A Block comes to an end with Styles vs. Tanahashi

With the non-tournament matches becoming more important with the influx of all the other wrestlers now arriving to work the weekend of events, it becomes pertinent to cover the entire card.

All images credited to NJPW.

The show opened with a Bullet Club win as the team of Karl Anderson, Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi beat the team of Satoshi Kojima, Tomoaki Honma and Mascara Dorada. The match featured a definite tease of the Kojima/Anderson match coming tomorrow night.

The second match of the night featured one B Block competitor but its implications were far more oriented towards Sunday's finale as IWGP Jr. Tag Team champions Nick and Matt Jackson, the Young Bucks, teamed with their Bullet Club stablemate Cody Hall to take on the ROH unit of Michael Elgin, Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish. The Bucks and ReDRagon will face off on Sunday for the titles and both units wanted to make a statement in their first night back in Japan.

Things get complicated for B Block at G1 Climax Night 16

With only one show left for them between this one and the finals, the top of B Block was still packed with contenders, though the IWGP Heavyweight champion still sat on top. As the night progressed, things would start to take shape for a math-heavy final.

Image credit: NJPW.

Tournament action started out with another Bullet Club battle as Karl Anderson battled Yujiro Takahashi. Both men entered together with MAO draped between them as the entire Bullet Club looked on. The two men started to fight though as Anderson seemed to want to steal Yujiro's girl from him.

The B Block heats up at the G1 Climax Night 12

It was another single camera action night as the B Block continued in the top half of the G1 Climax Night 12.

Image credit: NJPW.

Michael Elgin and Yuji Nagata started things off. Nagata looked very solid against Elgin. This was probably one of his high points in the touranment, but another buckle bomb/sitout powerbomb combo brought Elgin up to 8 points, already a great number for a debuting gaijin. He and Nagata shook hands post-match in a great sign of respect.

In the second tournament match of the night, Tomoaki Honma sought to finally get on the board, but he had a tall task against an angry Karl Anderson. Honma looked great again in action here, but he still couldn't quite get the win against the Bullet Club's leader.

B Block brings some hard-hitting offense in their first night of the G1 Climax

Thursday was the second night for G1 action, but of course here in the States that means waking up at 4:30. Luckily for me and my readers, being up at 4:30 is pretty natural, so here is what happened tonight in part two of the G1 Climax.

The night kicked off with the regular multi-man matches but only the alliance of Katsuyori Shibata and Tetsuya Naito (with Ryusuke Taguchi) offered any real intrigue. Shibata and Naito meet tomorrow night and it was interesting to see each try to get into the other's head while ostensibly working together.

Ouch. Image caption: NJPW.

The tournament matches started off with a brutal blast of punches and kicks as Satoshi Kojima took on Tomohiro Ishii. I went in expecting this to be a solid match with Kojima coming out on top. Instead I got a solid brawl with Ishii hitting a mean brainbuster for the two points. Ishii actually looked better than I usually expect here, so maybe we will get more solid matches in the G1 from him.

Yujiro Takahashi had Mao back at his side for his first tournament match, but the beauty was no help against Hirooki Goto. In a match that featured multiple biting spots and some painful looking bumps, Takahashi just couldn't bring it together for Bullet Club. Goto walked away with a relatively easy win.

G1 Climax 2015 Preview - Block B part 1

The G1 Climax is the biggest tournament of the year in New Japan Pro Wrestling. It is by far the largest round robin tournament of the year, held over 19 events in a nearly month long stretch. It will anoint a new #1 contender in NJPW who will get his title chance at the massive January mega-event. And sometimes it can even make a huge new star.

While Block A was staffed with tons of great talent, Block B in my eyes is even bigger. So let's go in and look at the first half of the roster that will kick off the second day of action.

Satoshi Kojima: Kojima is a fascinating figure in New Japan history. He was a junior member of NWO Japan in his early years where he first formed his long running unit with Hiroyoshi Tenzan known as Tencozy. But Kojima would follow his mentor Keiji Mutoh to All Japan where he would score most of his success as a wrestler (with a short stop in North America for Major League Wrestling). He would become World Tag Champion three times as well as score the promotion's top prize, the Triple Crown Championship, twice. In 2005, he would win his first IWGP Heavyweight title in a battle with Tenzan that also had his Triple Crown title also on the line. He would continue to tag with Tenzan on occasion on cross-promotional events. In 2010, an arm injury sent him away for surgery, All Japan didn't resign him because of it and he returned to NJPW. Since then, TenCozy has become a fixture of tag matches. In the last year, Kojima has regularly competed against NWA visitors to the company and won both the NWA World and NWA World Tag Team titles in the process. He has dropped both titles, but despite twenty-five years as a wrestler behind him, Kojima still can go in the ring. The likelihood he will walk away G1 winner is slim, but he'll put on some great battles in the process.

Tomohiro Ishii: The "Stone Pitbull" has never really been a huge star in New Japan. Though he's wrestled for twenty years, the last ten with New Japan, he has never really came off the bottom half of the card. It wasn't until eight years into his NJPW career that he scored his first title in the promotion, the NEVER Openweight belt. He has since became a fixture of the midcard NEVER belt and this has allowed him to shine in physical contests that often break down into all out brawls. This will be the third G1 Climax for the CHAOS regular. He alternately excels or fails in New Japan seemingly at random, so it is anyone's guess how far he can make it in the tournament, but he seems a very unlikely victor.