The G1 just seems to get better and better. This second straight night in Hiroshima delivered banger after banger. I don’t bother with star ratings but if I did then all five G1 matches tonight were 3.5+ star matches. If you haven’t got caught up with night 11 then boot up NJPW World now. If you can’t then read on for a full recap of an excellent night of action.
The results in short:
Yota Tsuji defeated Gabriel Kidd by submission
Tomohiro Ishii (6pts) defeated Yujiro Takahashi (0pts) by pinfall
Kazuchika Okada (8pts) defeated Jeff Cobb (4pts) by pinfall
Will Ospreay (8pts) defeated Minoru Suzuki (6pts) by pinfall
Jay White (8pts) defeated Taichi (6pts) by pinfall
Shingo Takagi (6pts) defeated Kota Ibushi (8pts) by pinfall
Gabriel Kidd v Yota Tsuji
Our night began with the traditional Young Lions opener. You will no doubt get the formula here; a good and fundamentally solid match. Tsuji got the win here with his brutal variation of the Boston Crab. This gives him a little bit of breathing room at the top of our unofficial C Block:
10pts – Yota Tsuji
7pts – Yuya Uemura
5pts – Gabriel Kidd
Tomohiro Ishii v Yujiro Takahashi
Yujiro Takahashi put in not only his best performance of the tournament so far but perhaps since he joined Bullet Club over 4 years ago. The Tokyo Pimp dominated the matchup after an early Reverse DDT in the aisle. From then on he ground away at Ishii but the Stone Pitbull dug deep to eventually hit the Vertical Drop Brainbuster to keep him in contention within the block. Yujiro is miles behind the pack now, without a single win but performances like this give him hope of retaining a place in the G1 next year.
Kazuchika Okada v Jeff Cobb
Probably Okada’s best match of the tournament since the opening night with Ibushi but he still seems a step off to me. Cobb hung with the Rainmaker including mocking him with a Rainmaker pose before using the short arm setup into a Tour of the Islands attempt which Okada reversed. Eventually, Okada would sit down on a Sunset Flip attempt to pick up the win and 2 points to send him joint top of A Block.
Will Ospreay v Minoru Suzuki
This was a brutal, heavy hitter of a match. Suzuki worked on Ospreay’s right arm for much of the match and chopped the hell out of him until his chest was bleeding. Ospreay would power through though, hitting Stormbreaker for the win to head to 8 points. Despite all the controversy surrounding his career Ospreay is riding high right now.
Taichi v Jay White
As you would expect, this all heel match was sprinkled with liberal amounts of cheating and shenanigans. We had outside interference, low blows and choking with cables. Despite this, Taichi felt like the babyface here in a similar way to how Tetsuya Naito, despite bending and breaking every rule possible, feels like a babyface. Anti-hero is probably a more apt description to be fair. King Switch went up to 8 points though after he blocked a kick and hit Blade Runner.
Kota Ibushi v Shingo Takagi
Shock, horror! The Golden Star v The Dragon have an absolute belter of a match. They hit each other with everything but it was Shingo Takagi who picked up the biggest win of his career with a Last of the Dragon. With Shingo facing Okada in the main event of the next A Block event in Osaka we could be seeing the creation of our next major star in New Japan. Is The Dragon really going to be a major player here?
A Block standings:
8pts – Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, Jay White, Kota Ibushi
6pts – Tomohiro Ishii, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Shingo Takagi
4pts – Jeff Cobb
0pts – Yujiro Takahashi
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