NJPW G1 Climax 24: Day 12 Final
NJPW G1 Climax 24: Day 12 Final (8/10/2014)- Tokorozawa, Japan
SATOSHI KOJIMA, HIROYOSHI TENZAN, TIGER MASK IV, & RYUSUKE TAGUCHI vs. SUZUKI-GUN (El Desperado, TAKA Michinoku, Lance Archer, & Davey Boy Smith Jr.)- 5.5/10
MANABU NAKANISHI, BUSHI, & YUJI NAGATA vs. THE BULLET CLUB (Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale, & Yujiro Takahashi)- 6/10
TORU YANO, YOSHI-HASHI, & KAZUSHI SAKURABA vs. SUZUKI-GUN (Minoru Suzuki, Shelton X Benjamin, & Takashi Iizuka) (w/TAKA Michinoku)- 5/10
Toru Yano gets the hot tag. Takashi Iizuka, his good buddy-turned arch nemesis who stabbed him in the back a few months ago is down in the ring… and the first thing Yano does is run over to unlace the turnbuckle padding. This man clearly has an obsessive problem which he needs to seek treatment for.
So the secret to making this match not suck was to limit how much time both Yano and Iizuka got and especially together. Who could have seen that coming (aside from everyone, I mean)? It make you wonder why it took New Japan so long to figure that out.
The babyfaces won by DQ when Suzuki shoved a ref and wouldn’t break a sleeper on Sakuraba in the ropes. Suzuki and Sakuraba brawled afterwards.
JUSHIN â€"THUNDER†LIGER & CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN vs. THE KINGDOM (Adam Cole & Michael Bennett) (w/Maria Kanellis)- 6/10
We got gratuitous shots of Maria’s ass during the entrance. Maria grabbed Captain New Japan and shoved his face into her breasts and smushed it around… and for some reason Captain New Japan sold it, like this contact with the soft flesh of Maria’s boobs had someone hurt his mask-protected face.
Other than that, the match was good, with Cole and Liger doing a few very good nearfalls.
IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Time Splitters(c) vs. reDRagon- 9/10
AWESOME! Both teams worked over the arms, and they had some awesome nearfalls. Hopefully this will also be used to bring this match to North America for the ROH World Tag Team Titles.
TETSUYA NAITO vs. TOMOAKI HONA- 7.75/10
They tell this great story with both guys working over each other’s heads… then they do the Stardust Press for the finish? Really? Naito did a good job of playing the heel in this match. A sign of things to come?
TOMOHIRO ISHII vs. KARL ANDERSON (w/Yujiro Takahashi)- 8/10
Ishii’s superhuman strength in his separated shoulder finally fails him. I just wish it hadn’t happened in a spot that looked so dangerous for Anderson. And how about that YOSHI-HASHI run in?! The people went nuts for it. It reminded me a bit of Alex â€"Sugarfot†Payne’s run-in during the ROH World Title match at Rising Above 2008.
HIROOKI GOTO vs. KATSUYORI SHIBATA- 6.5/10
You should never have a match in which you no-sell more suplexes than you actually sell. EVER. They did their standard stuff where they don’t sell anything in the beginning, but then both sell later after almost every single move, no matter who hits it. There was definitely a lot of good stuff in here, but the first half of the match really hurt things for me.
G1 CLIMAX 24 3RD PLACE MATCH: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. AJ Styles (the Bullet Club)- 8.5/10
Awesome stuff from two of the best in the world. The one thing I didn’t like was how quickly Tanahashi was moving after that Ganso bomb. Yeah, he sold for a while, but I didn’t like how quickly he got up and ran to the top rope.
The place went F*CKING NUTS for the finish, and they how have a build-in story for their rematch, which is that Tanahashi keeps blocking the Styles Clash. Should AJ go for it because it might put Tanahashi down, or should he stay away from it because Tanahashi has it scouted so well?
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
We got a Bullet Club beatdown in which AJ hit the Styles Clash on Tanahashi just out of spite. Then Jeff Jarrett and Scott D’Amore came out to make the save. Unfortunately, the moment you saw Jarrett wielding just the case for his guitar rather than a guitar itself, you knew there was a swerve coming. Jarrett got his guitar out… and it had a Bullet Club logo on it. He hit Tanahashi with the guitar.
So we have a swerve purely for the sake of a swerve, Jeff Jarrett in a top heel stable, and no babyfaces coming out to help whatsoever… I guess we know where Vince Russo is working now.
G1 CLIMAX 24 TOURNAMENT FINAL: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kazuchika Okada (w/Gedo)-9.25/10
A fantastic match, with both guys working over the other’s head. Boma Ye vs. Rain Maker: which move will put the other guy away? (that being said, I think they missed a HUGE opportunity by not doing a spot that was Boma Ye, kickout, another Boma Ye, followed by another kickout, just because it seemed like they had been building up Boma Ye, kickout, Boma Ye for the pin as a sequence that ended most of Nakamura’s match in the tournament.)
An AWESOME show from New Japan, capping off an equally AWESOME tournament.
SATOSHI KOJIMA, HIROYOSHI TENZAN, TIGER MASK IV, & RYUSUKE TAGUCHI vs. SUZUKI-GUN (El Desperado, TAKA Michinoku, Lance Archer, & Davey Boy Smith Jr.)- 5.5/10
MANABU NAKANISHI, BUSHI, & YUJI NAGATA vs. THE BULLET CLUB (Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale, & Yujiro Takahashi)- 6/10
TORU YANO, YOSHI-HASHI, & KAZUSHI SAKURABA vs. SUZUKI-GUN (Minoru Suzuki, Shelton X Benjamin, & Takashi Iizuka) (w/TAKA Michinoku)- 5/10
Toru Yano gets the hot tag. Takashi Iizuka, his good buddy-turned arch nemesis who stabbed him in the back a few months ago is down in the ring… and the first thing Yano does is run over to unlace the turnbuckle padding. This man clearly has an obsessive problem which he needs to seek treatment for.
So the secret to making this match not suck was to limit how much time both Yano and Iizuka got and especially together. Who could have seen that coming (aside from everyone, I mean)? It make you wonder why it took New Japan so long to figure that out.
The babyfaces won by DQ when Suzuki shoved a ref and wouldn’t break a sleeper on Sakuraba in the ropes. Suzuki and Sakuraba brawled afterwards.
JUSHIN â€"THUNDER†LIGER & CAPTAIN NEW JAPAN vs. THE KINGDOM (Adam Cole & Michael Bennett) (w/Maria Kanellis)- 6/10
We got gratuitous shots of Maria’s ass during the entrance. Maria grabbed Captain New Japan and shoved his face into her breasts and smushed it around… and for some reason Captain New Japan sold it, like this contact with the soft flesh of Maria’s boobs had someone hurt his mask-protected face.
Other than that, the match was good, with Cole and Liger doing a few very good nearfalls.
IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Time Splitters(c) vs. reDRagon- 9/10
AWESOME! Both teams worked over the arms, and they had some awesome nearfalls. Hopefully this will also be used to bring this match to North America for the ROH World Tag Team Titles.
TETSUYA NAITO vs. TOMOAKI HONA- 7.75/10
They tell this great story with both guys working over each other’s heads… then they do the Stardust Press for the finish? Really? Naito did a good job of playing the heel in this match. A sign of things to come?
TOMOHIRO ISHII vs. KARL ANDERSON (w/Yujiro Takahashi)- 8/10
Ishii’s superhuman strength in his separated shoulder finally fails him. I just wish it hadn’t happened in a spot that looked so dangerous for Anderson. And how about that YOSHI-HASHI run in?! The people went nuts for it. It reminded me a bit of Alex â€"Sugarfot†Payne’s run-in during the ROH World Title match at Rising Above 2008.
HIROOKI GOTO vs. KATSUYORI SHIBATA- 6.5/10
You should never have a match in which you no-sell more suplexes than you actually sell. EVER. They did their standard stuff where they don’t sell anything in the beginning, but then both sell later after almost every single move, no matter who hits it. There was definitely a lot of good stuff in here, but the first half of the match really hurt things for me.
G1 CLIMAX 24 3RD PLACE MATCH: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. AJ Styles (the Bullet Club)- 8.5/10
Awesome stuff from two of the best in the world. The one thing I didn’t like was how quickly Tanahashi was moving after that Ganso bomb. Yeah, he sold for a while, but I didn’t like how quickly he got up and ran to the top rope.
The place went F*CKING NUTS for the finish, and they how have a build-in story for their rematch, which is that Tanahashi keeps blocking the Styles Clash. Should AJ go for it because it might put Tanahashi down, or should he stay away from it because Tanahashi has it scouted so well?
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- didn’t like it
We got a Bullet Club beatdown in which AJ hit the Styles Clash on Tanahashi just out of spite. Then Jeff Jarrett and Scott D’Amore came out to make the save. Unfortunately, the moment you saw Jarrett wielding just the case for his guitar rather than a guitar itself, you knew there was a swerve coming. Jarrett got his guitar out… and it had a Bullet Club logo on it. He hit Tanahashi with the guitar.
So we have a swerve purely for the sake of a swerve, Jeff Jarrett in a top heel stable, and no babyfaces coming out to help whatsoever… I guess we know where Vince Russo is working now.
G1 CLIMAX 24 TOURNAMENT FINAL: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kazuchika Okada (w/Gedo)-9.25/10
A fantastic match, with both guys working over the other’s head. Boma Ye vs. Rain Maker: which move will put the other guy away? (that being said, I think they missed a HUGE opportunity by not doing a spot that was Boma Ye, kickout, another Boma Ye, followed by another kickout, just because it seemed like they had been building up Boma Ye, kickout, Boma Ye for the pin as a sequence that ended most of Nakamura’s match in the tournament.)
An AWESOME show from New Japan, capping off an equally AWESOME tournament.