NJPW G1 Special 2018 Results, Highlights, and Grades

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

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.

Rating: **1/2

NEVER Openweight Championship: Hirooki Goto(c) def Jeff Cobb

Dangit. I wanted this to be better. It should’ve been better. Both Goto and Cobb are fantastic professional wrestlers, and it was obvious that both guys gave it their all, but this never completely clicked for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a solid championship match. I just expected a lot more.

There was some fun back and forth action between the athletic powerhouses. They started off by trading a bit of standard hoss, strong style offense- high impact shoulder blocks, heavy strikes, and some big suplexes and tosses. Then, we got a glimpse of some of the athleticism both guys possess- a beautiful dropkick and standing moonsault from Cobb and a flawless plancha to the outside by Goto.

The match felt like it was building to an exciting, satisfying crescendo. However, the finish came abruptly and fell flat. Still, in the end, Goto came out of this looking like a dominant champion, which is great. Hopefully we’ll see more of Cobb wrestling for New Japan in the future. I’d love to see him mix it up with some of the company’s other top guys.

Rating: ***

IWGP Tag Team Championship: The Young Bucks(c) def EVIL & SANADA

This wasn’t quite as cohesive or nuanced as the match these teams put on at Dominion, but it still delivered a healthy dose of drama and fast-paced action. There were a couple of great near falls towards the end of the match that felt entirely appropriate at this point in the feud. Great stuff. I was pulling for EVIL & SANADA (partially because I would’ve loved to get a rubber match), but I can’t complain about The Bucks retaining. They’re fitting in perfectly with the heavyweight division and are clearly a force to be reckoned with.

Sidenote: I appreciate the foresight and thoughtfulness behind the decision to have EVIL & SANADA go fully heel for the first time in over 6 months. This maximized crowd response, as the fine people of San Francisco were never ever going to root against The Bucks.

Nick and Matt Jackson seriously blow me away every single time I watch them wrestle. Take nothing away from EVIL & SANADA. They’re spectacular wrestlers, and have more than pulled their weight in this rivalry, but I can’t help but swoon over The Young Bucks. They’re head and shoulders above every other tag team on Earth right now. Nobody can touch them.

Rating: ****1/4

Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay def Tetsuya Naito & Bushi (Ospreay pinned Bushi)

Ya’ll, I can’t get over seeing Okada without that belt. I think his reign lasted so long that I convinced myself the thing was a part of his body. Just a golden appendage or something. It’s Okada after all- the greatest man to ever live. Would anyone be surprised if actual golden appendages started growing out of his perfectly proportioned body? I don’t think so.

Sorry. I’ll stop.

On the real though, as happy as I am about Omega winning the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, there’s a part of me that wants Okada to win it back ASAP. I can’t help it. It just feels right.

Anyways, as far as this match goes, it was decent. I wasn’t expecting Okada or Naito to do much of the heavy lifting at all, so I wasn’t underwhelmed or anything. I expected decent, and I got decent. Ospreay and Bushi carried most of the match, and they did a good job. Will is never not awesome, and Bushi continues to be one of New Japan’s most underrated, underappreciated performers.

Ospreay beat Bushi with Stormbreaker. (Another thing I can’t get over is Stormbreaker. What a cool move.)

Rating: **3/4

IWGP Jr Heavyweight Championship: Hiromu Takahashi(c) def Dragon Lee

Oof. That bridging package powerbomb was ROUGH. I love seeing crazy stuff in my wrestling, that was a bit too much though. Hiromu has a reputation for taking nasty bumps that many would deem to be unsafe, but this was the first time a spot in one of his matches has made me feel uncomfortable… I guess what I’m trying to say is- BE CAREFUL, YA’LL. DON’T DIE.

If you’re not aware already, Hiromu Takahashi is the absolute best. He’s genuinely unique, endlessly charismatic, and an unbelievable in-ring performer. Ticking Timebomb is truly the total package.

No one brings out the best in Hiromu quite like Dragon Lee. All of their matches are unforgettable spectacles, and this was no different. Both guys threw everything at each other at a frenetic pace, and it was awesome. This wasn’t the best match they’ve had together like I was hoping it would be… That disgusting Dragon Driver spot was just a little too insane for my taste, and the finish felt a bit off, but still, they delivered another great match.

Rating: ****

IWGP US Heavyweight Championship: Juice Robinson def Jay White(c)

THIS. WAS. SO. GOOD.

Sometimes in wrestling everything just comes together organically to create a perfect, remarkable moment. This was one of those times. As always, Juice played the babyface role perfectly, and this was the best performance of Switchblade’s run by a mile. The crowd was hot, and the title change was perfectly timed. SO. GOOD.

The match was worked as a slow, grueling brawl, which completely separated it from the other top matches on the show. Robinson’s babyface fire and White’s outstanding heel work had the crowd in an absolute frenzy. There were lulls where there needed to be lulls, and fast paced/high impact sequences when the match needed to pick up a bit. I loved how Juice’s hand injury was worked into the match too. The pop when he finally hit him with it was great and well deserved.

I didn’t especially love the whole fiasco with JR and Barnett, as I feel it went on a bit too long, but it didn’t take away from the match much.

God bless the Juice-S-A, baby.

Rating: ****3/4

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kenny Omega(c) def Cody Rhodes

The instant classic that Juice and Jay put on was a tough act to follow, but I think Kenny and Cody delivered a good main event that effectively wrapped up their feud. I’ve seen some saying that they went too long and the match felt bloated, but I don’t agree with that criticism at all. This was the conclusion of one of 2018’s biggest, most important rivalries. It needed to be epic. Anything less than 30 minutes wouldn’t have felt quite right to me.

Kenny asserted his dominance over Cody for the large majority of this match, stomping him through a table, power bombing him onto another, and hitting a ton of V-triggers. By the end of the match, it was natural to feel a bit of sympathy for Cody, which is exactly what they were going for.

Rating: ****

After the match, Kenny and The Bucks were posing on the ramp when, all of a sudden, Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa and King Haku attacked them from behind. After the Tongans had left all of Bullet Club laying, Cody came out and managed to run them off, turning face in the process. It was a stellar post-match angle, and a perfect way to reunite Kenny and Cody. I can’t wait to see this new Bullet Club civil war play out. It should be a ton of fun.

Next: Extreme Rules Match Card Predictions

In conclusion,

NJPW’s G1 Special in San Francisco was a solid show. A few of the matches didn’t fully realize their potential, but everything delivered that needed to. The new developments with Bullet Club are extremely interesting, The US Championship match was a legit MOTY contender, and the other Championship matches were solid to great.

Show Rating: 8