BRM Reviews NJPW G1 Climax 25: Day 2

[Big Red Machine]

NJPW G1 Climax 25: Day 2 (7/23/2015)- Shizuoka, Japan

TIGER MASK IV & JUSHIN “THUNDER” LIGER vs. JAY WHITE & YOHEI KOMATSU-5.5/10
White and Komatsu argued over which one of them would start. They had some VERY close nearfalls in there towards the end. You want to know how to revitalize the Jr. Heavyweight division? Let these young boys graduate and start doing moves that aren’t hip tosses, dropkicks, and Boston Crabs, then stick them in the division.

KOTA IBUSHI, TOGI MAKABE, & CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN vs. BULLET CLUB (Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale, & Cody Hall)- 4.25/10

BULLET CLUB (AJ Styles & Tama Tonga) vs. CHAOS (YOSHI-HASHI & Toru Yano)- 4/10
Heels get the heat on YOSHI-HASHI. Toru Yano, whose gimmick is that he ALWAYS tries to cheat, only came in to help YOSHI-HASHI once.

HIROSHI TANAHASHI, MASCARA DORADA, & TETSUYA NAITO vs. HIROYOSHI TENZAN, KATSUYORI SHIBATA, & RYUSUKE TAGUCHI- 4.75/10
I just couldn’t get into it. Taguchi in particular was a weak point.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK B MATCH: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Satoshi Kojima- 5.5/10
And right away we’re into the Ishii sh*t with them trading a million forearms back and forth with neither guy selling until Kojima apparently depleted Ishii’s shields or whatever and Ishii had to start selling. Kojima worked over his neck with some moves until it was time for Ishii to randomly start no-selling forearms- even forcing Kojima backwards while Kojima was forearming him in the face multiple times- until he just randomly went down and sold one.
From that point on they had a really good match except that instead of ending, it just kept going and they started doing more dumb sh*t. Stuff like constantly having Ishii sell forearms to the head like he has died and the ref checks on him for like fifteen seconds and backs Kojima off and then Ishii gets up and Kojima knocks him down again and they do the same thing with the referee checking on him to the point where you wonder why the hell the ref doesn’t just stop the match. Then he starts not going down and barely sells the forearms and then he finally makes a comeback by throwing a headbutt. Then he hit a lariat, Kojima kicked out, then hit a brainbuster for the pin, despite the fact that he had hit a super-brainbuster earlier in the match and not only did that not win him the match, but Kojima was aware enough to dodge a sliding lariat after it. Basically this was a decent wrestling match sandwiched by a crappy Ishii match.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK B MATCH: Hirooki Goto vs. Yujiro Takahashi (Cody Hall)- 7/10
Started off meh but got really great towards the end. I liked the nice little not the finish of the tag match from Day 1. It made me feel like that non-tournament match actually mattered (which has been my major concern with these undercards full of non-tournament matches.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK B MATCH: Yuji Nagata vs. Tomoaki Honma- 6.5/10
Now Honma’s doing this Ishii sh*t, too, no-selling a big boot but then going down for a slap right afterwards like it’s a cannonball, but then when he gets up again he’s deadlifting Ngata for a vertical suplex. When they were wrestling it was fine, but when Honma was doing his wacky selling or lack thereof, it was bad.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK B MATCH: Michael Elgin vs. Kazuchika Okada (w/Gedo)- 6.75/10
It felt like they got a bit shortchanged for time. They really should have cut a few minutes from that last match and gave them to this match.

G1 CLIMAX 25 BLOCK B MATCH: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Karl Anderson (w/Cody Hall & Doc Gallows)- 8.25/10
Both guys work the head, Anderson with moves and Nakamura with knees. Great nearfalls towards the end. Awesome match.


A mostly disappointing show from New Japan saved by an awesome main event.