya Naito vs. Marty Scurll 15:32
Yuji Nagata vs. Zack Gibson
Chris Brookes & Travis Banks vs. Rocky Romero & YOSHI-HASHI
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Keith Lee 15:42. Lee is your basic a pre steriod era offensive lineman turned regional pro wrestler. He's not in any way inept, but he's been wrestling 12 years and only has the most remedial skill & move set plus a moonsault. Ishii did his best to lead him through this really basic match that was just striking & a few simplistic high impact moves where Lee just stood there & threw him around, but was really off himself. Ishii seemed to struggle to reach up to hit Lee, in any case, he had no zip & no impact on his strikes today, and violence minus impact doesn't really work. The announcers were shilling for this to the most annoying & ridiculous purportions, everything was the biggest (insert move name) ever even though Lee is a lot closer to Roy Nelson than Giant Gonzales. Match was adequate, but it doesn't even warrant consideration for Ishii's top 100 matches, so let's not confuse this with Ishii/Shibata.
Hirooki Goto & Will Ospreay vs. Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr. 22:20. Ospreay was set to challenge Sabre for the British title on tomorrow's show, so Suzuki-gun used the standard 80's tag template of isolating him & trying to take him out. The focus should have been on the Brits, but Suzuki is such a dominant force that he takes over the match, as usual. That's not a bad thing, of course, since Suzuki is so good, crafty, and annoying in the way a quality heel should be, and did a good job of guiding Sabre through all the double team sequences. To an extent, Suzuki's methodical pace made the Ospreay/Sabre sequences seem all the more explosive & dynamic, but those amazing fast counterladen sequences were what we wanted, and they were mostly saved for tomorrow. Suzuki & Goto did some good stuff early, Suzuki throwing the low kicks when Goto wanted to lock up is great because it's both clever & dickish, but some of Suzuki's flatfooted strike exchanges were trecherous with guys just standing there for 20 seconds waiting to be hit. If Suzuki vs. Goto and even Ospreay was characterized by a lot of standing around, Ospreay vs. Sabre was perpetual motion. What I love about their work is their ability to maintain the same pace while combing styles. When Suzuki & Goto were striking, that's what they were doing & everyone knew what was coming from a mile away. What's so great about Sabre & Ospreay is a sequence starts as one thing, and then delves into many others, with moves of all styles coming from any angle or setup. Right off the bat, Sabre turned a rope running sequence into a mat sequence when he caught Ospreay's leg on his leapfrog & tried to go into a bow & arrow, but Ospreay spun out & tried a high kick, but Sabre ducked & tried a snapmare, but Ospreay landed on his feet & hit a dropkick. The match picked up tremendously when Ospreay finally managed to tag out with an energized segment from Suzuki & Goto, but Ospreay & Sabre still seemed to be in fast forward, getting about 10 strikes in to Suzuki & Goto's 1 before going into Sabre's submission work & Ospreay's high flying to close it out. Ospreay ultimately pinned Sabre to set up tomorrow's challenge. Although the match was nowhere near the level of that title match, it fully succeeded in its goal of making the audience eager for it without spoiling too much prematurely. ***1/4
Chris Brookes & Kid Lykos & Travis Banks vs. Gedo & Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI
Toru Yano vs. Zack Gibson
Josh Bodom vs. Rocky Romero
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Dave Mastiff
RevPro British Cruiserweight Title Match: Ryan Smile vs. El Desperado
BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito vs. Keith Lee & Yuji Nagata
Minoru Suzuki vs. Matt Riddle 15:03
RevPro British Heavyweight Title Match: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Will Ospreay 25:00. What's so great about Sabre & Ospreay working together is they want to do different things, Will wants fast paced aerial sequences & Zach wants to chain submissions, but can also do each other's style so well they are able to meld both styles together seemlessly into a chain wrestling spectacle while at the same time using their individual styles to tell the story of who is purportedly in control of the match. I say purportedly because the match is countering, recountering, then countering the recounter, so for the most part most advantages are momentary & fleeting. Will can be said to be winning when they are running & jumping around & Zach can be said to be winning when things have slowed down & they are twisting & contorting each others bodies, but most of the time a flying move leads to a submission hold or vice versa. I mean, their early match stuff included Sabre finding an opening for a flying triangle, but Will cartwheeling out into a dropkick, and they were able to blend the styles is crazy ways such as Will missing his burning star press then Zach slingshotting himself into the ring and catching an armbar as he landed in a forward roll. The whole match wasn't dashing around as Sabre would pretzel Ospreay with his traditional British technical wrestling & put the boots to him while he was prone since he's the heel, with Will answering with some strikes of his own, but they established early on that they weren't going to just pad the match with a lot of the usual stalling, with Sabre scurrying back into the ring & cracking Ospreay with a penalty kick when Ospreay did his pose after faking the dive. Ospreay has some of the most spectacular twisting, turning, spinning high flying moves ever performed, but this match was awesome because almost nothing was done in a vacuum. They had to outmaneuver & out react the opponent to actually hit anything, and both have amazing speed & body control so their entries, exits, and bumps are often even more awe inspiring than the holds themselves. The match never felt like a stunt show because everything developed out of sequences, & thus felt opportunistic rather than the usual 1 guy stands/lays around for a minute waiting for the other guy to eventually jump at him, wash, rinse, repeat, and when Ospreay took too long on his corkscrew shooting star press, he somehow landed in Zach's triangle. This was absolutely a match that worked because the timing & chemistry they have together allowed them to reach new heights in what can be done in lightning fast, super athletic pro wrestling sequences. What was so fantastic was everything they did was for a reason, the signature highlights did find their way into the match, but through counters of counters of counters of counters of both guys' real moves to eventually hit something that most guys would just lay there for then move on to the next planned stunt. One of the great things about the match is they aren't simply going, while they aren't telling deep stories, they have a simple determination to both be one step ahead of one another & to impose their will by actually hitting their moves, so when something was countered, and it always was, they often found a way to make it succeed or to do something even better because it didn't. It's not the moves they did, but the way just kept chaining one counter after another so where other guys would just throw out a move then lay around, whether they are doing something as basic or insane, it takes them one or two handfuls of steps to get to that point, and then another sequence starts as soon as they're back to their feet. Sabre wound up retaining his title, but it felt like both men were winners because the match was simply a joy to watch. ****3/4
Hirai Kawato & Shota Umino vs. Ren Narita & Tetsuhiro Yagi 5:30
Leo Tonga & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa vs. Hanson & Raymond Rowe & Tomoyuki Oka 8:37
Beretta & Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano & Chuckie T vs. David Finlay & Jeff Cobb & Katsuya Kitamura & Michael Elgin 10:35
Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens & Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi & Yuji Nagata 9:56
Henare & Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe vs. Davey Boy Smith Jr. & El Desperado & Lance Archer 9:14
BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi & Tetsuya Naito vs. Gedo & Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay 10:44
World Tag League 2017 Block A Match: Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI [2] vs. Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka [0] 13:09
World Tag League 2017 Block A Match: Juice Robinson & Sami Callihan [2] vs. EVIL & SANADA [0] 19:29
Kotetsu Yamamoto Memorial 11th Young Lion Cup Match: Tetsuhiro Yagi vs. Ren Narita
Kotetsu Yamamoto Memorial 11th Young Lion Cup Match:
Hirai Kawato vs. Shota Umino
Kotetsu Yamamoto Memorial 11th Young Lion Cup Match: Tomoyuki Oka vs. Katsuya Kitamura
Kotaro Yoshino & Manabu Nakanishi vs. Dinosaur Takuma & Hiroyoshi Tenzan
Satoshi Kojima vs. Daisuke Kanehira
Yuji Nagata vs. Yuma Aoyagi