NJPW G1 Climax 27, Day 6

Kota Ibushi & Shota Umino vs Togi Makabe & Ryusuke Taguchi - 5/10

Poor Taguchi, vacation is over. Usual opener stuff, Makabe and Taguchi were cutting off Umino for a while, Umino actually mae a small comeback, enough to tag Ibushi in for the hot tag and to pair up with Makabe. After that Taguchi and Umino got at it for the final run, Umino giving him a good fight before falling to the ankle lock. Ibushi and Makabe want to brawl after the match, but instead just face off.

Katsuya Kitamura & Tomoyuki Oka vs CHAOS (YOSHI-HASHI & Tomohiro Ishii) - 6/10

NO! NO! NO! NO! I wanna see Oka and Kitamura fight, not be partners (tho watching those two behemoths team is something to behold), the camera angle and their faces during the entrance of CHAOS was amazing, some PROGRESS level camera work.

They told a little story that Oka was getting heated with Ishii and Oka kept pissing off Ishii and Ishii would go crazy on Oka, enough that even YH needed to interfere. CHAOS kept dominating Oka, keeping Kitamura into the ring. Kitamura got the hot tag and the young lions actually started dominating the match for a while, some good work together. FInish saw Ishii choke Oka outside while YH submitted Kitamura inside. Great showing for the young lions.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito & Hiromu Takahashi) vs Yuji Nagata & Hirai Kawato - 6.5/10

Naito fist-bumped the ghost of Daryl, this is why I like LIJ, they support each other in their personal problems. Not much of a story in this match, but all four guys were great. Kawato was babyface in peril obviously, but he got some great offense in against LIJ; and Nagata has been amazing all tournament. Kawato submitted to Takahashi's boston crab while Naito and Nagata brawled outside. Takahashi and Naito work so naturally together.

After the match Nagata called Naito back in the ring, he want to face off, Naito just told him to be Tranquilo, but Nagata was so hot that Naito had to get physical and start mocking him more.

Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens, & Yujiro Takahashi) vs Suzuki-Gun (Zack Sabre Jr, El Desperado, & Taichi) - 6.5/10

Man, Sabre vs Fale is gonna be such an interesting match-up, it will be like watching a gorilla fight a really technically proficient spider monkey. Match started with Suzuki-Gun in control over Owens, then Bullet Club had control over Taichi to finish the match. The parts between Fale and Sabre looked great, and Taichi facing off with Fale was hilarious. Short, but a fun match.

CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & Jado) vs Taguchi Japan (Hiroshi Tanahashi & David Finlay) - 5.5/10

CHAOS got the heat on Finlay for a while, Tanahashi with the hot tag and had a good little segment with Goto. Good little match, nothing special, Finlay defetead Jado. Tanahashi and Goto were very respectful in their post-match teases.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
Michael Elgin (0) vs Satoshi Kojima (0) - 7/10

Match was back and forward, they really tried to make Kojima look as a legit challenge to Elgin's strength, portraying him as super strong himself. So because of this, the match was mostly power moves, tackles, and lariats. The last minutes of the match did get intentese with Elgin doing his usual finishing sequences, but Kojima always managing to cut him off. Finish saw Elgin drop Kojima with a Sunset Flip Powerbomb followed by the Spinning Powerbomb for the pin.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
EVIL (2) vs Tama Tonga (2) - 7.5/10

They're both so tough that they challenge each other to fight outside, I do appreciate that they went through that trouble and actually used the railing and the ring post and went to the back, but they should have done this before the ringbell to avoid the count-out situation.

Once inside the ring, the match was great, Tonga was in control for a while and EVIL made a cool comeback, he had the little girls in the crowd screaming his name, so not in any way a babyface, but EVIL was giving a valiant fight after getting his ass kicked outside. Great little short finishing sequence. I never realized what a good pairing these two are.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
Minosu Suzuki (2) w/El Desperado vs Juice Robinson (2) - 6.5/10

Coming in, Juice has a terribly injured leg from his last matches, and so obviously, this is the whole focus of Suzuki. Outside the ring, Suzuki would drag Robinson to the back, attack the leg with chairs and the barricade, Desperado would join the attack while Suzuki left him for dead, and so we had a great near count out with Juice dragging himself and limping all the way to the ring to make it at 19. Inside the ring Juice tried to do a valiant comeback, but Suzuki constantly grounded him targeting the leg. This was complete dominance on the side of Suzuki, the finish was the first piledriver attempt, and he got to stand there holding Juice as he looked at the crowd. After the match, Suzuki was kicking everyone's ass, including Desperado.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
Kenny Omega (4) vs Toru Yano (2) - 8/10 In Comedy Rating.

Kenny forgot the belt, he's gonna get in big trouble. To start the match, Yano offers Kenny a copy of the latest DVD, Kenny eventually takes it and teases getting rid of it, and he should have, when Kenny opens it, it's full of powder which Yano throws in his face. While Omega is trying to hit the OWA on Red Shoes and recovering from a low blow, Yano removes ALL corner pads, and this is just the beginning.

This was the strong style version of a comedy match. Among things we saw was Yano and Omega tie each other's feet so they were both just jumping around for a while. We saw Yano and Omega do the usual your turn my turn spot, but with pulling each other's head. Eventually, Chase Owens came in with scissors and Omega got free, hit the V-Trigger on Yano who was thrown outside the ring and because of the tape on his feet and the hurt of the V-Trigger, couldn't make the 20 count and lost via count out. This was the funniest match I've seen since Kikutaro vs Chuck Taylor.

G1 Climax 27 Block B
Kazuchika Okada (4) vs SANADA (2) - 9/10

Match started with SANADA being portrayed as a bit of a rookie at least next to Okada, who was just dodging and countering SANADA with ease, so SANADA decides to fake a leg injury, where Okada lowers his guard, and gives SANADA an opening to attack him and turn the momentum.

The match was well balanced and SANADA's star was shinning more and more as the match progressed, not exactly coming close to defeating Okada, but surely enough giving him a hell of a fight and hitting him with moves that were really hurting Okada. The finishing sequence was awesome, ending with a Rainmaker on SANADA for the 6 pts.

Post-match - Okada cuts a promo, he's 3-0 and winning the tournament. I figure that's what he said, I have no idea. I really need to start learning some Japanese.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Up and down quality on the Block matches, closing with a really good match and a really entertaining match. I'm having a lot of trouble getting behind Juice Robinson matches, I just haven't liked them, he still has the top guys in front of him, so hopefully that changes. The undercard I mainly liked because of the young lions and that is saying something, and not that the rest were bad, some little bits here and there were good, but tonight I was just more impressed by the YLs.

I have a feeling that this whole block is just a race between Omega and Okada to the finals, I can totally see them going undefeated to their final match.