NJPW G1 Climax 29, 7.19

Suzuki-Gun (Zack Sabre Jr & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) vs Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens) - 4.5/10

BC jumped SZKG which gave them the upper hand over Sabre, who got worked on by both Fale and Owens. Fale was completely dominant over Sabre. Fale won with a Grenade over Kanemaru after dodging the Whisky Mist. Meh match.

Post-match - Sabre tried to attack Fale, but got Grenaded.

Suzuki-Gun (Minoru Suzuki & Lance Archer) vs Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tomoaki Honma - 6/10

SZKG tortured Honma for more than half of the match until Tana and Archer got their chance to do their thing. Tana went after Archer's now kayfabe hurt leg from the KENTA match. Archer was dominant towards the end, he took a double Kokeshi, but came back, hit a double chokeslam on both men and pinned/submitted Honma with the EBD Claw.

Post-match - Archer locked in the Claw on all the Young Lions while Suzuki tortured the rest. Archer locked the Claw on Tanahashi before leaving.

KENTA, Kota Ibushi, & Clark Connors vs Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL, SANADA, & BUSHI) - 7/10

Oh boy, SANADA vs Ibushi, here we go, this will be the finals of the G1 Climax 2022 if Ibushi doesn't die. SANADA went for Ibushi's leg, while Ibushi went for SANADA's back after the EVIL match. KENTA vs EVIL was all striking with KENTA getting the upper hand for the most part. Connors had a good showing, but fell to BUSHI's MX. Two great matches to look forward to.

Post-match - A couple of stare downs. Ibushi and SANADA met in the middle of the ring to a lot of sexual tension. Chants were straight up cut in the middle. They each took a corner of the ring as the crowd chanted. Outside the ring, KENTA and EVIL kinda wanted to brawl, but didn't.

CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Will Ospreay & Toa Henare - 6/10

Oh man, I've never been this torn between who is the biggest geek in the ring between Henare and YOSHI-HASHI. Okada and YOSHI worked over Henare for a while, Okada kept mocking Ospreay's poses, who took it kinda personal I guess. Ospreay returned the favor by doing the Rainmaker pose. They did some nice looking wrestling before getting the geeks in the ring, where geek one pinned geek two. Okada vs Ospreay should be good, I'm hoping the latter pins the former.

Post-match - Both Okada and Ospreay sat at the apron with their respective championships and talked some friendly shit to each other.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
Taichi [2] w/Miho Abe vs Shingo Takagi [2] - 9/10

During his entrance, Kevin Kelly said 'Oh look at this special treat' at Miho Abe, it sounded incredibly creepy before he tried to pass it on to Chris. Kevin Kelly is creepy.

Match started with Shingo jumping Taichi after yesterday's post-match antics by Taichi. It started kinda slow, this was going to be a striking battle, but Taichi usually starts cocky and slow, but as the match went on and Taichi got serious, it got pretty awesome. This could have really gone either way, they were taking each others head over and over again. They also kicked out of a lot of moves, Shingo kicked out of the Last Ride, while Taichi kicked out of the Pumping Bomber. At the end, it was Shingo's Last of the Dragons that sealed the deal. This was excellent.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
Juice Robinson [4] vs Jeff Cobb [0] - 7.5/10

Code of Honor followed. I don't know how I feel about this match, Cobb sold for Juice all of the match, it was mostly Juice hitting everything except for some big moves by Cobb, which in a way is good to make those moves look devastating, because Cobb did end up winning with the Tour of the Islands, but it felt like Cobb was a brute in the ring, and not a amateur wrestler. The last minutes after Cobb woke up got good.

Cobb kept constantly saying 'oh shit' every time Juice hit something. It was distracting.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
"Switchblade" Jay White [0] w/Gedo vs Toru Yano [2] - 5/10, but fun

Another fun Yano match with the conclusion of 'CHAOS get payback on White' as now, all CHAOS members in the block have defeated White in their matches and plummet him to 0-3. The story was the usual, Yano tried to use his tricks, White dodged them. When Gedo went to use his tricks, Yano used those tricks which backfired on White, and after a Brass knuckles low blow, Yano rolled up White for the pin. Short and fun, a much deserving break from the last two matches.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
Hirooki Goto [2] vs Tetsuya Naito [0] - 8.75/10

One man's career was going nowhere, went to Mexico, reinvented himself, and became a superstar. The other man's career was going nowhere, went to the US, just lost some weight and got a new t-shirt, and is still the same dude. Conclusion, Mexico makes stars, US doesn't.

Naito focused his offense on the leg, Goto went after the head. Naito controlled the first half of the match, and thus it was still kinda slow going, but once Goto picked up some pace, the match went back and forward, and really action packed. Naito did a great job jumping from building to Destino, and keeping Goto's leg out. Given the competitors, this could had been a lot better, but they kept it safe, and Naito actually wrestled a smarter match. The last few minutes chasing Destino and GTR were great, Goto landed several Ushigoroshis and a reverse GTR, Naito hit the running Destino before hitting the proper Destino for the win.

They tried to play that Naito was two in the hole and pressured to get some points, but that doesn't really work with someone Tranquilo. It worked with Sabre tho.

G1 Climax 2019 Block A Match
Tomohiro Ishii [4] vs Jon Moxley [4] - 9/10

This was the heated brawl we all expected, but I wish they hadn't gone out of the ring and into the crowd since that usually slows things down a lot. What I also noticed here and there is that Moxley is still carrying a lot of WWE's in-ring style with him, which you don't really see it with guys like Cobb or Juice, but going strike to strike with Ishii, sometimes you could see the difference in lariats. This match also suffered from having rest holds and bringing out weapons, Ishii is just not that type of guy. A ten minute sprint is a fair main event for a G1 if you really take it to the next level of intensity.

Having said all that, the match was great, it was intense and these guys really went out there to beat each other up. Once they were done with weapons and got back in the ring, the match was unreal, hitting everything they had. Final minutes I started to think Ishii had a chance to win as he landed the Sliding Lariat, kicked out of a Deathrider, and chased the Brainbuster, but it was Moxley that hit the exposed Regal Knee and Deathrider and took the win. Awesome match.

Also, on July 19, 2019, Tomohiro Ishii did a top rope plancha to the outside through a table.

Post-match - Jon Moxley cut his winner's promo thanking New Japan and the fans for giving him the space to do what he wants to do and that no one will tell him what to do. He said he will win the G1.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Another solid and easy to watch show. I think most of the match met my expectations, with Shingo vs Taichi actually exceeding them. With the third show down for Block B, we finally start to see things get interesting with White with 0 points, Naito barely getting 2, and Moxley heading the block with 6.