NJPW G1 Climax Day 2 07/20/2017

This is Day 2 of the prestigious G1 Climax Tournament and features a highly anticipated match between Minoru Suzuki vs Kenny Omega as the main event. Let’s get into it.

Satoshi Kojima vs Juice Robinson

I was interested in how this would go as veteran Kojima is going into this with some people behind him based on his unusual love for bread. Then you have Juice Robinson who has seen himself slowly climb the ranks of New Japan since joining the roster almost two years ago. This is his first G1 and coming off an amazing match with Tetsuya Naito for the Intercontinental championship a while back and impressive performance against ZSJ in the US G1 he has some hype around him. All I can say is boy do these guys deliver as they just throw bombs which caught me off guard coming from Juice but this was very enjoyable. Juice is really coming into his own and can be a threat for years to come. Juice wins here in a bit of an upset.

Match Rating: ***3/4

Michael Elgin vs Tama Tonga

I was excited to see Tama compete in a singles match to see how he does even if it were against Elgin who i’m not as fond of. All around this match was solid but nothing too spectacular here but good for these two guys. Should’ve been the opener of the G1 matches but whatever. The saving grace is the dope variations of the Stun Gun used by Tama in this match. Tama won here which surprised me but i’m happy with it.

Match Rating: ***

SANADA vs EVIL

The battle of guys with names in all capital letters…oh and they are also both in some group, you might not know them as Los Ingobernables de Japon. I was not expecting it to being brutal knowing their affiliation but man did they go in. Chair shots and everything even including the chair spot where EVIL wraps the chair around his opponents head and hits them with another chair except this time the chair flew and hit the camera man. But that really set the tempo for the match just sheer brutality between fellow stablemates. An awesome spot where SANADA did an Ace Crusher off the top rope to the outside. A nice “Holy Shit!” moment there. SANADA with the win here with a nice showing from both.

Match Rating: ***3/4

Toru Yano vs Kazuchika Okada

Another battle between stable members but one that won’t be nearly as exciting because while Okada is the best wrestler in the world he is wrestling Yano who I don’t have a problem with he is a comedy wrestler he isn’t gonna pull out a 5 star classic. Okada just dominates here nothing much. Okada wins and everyone who watched that will never get those 10 minutes of their lives back. It did produce a funny picture so there’s that.

Match Rating: **

Kenny Omega vs Minoru Suzuki

This was highly anticipated once it was announced and i’m excited for this. The story told throughout this match was the feared striker in Suzuki taking on Omega who has obvious fear but won’t back down so he goes right at him. Suzuki bullies Omega a bit early on along with some slaps that I got some enjoyment of. There was some interference in here from Suzuki-GUN after Kenny hit a V Trigger on the referee. Bad Luck Fale came to clean house and help Kenny. After a pair of STIFF V Triggers from Omega and a One Winged Angel put Suzuki away. This match was awesome, definitely worth the watch.

Match Rating: ****