NJPW G1 Climax 28 Night 13: Review, Results, Standings, Grades

PARTYTIME Kazuchika Okada vs Minoru Suzuki

This immediately breaks down into a wild brawl. They fight into the crowd, through the chairs, with the chairs. The whole nine. Of course, Suzuki’s in his element and gets ahead. He goes for the countout victory twice, but Okada barely makes the count each time.

The King continues to dominate with a long submission sequence. Okada makes the ropes and tries to fight back, but his opponent is just too mean and scary. No matter what Kazu does, Minoru answers with more punishment. A dropkick seems to finally turn things around, but Suzuki locks in a sleeper and an octopus stretch.

Tombstone from Balloon Man out of nowhere. Then a sleeper. Suzuki reverses and goes for a tombstone of his own, but Okada turns it around and hits an awesome Gotch style tombstone. Suzuki kicks out, but the 360 lariat and Rainmaker ends it.

This was really great, just not quite up to par with what we’ve come to expect when these two face off. Suzuki was awesome as ever dealing out his stiff, brutal offense. And Okada sold well and made the comeback like only he can… The finish just felt a bit off to me, and some of the middle parts dragged. Suzuki is really starting to tire out at the end of long matches like this, and it showed. Still, the majority of the action was solid. Okada’s still the best, and Suzuki is still amazing for this stage of his career.

Rating: ***3/4

–

In conclusion, this was an okay show. The first three block matches were fine for what they were, and EVIL vs Tana/Okada vs Suzuki were both good, I was just a bit underwhelmed by each. I thought A block would really start to heat up at this point, but that just isn’t happening.

Show Rating: 6.5

Updated Standings:

Tanahashi: 12        Omega: 12

White: 10                 Naito: 10

Okada: 10                Ibushi: 8

EVIL: 8                      SANADA: 6

Suzuki: 8                 ZSJ: 6

Fale: 6                      Ishii: 4

Elgin: 6                    Goto: 4

Makabe: 4              Tonga: 4

Page: 4                    Juice: 4

Hashi: 2                  Yano: 2