BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax XXX: Day 17

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax XXX: Day 17

Post by Big Red Machine » Oct 17th, '20, 20:14

NJPW G1 Climax XXX: Day 17 (10/16/2020)- Tokyo, Japan

By my math:
White wins if:
- He wins
- He goes to a draw and both Okada and Ibushi do not win

Ibushi wins if:
- He wins and White des not win
-He draws and Okada draws and White loses.

Okada wins if:
- He beats Ospreay and both Ibushi and White do not win
- He goes to a draw with Ospreay, and both Ibushi and White lose

Ospreay wins if:
- He beats Okada and both White and Ibushi lose… and then I think there is a three-way playoff between him, White, and Ibushi because they all have 12 points and are all 2-1 against everyone else with twelve points? And I guess this is theoretically a scenario where Ibushi or White could win, too.


GABRIEL KIDD vs. YOTA TSUJI- 4.75/10
Fine for what it was and the time it got.

BLOCK A MATCH: Yujiro Takahashi vs. Jeff Cobb- 5.75/10
They both did their usual stuff. Yujiro get the win here, which makes no sense to me. It’s not like he’s a babyface and we’re rooting for him to at least get one win. He’s a complete and total heel. He’s also someone who will almost certainly not be in the G1 next year when Tama Toga and Bad Luck Fale will be back, so why not have him lose all of his matches and then there is an actual tory where his failure to win any matches has some actual consequences?

BLOCK A MATCH: Minoru Suzuki vs. Shingo Takagi- 7/10
After a big forearm exchange first thing in the match, they go to the outside. They stay there for a long time without getting counted out. Suddenly the referee starts to count them out, and the action quickly returns to the ring. Funny how that works. It’s almost like that’s the exact reason the count-out rule exists, and why the rules say that a referee should start counting right when someone goes to the outside! You’d think the referee would take note of this and just start counting the moment someone goes to the outside, but no. New Japan referees have the memory of a chimpanzee (whose memories are much worse than goldfish).
Speaking of bad memories, Kevin Kelly asks Rocky Romero if he thinks Gedo’s interference in the White vs. Suzuki match will lead to Suzuki having a vendetta against Gedo. Kevin Kelly has been calling New Japan for… six years, now? And at least three years full-time? And he STILL hasn’t learned that unless it’s the initial heel turn, guys cheating in matches doesn’t lead to anything, especially in the G1.
Dumbf*ck Suzuki gave up a perfectly good sleeper hold to go for the Gotch Piledriver but Shingo countered it into a Death Valley Driver. Suzuki’s memory is just as bad as those of Kevin Kelly and the NJPW refereeing crew.

Suzuki worked the arm a bit to try to weaken Shingo’s strikes, and then shifted to using that as a finishing strategy. I wish they had spent more time on this part of the story instead of mostly consigning it to the last few minutes.

BLOCK A MATCH: Will Ospreay vs. Kazuchika Okada- 7.5/10
This started off looking like it could be really great, but was totally derailed by the baffling decision to turn Will Ospreay heel, with Bea Priestly running a distraction so that the Great O-Kharn could return from excursion and hit Okada with a claw slam. So that’s yet another heel doing interference crap, and even the important match I was expecting to not be marred by interference and cheating is marred by interference and cheating. Hooray for Gedo.

BLOCK A MATCH: Taichi vs. Kota Ibushi- 6.5/10
What is supposed to be a professional fight with HUGE stakes for Ibushi starts off with a nice, calm game of “take turns letting the other guy kick you in the leg so we can see who kicks harder.” This evolves into “take turns big booting each other in the chest.” This ended with a double-down, but then they started playing “take turns and let the other guy kick me in the back so we can see who’s tougher.” Now it’s high kicks to the chest instead of big boots. Kota knocked Taichi down, but it’s not over because Kota collapsed, too, and they got back up and just started doing it again. When are they going to start with “try my hardest to defeat the other wrestler in a professional wrestling match?”
Kota goes down and Taichi doesn’t, so it’s over, right? Apparently not. Taichi does his backdrop driver but Kota no-sells it (I think he was supposed to flip out but couldn’t get over enough to he just took the move and got back up), then politely lets Taichi get back up and we’re back to the f*cking leg kicks!
Seriously. It has been almost TEN STRAIGHT MINUTES of them taking turns hitting each other, and nothing else!
Finally, they start doing things with urgency and it starts to feel like a real, competitive fight where they’re trying to do what they can to pin the other or knock him out, but I can’t help but notice that they’re still doing the same moves to each other, first one guy, then the other.
And now we’re back to the f*cking leg kicks. And they kept going with them until a Kamagoye for the finish. On the bright side, at least Taichi is doing something different. Maybe one of these days he’ll do something that is both different and also not stupid.
Look… I understand what they were trying to do. I think they succeeded in doing what they were trying to do. I think they both sold very well. But by the very nature of what they were trying to do, it didn’t come across to me like professional wrestling. It came across to me like a piece of performance art. Yes, professional wrestling is performance art, but it’s not supposed to come across that way. This came across like two guys trying to put on a show and have a short, concise sentence explaining the story of the match flashing in big neon lights the whole time. It felt like something the two of them worked out together in the back rather than an organic contest of one-upsmanship flowing directly from the previous events of the match. Any time you start this sort of thing in a calm manner, you’re doing it wrong.

BLOCK A MATCH: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Jay White (w/Gedo)- 8/10
White stalls. The opponent knocks him down. Gedo causes a distraction allowing White to take over. White runs the opponent into the guardrails. I actually typed all of that out before the match even started. Turned out to be right. It’s almost like all of Jay White’s matches start the exact same way.
White eventually started work over Ishii’s taped-up knee. I really liked they way they worked that into Ishii’s usual no-selling spot. What I didn’t like was Ishii then running around on his knee moments afterwards when it was time for him to go on offense. This happened several times in this match, although doing it right after they showed us that it was a weak point that can hurt Ishii even when he’s in full “Stone Pitbull” no-selling mode was definitely the most egregious.
Gedo interfered to help White get control back. Red Shoes did not eject him from ringside. There was more to come in the way of interference and low blows, but this still managed to be match of the night. Ishii won, so Kota wins Block A.


This was another frustrating G1 show. The concept of turning Ospreay heel and having yet another heel who wins via interference is completely ridiculous to me. Even watching just one block, I am already sick to death of these interferences. This tournament used to a place where could go to escape that crap, and the few times it would happen, it would actually mean something, but not anymore. Here’s to hoping that EVIL doesn’t make the finals so that at least the finals will be free of that crap.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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