Andrew’s G1 Climax 29 Ratings & Analysis: Night 11 A Block

Does Okada fall to a trap match? Who is England’s Top Talent? Let’s find out!

So it’s this point in the tournament when you start seeing crazy upsets. If Okada wins his match, there’s a good chance that half of A Block gets eliminated.

If I were to venture a guess at upsets, I’d guess Lance Archer and SANADA. SANADA because KENTA has finally proven to be mortal, plus SANADA deserves a damn win. Archer because Okada sometimes struggles with bigger guys as well as, he needs to lose for the last few events of the year.

Time to see if the Okada run away train continues.

Ratings:

• Hirooki Goto, Yota Tsuji & YOSHI-HASHI vs Tomohiro Ishii, Yuya Uemura & Tomoaki Honma: YOSHI-HASHI wins via Butterfly Lock @9:25 – ***
• Jon Moxley & Shota Umino vs Toru Yano & Ren Narita: Yano wins via Roll-Up @4:10 – **
• Jay White, Chase Owens & Yujio Takahashi vs Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taichi: Chase wins via Package Piledriver @7:40 – ** 1/2
• Shingo Takagi, BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito vs Juice Robinson, Jeff Cobb & Toa Henare: Takagi wins via Pumping Bomber @9:25 – ** 1/2
• A Block: Bad Luck Fale vs Kota Ibushi: Ibushi wins via Kamigoye @9:25 – ** 
• A Block: Zack Sabre Jr vs Will Ospreay : Sabre wins via Modified Grounded Octopus Hold @20:00 – *** 1/2
• A Block: Lance Archer vs Kazuchika Okada: Okada wins via Rainmaker @14:15 – *** 3/4
• A Block: SANADA vs KENTA: SANADA wins via Moonsault @16:10 – *** 1/4
• A Block: EVIL vs Hiroshi Tanahashi: Tanahashi wins via High Fly Flow @23:00 – *** 3/4

Analysis:

Hirooki Goto, Yota Tsuji & YOSHI-HASHI vs Tomohiro Ishii, Yuya Uemura & Tomoaki Honma – Ishii and Goto always bring the competitive fire before and after being stablemates. Yuya had a good showing in this match, but this was more to try and help YOSHI-HASHI change the perception of fans. He’s picked up a few wins during the tags, but he’s still YOSHI-HASHI…soo…I’ll pass.

Jon Moxley & Shota Umino vs Toru Yano & Ren Narita – Moxley wants to see Yano’s DVD, Yano tells him “5,000 yen!” So Shota goes out, borrows the money and while Yano is counting Moxley tries to roll him up and the cash goes flying.  After that, we get a few shenanigans that ends with Yano low blowing and rolling up Shooter. Yano then runs away with the money and his DVD.

Jay White, Chase Owens & Yujio Takahashi vs Minoru Suzuki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Taichi  –  We had a big 6 man brawl for the first few minutes that resulted in a funny moment. The referee eventually gets sick of the crap and starts counting, when he gets to 19, everyone stares at one another, says “Shit”, and you see all 6 slide in unaware of who was legal. This was fun, we saw shimmers of the serious Taichi when he squared off with Jay, so I’m looking forward to what the match could be.

Shingo Takagi, BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito vs Juice Robinson, Jeff Cobb & Toa Henare  –  This was an odd match. Naito and Juice spun off into a scrap on the floor for the end of the match and after, but the rest seemed tame to boring. Cobb and Shingo didn’t have a ton of heat. BUSHI and Henare were just added for some bumps and for one to eat a pin. It was fine, but really nothing special.

A Block: Bad Luck Fale vs Kota Ibushi  –  Even though he’s not trying to get eliminated this year, Fale’s matches still follow that obvious heel mugging motif. Ibushi had to fight from under a mugging, it was a little annoying because it feels like it’s every match, so my tolerance is lost. Thank God Ibushi didn’t fall to the numbers game. Skippable.

A Block: Zack Sabre Jr vs Will Ospreay – The beginning of this match definitely shows the familiarity between both men, as you get mini flashes of their signature style. It takes a bit of time to build to the crescendo. Ospreay could never really string together a ton of offense, and Sabre catches him in a few submissions. He locks in the Grounded Octopus and adds an arm a capture to it. I don’t think it was any of his long winded move names, but it didn’t look comfortable.

A Block: Lance Archer vs Kazuchika Okada – Archer beat the hell out of Okada early, he scared children in the audience, but it wasn’t quite enough. This tournament has been fantastic to make Archer into a legit badass. Okada also makes good on the match by going to the child that Archer made cry and shaking his hand. So the good guy beat the bad guy, and Okada is 6-0.

A Block: SANADA vs KENTA – Even though SANADA walked out freshly eliminated because of Okada’s win, the spoiler angle came into play quickly. The crowd was very much behind SANADA, and this was an alright match. A few hiccups and sloppy transitions/counters, but SANADA finally gets a decent win in the tournament.

A Block: EVIL vs Hiroshi Tanahashi – I’m not really sure how to feel about this match. An outside High Fly Flow very noticeably saw Tanahashi’s knee hit the thin outside mat. So from then on he was obviously hampered. Awkward submission attempts, a readjustment on a Slingblade was just weird and it was a little rough. However, unlike a few other matches where it seemed like crap that he won, this played out more like him overcoming the injuries. Not a bad match, rough at times and this is probably the apparition of a beckoning end for Tanahashi’s career, unless he takes extended time off.

Overall Score: 6/10

So this day was kinda lame. No match really jumped up and grabbed you, and the Tanahashi match was the best of the day, but hampered by hiccups and awkward spots. We see a continued dominance by Okada, which I hope there’s a good payoff since, fans got bored real quickly of the Superman Okada stuff during the second half of his 730 day reign.

Who will beat Okada? I mean really…who.

Block A Standings:

• Kazuchika Okada: 6-0 (12 Points)
• KENTA: 4-2 (8 Points)
• Kota Ibushi: 4-2 (8 Points)
• Hiroshi Tanahashi: 4-2 (8 Points)
• EVIL: 3-3 (6 Points)
• Will Ospreay: 2-4 (4 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Lance Archer: 2-4 (4 Points) – ELIMINATED
• SANADA: 2-4 (4 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Zack Sabre Jr: 2-4 (4 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Bad Luck Fale: 1-5 (2 Points) – ELIMINATED