BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax XXX: Day 15

[Big Red Machine]

NJPW G1 Climax XXX: Day 15 (10/13/2020)- Hamamatsu, Japan



GABRIEL KIDD vs. YUYA UEMURA- 5.75/10
More fine Young Lions action.

BLOCK A MATCH: Will Ospreay vs. Jeff Cobb- 8/10
This was awesome. This is what this G1 has been missing. This was a match that only these two wrestlers could have!

BLOCK A MATCH: Yujiro Takahashi vs. Kota Ibushi- 5.75/10
Both guys worked the head. Yujiro loses again.

BLOCK A MATCH: Taichi vs. Shingo Takagi- 6.25/10
Every Taichi match ever happened for a while. If I had a nickel for every time someone in New Japan did something that should have been a DQ but wasn’t, in one year’s time I’d have enough money to buy the promotion and order the wrestlers and referees to knock this sh*t off.
After the strike exchange of Taichi’s pattern, they dropped each other on their heads and hit each other in the head until we got a finish.

BLOCK A MATCH: Minoru Suzuki vs. Jay White (w/Gedo)- 5.5/10
Jay White stalls on the outside. Eventually, Gedo causes a distraction and White takes over on the outside and runs his opponent’s back into the guardrails. Again. Now he’s taking a page out of Taichi’s book by blatantly choking Suzuki. He’s using a camera cable to do it. Red Shoes catches him but doesn’t disqualify him because… um…
More running into the guardrails happens. White gets the advantage. Suzuki sits there and lets White kick him from behind. White kicks Suzuki softly in the back instead of kicking him hard in the head because he’s really in it for the snowflakes from Big Dave instead of for the points you get from winning G1 matches.
Red Shoes catches Gedo with a chair. Gedo has gotten involved in every single match so far that he has been at ringside for and just tried to do so here as well, but Red Shoes doesn’t eject him from ringside because… um…
White uses this distraction to try to use a chair on Suzuki but Suzuki gets the chair and uses it on White instead. Red Shoes sees Suzuki about to use the chair and tries to stop him but Suzuki shoves him down. This was not a DQ because… um…
Suzuki keeps knocking White down and then not following up. White eventually gets the advantage after yet another distraction by Gedo. White begins to work on the knee, at which point I am forced to ask why they didn’t tell the story of him working over the knee from the beginning instead of spending time doing the same patterned sh*t he does in every match with him running the opponent’s back into the guardrail in the beginning of the match?
Suzuki starts walking around on his knees and just lets White chop him instead of trying to block it because that’s what you do in New Japan. When was the last time you saw that sort of thing in an MMA fight? Holly Holm vs. Bethe Correia comes to mind, and in that fight the person who put her hands down and dared the opponent to hit her was summarily kicked in the head and knocked out.
Suzuki started grabbing various submission but got distracted by Gedo YET AGAIN. Seriously… why is this guy even allowed at ringside if he interferes every single time, and if you’re going to give him a fresh slate each match, why is no action ever taken after the first time? White gets some offense in but Suzuki manages to grab an armbar… and here comes Gedo YET AGAIN. This time he’s distracting Red Shoes so that White can tap out. What’s the point of this? Am I supposed to feel sympathy for SUZUKI after everything he has done over the years without remorse?
Suzuki deals with Gedo, then goes back to White. They tease some finishers and HERE COMES F*CKING GEDO AGAIN. This is the point where we get the obligatory low blow, then the Blade Runner and a pin.
I used to like Jay White, but Gedo has completely ruined him for me. The matches are ridiculous because the referees never do anything about Gedo, and at this point I don’t buy any false finish that happens before the stupid low blow spot because they’ve made it clear that they’re going to do that in every f*cking match (White can’t even beat loser Yujiro without it), so the rest of this match felt like twenty minutes of sh*t that was 85% patterned, stupid, or frustrating.

BLOCK A MATCH: Kazuchika Okada vs. Tomohiro Ishii- 8.5/10
They worked the head. This was awesome, as is reflected in my rating, but could we maybe get a match or two where both guys aren’t working the head? Please?


This was another meh G1 show. It’s clear at this point that certain people are dragging this whole thing down. If I knew what this tournament was going to be like, I wouldn’t have committed to watching even just one block. I feel like I’ve watched the exact same match two or three times a night for eight straight shows.