NJPW G1 Climax 28 Night 11: Results, Review, Standings, Grades

Moving into the second half of NJPW’s G1 28, Night 11 had the chance to be one of A Block’s strongest displays yet. With a promising card featuring marquee matchups like EVIL vs Suzuki and Okada vs Elgin, was the show able to live up to its potential?

Togi Makabe vs Bad Luck Fale

They start off exactly how you’d expect: by trading shoulder blocks. Togi’s big but Fale’s bigger, so he gets the best of the exchange. The NJPW Underboss takes his advantage to the outside and dominates for a while, but Makabe is resilient. He mounts a comeback until — SURPRISE — Loa pulls the ref out of the ring and gets involved. After a messy finishing sequence, Fale hits Makabe with his own chain and gets the win.

As Rocky noted on commentary, Fale has had mostly the same strategy in every match so far. It makes sense in kayfabe for him to consistently stick to a gameplan, but from an entertainment standpoint it’s really getting old.

I don’t hate the Firing Squad interference as much as most. I think it’s been pretty well done most of the time, but it just didn’t work in this match at all. There’s absolutely no reason Fale shouldn’t have been DQ’d, and inconsistent referring continues to be an annoying blemish on NJPW’s otherwise incredible product.

Rating: **

Jay White vs Hangman Page

The match begins with some wild brawling on the outside. Strikes are traded for a while, then both guys start hitting some big moves- a beautiful suicide dive/running shooting star press from Hangman, and a ringside Saito suplex/apron slam from Switchblade.

White starts working the lower back and gets that good heat, but Page explodes back with big reversals and lariats with his back against the wall. They cresendo with some exciting back and forth down the stretch. Hangman fires up and teases the Rite of Passage multiple times, but White manages to heel his way to a Bladerunner and another victory.

This was definitely a step up from their meeting at Strong Style Evolved. The stuff with the chair took a bit of breath out of the finish, but the build and pacing overall was good. Page and White continued their breakout performances and worked to their strengths.

Rating: ***1/2