BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 26: Day 18 (OMEGA VS. NAITO!)

[Big Red Machine]

NJPW G1 Climax 26: Day 18 (8/13/2016)- Tokyo, Japan

YOSHITATSU, CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN, RYUSUKE TAGUCH, & DAVID FINLAY JR. vs. HIROYOSHI TENZAN, MANABU NAKANISHI, TIGER MASK IV, & JUSHIN “THUNDER” LIGER- 4/10
Mad respect for Tenzan for doing that moonsault at his age in his physical condition in a match where he really doesn’t have to.

NAOMICHI MARUFUJI & TOMOHIRI ISHII vs. TOGI MAKABE & JUICE ROBINSON- 6/10
Makabe jumps both of his opponents before the match, even while his tag partner wasn’t even paying attention. When Robinson noticed what had happened and went to go pound on the guy Makabe wasn’t ponding on, Makabe came over, threw him off, and started pounding on that guy himself. Wow.
Makabe was a wrecking ball all match, and when he was in there with Ishii that they were brawling non-stop. Juice and Marufuji had some surprisingly good bits towards the end, too. Very fun undercard match.

HIROSHI TANAHASHI, SATOSHI KOJIMA, & KUSHIDA vs. LOS INGOBERNABLES DE JAPON (Jay Lethal, BUSHI, & Sanada)- 6.75/10

THE BRISCOE BROTHERS & CHAOS (Hirooki Goto, Kazuchika Okada, & Gedo) vs. BULLET CLUB (Adam Page, Yujiro Takahashi, Bad Luck Fale, & the Guerrillas of Destiny)- 6.25/10
Stuff happened. The parts with Fale and Okada were good. Bullet Club won when Page pinned Gedo. Page and Yujiro then attacked the Briscoes after the match to build up to their tag title match tomorrow night.

BLOCK B MATCH: Tomoaki Honma vs. Yuji Nagata- 6.5/10

BLOCK B MATCH: Toru Yano vs. YOSHI-HASHI- 0.5/10
YOSHI-HASHI does the impossible by actually making Yano wrestle like a normal wrestle for an entire minute or so before it devolved into the same old Yano spots.

BLOCK B MATCH: Katsuyori Shibata vs. EVIL- 6.75/10
EVIL hits Shibata in the injured arm with a chair. No DQ. Aside from that the match was very good, with EVIL working over the shoulder the whole time before picking up the surprise win to spoil Shibata’s hopes of winning the tournament.

BLOCK B MATCH: Michael Elgin vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima- 8.25/10
Nakajima worked over Elgin’s knee as well as his injured shoulder. There was a NOAH contingent at ringside to cheer Nakajima on, and he picked up the win. This loss crushes Elgin’s hopes of winning the tournament, but at least he gets to cap off a great showing in this year’s G1 with another awesome match.

BLOCK B MATCH: Kenny Omega vs. Tetsuya Naito- a PERFECT 10/10!
HOLY F*CKING SH*T THIS MATCH! AMAZING storytelling, MASTERFUL selling by Omega, and some absolutely UNBELIEVABLE reversals by Naito! Now I’m going to have to go back and re-watch Scurll vs. Ospreay and the Tokyo Dome main event before filling out my year-end awards ballot.

An GREAT show from New Japan, with a fine undercard followed by an awesome semi-main and then a PERFECT main event.

[Big Red Machine]

Finally found the undercard for this show and then my OCD took over.