NJPW G1 Special 2018 Results, Highlights, and Grades
G1 SPECIAL IS UNDERWAY!
— NJPW WORLD (@njpwworld) July 8, 2018
Our first match is a family affair! King Haku teams with sons @tama_tonga and @tangaloanjpw ! #G1USA is LIVE on @njpwworld now! (Non US)
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All eyes were on NJPW Saturday night for the newest installment in their quest to gain more popularity in the good ol’ US of A. What went down? Which matches delivered and which fell short?
10 Man Tag: Bullet Club def Chaos (Tama Tonga pinned Gedo)
This was a fine opener. Nothing to write home about, but it was harmless. King Haku is a hoot at 59 years old. Him and Yoshi-Hashi going back and forth to kick off the show was every bit as weird as it sounds.
Rocky Romero shined, really making the most of his time in the match with some solid selling and a couple of memorable spots- a nice suicide dive and a cleeeaaaan double rana. He reminded everyone why he’s too good to be wrestling as little as he does. He’s great as RPG 3K’s manager, but he isn’t necessary for SHO & YOH to be successful. Get him a new tag team partner… or, what the heck, let him get a run at Hiromu for the Jr Heavyweight Championship. Why not?
Tama Tonga got the W for Bullet Club after a Haku-assisted gun stun to Gedo.
Rating: **3/4
G1 SPECIAL in SF!
— NJPW WORLD (@njpwworld) July 8, 2018
The catch as catch kings of #suzukigun, @suzuki_d_minoru and @zacksabrejr use their submission mastery to leave @YTR_CHAOS with no leg to stand on! #G1USA is LIVE on @njpwworld now! (non US)
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Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano def Minoru Suzuki & ZSJ (Yano pinned Sabre Jr)
Anytime Suzuki and Ishii are in a match together, it’s at least going to be decent. This was just that- decent. There was some good back and forth between the Stone Pitbull and the scariest man on Earth, but not as much as I would’ve liked.
Yano was doing his thing. Shenanigans aplenty. There was one sequence in particular where he was getting a really nice response from the crowd. Props to the man. ZSJ did ZSJ things, but he was mostly a non-factor.
The finish came when Ishii got away from Suzuki long enough to hit a big lariat, into a Yano roll-up for the 1 2 3. Yano gets some momentum going into the G1 and Ishii finally gets one over on Suzuki.
Rating: ***
https://twitter.com/AXSTV/status/1015760755302395904
Hangman Page & Marty Scurll def Hiroshi Tanahashi & KUSHIDA (Page pinned KUSHIDA)
In my opinion, this was the most forgettable match of the night. Marty was doing some good heel work towards the beginning, Tanahashi was existing (which is honestly all he needs to do to be awesome), and KUSHIDA and Page had a nice little sequence to close the match, but other than that there was nothing noteworthy here.
Page hit the Rite of Passage on Kushida for the pinfall and some G1 momentum of his own.