BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax XXX: Day 13 (a terrible show saved by Shingo and Okada)

[Big Red Machine]

NJPW G1 Climax XXX: Day 13 (10/10/2020)- Osaka, Japan


YUYA UEMURA vs. YOTA TSUJI- 5.5/10
Solid, as always. Yuya worked the arm. He’s going to be so damn good one day.

BLOCK A MATCH: Jeff Cobb vs. Tomohiro Ishii- 6.5/10
Both guys worked the head. This was good for a while, but then it started to drag. They overdid it with the “someone hits a move and then we do a double-down,” which resulted in the match feeling fragmented, and this in turn made the changes in momentum after each double-down feel very inorganic and patterned.

BLOCK A MATCH: Yujiro Takahashi vs. Jay White (w/Gedo)- -10/10
White’s not even dressed in his gear and he’s facing a member of his own stable, so if you’ve seen pretty much any other G1 since 2014, you know what’s about to happen.
Yujiro lied down for White. This would be a situation where it might be acceptable for a referee to refuse to count, as the match has obviously been fixed. The referee counted, though… and I don’t have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is Jay White inexplicably breaking the cover each time. WHY?! Then he started feinting covers just to get the referee to go down. What purpose does any of this serve? And don’t tell me “he’s getting heat” because heat has to be gotten in a way that makes f*cking sense! How does doing any of this serve Jay White?
Anyway, White finally stays on the cover longer than two, and wouldn’t you know it, Yujiro decides to kick out. You know… just like every other time two Bullet Club guys have faced off in the G1 and one has started to lie down for the other.
White tells Yujiro “hey! You know the deal,” and Yujiro lies down for White again and White covers him and Yujiro kicks out at two again. White starts to talk to… Gedo, I guess? The camera cut away so I couldn’t tell. Anyway, the point is the White took his eyes off of Yujiro, so Yujiro rolled him up for a nearfall. White yells at Yujiro and gets rolled up again.
White pushed Yujiro so Yujiro lariats him and… what? We’re supposed to be happy that Yujiro stood up to Jay White? Why? There’s been no build towards this in any way, and Yujiro has spent the fast several years happily cheating to try to beat our favorite babyfaces. What interest do we have in seeing him stand up to Jay White?
Yujiro hits White with an Olympic Slam but White kicks out. Yujiro hits a low blow and then hits it again but White kicks out again. Yujiro goes for the DDT but Gedo distracts the referee so White can hit a low blow and then Blade Runner for the win.
So in this match…
1. Two wrestlers clearly conspired to fix a match in the G1
2. Yujiro defied the orders of the leader of his stable, then used trickery to try to screw him out of two crucial points in the biggest tournament of the year.
And there will be NO CONSEQUENCES FOR ANY OF THIS. Just like there haven’t been any consequences for it any of the other times they have done this same thing with Bullet Club in the G1 over the past few years. Explain to me again how Gedo is such a great booker and everything in New Japan makes sense?
This was a stupid, pointless predictable, and also completely frustrating and infuriating waste of time. No mercy. Negative 10.
And yes, I saw the post-match segment. That’s not Gedo having mercy on Yujiro. It’s just that White injuring Yujiro will do nothing but make Yujiro’s remaining opponents’ matches easier, which will only make White’s path to the finals more difficult. It doesn’t change the fact that the match was dumb.

BLOCK A MATCH: Taichi vs. Will Ospreay- 5/10
And now we have to go from that dumb sh*t to Taichi. I hope Ospreay can work some of his magic on Taichi and free us from watching the same opening third of every Taichi match since he became a heavyweight.
Holy f*ck we went an entire two and a half minutes with no choking! And Taichi actually made an effort to hide using the ring bell hammer from the referee! Now if only we could get the referee to actually start to count wrestlers out when they go to the outside, and to disqualify people when they shove him down, then this would start to look like a real wrestling promotion!
Why is Taichi even choking Ospreay with the ring bell hammer? Does he not know how hammers work? Just hit him in the head with it!
Okay. Now we’re back to normal Taichi territory where he’s choking the opponent with a cable right in front of the referee and not even trying to hide it, and the referee won’t call for the bell. For the life of me, I will never understand why the babyfaces don’t all band together and jump to some other promotion where the referees actually give a sh*t about making sure the rules are followed and that no one gets maimed.
We’re back in the ring with Taichi in control so of course that means more choking. This time was even worse than usual, as Taichi had Ospreay in the corner and was choking him and the referee counted to four so Taichi raised his non-choking hand high in the air, and this… distracted the referee and made him lose count, maybe? Anyway, the referee fell for this trick multiple times in a row before getting Taichi to break, at which point the fans… politely clap. New Japan Pro Wrestling, everyone. Where blatant cheating the referee being an incompetent moron are so common place that all they evoke from the audience is polite applause.
Taichi snapmares Ospreay down and then it’s time for- that’s right- MORE CHOKING! The referee tells him off so he lets up for a second, then goes right back to the choke. Taichi clearly has no intention to play by the rules. Just disqualify him and be done with it! In real sports, if you get caught cheating a second time, they give you a harsher punishment. In New Japan, so long as the referee doesn’t get to five, it’s like it never happened and you can break the rules as many more times as you want.
Remember how I noted that we managed to go almost two and a half minutes before the choking started? Well we’ve now gone that same length of time where it has been NOTHING BUT TAICHI CHOKING WILL OSPREAY! FOR TWO AND A HALF MINUTES!
At that point this gave way to the next step in any Taichi match, which is the stupid little light kicks and slaps whose only purpose is to set up for the opponent to fire up and start a comeback. And, like everyone else to face Taichi in the last eon, Ospreay starts to fire up and we get a strike exchange. Taichi cut it off with MORE CHOKING. Ospreay got up and hit his handspring enzugiri thing, so why even do the choking?
Taichi tries to get out of the way of the coming hidden blade but Ospreay just dropkicks him to the outside, then hits a Space Flying Tiger Drop. Fun quirk of the NJPW rulebook: In most situations, the referee takes forever to start counting the wrestlers out, but if you go over the ropes with a Space Flying Tiger Drop, the count starts almost immediately. Either that or there is no quality control in the refereeing. Probably the latter.
There was some good stuff in the latter half of this match, but it’s hard to get into it when the first half of the match makes me want to fly to Japan, hunt Taichi down and kick him in the dick. And then choke him on and off for two and a half minutes.

BLOCK A MATCH: Minoru Suzuki vs. Kota Ibushi- 7.25/10
They were having a really good MMA-style match for a bit, but then Suzuki got frustrated and went to sit on the ramp and dared Kota to come get him. Red Shoes wouldn’t do his job and just count Suzuki out, so Kota went to the outside and now we’re doing a strike exchange on the ramp because why not. Now here comes Red Shoes to tell them to get back in the ring. Hey, dumbass! Do you know what will get them back in the ring quickly? IF YOU DID YOUR JOB RIGHT AND STARTED TO COUNT THEM OUT!
Suzuki beat Kota up. Red Shoes finally started counting. Suzuki beat Kota up some more and went back to the ring… and then, Suzuki told Red Shoes to stop counting. Huh? How does that make any sense?
Kota hits a flurry to the stomach but Suzuki no-sells it. Suzuki stomps down on Kota but Kota sits back up. Suzuki gets sick of that spot so he hits a penalty kick. Instead of pressing his advantage, he starts in with the paint-brushing. Kota points to his cheek and asks for more. I really hate this kind of crap when they do it like this because it feels like they’re doing this specifically to do a “who’s tougher” spot rather than it coming up organically in the course of the wrestlers getting fried up and trying to win the match. We got more strike exchanges, and both of the normal kind and of the “you hit me so that I can show you how tough I am by withstanding it and then I’ll do the same to you” variety. This eventually culminated in them repeatedly forearming each other while no-selling the other’s forearms at the speed of Kobashi’s rapid-fire chops in the corner. They both went down, then got back and threw more strikes.
Eventually Suzuki ducked a strike and got a sleeper hold, but, lie an idiot, he gave it up to go for the Gotch Piledriver and Kota reversed it. We spent another minute going for finishers and the like before Kota won with the Kamagoye.
This… is not my kind of match. I don’t like matches that feel so disjointed “this it the part where we do fake MMA,” then an arbitrary transition to “this is the part where we do nothing but strikes” and then another arbitrary transition to “this is the part where we go for finishers,” and in a match where I have no rooting interest and the wrestlers haven’t told a story to give me one, I find these prolonged “look how tough I am” strike exchanges to be relatively dull, especially compared to a match with a more fleshed-out and developing story. If you like strikes, you’ll probably like this more than I did.

BLOCK A MATCH: Kazuchika Okada vs. Shingo Takagi- 9.25/10
Holy sh*t was this awesome. It was the usual New Japan main event stuff where they worked the head with strikes and head-drops and the occasional submission, but they just cranked it up to eleven. They even managed to make Okada’s Cobra Clutch exciting (it turns out the key is the facial expressions)!



This was a bad show from New Japan saved by an awesome main event. Your opinion may vary, as this show hit on a lot of my pet peeves, that’s what’s going to happen when things get so repetitive and you have to watch so much of a promotion. As a whole, I think the G1 needs to be shrunken down to avoid this problem. I don’t even know what would happen if I was watching Block B as well.

[cero2k]

The industry, analysts, and all fans: Best G1 show of the year and the previous years!
Red: Terrible!

BLOCK A MATCH: Yujiro Takahashi vs. Jay White (w/Gedo)- -10/10
And there will be NO CONSEQUENCES FOR ANY OF THIS.

You do realize it's part of a storyline, right?

[Big Red Machine]

The industry, analysts, and all fans: Best G1 show of the year and the previous years!
Red: Terrible!

BLOCK A MATCH: Yujiro Takahashi vs. Jay White (w/Gedo)- -10/10
And there will be NO CONSEQUENCES FOR ANY OF THIS.

You do realize it's part of a storyline, right?

You mean like the last six times this happened? I'm not buying it.

Explain the storyline to me. Show me what happened, where, and when, and where it's going. Show me how things built up over time and moved from point A to point B to point C to get us here.

[cero2k]

You mean like the last six times this happened? I'm not buying it.

Explain the storyline to me. Show me what happened, where, and when, and where it's going. Show me how things built up over time and moved from point A to point B to point C to get us here.

it's all part of the story if mistrust between White and EVIL talking passive aggressive smack to each other about Bullet Club leadership and this added some separation between Gedo and White because White thought that Yujiro not staying down and trying to win is part of a plan against him, made up by EVIL and that Gedo knew about it.

[Big Red Machine]

You mean like the last six times this happened? I'm not buying it.

Explain the storyline to me. Show me what happened, where, and when, and where it's going. Show me how things built up over time and moved from point A to point B to point C to get us here.

it's all part of the story if mistrust between White and EVIL talking passive aggressive smack to each other about Bullet Club leadership and this added some separation between Gedo and White because White thought that Yujiro not staying down and trying to win is part of a plan against him, made up by EVIL and that Gedo knew about it.

I'll believe it when I see it actually come to fruition. This tree has been barked up so many times before and not led to anything.

Also, if the story is what you say it is, then wouldn't it have made a lot more sense for Yujiro to lie down and then snag White in a small package the moments White goes for the cover (as usually happens in the type of story you're proposing)? Why let him cover your at all so you have to kick out and alert White that the gig is up?