NJPW G1 Climax 29, 7.24

BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi) vs. Tomoaki Honma, Will Ospreay & Yuya Uemura - 5.5/10

It was a pretty similar story that Ospreay has had with giants, and Fale with small people. Ospreay was doing everything possible to take out and antagonize Fale, but overall, they actually did just a little with each other as most of the match was BC working over Honma and Uemura being awesome. Yujiro pinned Uemura with Pimp Juice. Ok opener.

Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI, EVIL & SANADA) vs. Suzuki-gun (Lance Archer, Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr.) - 6/10

We're building EVIL vs Sabre which we've seen before, it's usually good, especially when Sabre taps out EVIL. The other was SANADA vs Archer, which I expect something really similar like with Ospreay, but less flippy stuff. Once again, these matches made me wish it was Suzuki in the tournament tho. Suzuki pinned BUSHI with the GSP.

Kota Ibushi & Ren Narita vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Shota Umino - 6.5/10

Narita looked awesome here, Tanahashi sold for him a lot, he even got a near fall on the Ace after his over the head belly-to-belly. He ended up losing to Tana's Slingblade, but to a strong showcase. Ibushi vs Tanahashi kept it short, but Tana obviously went after Ibushi's hurt leg. Tana and Ibushi had a great face off at the end.

CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI) & Toa Henare vs. Clark Connors, Karl Fredericks & KENTA - 6.5/10

This was great, the tease of KENTA and Okada was perfect, both men are coming in cocky, and call me crazy, but Okada has a certain something of insecurity going against the man called Hideo Itami....jk, against fucking KENTA! The image of KENTA mocking the Rainmaker pose was glorious.

The LA Dojo kids were great here too, far better than the geek squad that came out with Okada. YOSHI-HASHI submitted Connors with the Butterfly Lock.

G1 Climax 2019 Block B Match
Juice Robinson [4] vs. Toru Yano [4] - 4/10

Even for a Yano match, this wasn't as good as Juice is now pretending to be a serious wrestler, so it was a lot of Juice blocking Yano and not wanting to play games. Juice won with Pulp Friction. At least it was short.

Also, on my last review they did Juice vs Mox in the teaser, so I thought that was out match tonight, so disregard what I said about that. It ended up being a false alarm.

G1 Climax 2019 Block B Match
Hirooki Goto [2] vs. Taichi [2] w/Miho Abe - 8.5/10

I loved the start of the match, with Taichi beating up Fredericks, provoking the unsuspecting Goto as he made his entrance. I wish that Taichi would have held the dead body of Fredericks instead of the LA Dojo tee, but I won't let that bring it down. As much as a chickenshit heel Taichi is, he sure as heel is devious and vicious.

Match was great, another good Taichi match with tons of strikes, kicks, and the expected at this point, ref bump. Match felt kinda short because Goto was chasing the Ushigoroshi from really early, and Taichi controlled most of the first half of the match, which just kinda transitioned into a short comeback and chasing finishers. After the ref shenanigans, mic stands and all, Taichi low blowed Goto and rolled him up with the Gedo Clutch for the win. It wasn't either man's best match of the tournament, but it far from the worst either.

G1 Climax 2019 Block B Match
Jon Moxley [6] vs. Shingo Takagi [4] - 9/10

I don't know why, but it really bothers me that Moxley is all personal and antagonizing with everyone, even if they don't even know each other, like why is he all up and arms on Shingo of all people, they didn't even have a build up match. I don't even think Shingo was expecting it, he was trying to play up and not kiss Mox at the same time.

Match was awesome tho, really hard hitting, I was really glad seeing Moxley take on a Dragon Gate hard hitter. I knew there was no way Mox was losing here, so I also appreciated that they gave Shingo a lot by making him hard to keep down, Shingo even kicked out of the Death Rider. Story here was Moxley going after Shingo's leg, which he sold masterfully, so at the end, Shingo couldn't even stand on his own, making his Pumping Bombers and moves seem more like desperation than dominant, and yet, Mox couldn't keep him down. Moxley ended up submitting Shingo with a Texas Cloverleaf, which I also liked that not even the Death Rider was enough.

Moxley is the only man to reach 8 in Block B, and I really really really hope that Fumi Saito is wrong and he doesn't win the block, far less the G1 itself. Too soon.

G1 Climax 2019 Block B Match
Jay White [0] vs. Jeff Cobb [2] - 8/10

I really really hoped these two would pair up nicely, and at points of the match they did, but White's stalling and the ref bump killed the momentum. Cobb is a dude that worst best when there's a small space between him and his opponent, but with White leaving the ring, Gedo being all over the place, it left Cobb with a lot of selling time and a lot of standing. Cobb is explosive, but not in the Ospreay sense that can find you regardless where you are.

Match was pretty much what I predicted. White doing more hit and run, and doing some cool reversals, while Cobb's offense was more in the 'if I catch you, you're fucked' side. Cobb also kept getting distracted with Gedo, but I actually liked that Cobb tried to take out Gedo at points, it seemed like a smarter way to approach a match with White. The chase to the Tour of the Islands vs Bladerunner was pretty good, TotI is a move easy to escape for someone with White's agility, and Cobb being strong, could easily block the Bladerunner, except for that last one that White dropped and won. We knew White was winning, and he is surely winning the rest until the finals. Good, but could had been better.

G1 Climax 2019 Block B Match
Tetsuya Naito [2] vs. Tomohiro Ishii [4] - 9/10

Naito vs Ishii, we've seen this a ton of times, and it was still great. It was their usual formulaic match, with tons of striking, headbutts, sliding lariats/dropkicks. Naito worked Ishii's neck, while Ishii just kinda beat up Naito. There was a lot of great sequence here, mostly both men hitting and countering moves until neither could stand anymore. Naito at one point hit Gloria and the running Destino for near falls. Naito hit a Poisonrana that looked terrible for Ishii's neck. Finish finally came after a long chase for Destino with Naito escaping the brainbuster, hitting a Michinoku Driver, and the final Destino for the win. Great main event, but I feel it was due to the lackluster match it followed.

There was a great superplex, which is such a common move now a days that you don't usually pay attention to them anymore, but Ishii kinda held the suplex in the air before trying to push himself away from the ropes, he gave a little kick mid-air, and just looked intense.

Post-match - Naito closed his winner's promo saying that Hiroshima is his town and that he once reinvented himself here, and would do it again. He did the Ingobernable roll-call which I can't remember that last time I saw a complete one with the crew in the ring.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

This was a ref bump heavy show, I got kinda tired of it by the main event. It was still a good show and I liked the main event, but I think this was one of the weaker G1 shows so far. By weaker I still mean 'better than 80% of televised wrestling'.