New Japan kicked off the New Japan Road Tour today, their traditional June tour that will build to a special STRONG doubleheader in Tokyo in July this year. Today also featured the announcement of the blocks for this year’s G1 CLIMAX Tournament.
Today’s event was held at Makuhari Messe International Exhibition Hall 1 in Chiba and can be watched on demand on New Japan World. This was a Samurai! TV broadcast.
The announced paid attendance was 684.
Match 1: Kosei Fujita beat Yuto Nakashima.
Match 2: Tomoaki Honma & Togi Makabe beat Boltin Oleg & Oskar Leube. Honma pinned Leube after Kokeshi.
Match 3: Yoh, Ryusuke Taguchi, Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI beat Dick Togo, Sho, Yujito Takahashi & EVIL. Yoh pinned Togo after Direct Drive.
Match 4: Francesco Akira, TJP & Aaron Henare beat Gedo, CLark Connors & Drilla Moloney (Dan Moloney). Henare beat Gedo with Ultima.
Match 5: Gabriel Kidd & Alex Coughlin beat Ryohei Oiwa & Hirooki Goto. Kidd pinned Oiwa after a piledriver. Afterwards, Kidd & Coughlin made a double tag title challenge to Goto & YOSHI-HASHI.
The G1 CLIMAX 33 blocks and preliminary matches were announced. With 32 participants it will again be 4 blocks with a traditional round-robin format. See below for the full list of blocks.
Match 6: Master Wato, Tomohiro Ishii, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Kazuxhika Okada beat Tiger Mask, El Desperado, Ren Narita & Shota Umino. Ishii pinned TM 4 after a vertical drop brainbuster.
Main Event: In an Elimination Match, BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Yota Tsuji, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito beat TAKA Michinoku, DOUKI, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi & SANADA. Tsuji was the last man left, last eliminating DOUKI.
Here are the G1 CLIMAX 33 Blocks:
Block A: SANADA, Chase Owens, Hikuleo, Ren Narita, Shota Umino, Yota Tsuji, Gabriel Kidd, Kaito Kiyomiya (Pro Wrestling NOAH)
Block B: Kazuchika Okada, YOSHI-HASHI, Taichi, KENTA, Great-O-Khan, Will Ospreay, Tanga Loa, El Phantasmo
Block C: David Finlay, Tomohiro Ishii, EVIL, Tama Tonga, Shingo Takagi, Aaron Henare, Eddie Kingston (All Elite Wrestling), Mikey Nicholls
Block D: Hiroshi Tanahashi, Tetsuya Naito, Hirooki Goto, Zack Sabre Jr., Toru Yano, Jeff Cobb, Shane Haste, Alex Coughlin
All block matches will have a 20 minute time limit. This year the top 2 from each block will advance to the Quarterfinals, where it then shifts to single-elimination format. That makes things more interesting. My initial thoughts are as follows:
Block A: Only SANADA & Owens have prior G1 experience. SANADA has the highest bar as the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion so while he might go far, that all but means he’s not winning it all. Kiyomiya is the wild card as the outsider. Figure SANADA goes through easily, the second spot is a toss-up.
Block B: Okada is the 2-time defending champion and overwhelming favorite to 3-peat. Should be Okada & Ospreay. Okada not 3-peating will be a massive upset.
Block C: There is upset potential here but the clear favorites are EVIL & Takagi. Tonga & Henare are sleepers and Ishii guarantees some near-time-limit hoss fights. Kingston gets to live a personal dream and represent AEW but won’t advance.
Block D: The traditional Death Block. This is the one to watch and is wide open with, on paper, at least 5 having a reasonable chance. I would expect Naito to go through while Cobb has been a beast in the G1 the last couple years and hopefully can do it again. Never count Tanahashi out and same for Goto, also a former G1 winner. Sabre won the New Japan Cup this year which works for and against him. Forget Yano, Coughlin & Haste, they’re not advancing. By process of elimination I see Cobb joining Naito in moving on.
Each day of the tournament will see 2 blocks in action with alternating days, so it will be Blocks A & B at one event, then Blocks C & D at the next event, and so on for the first 12 days. Once we reach Day 13, the next 4 events will have one block with their final matches each day. Day 17 is the Quarterfinals, Day 18 & 19 at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo will be the Semifinals and Finals, respectively. The winner of the Finals on 8/13 is going to the main event of Tokyo Dome on 1/4/24 to face the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion.
The next event is tomorrow at Kamisu Disaster Prevention Center in Ibaraki. There will be no live or on demand broadcast (including tomorrow, no TV or on demand for the next 4 events). The next televised event is next Saturday.
