Another few break days means only one thing! More G1 Hype Train! Yet again, not on purpose I find myself covering another talent who was already covered. I looked at the G1 Climax from a decade ago and Tanahashi was in the finals and we find him in this one from 2 years ago as well.

The 2015 G1 Climax Finals!

Tournament format :

The tournament is the same format we saw this year. 2 ten man blocks with point values of 2 for a win 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. The winners of both blocks taking each other on in the finals.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Shinsuke Nakamura(Link for those with NJPW World)

Who’s who?

Hiroshi Tanahashi we’ve covered before, but this is 8 years later so many things have changed about the man. Last we covered him on here was 2007′s final vs Yuji Nagata which he won. That big win would lead to about 8 more years of winning and elevated him to what fans and NJPW themselves call the ‘ace’, which is basically face of the promotion. Hiroshi Tanahashi became basically the John Cena or Hulk Hogan of NJPW. In 2014 Tanahashi would pass a major milestone when he became IWGP Heavyweight Championship a 7th time which broke the old record Tatsumi Fujinami set in 1998 when he won and started his 6th reign with that title.

Shinsuke Nakamura however has not appeared in this series yet. Though he easily could have being the winner of the 2011 G1 Climax. Shinsuke Nakamura wasn’t NJPW’s ace at anytime though he and Nakamura are peers. Nakamura does have the bragging rights of getting the title first, having his first IWGP reign nearly 15 years ago in 2003 when he was still pretty young to be the heavyweight champion of NJPW only 23 years old. Nakamura has had the belt less though only having 3 reigns to Hiroshi’s 7 at the point of this G1 Climax.

An interesting note I’d mention about Shinsuke Nakamura is at the time of this G1 and perhaps until he left NJPW he seemed to be the IWC(Internet Wrestling Community)’s favorite NJPW talent. With recent matches between Omega/Okada those two have quickly filled that hole.

Nakamura was as prolific for the IWGP IC title as Tanahashi was for the heavyweight title also having the most reigns with that belt at 5. Which in an of itself is impressive as only Goto and Tanahashi have had it more than once with 2 reigns reach, but it gets much more impressive when you go by Defenses where Nakamura has 17 to the next best IC champion Naito who had 5.



Nakamura was so prolific with that belt that yes… he was even holding it at the time of this G1 and held it till September where he dropped it since he was heading to WWE.

How’s the match?

Great! Meltzer gave it 5 stars and if I had personal rankings I might be a little lower. Not that it’s bad by any measure, there is just one particular spot that looked a little goofy because it didn’t land the way it was suppose to. I actually didn’t gif it because it was a long spot, but at one point Nakamura does his catch armbar and rolls Tanahashi into the ropes and the two have to do some strange repositioning to get into a better position. It was one flaw in an otherwise flawless match, but when 5 stars means perfect those are the nitpicks that can keep it from being a 5 stars for me.

Still, it’s a fantastic final and Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura have great chemistry likely thanks to working in the same company for a decade and no doubt clashing dozens if not hundreds of times before this perhaps even on camera if you are counting tag team bouts, the two of them even being tag team champs with each other early in their careers.

The two clash with Nakamura throwing blows and strikes towards Tanahashi who relied more on his patented High Fly Flow crossbody. A complaint some people might have is Tanahashi using that move too much, but I like his execution of it so much that seeing it 6(?) times was a plus to me not a negative. 2 were also at the end of the match to win it, so it just felt like Tanahashi making sure Nakamura is done by doubling up. Also, since the HFF can be done one someone standing or on the matt it’s not like we say 6 of the exact same situation for the move to hit.

Where Tanahashi bested Nakamura in this match is his smarter defense catching Nakamura’s kicks throughout the match and turning them into Dragon Screw leg whip. Also, his finisher was more used though Nakamura too hit his a few times, just not as many times. This match might have my favorite use of either man’s finishes.

This Shinsuke Nakamura Bomaye looks absolutely brutal and sends poor Tanahashi hitting the mat like a bag of rocks.

While Hiroshi Tanahashi proved to everyone he can hit the High Fly Flow from any angle on any body he can cross.

This was a great match and probably one of the best matches in the last 5 years or so of NJPW with two of the promotions flagship talents. If you have the half hour to give this a watch I’d highly recommend that and really that’s been the case for all these highlights.

This series much like this years G1 Climax is rounding the bases and to make it easier to read old issues of this I’m going to put links here.