Andrew’s G1 Climax 29 Ratings & Analysis: Night 18 B Block Finals

We’ve got 4 men still alive to win the G1 Climax B block! Who wants it more?

So going over what matters here:

Juice wants to get payback on Moxley, so even though Moxley really needs the win…Juice will be hungry to prove himself.

Goto would love to sneak into the Finals like he did a few years ago, but Shingo needs to help out Naito by taking out a threat to his Finals. So for the good of LIJ, can Shingo take out Goto?

Naito and White will most likely play out as a winner take all, since building tension is the whole point of these long tournaments. Does Naito overcome his disappointing start, or does White make history while being the most truthful man in New Japan?

Let’s get to the answers!

Ratings:

• Shota Umino & Ren Narita vs Yuya Uemura & Yota Tsuji: Narita wins via Boston Crab @7:35 – ***
• Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi w/Pieter vs SANADA, BUSHI & EVIL:  Takahashi wins via Pimp Juice @7:55 – ** ½
• KENTA, Karl Fredricks & Clark Connors vs Kota Ibushi, Tomoaki Honma vs Toa Henare: Henare wins via Toa Bomb @8:20 – ** ½
• Will Ospreay, Hiroshi Tanahashi, YOSHI-HASHI & Kazuchika Okada vs Lance Archer, Zack Sabre Jr, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Minoru Suzuki: Tanahashi wins via Cross Legged Cradle @10:35 – *** ¼
• B Block: Toru Yano vs Jeff Cobb: Cobb wins via Tour of the Islands @5:20 – **
• B Block: Tomohiro Ishii vs Taichi: Taichi wins via Black Mephisto @11:55 – **** ¼
• B Block: Juice Robinson vs Jon Moxley: Juice wins via Pulp Friction @16:25 – ** ¾
• B Block: Shingo Takagi vs Hirooki Goto: Takagi wins via Last of the Dragon @15:10 – ****
• B Block: Tetsuya Naito vs Jay White: White wins via Blade Runner @18:50 – ****

Analysis:

Shota Umino & Ren Narita vs Yuya Uemura & Yota Tsuji –  The Young Lions came out with a little more intensity than the past couple times. Shota and Tsuji paired off and went at each other hard and fast. Even when they tagged in the smaller of the tag teams, Shota and Tsuji kept fighting on the outside. Uemura was in the Boston Crab for a few minutes, he kept struggling to get to the ropes, but Narita pulled him back to center three times. Uemura showed a lot of hard, but eventually tapped. Great opener.

Bad Luck Fale, Chase Owens & Yujiro Takahashi w/Pieter vs SANADA, BUSHI & EVIL – We got to see a few story wrinkles continue in this match. Chase Owens keeps trying the Paradise Lock, to no avail and Fale is getting his ring work in. The Rogue General Fale, looks to be slowly transforming into the Ring General Fale. If Stardom is Wonder Ring Stardom, does that make Fale the Rogue Ring General?

KENTA, Karl Fredricks & Clark Connors vs Kota Ibushi, Tomoaki Honma vs Toa Henare – Another solid tag match with predictable outcomes. Seeing KENTA and Ibushi together adds more credence to Ibushi winning the whole tournament. Another tease with KENTA would imply that KENTA gets a shot at the briefcase if Ibushi wins the tournament. Solid enough match.

Will Ospreay, Hiroshi Tanahashi, YOSHI-HASHI & Kazuchika Okada vs Lance Archer, Zack Sabre Jr, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Minoru Suzuki – This was a pretty damn good tag match. Everyone paired off logically, and YOSHI-HASHI took the brunt of the beatings. Tanahashi pulling off the reversal cradle for the win, could just be a way to set up a big match at Royal Quest in England. Okada and Ospreay did minimal work, but I feel the major point here was to add to the Tanahashi and Sabre tension.

B Block: Toru Yano vs Jeff Cobb – This was a very Yano match. He had about 5 rolls of tape in his trunks, the referee checked him, and shenanigans ensued. The best gimmick was when Yano tucked Cobb’s arms into his singlet and tried to pin his arms in by bringing the straps down. Yano lost since his shtick only works so many times during G1.

B Block: Tomohiro Ishii vs Taichi –   I could watch Ishii and Taichi wrestle every week. Ishii brings out the Dangerous T in Taichi, pushes him to wrestle like a man without the garbage. When our Holy Emperor fights hard and shows off the skills Kawada taught him, he is a very impressive wrestler. Black Mephisto puts down the Pitbull, but damn this was great.

B Block: Juice Robinson vs Jon Moxley – Juice needed to get his win back and proved that he had a familiarity with Moxley. Juice “biting the earing out of Moxley’s ear” was dumb and felt like too much of a reference to Triple H and Batista. It doesn’t help that during the bite the ear it looked more like two teenagers trying to figure out how to give each other hickeys. Also stupid was Moxley’s letting up on the STS submission because he assumed Juice was out. Then proceeded to have a tantrum and throw different weapons into the ring, before getting caught by Juice.  The match itself was alright, but all of the extra crap to get to Juice winning felt really stupid, took too long, and was a little lame for a match that had winning implications.

B Block: Shingo Takagi vs Hirooki Goto – Shingo does God’s work and takes Goto out of the running for winning the block. This was a great match, hard hitting and Naito must thank his Dragon buddy. With the match quality Shingo has been putting on, this doesn’t hurt Goto very much aside from ruining his G1 hopes and dreams. Last match is now a winner takes all match.

B Block: Tetsuya Naito vs Jay White – The first few minutes were who could powder better than the other. Then we saw a lot of personality from both along with a pretty damn good match.  Jay White is the classic heel that speaks mostly truth. He’s the first person to start 0-3 and make it to the Grand Finals. Breathing with the Switchblade has never been better. All in all though, it was a solid match. Didn’t feel nearly as epic as Ibushi and Okada, but it was still a damn good match.

Overall Score: 7.25/10

We got 3 very good matches this night as well. Plus having the biggest heel in the company go over the most popular one after starting off 0-3 and still talking shit, it’s just great stuff. Jay White baited out Ibushi to try and say no Gedo tomorrow and just a 1 on 1 match. But Gedo and Jay attacked Ibushi and the injured before the show finished.

Jay White is becoming a tremendous heel, using old tactics and psychology that have been a little lost on most Western wrestling. Ibushi will have an uphill battle, so if he wins the G1 Finals, it will just feel bigger and better to all of the fans. Of course, if White wins, it will do a great job at evoking hatred.

I’m looking forward to the finals quite a bit.

B Block Standings:

• Jay White – 6-3 (12 Points) – WINNER!
• Hirooki Goto – 5-4 (10 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Jon Moxley – 5-4 (10 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Tetsuya Naito – 5-4 (10 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Tomohiro Ishii – 4-5 (8 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Toru Yano – 4-5 (8 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Juice Robinson – 4-5 (8 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Jeff Cobb – 4-5 (8 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Taichi – 4-5 (8 Points) – ELIMINATED
• Shingo Takagi – 4-5 (8 Points) – ELIMINATED