NJPW: The Best & Worst of G1 Climax 29 So Far

The Best: Ospreay and Shingo Raise The Bar

Will Ospreay and Shingo Takagi tore it down in one of the most exciting Best of the Super Junior finals I’ve seen. Their contest is an easy Match of the Year contender and was enough to push both men outside of the bubble of Juniors and into the less-traveled path of cross-division wrestlers.

Shingo rampaged through New Japan since debuting and Ospreay has been on the rise with NEVER Openweight and Junior Heavyweight Title reigns to his credit. Still, with as successful and dominant Ospreay has been it was hard to see the finals of the BOSJ going any other way than Shingo remaining undefeated.

When Ospreay pulled out the victory, it made sense and was a shock at the same time. Not only did Ospreay get the rub from being the first man to pin Shingo in a New Japan ring, but with the way Kevin Kelly has talked about Shingo’s questionable weight class it was somewhat expected to keep him from holding the Junior Heavyweight Title.

Once the BOSJ wrapped up, Shingo and Ospreay threw their names into the hat of G1 hopefuls and we all crossed our fingers. Their involvement in the tournament has been a huge plus to both brackets.

Ospreay pulled, perhaps, Lance Archer’s best match ever out of the monster in Dallas and has gone on to have instant classics with Ibushi, Okada, and SANADA.

In B Block, Shingo outsmarted Yano, dropped a loss to Juice Robinson in a close match, and overcame Taichi to lend more credibility to his Heavyweight claims. Taichi himself competed as a Junior before making the step up to Heavyweight, so the similarities between his and Shingo’s paths can’t be ignored.

The great thing about the G1 is the number of high-quality matches you’re poised to see. What makes the inclusion of Ospreay and Shingo even more exciting is that we’re opened up to a world of matches we wouldn’t have otherwise seen had they stayed exclusively in the Junior division.

While Ospreay has a pretty well-defined spot in New Japan at this point, the tournament is going to do wonders for Shingo. By losing to Ospreay in the BOSJ finals, his G1 matches are now more unpredictable as the undefeated streak doesn’t need to be protected.

Plus, when he does take a loss it can be used as a building block – he’s just leaving the Junior division and has more to learn before beating every Heavyweight.

While I don’t see either man making the finals, there’s no doubt that they’ll place high in their brackets. This time next year, we could be on the verge of a Shingo/Ospreay final in G1 Climax 30.