The twenty-fourth annual G1 Climax has come to an end. Comparitively, our week three review comes a little late, but this is down to the simple fact that the tournament’s closing days have left us in such a state of shellshock that it has taken a little while to fully recover enough to formulate our thoughts. It doesn’t make things any easier when you realise that there isn’t a single adjective that can be affixed to this tournament that hasn’t already been said. Not a single superlative left unvocalised. And this was just after the first two weeks. The eighth day of the tournament had plenty of reasons to get excited, but with everyone looking forward to the clash of Bullet Club members AJ Styles and Karl Anderson barely twenty-four hours later, it would take a lot to keep the day from getting lost in the shuffle of a tournament which had already delivered plenty of heart-in-mouth moments, with more undoubtedly to come. But stand out it will, with collisions between Styles and Lance Archer, Tetsuya Naito and Hirooki Goto, Minoru Suzuki and Togi Makabe, before Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura tore the house down in a main event which could have gone either way at any point. Even though no match on the show will be looked at as match of the year by the time we reach December, Day Eight will still go down as one of the tournament’s best. The show, however, would be stolen by the hard-hitting Katsuyori Shibata and the tournament’s resident underdog Tomoaki Honma. Still without a win to his name, Honma threw everything into a massive fight which would rival his showdown with Ishii as his strongest performance in his debut G1 year. Ultimately Honma would come up short but there can be no complaints from the 37-year-old on this occasion. And there would, unfortunately, be no fairytale ending for Honma, no grand payoff or moment in the sun, going down as the first G1 entrant to finish without a single point in eight years. Even at the finals in the magnificent-looking Seibu Dome there would be no chance for Honma’s growing fanbase to celebrate, as he went down to Naito in one of the night’s more disappointing matches, given the consistent strength of both participants throughout the tournament itself.
The Styles-Anderson match was easily the top attraction of Day Nine for a Western viewer, though it would be Goto and the Rainmaker, Kazuchika Okada, taking the main event slot at the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium. Speculation had run wild about whether a “fingerpoke of doom” affair would take place as the two top Bullet Club members faced off, and this would in fact be teased in the match itself as Anderson laid down for the IWGP Heavyweight Champion shortly after the bell rang. It was all a trap however, and one that Styles would barely escape after being rolled up by his stablemate. Styles would return the favour before the two went on to defy all expectations, and rewrite the book on how to win fans over to a match between two heel gaijin partners. The first inter-Bullet Club face off in G1 24 between Doc Gallows and Bad Luck Fale may have floundered, but both Styles and Anderson threw their all into this one, and it paid off massively. Ishii has suffered from a major wear and tear as the tournament progressed, with word of a separated shoulder spreading as the Seibu Dome final approached. Nonetheless, he has been one of the top competitors throughout, even when the spotlight has been snapped up by the likes of Okada, Nakamura and Styles. When the “Stone Pitbull” stepped in the ring with Shibata on Day Ten, however, it would be perhaps his biggest test yet. In last year’s tournament the two faced off in what would ultimately be rated a five star match by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Obverver Newsletter. There was plenty of reason to be excited therefore and even with this year’s clash not quite measuring up to the war they’d engaged in before, it can easily go down as another of G1 24’s finest matches. But from here, Ishii would go on to face Yuji Nagata, and the fight that ensued would eclipse everything that either competitor had produced so far this year. Words can’t do justice to this particular fight. Just… you can find it online. Go do that right now, and then come back to read the rest of this article. Honestly, this can wait. Ishii and Nagata deserve your attention right now.
Back? Good. Well, Day Ten would toss up another instant classic in the form of Okada-Suzuki, in which Okada would secure the victory and with it, his place in the final against Block A winner Nakamura while Styles would meet Hiroshi Tanahashi in the runners-up fight. With that, the Seibu Dome card had fully taken shape. After the weeks of round robin singles competition, a card dominated by multi-man tag matches seemed almost like a thing of the past. But with a whole lot of talent to squeeze into the day of the finals, a promotion that had recently been transported to a completely new level came crashing back to the realms of reality, and it all took a while to get going in the first, tag-dominated half of G1’s final evening. SuzukiGun skirmished with Chaos, Bullet Club were Bullet Club, but it was all filler until Ring of Honor dropped onto the scene. The superb team of Jushin Thunder Liger and Captain New Japan played the hosts for their American opponents, Adam Cole and Michael Bennet. Maria Kanellis played her role as devious distraction to perfection, suckering in CNJ throughout the match and ultimately proving the downfall of the Japanese pairing. From here, the Timesplitters would retain their IWGP Junior Tag Championships against the Ring of Honor Tag Champions ReDragon, to even the scoreline before the two promotions. From Ring of Honor to Global Force Wrestling, and the arrival of GFW head Jeff Jarrett was the cue for everything to step up a notch. After a brief contract signing to make the partnership between NJPW and Double J’s new venture official, Naito and Honma faced off in a match which was not given anywhere near enough time. Hopefully the two are given longer to duke it out sometime in future, as Honma has really come into his own since taking Ibushi’s place in this tournament, while Naito has remained one of G1’s underappreciated stars throughout. Anderson relied on a great counter to put away a wounded Ishii while Goto and Shibata arguably disappointed compared to their previous showdowns. From there, however, we were into main event territory, where the world could embrace New Japan Pro Wrestling at its flashy, stylistic and slightly crazy best. Styles went down to Tanahashi in a great runners-up match, but it’s the moments after, when Jeff Jarrett joined Bullet Club, that everything would- wait, what?
Unexpected and unbelievable, two words that NJPW has lived by for years. It was almost self-parody, and God knows what this means for GFW or their relationship with their new Japanese partners. One-off or not, there’s clearly a whole lot more to come in this story. But there was still one match left. Still one matter left to resolve. Who would take the title of G1 Climax Champion and book their slot at Wrestle Kingdom 9? Well Okada and Nakamura are no strangers to delivering on a big stage, and Nakamura dodged every bullet Okada could think to fire, it looked like Gedo’s golden boy may have fallen at the final hurdle. But with three successive Rainmaker lariats, Okada would secure his place in the Tokyo Dome. Voices of Wrestling’s Joe Lanza may have put it best: “Taking the title from this man and making him a booking afterthought this past spring may have been the biggest stroke of genius from Gedo & Jado yet.”
And so ends G1 Climax 24. If you’ve joined us for the ride, then we hope you’ve found it as fantastic as us. It’s hard to see how you couldn’t, with the last few weeks offering up what is without exception the best professional wrestling tournament you may ever see. But then again, people said that about last year’s G1 too, so who’s to tell what lies in store when the tournament turns twenty-five years old next year? One thing is for certain, it’s going to be an absolute pleasure to find out.
7bitarcade - Archive 