The Road To Tokyo Dome is officially underway as New Japan has announced the field for the 35th G1 CLIMAX Tournament, their biggest tournament of the year. This year will be a field of 20 split into 2 blocks, with a play-in tournament determining the last 4 of those 20.
The 16 already in are as follows:
Block A: Hirooki Goto, Boltin Oleg, Yuya Uemura, Yota Tsuji, David Finlay, EVIL, SANADA, Hiroshi Tanahashi
Block B: El Phantasmo, Shota Umino, Shingo Takagi, Zack Sabre Jr., Great-O-Khan, Gabriel Kidd, Ren Narita, Konosuke Takeshita
Sabre is the defending tournament winner.
The play-in matches, where the winners of each match qualify, are as follows:
Block A: Taichi vs. Callum Newman (6/23), Ryohei Oiwa vs. Don Fale (7/4)
Block B: Tomohiro Ishii vs. Drilla Moloney (6/23), YOSHI-HASHI vs. Chase Owens (7/4)
The tournament starts on 7/20 in Hokkaido and ends on 8/17 at Ariake Arena in Tokyo. This year the top 3 in each block will advance, with the block winners advancing directly to the Semifinals and 2nd & 3rd going to a playoff match. The winner of the tournament gets an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match, while traditionally at Tokyo Dome that is not always the case-Sabre gambled on an early cash-in to go to October’s Royal Quest 4 event in his home country of England as champion and it paid off because he won the title.
In non-G1 news, a new Young Lion will debut during the upcoming New Japan Soul 2025 tour as Tatsuya Matsumoto will begin his career on Wednesday, and will face Zane Jay in the first of a series of matches between them on the tour. Jay is a graduate of the US-based NJPW Academy, the first true graduate to make his Japan debut in the promotion after training & competing in US events. Earlier this year he gave up his ‘STRONG Survivor” title and guaranteed position in opening matches on US events to pursue training and competing in Japan.
Matsumoto, 24, is a Junior Heavyweight and former personal trainer who passed the entrance test in 2023 and began training last year. He was a wrestler in high school.
UPDATE: Taichi has announced on social media that Just 5/4 Guys is no more. After the return and subsequent defection of DOUKI to House Of Torture, Taichi is disbanding the faction, which was really just himself and Yuya Uemura now (plus TAKA Michinoku although he is a freelancer, they were 5 until SANADA defected to HOT too) and will now be part of the main aka unaffiliated New Japan core unit.