NJPW and ROH Present G1 Supercard: A Tale of Two Promotions

Last night, New Japan Pro Wrestling and Ring of Honor went to Madison Square Garden for their epic G1 Supercard event. By the time the night was over, it was clear that one promotion knew exactly what they were doing and the other was walking all over itself.

For the first time in over half a century, professional wrestling came to Madison Square Garden and it wasn’t under the brand of WWE. In a co-branded event, NJPW and ROH came together for G1 Supercard. While it was clear history had been made by the time the night was over, it was also clear which of the two promotions reigned supreme. G1 Supercard wasn’t intended to be a competition, but that didn’t stop New Japan Pro Wrestling from effortlessly winning the night with proper storytelling and matches.

Each Promotion Sets Their Tone for G1 Supercard

Right from the start of G1 Supercard with the Honor Rumble Battle Royal, you could see the promotions making very different decisions. The thirty-man match featured surprise appearances, legends, and wrestlers from both promotions vying for a shot at the ROH World Championship. In many ways, the match was about being a fun start to a night that would excite thousands of fans in attendance for a show that would ultimately last until nearly midnight.

As things wound down in the Honor Rumble, we were left with the final two competitors being legends Jushin Thunder Liger and The Great Muta. The crowd was on their feet with the realization one of these veterans would get a shot at the ROH World Championship and was ready to see them face off. Unfortunately, Ring of Honor’s Kenny King hadn’t actually been eliminated.

Instead, King had been lurking at ringside waiting for his moment. When only Liger and Muta were left, Kenny King slid back in to eliminate both of them and pick up the win. When the match began, Kenny King had actually been entrant number one and the commentary team explained he’d specifically requested that position to prove himself and earn the shot by running the gauntlet and lasting the entire match.

Yet, flying in the face of this logic, Kenny King no longer cared about proving himself, and took the easy way out by sneaking back into the ring and tossing out two legends who thought he wasn’t even still in the match. It made King, who seemed at the beginning of the match to be a fan-favorite ready to prove himself, look like a dirty heel ready to do anything to win. Which would be a great foil to many potential ROH Champions, but not the one who left the night as ROH World Champion, which we’ll get to later. This moment set the tone for the kind of night Ring of Honor chose to have.

The next match of the night also featured competitors from both brands as ROH Television Champion Jeff Cobb and NEVER Openweight Champion Will Ospreay competed with both titles on the line. For nearly thirteen minutes of non-stop action, Cobb and Ospreay took each other to the limit. Ospreay continued to embody his transition from “The Aerial Assassin” to just “The Assassin,” looking at one point during the match to finish Jeff Cobb off with his devastating strike The Hidden Blade.

While he was clearly representing Ring of Honor in this match, Jeff Cobb is no stranger to New Japan Pro Wrestling. Cobb has been on fire on the independent wrestling scene in the last few years, and walked into this match also holding the PWG World Championship, a title he won from WALTER who defeated Pete Dunne on Friday to become the WWE United Kingdom Champion. Cobb competed in NJPW’s 2017 World Tag League and challenge then-champion Hirooki Goto for the NEVER Openweight Title in 2018.

On this night, we saw a nod of confidence from both promotions in Jeff Cobb. The Hawaiian-born competitor took Will Ospreay to his limits, hitting his trademark Tour of the Islands to pick up the win, retain his ROH Television Championship, and capture the NEVER Openweight Title. It positions Cobb not only as a staple of Ring of Honor, but a staple of New Japan Pro Wrestling moving forward. It set the tone for the night that New Japan Pro Wrestling chose to have.

ROH Goes Off the Rails

In many ways, Ring of Honor went on to give us great matches at G1 Supercard and position talents as the future of their promotion, but they simultaneously failed to capitalize effectively on the potential in their talent and the very stories they had been telling. The next match of the night saw recent international signing Rush take on former ROH World Champion Dalton Castle. Rush destroyed Castle in a mere 15 seconds, sending former fan-favorite Dalton Castle spiraling out of control as he attacked his valets The Boys.

The next match of the night was for the Women of Honor World Championship, and was the only women’s match on the entire show. Women of Honor Champion Mayu Iwatani captured the title from Kelly Klein back at Bound By Honor on February 19, 2019, and helped add prestige to the championship the moment she held it. Iwatani is a veteran of Stardom, the most prestigious women’s promotion in Japan, and a multi-time champion in that company.

After less than two months with the title, Iwatani fell to previous champion Kelly Klein. Not only that, but it was clear shortly after the match that Iwatani was no longer the focus. Instead we saw Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, and Mandy Leon enter the ring. After a moment of looking like they might be on her side, the trio suddenly attacks Klein. As they exited the arena after the successful ambush, the faction name “The Allure” came on the screen to announce their arrival.

On the surface, it seems like a logical choice to bring Angelina Love and Velvet Sky, who were part of The Beautiful People during their tenure with TNA Wrestling, into ROH to form a similar group with Mandy Leon. Then again, it makes significantly less sense when you realize that previous ROH star Madison Rayne had left the company specifically over pushback for her idea to introduce a group like this. Rayne, also a member of The Beautiful People in TNA, had proposed the group but ROH reportedly wanted Mandy Leon to replace one of the members.

After the disagreements hit an impasse, Rayne came to terms with her release from Ring of Honor and instead returned to Impact Wrestling and signed a multi-year deal with the company. Now, with Rayne out of the company, ROH has instead decide to follow through on the exact idea that Madison Rayne had, but to do so without her, putting Mandy Leon with Sky and Love and giving them the new name “The Allure.” It was yet another illogical decision by Ring of Honor.

After that match, we got an appearance by nerdcore rapper Mega Ran who had written an exclusive song just about G1 Supercard. He then proceeded to perform the song live, which felt extremely out of place for an arena packed to the brim with die-hard wrestling fans. G1 Supercard sold out in mere minutes, and it’s no secret the fans wanted to see wrestling, not live music performances. The audience clearly made sure that was clear, and Mega Ran’s performance was interrupted a few minutes in by ROH’s Bully Ray.

After a brief altercation, Ray knocked Mega Ran out of the ring and kept the show going. Ray was initially scheduled to face Juice Robinson, but Robinson had been attacked backstage and wasn’t ready to compete. After spending some time on the shelf, Flip Gordon made his return from injury to challenge Bully Ray in Robinson’s place. Their New York City Street Fight commenced, but it didn’t take long for Silas Young and Shane Taylor to appear and attack Gordon.

Juice Robinson and his Lifeblood stablemate Mark Haskins finally came out on stage, Robinson looking ready to compete now, and things turned into an impromptu Six-Man Tag Team Match. What followed was fun chaos, and proved to be one of ROH’s better moments at G1 Supercard.

NJPW Watches ROH Go Off the Rails

Before we get to the NJPW-centric part of G1 Supercard, there were two other matches that heavily featured Ring of Honor. The first was a chaotic Fatal 4-Way Tag Team Match that was for both the ROH World Tag Team Titles and the IWGP Tag Team Titles. The latter belts were held by Guerrillas of Destiny, while the ROH Tag Titles were held by the unorthodox Villain Enterprises duo of PCO and Brody King.

An over thirty-year veteran of the ring, PCO retired from competition in 2011. However, against all odds, he rose to life and starting having the best years of his career on the independent scene starting in 2016. Following that theme, PCO was strapped into an electric chair and brought to life with jumper cables from a car battery as part of his entrance. It was a fitting spectacle, but it took about twice as long as it needed to, and showed ROH’s inexperience at putting together over-the-top grand stage moments like that.

The match also included ROH veteran team The Briscoes and NJPW’s duo Evil and Sanada representing Los Ingobernables de Japon. The match itself was great, featuring amazing spots from all competitors involved. As the match wound down, things ended with Guerillas of Destiny hitting a devastating top-rope powerbomb to pick up the win, retain their IWGP Tag Team Titles, and become the new ROH Tag Team Champions.

With the new champions celebrating in the ring, some commotion began at ringside. Bits and pieces of it were caught in the background of shots during the broadcast, but none of this ringside situation was ever acknowledged or intentionally shown during G1 Supercard. News surfaced quickly online, including videos from fans in attendance. Former WWE stars Enzo and Cass had jumped a barricade and began attacking The Briscoes at ringside.

The brawl continued as Guerillas of Destiny looked on and celebrated their win with their new belts, only to look on the stage and see Toru Yano had snatched their IWGP Tag Team Titles and fled with them. The NJPW stars on hand seemed to have no interest in whatever was going on at ringside, nor did the broadcast itself. Considering Enzo’s history of hijacking shows, there was an initial belief he and Cass could have arrived and chosen to do this of their own volition.

That belief quickly dissipated, as videos of the altercation at G1 Supercard made it clear that security had made zero effort to break things up. Reporting then started coming out that this was all planned, making ROH’s decision to leave it off camera seem completely absurd. It would have been a big story on its own merits to see the former WWE team attacking ROH talent during the broadcast, but pretending it wasn’t planned only for news to circulate that it clearly was made the whole thing feel weird. Especially when ROH intentionally retweeted video of the brawl they explicitly avoided showing during the broadcast.

ROH’s final match of the night, the first half of the show’s “dual main event,” saw the ROH World Championship contested in a three-way ladder match. ROH World Champion Jay Lethal defended his title against fan-favorite Marty Scurll and much-hated Matt Taven. Marty Scurll, the leader of Villain Enterprises and former member of The Elite and Bullet Club, received one of the loudest reactions all night as he made his way to the ring. It seemed like an omen of what could be Scurll’s crowning moment, but ROH didn’t feel that was the right direction to go.

The match itself, like most of ROH’s at G1 Supercard, was great. All three men gave it their all, and gave us some truly unforgettable sights. After nearly half an hour of brutal back and forth action, the man alone at the top of the ladder with both his competitors on the ground in a heap was none other than Matt Taven. He grabbed the belt, becoming the new ROH World Champion, and received a clearly negative reaction from a crowd that obviously wanted Marty Scurll to pick up the victory.

Not only did this solidify Matt Taven as one of Ring of Honor’s top names moving forward, but it served as a rebuke of Marty Scurll, a name many are now expecting will leave ROH when his contract expires to join his former friends from The Elite in All Elite Wrestling. Despite being an accomplished in-ring competitor, Matt Taven hasn’t exhibited the charisma to warrant being the top name in Ring of Honor, and felt like an odd choice to lead the company out of their biggest show to date.

NJPW Needs Only Logic and Good Wrestling

Now to the comparison this has all been building to. For there to be a “Tale of Two Promotions,” you have to see how they stack up against each other. Ring of Honor clearly gave us good matches, but walked all over those good matches with poor decisions, bad calls, and insufficient talent leading their brand. Meanwhile, New Japan Pro Wrestling had none of these problems at G1 Supercard.

NJPW has a history of good storylines and logical booking decisions. One of the things that most endears wrestling fans to the company is their consistency, which is not an easy thing to maintain in the wrestling business. In an industry where fan reaction can shift at the drop of a dime, companies often have a tendency to change plans in the middle of executing a long-term story if things don’t seem to be going exactly as intended.

More from NJPW

• AEW WrestleDream event card and information
• The new Bullet Club is obnoxious and it hurts to watch
• AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door II featured two epic matches packed with storytelling magic
• AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door II Full Card Predictions: Which promotion wins the show?
• Three women’s matches that would work on Forbidden Door II

NJPW doesn’t do that. They know how to play the long game. Their long game at G1 Supercard began with Jeff Cobb’s validation as a top tier talent and capturing of the NEVER Openweight Title. It continued later in the night with a high-octane triple threat match for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title. Taiji Ishimori was the champion going in, and found himself up against Dragon Lee and Bandido.

Back in 2017, Dragon Lee made a surprise arrival in NJPW and attacked then-IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi. He challenged Takahashi for the title one month later, but did not capture it. In that year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament he picked up a huge singles victory over Takahashi, the first singles loss for Hiromu since his return to NJPW in 2016. However, Dragon Lee did not win the tournament.

He made his way back to the title picture later in 2017, taking on Hiromu Takahashi yet again for the title at the G1 Special in San Francisco, but still failed to capture the title. As Dragon Lee continued to compete in his home promotion of CMLL, Takahashi remained a leader in the junior division for NJPW. He was champion as recently as August of 2018, when a shocking neck injury forced him to relinquish the title.

The vacant IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title was captured by Kushida, who lost it to Taiji Ishimori at Wrestle Kingdom 13 earlier this year. That was the path that brought Ishimori into this match, defending against Bandido and Dragon Lee. After nearly nine minutes of frenetic light-speed action, it was Dragon Lee who emerged victorious as the new IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion.

Perhaps what makes this most poetic is the reporting just over one month ago that Hiromu Takahashi was successfully recovering from his neck injury and his return to NJPW could be imminent. Dragon Lee failed several times to dethrone Takahashi, and now Hiromu could be returning to chase a title he never lost that’s around the waist of a man who never beat him. NJPW knows exactly what they’re doing.

NJPW long game continued in a match that technically was for the RPW British Heavyweight Championship, but featured two NJPW talents. Zack Sabre Jr. defended his RPW British Heavyweight Title against NJPW veteran Hiroshi Tanahashi. The two put together a truly spectacular match, and it led to Sabre getting an extremely important submission victory over an 8-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Great wrestling, and a result that laid the foundation for Sabre’s continued rise in NJPW.

In the penultimate NJPW match of the night, and undoubtedly one of the best matches at G1 Supercard, we saw Tetsuya Naito defend the IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Kota Ibushi. There was no doubt we’d get an instant classic from these two, who are certainly in the conversation as two of the greatest wrestlers walking the earth today. They gave us everything they had inside Madison Square Garden, and Kota Ibushi finally picked up the win to capture a title he has chased since failing to defeat Shinsuke Nakamura for it in 2015.

NJPW Delivers the Perfect Ending for G1 Supercard

Perhaps the greatest example of NJPW’s willingness to play the long game is shown by their IWGP Heavyweight Championship match at G1 Supercard. Look no further than Kazuchika Okada, the challenger going into the night. If you go all the way back to the beginning of Okada’s career, you see a young talent who spent a few years at the NJPW Dojo and was sent on excursion to grow as a competitor outside of NJPW, a common practice for the promotion.

Okada went to TNA Wrestling, and proceeded to have an abysmal time there working as a character that was essentially a “Green Hornet knockoff.” The poor execution of Okada’s tenure in TNA Wrestling was even reportedly part of the reason NJPW stopping working with the company, later partnering with ROH who they still work with today. Considering how things went with TNA Wrestling, you might expect Kazuchika Okada to be put on the backburner upon his return.

This was not the case. He defeated Yoshi-Hashi in his return to NJPW in 2012 and immediately challenged IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi. One month after his return, Kazuchika Okada captured the IWGP Heavyweight Championship for the first time. NJPW clearly had a plan, and they weren’t about to let anything change it. Of course, the decision has since proven to be the right one.

Kazuchika Okada went on to become a 4-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion, even holding the title for a record-shattering 720 days from June 2016 to June 2018. He’s also proven to be one of the greatest competitors in the industry, being recognized as a top star or for having top matches several times by Tokyo Sports, Pro Wrestling Illustrated, Wrestling Observer Newsletter, and Nikkan Sports.

His opponent at G1 Supercard, Jay White, has had a strikingly similar rise. Jay White entered the NJPW Dojo in early 2015. After a year and a half working as a young lion, proving himself and continuing to learn, he went on excursion to ROH. While he did continue to grow during his absence, White failed to really make a name for himself during his absence. Once he returned to NJPW in late 2017, he was a completely different person.

Taking on the moniker “Switchblade,” White immediately positioned himself against IWGP Intercontinental Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi. Despite a valiant effort, White came up short against Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom 12. He continued to grow as a competitor throughout the year, capturing the IWGP United States Title by defeating Kenny Omega. At that year’s G1 Climax tournament, White also picked up noteworthy victories over both Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi, despite not winning the tournament.

After working his way up the ranks, and joining forces with Okada’s longtime manager Gedo, Jay White found himself in position to challenge IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi two months ago at The New Beginning in Osaka. In a moment as shocking as Okada’s capture of the title in 2012, White emerged victorious as the new champion.

All of this brought us to G1 Supercard, where NJPW took two long-term storylines and brought them together. Okada, who had yet to beat Jay White in singles competition, was looking to recapture his title, while White was struggling to prove himself as champion. They gave us a clinic that lasted over half an hour, and capped off the night with Kazuchika Okada finally taking down “Switchblade” Jay White, fighting through interference by Gedo, to become IWGP Heavyweight Champion once again.

With his capture of the title against Hiroshi Tanahashi and his rise to that position, Jay White has proven himself and already been solidified as a future face of the company. However, at the biggest US-based show in NJPW history, it was only right that the biggest name in the company and their true top star right now leave with their top championship.

It capped off the night in the perfect way, and really drove home the comparison between ROH and NJPW. Whereas Taven had felt like a forced choice to lead the company, Jay White was legitimized even in failure, and NJPW completed Okada’s return to prominence. The unfortunate message coming out of G1 Supercard was that NJPW was far superior to ROH, and it leaves the partnership between the two companies in question.

If ROH is going to continue to make poor decisions, even at the biggest event in their company’s history, is the relationship between NJPW and ROH really beneficial to New Japan anymore? With All Elite Wrestling on the rise, potentially with Marty Scurll added to their roster if he leaves ROH when his contract expires, should NJPW reevaluate things?

These are big questions that don’t have easy answers, but Ring of Honor didn’t do themselves any favors last night. At every turn, they stepped on their own potential and seemed to hamper their own success. Meanwhile, NJPW did what they always do. They stuck to the plan, and it went perfectly.