mobanmarketWelcome, cats and kittens, to a very special primer, designed solely to help ease the transition for new and potential fans of Japanese Wrestling, during our holy week of the year, the G1 Climax Series. You see, every year around this time, the days get hotter, the nights get longer, and the wrestling gets better, as the premier event in Japanese wrestling takes a hold of all of the puro fans in your life and turns them into walking, talking propaganda machines. Last year, you probably heard plenty of people talking all about this G1 Climax thing and going crazy over the matches, but it may have seen inaccessible to you as a newbie to the lariat game. Maybe the sheer volume of matches put you off, maybe it was not knowing who any of these people are. Maybe you’re the Green Lantern and you just can’t trust anything associated with the color yellow. Whatever it is that has kept you from fully immersing yourself in one of the most storied institutions in all of professional wrestling, your friendly neighborhood Cewsh is here to save the day.
So let’s get right into a thorough breakdown of what this is, who you’ll see in it, and why you should care. And if, by the end, you still don’t want to see the crowning of the new King of Climax, then you’ll get all of the money back that you paid in order to read this. Guaranteed.
The G1 Climax Series is a round robin tournament, promoted by the top promotion in Japanese wrestling, New Japan Pro Wrestling. The tournament was founded by Anotnio Inoki in 1991 as a way to show off and promote the top heavyweights in New Japan, and the prize has always been that the winner of this tournament gets a shot at the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. In recent years, that changed to mirror WWE’s Royal Rumble, so that now the winner gets their title shot in the main event of New Japan’s biggest show of the year, Wrestle Kingdom. With me so far? Because this next part can be a bit confusing.
The format of the tournament is that there are two groups of wrestlers called Blocks, and each wrestler attempts to get the most points of anyone in their block by getting wins in the various matches of the tournament. At the end of the tournament, the wrestler who has the most points in Block A faces the wrestler who has the most points in Block B to determine the overall winner. It sounds more complicated than it really is, because the whole idea is really just to win as much as you can to get into the finals, and then prepare for the final match, which is traditionally among the most epic and difficult to win matches of the entire year.
Whoever does wind up winning gets this snazzy trophy:
But that’s enough about rules, man. Let’s get to the good stuff.
There are a TON of tournament in Japan every year. The country has a full on raging erection for putting guys in a sequence and making them wrestle. But among these, and even among more famous tournaments like the King of the Ring, the G1 Climax stands out because of the stature of the people involved. Unlike tournaments in the United States, New Japan puts only the very top talents at their disposal in this competition, including frequent visitors from other companies, and even other countries. There’s a prestige to being a part of this tournament that simply isn’t comparable to anything else in all of wrestling. Simply put, this is a tournament where only the very best can even gain entry, much less have a shot at victory. We’ll get to the people involved this year in a moment, but just bear in mind that the list of winners for this tournament reads like a list of the greatest wrestlers ever to exist on this planet.
For the competitors involved in this year’s tournament, this represents a career making opportunity for them. Especially for the non-Japanese wrestlers, as no foreign talent has won the G1 Climax since it was formed. Though there has never been such a threat to that claim as there will be this year.
But that’s just why this is important to the wrestlers and in kayfabe. That doesn’t explain why your Twitter feed is awash with sweaty, wild eyed puro fans who haven’t had a night’s sleep in two weeks. No, that’s because this tournament is, without question, the most amazing collection of wrestling you will find anywhere this year, and it all comes so packed in together that you will have suplexes coming out of your ears as you try to follow the entire thing. Basically, for 2 weeks, the best wrestlers alive will have 10 matches a day, damn near every single day, and they will wrestle every single one of them like it’s the main event of Wrestlemania. It’s incredible, and can be overwhelming at first. But there’s simply nothing like the torrent of quality that you’re about to behold. And, hell, there’s something comforting about falling asleep watching a great match and waking up to an even better one.
So who exactly are the people wrestling these matches? I thought you’d never ask.
I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this, you probably don’t have a working knowledge of the incredibly intricate backstories involved here. It’s actually a lot like watching a soap opera totally out of context. “Wait, why is that guy stabbing that guy? Wait, is that his illegitimate son? Wait, it’s WHO’S evil twin?!” It’s one of the biggest challenges when it comes to getting involved with Japanese wrestling if you don’t speak the language. But that’s why i’m here, to be a chirpy little context translator to let you know who they are, what they’re about, and whether or not they may have an evil twin.
(In order of likelihood of victory.)
The King of Strong Style, Swagsuke, the People’s Weirdo, whatever you want to call him, Shinsuke Nakamura has more momentum behind him than anyone in this tournament. Once upon a time, Nakamura was a very serious, straightforward wrestler, who was pushed to the moon for his skills and because he actually won an MMA match during Inokism, (that’s a story for another time.) But as time went on, and his rival Tanahashi started to surpass him, Nakamura tapped into his performance art training to develop a character that has captured the hearts of everyone who has seen it.
His mannerisms are insane, (and catchy,) his trademark catchphrase YE-OH is wildly popular, and he has been building a head of steam towards recapturing the IWGP Heavyweight Championship for years now, taking a brief pit stop to take New Japan’s fledgling Intercontinental Championship and make it one of the most prestigious titles on Earth. The man can basically do no wrong at this point. Now, just recently Bad Luck Fale, a member of the Bullet Club stable, beat him for his Intercontinental Championship, so Nakamura will be gunning for Fale and the Bullet Club as a whole here, and Nakamura has a history with Hiroshi Tanahashi that you could write whole books about, (think Rock/Austin.) But as the consensus fan favorite to win it all this year, it’s hard to think that anyone will stop him on his way back to the top.
YE-OH!
Okada is a name that is well known even in the United States at this point. He is the face of New Japan, and certainly it’s most exciting young star. The main storyline of New Japan for the past few years has been Okada’s growth from a young athletic phenom with no experience to the consummate champion, and a talent perhaps unmatched anywhere in the world, especially in his age group, (he’s 26.) Okada’s character can be hard to summarize, as he’s basically every money worshipping, swagger having, cocky as shit superstar athlete that you love to hate, but he’s somehow still the top babyface in this company. People love him for all of those qualities, and he’s really come to represent the new generation of talent in the country.
He always wants his title back SO BAD you guys, you don’t even understand. He rarely talks, leaving most of it to his manager Jado, but he has expressed a complete fixation on being IWGP Champion, and especially on wringing AJ Styles’ little neck at the first opportunity. He’s one of the two favorites to win it all this year, and it isn’t hard to see why.
He also can make money magically rain from the sky.
Yep, that is the AJ Styles from TNA, and yes, he is the champion of New Japan. The G1 Climax has always allowed the active champion to enter the tournament, with the caveat that is they can successfully win it, they can choose their own challenger for the title defense, which is a better good prize, especially if you’re a dickhead heel, and boy is Styles ever a dickhead heel. Styles is actual a member of a stable called Bullet Club, which is made up of nothing but foreign talent who have banded together to take all of the belts in New Japan, and basically to reverse the long history of Gaijin talent being held down more than a little. At the moment, their stable has almost every title in the entire company, and Styles is their crown jewel, having humiliated Okada by defeating him, (with tons of help) for the title.
Basically, everyone in this tournament is going to be gunning for Styles, but watch out for any matches between he and Okada, because those will be so heated that you might get blisters through your computer monitor.
The Ace of the Universe, Tanahashi dragged New Japan kicking and screaming back into relevance in the late 00s and early 10s, and now he’s settled into a role as a beloved draw who can be used in the main event or the opening match with equal frequency. He gets good odds on winning here more in recognition of his fame and drawing power than for any other reason, as it’s more likely that they would use him to fill this role in a year when they didn’t have a better main event planned out. But we can’t count out Tanahashi, and his matches in G1 should be especially interesting, as he has basically feuded extensively with every single other competitor in the tournament. But expect things to get especially heated between Tanahashi and Katsuyori Shibata on July 26th, as it will be the first real meeting between the two heated rivals since Tanahashi called Shibata out in his book for being a selfish asshole, (we’ll get to that.)
Shibata was once thought to be the future of Japanese wrestling. He came out of the New Japan dojo around the same time as Tanahashi and Nakamura, and together they were called the New Three Musketeers, (a reference to Keiji Mutoh, Masahiro Chono and Shinya Hashimoto, who were referred to as the Three Musketeers.) This all went sideways when Shibata shockingly left New Japan unceremoniously to pursue a career in MMA, a slight which Tanahashi and many others never forgave him for. He shocked the world when he arrived back in New Japan and has been hardcore trolling people ever since. The smart money is on Shibata having a big money match with Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom, but he’s also he tabbed as a potential break out main eventer this year numerous times. He’s just too damn good to count out completely.
These guys are all legends or just past winners of the G1 Climax, and all of them have main evented major shows in recent history. But while they will put up a grand fight here, and any of them could pull out a surprise victory for one last run at glory, they’re more here to produce great matches, and to give the eventual winner some great victories under his belt. Except for Minoru Suzuki. He’s just here to be a dick to everyone.
Ishii is a weird and heartwarming case of a guy getting over despite lacking anything seemingly marketable at all. He’s short, he’s stocky, he’s got a face that marks him out as a henchman in a bad kung fu movie. Everything about him screams SIDEKICK FOR SOMEONE IMPORTANT. But it was at the G1 Climax one year ago that Ishii really caught fire and made a name for himself, with one of the greatest strings of matches of anyone in modern wrestling history. He has captured the imagination of Japanese fans by simply refusing to go down no matter what anyone does to him, and staying after every victory to the end like a maddened bulldog.
The odds of him winning this victory are harsh, but when I was putting this together, I just didn’t have the heart to count him out altogether. One day Ishii really will have his moment in the sun. Who’s to say that day isn’t today?
Yeah, it’s not going to be any of these guys. But without fail, one of them will be leading their block at the halfway point, because there’s nothing that New Japan likes more than a good hearty laugh.
So that’s everyone. And even guys like Shelton Benjamin and Lance Archer, who you have seen being sucky with your own eyes before, are some kind of mutated version of themselves here that has made them really good and interesting. I know! I didn’t believe it either!
So okay, maybe i’ve convinced you that this is something cool to check out. But HOW do you check it out, you might ask? Well that’s simple! All you have to do is head on over to USTREAM and you can buy all of the shows there. A full pass to every single show is a measly $160, and that gets you 12 fucking nights of unbelievable wrestling. But if that’s too much of a money crunch for you, then just save up your pennies for the G1 Climax Finals on August 10th, where you’ll see the new winner crowned in a match that is flat out guaranteed to be one of the most memorable you will see this year.
One more time that link is RIGHT FUCKING HERE, and the tournament officially kicked off in Japan this morning. So go stick your head full on into the wonder of G1 and motorboat to your heart’s content. I’ll see you on the other side!
Oh, and I’ll just leave this here to give you a taste. This is the official New Japan hype video for the tournament. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take care of this raging erection, as it has officially lasted more than 4 hours.
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