Another year, another G1 Climax is over. A brilliant G1 is capped off with Hiroshi Tanahashi winning the tournament in a result that few will have predicted, beating Kota Ibushi in the final. In this, I will be looking at each wrestler and judging their performance throughout the tournament, along with recommendations for the tournament.

A-Block

Hiroshi Tanahashi

For the most part, Tanahashi had a solid but unspectacular tournament; his match with Suzuki was a uniquely worked sprint, his match with White was pretty entertaining, and his match with Fale was my favourite Fale match ever. As the tournament progressed he started to settle back into his comfort zone and started to hold back. Come the final two days however, we saw Tanahashi at his absolute best putting on a clinic in storytelling with Okada, and an incredible back and forth contest with Ibushi. A great tournament for him all round.

Kazuchika Okada

Okada was a very strange case this year. He had lots of great matches, yet I can’t help getting the feeling that he undelivered in some of them – especially the Suzuki match which was a huge disappointment. His character shift was wildly entertaining for the entirety of the tournament; he really sold how broken he was at losing the championship and by the final few matches, we started to see flashes of the rainmaker coming back. I can’t wait to see how this storyline progresses and what Okada has in store for us in the future.

Jay White

I really enjoyed White at the start of the tournament. His work against Tanahashi and Okada was great and he really had some great intensity in those matches. But as the tournament progressed his matches became routine and by the numbers, with no spark in creativity – with the exception of his match with Page. Not the breakout tournament that people were expecting, hopefully he can show us why New Japan are so high on him.

EVIL

While not quite as good as last year’s tournament, EVIL had a consistently solid tournament in the undercard, with a phenomenal main event against Okada. He worked many different styles of matches from brawls with Suzuki and Makabe, to more exhibition type matches with Elgin and Tanahashi. A really enjoyable tournament.

Minoru Suzuki

Incredibly disappointing. After the year he’s been having I was expecting much better, but barring the Okada, Tanahashi, and Makabe matches there was just nothing there – even then the Okada match was hugely disappointing and felt a bit uninspired. An inconsistent G1, which is so often the case with Suzuki.

Michael Elgin

Started off the tournament really well, but as the tournament went on his matches started to get boring, as he ended up wrestling the same type of match day in day out and his work really suffered for it. A step below last year’s tournament.

Bad Luck Fale

Fale has been the most frustrating for me because I genuinely think that this is the best he’s ever looked. He moves faster, his offence looks more devastating, and he looks a lot more confident in the ring. However, with the whole OGBC storyline taking place, his matches became shenanigan heavy, with interference’s aplenty and frequent DQs. Sometimes it worked; the shenanigans in the Tanahashi match were actually really enjoyable. But overall it was frustrating to watch and the A-Block as a whole suffered for it.

Hangman Page

A breakout tournament for Hangman. The crowd took to Page quickly after Page delivered a string of good matches with good stories, and great looking moves; the Buckshot Lariat and running Shooting Star Press especially are good for a reaction. Will definitely be a future player for years to come.

Togi Makabe

An unspectacular tournament with a few good matches here and there. Makabe’s shtick is always entertaining to me and is always good for a slugfest, but outside of that, he’s nothing special. An alright tournament for him.

YOSHI-HASHI

This was perhaps the surprise of the tournament. YOSHI-HASHI showed great fire and intensity from the first match and that continued throughout the tournament. His matches did suffer from a lack of crowd engagement, but when paired with the more popular wrestlers such as Okada or Tanahashi, the crowd really got involved and would often root for him. His best tournament yet.

Overall a disappointing year for the A-Block, with only one match having the quality of B-block’s best.

B-Block

Kota Ibushi

I think it’s time to start talking about Ibushi as one of the all time greats. Since 2007 he has been an absolutely one of a kind wrestler and this tournament absolutely cemented that fact; whether it’s a slugfest with Ishii, a technical match-up with Zack Sabre Junior, or an emotional story-driven contest with Omega, Kota Ibushi gave his absolute all and delivered in all of those. Fantastic tournament.

Kenny Omega

Yet another all-time great tournament for Omega who lived up to his ‘Best Bout Machine’ nickname and more. He carried himself brilliantly as the champ and had some absolutely stellar matches with everyone and never took his foot off the gas for the entirety of the tournament.

Zack Sabre Junior

An excellent tournament for Zack. His technical wrestling is leagues ahead of anyone in the world right now and his unique submissions make for some tense moments – that submission to win the Juice Robinson match was absolutely brutal. Outside of the technical stuff, you have good looking offence, good selling, and good storytelling that all help elevate a match beyond just a technical showcase.

Tetsuya Naito

A stellar tournament for Naito. Started off strong with the Omega match and never wavered, having consistently great matches with every competitor – including a sleeper MOTYC against Juice Robinson. My only worry is that I’m afraid he’ll get lost in the shuffle with Ibushi, Omega, Okada, and now Tanahashi all ahead of him in the pecking order.

SANADA

2018 has been a breakout year for SANADA and this was a breakout tournament for him. A good variety of matches made for some truly entertaining bouts, and he brought it in every match he participated.

Tomohiro Ishii

He’s been my MVP in every tournament since 2014 and he’s my MVP in this one as well. Ishii’s performances went to another level this year with fantastic selling and fantastic looking offence. The most consistent wrestler alive and he continued that trend in this tournament.

Hirooki Goto

Goto is having his best in-ring year since 2015 and continued that trend with a great tournament. His match with Ishii was my Match of the Tournament until Omega/Ibushi and he had consistently great matches afterwards, elevating everyone’s performances with great fighting spirit and hard-hitting action.

Tama Tonga

I was interested to see how well Tama would do this tournament. He’s a great athlete who’s capable of putting together some great looking sequences, and he showed a good deal of improvement from G1 26 to G1 27. Ultimately he failed to grab anyone’s attention with a really boring tournament. Even outside of the OGBC shenanigans there was nothing there but slow meandering offence with trash talk. His matches with SANADA and Ibushi were good but that’s about it, and in a stacked block like this you can’t call it anything but bad.

Juice Robinson

A stellar tournament for Juice who used his broken left hand for great storytelling throughout the tournament. A great babyface whoever he faced and was an absolute joy to watch in every match.

Toru Yano

The pledge of fair play went out the window after his fourth match, but for those first three matches, Yano put on some wildly entertaining bouts. After that, his matches became the same comedy matches as always, with the Omega match being a standout.

Overall I can’t think of a block that has ever put on better matches than this tournament’s B-block. It seemed like every might had a MOTYC, and the stories running throughout it were brilliantly told.

Final Thoughts

In the grand scheme of things, this is second only to last year’s G1. While the top end stuff was overall better this tournament, the disappointment of A-block and the consistency of last year’s tournament mean that I slightly prefer G1 27 to this year. However, when all is said and done, B-block for this tournament will go down in history as the greatest block in G1 history. Another fantastic G1, can’t wait to do it all again next year.

Recommended matches

A-Block:

Kazuchika Okada vs Hiroshi Tanahashi

Kazuchika Okada vs EVIL

Kazuchika Okada vs Michael Elgin

Kazuchika Okada vs Hangman Page

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Bad Luck Fale

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Minoru Suzuki

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Jay White

Kazuchika Okada vs YOSHI-HASHI

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs YOSHI-HASHI

Jay White vs Hangman Page

Kazuchika Okada vs Jay White

YOSHI-HASHI vs Michael Elgin

Minoru Suzuki vs Togi Makabe

Kazuchika Okada vs Minoru Suzuki

Michael Elgin vs EVIL

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs EVIL

EVIL vs Togi Makabe

EVIL vs Hangman Page

B-Block:

Kenny Omega vs Kota Ibushi

Hirooki Goto vs Tomohiro Ishii

Kenny Omega vs Tetsuya Naito

Kenny Omega vs Tomohiro Ishii

Kota Ibushi vs Tomohiro Ishii

Tetsuya Naito vs Kota Ibushi

Tetsuya Naito vs Juice Robinson

Tetsuya Naito vs Zack Sabre Junior

Kenny Omega vs Hirooki Goto

SANADA vs Kota Ibushi

SANADA vs Kenny Omega

Tomohiro Ishii vs SANADA

Zack Sabre Junior vs Kota Ibushi

Tetsuya Naito vs Tomohiro Ishii

Hirooki Goto vs Kota Ibushi

Zack Sabre Junior vs Kenny Omega

Tetsuya Naito vs SANADA

Zack Sabre Junior vs SANADA

Kota Ibushi vs Juice Robinson

Juice Robinson vs Hirooki Goto

Toru Yano vs Zack Sabre Junior

Toru Yano vs Kota Ibushi

Toru Yano vs Tomohiro Ishii

Toru Yano vs Kenny Omega

Tomohiro Ishii vs Juice Robinson

G1 Climax Final

Kota Ibushi vs Hiroshi Tanahashi