Night 2 of the G1 is in the books, and featured even more twists and turns than night 1. Here’s your rundown. Honma gets a measure of revenge. In the main event of today show, Tomoaki Honma defeated Katsuyori Shibata in a typically hard-hitting contest that saw Honma drop Shibata with 3 tombstone pile driver’s before hitting his flying head-butt for the 3 count. This was a rematch from several weeks ago where Honma was unsuccessful in challenging Shibata for the NEVER open-weight title. After that match, Shibata showed disrespect to Honma by throwing him out of the ring after the match, and after several confrontations in tag contests, this match had a lot of emotion going into it. Honma celebrated his win with an impassioned promo, preceded by him offering his hand to Shibata, to which Shibata slapped him. No matter what happens later in the G1, this feud is not over. Blue Justice has still got it. In the bigger shock of the night, Yugi Nagata shocked everyone by defeating recent IWGP champion and leader of Los Ingobernables de Japon, Tetsuya Naito. Naito spent a lot of the contest in control of Nagata, working his knee while mimicking Nagata’s signature hand gesture. Nagata eventually found his form and took over, and after blocking the Tranquilo, hitting Naito with two big back-drop driver’s for the win. Post Match, Nagata gave Naito a little nod and mimicked Naito’s signature open eye gesture, to which Naito actually smiled. There seemed to be a lot of respect in this contest, which is highly unusual for Naito, but I do expect that to change. Everything is EVIL EVIL, like Sanada on Night 1, has really begun to show that Los Ingobernables de Japon is not just the Naito show, and his victory over the IWGP Intercontinental Champion Michael Elgin was almost as effective as Sanada’s victory the night previous. This match was everything you would expect between the two big men, lots of hard hits that would send the average man down to the floor for a little nap, ending with EVIL scoring a clean victory over the champ with the GTO. Elgin made his name in Japan through the G1 last year, and while I still expect a strong showing from Big Mike, EVIL could be one to watch. YOSHI-HASHI cleans up. This G1 is already becoming known for surprise wins and upsets, and this was the start of a big run of them. YOSHI-HASHI fought through the barrage given to him by former IWGP Intercontinental Champion and de-facto Bullet Club leader Kenny Omega in a great contest that really woke the crowd up. This tournament will be Kenny Omega’s chance to prove his position as a star in the company, and im certain his Win-loss record will match his performances by the time the B Block is decided. Yoshi Hashi, while very popular, sadly falls into the same category as Nakajima and Yano (more on that next) NOAH shooter takes out the Joker.In the opening contest of the B Block, NOAH’s Katsuhiko Nakajima defeated Toru Yano in a pretty short contest that saw Yano try to use every trick he could to get the quick victory, including tying Nakajima’s arm to the guard rail to get his opponent counted out, and lots of quick pin attempts before Nakajima unloaded on him with kicks and a Brain Buster for the win. it would be a shock for either to go on to win the tournament, but both will have a say on who comes out on top. In other news As usual, the show opened with a few tag matches featuring A Block competitors and juniors. The highlights included
The next few days are packed with shows on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. From here I will post articles every two shows covering all the A and B block action. We at the Royal Grumble will be covering all the G1 action, You can also watch the whole G1 (with English commentary on the final 3 nights courtesy of Kevin Kelly and Steve Corino) on NJPWWorld.com, and the sign up instructions can be found here.
Also, leave a comment on our Facebook/Twitter (links in the bar to your right). and as always, listen to the Royal Grumble every Sunday, straight to your podcast listening app via the links in the bar on the right, and on iTunes.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
NEW EPISODES EVERY SUNDAYArchives
March 2017
Categories
All
|