My Thoughts: This was a pretty slow and plodding opening match, which is a shame as the trend of just okay opening matches continues but before that we had a trend of good opening matches. This was perfectly fine, nothing went wrong, it just didn’t have any substance and wasn’t a joy to watch. The most exciting thing in this match was that Tama went for the Kokeshi and HONMA WAS THERE. I can’t wait for him to come back.

Rating: **1/2

My Thoughts: Before this match even started, I felt overwhelmed with sadness when Yano’s music hit because I realized I would have to watch him wrestle. Then I saw Jado come out and I became even more depressed. The bell rang and this was over very quickly via a Yano roll-up, which I’m partially cool with as we didn’t have to see an extended match involving Yano and Jado. I also found it somewhat funny that Yano won the match while Jado was still tied up from SANADA. I just hope SANADA squashes the FUCK out of Yano.

Rating: NR

My Thoughts: This was a very fun tag match! It started with some solid crowd brawling including Suzuki turning up the volume and trying to stab EVIL’s eye out with a pen, then EVIL and Suzuki gave us a good preview of their match (that I’m personally REALLY looking forward to), Hiromu got a great hot tag, and when Taichi tried to use his same old tricks, Hiromu didn’t get caught up in them and he beat Taichi at his own game. This was very well done. Should’ve been the opener.

Rating: ***1/4

My Thoughts: This was a pretty good tag team match overall. Both teams worked really well together, Omega and Owens especially meshed well as they had some nice double team stuff and just came across as a team as they should. Elgin using his “funky weapon” was also quite amusing. This was a fun undercard tag match they gave us solid build for Omega/Elgin.

Rating: ***

My Thoughts: This was a generally solid tag match that did a decent job of building Okada/Kojima which I am really excited for. Nothing to really complain about here, it was perfectly fine. I liked TenCozy getting the win and even though Kojima pinned Gedo, it’s still really cool for TenCozy to own a win over a team that had the current IWGP Heavyweight Champion on it. It would be bonkers if Kojima beat Okada.

Rating: **3/4

My Thoughts: This was a fantastic, hard hitting contest that saw YOSHI-HASHI turn it up a bit to try and compete on Ishii’s level, but in the end, the master of the hard-hitting game came out on top after an absolutely awesome match. There were so many great near falls on top of that. Very enjoyable match to kick off the tournament matches on this show.

Rating: ****

My Thoughts: This was a very odd match. On one hand it’s cool to see a match like this because it’s so random, but on the other end they work totally different styles and it was very difficult for them to put on a worth while match. This was an alright match but it just couldn’t hold my interest. It also had a botched finish as Fale’s shoulder came up off the mat before the 3 count. Not bad but I wouln’t recommend it.

Rating: **1/2

My Thoughts: This was a good match that turned into a very good match in the last half of it. It had solid action all throughout, nothing too crazy but it was good. Then they really kicked into gear and just put on a really entertaining, competitive match! Ibushi kicking out of the powerbomb at 1, as if he gave just all he had left in him at that moment, only to keep selling and fall victim to the King Kong Knee Drop was one hell of a finish. I liked this!

Rating: ***1/2

My Thoughts: I thought this match was real good, especially in the second half. Naito was a cocky prick and disrespected Nagata, and Nagata showed him why he deserves respect. In the end though, the younger man won. It was a good story and these two work really well together. I wouldn’t have minded Nagata winning here, I’d love to see him start racking up some points in the G1 even though he’s more than likely not going to the finals.

Rating: ***3/4

My Thoughts: I thought this was an overall great match with nice pacing, a solid story, and great wrestling. They had some solid near falls, although I didn’t really fall for any of them. They did have a really great false finish though as I thought Goto had the match won after he hit the reverse GTR and then went for the regular GTR, however Tanahashi countered with a neckbreaker in a really shocking moment for me. This was a great main event match overall, I was kinda rooting for Goto, I think this would’ve been a pretty nice IC Title match in the future.

Rating: ****

Overall Thoughts: This was a good day of G1 with 4/5 of the tournament matches being worth the watch and the undercard being pretty solid overall (I’m glad they kept the Yano match short). Not the best day thus far but still a very good one that featured two 4 star matches.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10