NJPW G1 Climax 2016 Awards

By. Josh Masterson and Jordan Bass

MVP of A-Block

Josh:  Tomohiro Ishii – Ishii has proved time and time again that he is one of the best wrestlers in the world and that he can have a good to great match with almost anyone. He had an amazing tournament, putting on great matches with Okada, Tanahashi, SANADA, Marufuji, and others. The crazy part is he outshined Okada, Tanahashi, Naito, and so many other people who on paper have so many more accomplishments than him. At 40 years old I don’t know how much time he has left in his career but it’d be a shame if he never got a chance to hold the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. He is not there yet but G1 combined with the good to great matches he has been having the entire year put Ishii in high contention for Wrestler of the Year.

Jordan: Naomichi Marufuji – I came into this tournament knowing who Marufuji was but not having seen him wrestle before, so this was intriguing to me and I was coming in with an open mind. Marufuji impressed the hell out of me. Right out of the gate he had an outstanding match with Okada on day 1. He killed it against Ishii and Tenzan and actually managed to pull out a pretty decent match with Bad Luck Fale. I’m excited to see more of Marufuji, his performance in G1 was impeccable and a great first impression for me.

MVP of B-Block

Josh: Michael Elgin – At this time last year I was becoming a fan of Elgin due to his performances in the 2015 G1. Before then I always thought he was extremely boring and I didn’t like him at all, but in the past year he has truly shown how great of a talent he is. He was in a stacked block with Tetsuya Naito and Kenny Omega also having outstanding matches throughout the tournament but Elgin was in my opinion the most consistent throughout and his matches with Naito, Omega, Nakajima, as well as plenty of other good matches he had land him the MVP of B-Block.

Jordan: Michael Elgin – I gotta agree with Josh here on this one. Yes, Omega, Naito, EVIL, and Shibata were phenomenal in this tournament, but you know what they all had in common? They all had amazing matches with Michael Elgin. I’m not trying to steal from Masterson but Elgin WAS the most consistent performer in all of G1. Great match after great match after great match. As the tournament was going I became more and more okay with the possibility of Elgin winning the whole damn thing. He’s becoming one of the best in the world and his performance in G1 this year proved it.

Breakout Performer

Josh: Sanada – Going into G1 I was a little bit down on Sanada. While I was a huge fan of his in TNA because of his great matches with Austin Aries and I enjoyed the first month or two of his New Japan run I felt that he had recently been getting repetitive in the ring. Things that were impressive early on like the leapfrog where he doesn’t turn around were beginning to bother me as it seemed like he was just going through the motions in every match. However in G1 Sanada did anything but go through the motions as he put on a bunch of great matches with Goto, Tenzan, Ishii, and others, and showed that he has what it takes to one day be a top star in the promotion.

Jordan: YOSHI-HASHI – I didn’t like YOSHI-HASHI heading into this tournament. I’ve been watching NJPW for over a year now and I’ve never liked the guy. I’ve never had a hatred for him, he’d just never done anything to legit impress me. However, his match with Omega on day 2 was the start of a string of impressive performances from HASHI. Another match I very much enjoyed was his match with Nagata. It was intense and hard-hitting. HASHI had something to prove here in this tournament and he brought his A-game and delivered some very good matches which is something I didn’t expect at all.

Most Surprising Performer

Josh: Naomichi Marufuji – While I had heard a lot about the former GHC Heavyweight Champion going into G1 from both fans and people who dislike him, due to my overall lack of interest in NOAH the most recent match I had seen of his was a decent match with Davey Richards from Final Battle 2007. On the first show of the tournament Marufuji blew me away with how talented he was in the ring and continued to impress throughout the tournament, putting on great matches with Tanahashi, Sanada, and others.

Jordan: Naomichi Marufuji – I have to agree with Masterson again. Going back to my earlier paragraph where I talked about never seeing Marufuji before, I never expected I’d be giving him MVP of his block. That would’ve been a surprise to me had future me told beginning of G1 me that I’d be giving MVP of A Block to Marufuji, a guy I had never even seen wrestle a match before. I would’ve expected a guy like Okada or Ishii to take that spot, but Marufuji impressed me more.

Worst Performer

Josh: Toru Yano – When looking at a very stacked tournament like this one it would normally be difficult to pick the worst performer, but it’s not. In an otherwise stacked B-Block, every show had a match you knew was going to be bad because of Toru Yano. I don’t even necessarily dislike Toru Yano but he has no place in a serious tournament like this one and just brought down every B-Block show.

Jordan: Bad Luck Fale – Ya know, I would give it to Yano because he was by far the weakest in his block, but at least Yano did have decently entertaining short matches every once in awhile. Bad Luck Fale legitimately put me to sleep multiple times throughout this tournament. Fale’s boring matches with SANADA, Okada, Tanahashi, etc. were all on him. There isn’t much those smaller guys can do against a giant, immobile, boring wrestler like Fale. I hope to god he doesn’t get a spot in G1 next year.

Best Match

Josh: Kazuchika Okada vs Tomohiro Ishii Day 13 ****½ – Kazuchika Okada and Tomohiro Ishii are in my opinion two of the best wrestlers in the world today so I knew that this was going to be a fantastic match. Only two days before this Ishii faced off with Tanahashi in what was one of the best matches of the entire tournament, but up to this point the IWGP Heavyweight Champion only had one standout match and it was all the way back on Day 1 against Naomichi Marufuji. This was an amazing match with tons of great nearfalls and a shocking outcome. Some of the highlights for me were Ishii doing everything in his power to avoid the Rainmaker (I loved when he got up and chopped Okada while the camera was zoomed out as he posed for the Rainmaker), Ishii hitting the tombstone on Okada, and Ishii stomping on Okada’s foot to avoid being hit with the tombstone. There were tons of amazing matches in this tournament but this was in my opinion the best.

Jordan: Michael Elgin vs. Kenny Omega (Day 8) – ****½ – I’ll give it to them, Okada and Ishii had an incredible match. It was off the charts. It even got the same rating as this match, but me liking both these guys just a little more had me more invested in this match. We got off to a hot start with a beautiful dive from Omega over the top rope. The match itself was pretty creative. Elgin’s German Suplex to Kenny into the turnbuckle was vicious. Elgin using Kenny’s own finisher to try and beat him was neat, but the near fall was amazing and my heart skipped a beat. The near falls in this match were done to perfection. Awesome match all the way around.

Most Disappointing Match

Josh: On Night 16, which was in my opinion probably the worst day of the tournament, Katsuyori Shibata took on Yuji Nagata. Both men had been putting on good matches throughout the tournament and their previous matches with each other were always good, so the expectation was that this would be too. It ended up being a really basic and disappointing match.

Jordan: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Hirooki Goto (Day 3) – Josh made a great point with Nagata and Shibata as I almost picked that, but I just expected more from this match. These two didn’t put on a bad match, but to just have a decent match between these two didn’t cut it. I was expecting something memorable, but instead we got a decent match with an anticlimactic finish. I went 3 stars on it and it should’ve been higher, but it just didn’t deliver.

Thank you all for reading Josh and Jordan’s G1 Climax 2016 Awards! I hope you enjoyed the tournament as much as we did. Make sure and let us know what you thought below.

Check out the Starship Paincast on The Wrestling Classic on SoundCloud to hear more of Josh and Jordan (as well as Good Buddy Joe and Ryan Moberly).