DAY 13 8/4/2017 EHIME, ITEM EHIME (A BLOCK)
Kota Ibushi vs. Yuji Nagata
Ibushi has spent most of the tournament fighting opponents who targeted his aerial game while he ducked expectations and went from a striker approach. Nagata wastes no time meeting him on these grounds, laying in kicks early and trading lock-ups. Nagata cuts off Ibushi's potential flying not with offense but by scouting it and running out of the way, causing Ibushi to pause and re-strategize. After some brief work on Ibushi's leg, Nagata start in on the arm, going for armbars and drags to set up his signature. Ibushi keeps struggling for ropes, and neither man is gathering much heat, but soon it comes when Ibushi rallies and dropkicks Nagata before mounting his comeback. A rana sends Ibushi to the floor and Ibushi busts out the Golden Triangle moonsault for a rare appearance in this tournament. Ibushi shows more respect to his opponent by rolling him back into the ring, though he pays for his honor with a quick xploder suplex and kicks that actually propel the prone Ibushi around the ring. Ibushi gets up and starts kicking back, and this match finally starts to get the crowd into it. They level each other with kicks and start punching each other while on their knees. Nagata locks on the Fujiwara as Ibushi throws his body toward any rope he can. He eventually escapes as Nagata switches to suplexes, including a nasty-looking Saito suplex that plants Ibushi squarely on the neck. Ibushi fires up and staggers Nagata with a head kick before Blue Justice offers one last act of defiance in kicking out of the Last Ride to the shock of everyone in the room. He can't stand up to Ibushi's Kamigoye knee, though, and he loses his seventh match. Afterward, Ibushi cannot stop shaking his hand, not even letting the poor man get off the mat before rushing over to grab his wrist. ***3/4
Bad Luck Fale vs. Tomohiro Ishii
Fale works even slower than usual as tourney fatigue sets in, but Ishii makes the mistake of opting to meet him on his own terms, letting Fale lay in his meaty hands. Fale slowly but surely stomps on the Pitbull until a switch flips and Ishii gets to stress his speed. This is a fun change-up for Ishii, and he makes the most of it, ducking attacks and using rope rebounds to land his blows, including a great DDT that he leaps up into Fale's face to perform. They work on equal terms until Ishii powers up and hits a delayed suplex to a huge pop, only for Fale to catch his sliding lariat into a grenade attempt, which Ishii then foils with an armbar. Terrific sequence there. Ishii withstands a spear, then eats a grenade before he gets to play escape artist from a Bad Luck Fall, hitting an enziguri, shining wizard and lariat. Another armbar leads to a spear and Bad Luck Fall to put away Ishii in a hotly worked little match that played well off of Fale and let Ishii play a different game than usual. ***1/2
Hirooki Goto vs. YOSHI-HASHI
Here comes your bathroom break match, though it's nice that a bathroom break match in the G1 will probably beat out 60% of the upcoming Summerslam card, and that's being generous to WWE. Goto casually kick at HASHI until the latter mounts a small comeback and end up hanging Goto over the ropes for a dropkick. There's no point in recapping the rest; these two, non-factors in the endgame of the tournament, decided to go out and recuperate after a grueling month, playing it safe and easy with the most basic match in the world. And good for them, to be honest. Goto ends it with two GTRs and these two boys head to the back for a hot shower and a meal. **1/2
Tetsuya Naito vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
Naito folds his tranquilo persona into caution for Sabre's grappling, dancing around the lad at the bell. Naito irks Sabre, who responds by getting Naito's head between his ankles and twisting into some gnarly headscissor variation that looks like torture. Sabre continues to tie human knots, and at one point he arcs up and over while still holding Nait's head in his feet to bring Naito off the mat, up to a seated position, and then down so his head ends up in his own lap as his back folds over itself. Sabre cuts off comebacks and punishes Naito for spitting in his face, but Naito finally mounts some offense with a corner neckbreaker, though Sabre gets a wristlock when Naito takes him to the top. It's legitimately shocking just how much of this match Sabre is taking, coming out on top even in strike exchanges as he keeps looking for openings for precisely targeted blows and ever-more elaborate holds. Naito hits his tornado DDT but Sabre goes for a European clutch roll-up. Naito goes for a cannonball only to be caught in yet another pin attempt. Naito finally rallies when he avoids a PK and throws a quick Destino for the pin. This was completely one-sided until the end, yet it's a testament to Sabre's rapid rise in the company (no doubt being set up to be a contender in future US shows) and Naito's inherent strength as a performer that they never lost the crowd. ***3/4
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Togi Makabe
Makabe got two main events in this tournament and Nagata didn't even get one. This is a cruel, shitty world. I guess it's good for Tanahashi to work Makabe's basic-ass matches as he gets ready for the end of the tournament, but Christ, Makabe makes Triple H look like Eddie Guerrero. Some floor brawling to start until they head back in and Makabe nails a powerslam. Makabe controls most of the match, with Tanahashi sneaking in offense where possible. A sequence of moves from Makabe ends with Tanahashi hitting a spinning neckbreaker, enduring a lariat and hitting a slingblade to set up High Fly Flow that misses when Makabe rolls away. They trade suplexes (Makabe hits a nice one for a good near-fall), then both go up top and fight for position. Tanahashi slips free and gets a German from the top rope, then a slingblade and two High Fly Flows to end this plodding number on a high note. ***
OVERALL: Something of a rest show as we get closer to the final. Nothing was bad but the only thing to keep an eye out for is Nagata's match with Ibushi and some fine performances from Ishii and Sabre.
DAY 14 8/5/2017, OSAKA, OSAKAPREFECTURAL GYMNASIUM (B BLOCK)
Tonga is first out, yet he manages to slink behind Yano during the latter's entrance and play games, eventually giving chase around the ring. Having watched boss Kenny get taped u, Tonga gets ahead and tapes Yano to a rail, but Yano has scissors and manages to get free and just barely beat the count. Tonga keeps stealing Yano's spots, trying to untie the turnbuckle pad and thwarting his cheap shots by slinking around behind the comedy wrestler. Yano grabs the bell hammer, but Tonga gets it from him as Yano panics and flees. Tonga tries to cheap shot Yano, but Yano ducks and hits a low blow for the win. Short, sweet and legitimately funny. It's a bit unsettling that Yano has a decent claim to the biggest match variety of this G1 as Tonga changed things up by stealing Yano's moves instead of countering them. ***
SANADA vs. Satoshi Kojima
Kojima isn't fighting for anything but his dignity at this point, but sometimes that is enough. They do some fun early exchanges where each rolls around the other's offense, putting over both as athletes. SANADA gets the Paradise Lock out of the way early. Kojima fires up but lets himself get a bit winded, keeping SANADA on his toes while selling the cost of keeping up with this ferocious young athlete. Both pick up the pace, chaining counters so that Kojima gets out of Skull End and but is then hit with a TKO. Another Skull End gets Kojima arced in agony. SANADA goes for a moonsault but misses and Kojima beats him back down with a gut kick. SANADA cuts off a charge with a dropkick but Kojima refuses to go down, then counters Skull End with an Emerald Flowsion for a near-fall. Kojima crushes SANADA with a lariat but the latter kicks out at one! Then Kojima hits one even harder and gets a pinfall! Kojima gets his first win of G1 Climax 27! This was great and another sharply worked match with a New Japan Dad. SANADA comes off as someone who both carried and let himself be carried by the older legend, a performance as much for the people behind the curtain as the crowd. Kojima just looks so great; please let next year be his last G1. He deserves his own send-off, not to toil this well in Nagata's departing shadow. ***3/4
Minoru Suzuki vs. Michael Elgin
Elgin is out thanks to that bullshit Yano match, so he's here to save face against Japan's toughest sumbitch. Taichi and Desperado are out with the boss, but Elgin is not in the mood, addressing them before going to work on Suzuki. The floor brawling oscillates between SZG interference and some of Suzuki's most brutal offense of the tournament. Never once showing fear of Elgin, he nonetheless works methodically to weaken Big Mike, torturing the man's arm before also hitting chair shots to the back. Back in the ring, Elgin fires up with clotheslines until Suzuki gets bored and locks an armbar. More interference and Suzuki flips over Mike to try another armbar, but Elgin lifts him into a powerbomb. Suzuki keeps going for dismissive, taunting attacks, but Elgin keeps powering out. A ref bump gets Taichi and Desperado in the ring, only for Elgin to grab both at the same time and slam them to get back to his actual opponent. Elgin cuts off Suzuki's Gotch piledriver attempt with a strike, then lands an Elgin bomb to win! Maybe the purest example in this tournament yet of a four-star match held back by Suzuki-gun interference, but here it made Elgin look so good it's hard to be mad. Suzuki looked motivated here as well, and he sold without reserve, even down to the post-match where he staggered around, still punch-drunk. ***1/2
Juice Robinson vs. Kenny Omega
What a difference a year makes. Last year, Omega was killing himself in his first G1, advancing through a series of grueling matches that he sold as a pile-on of brutality that got him into the finals held together with gumption and rubber bands. This year, apart from his harsh bouts with Suzuki and Elgin, he has been taking it relatively easy, letting the other man lead in his matches and clearly preserving his body for his third match with Okada and a possible/likely final. Meanwhile, poor Juice has taken on the 2016 Kenny role, albeit of a doomed variety. Already eliminated, he comes to the ring here just looking to prove he deserves to be here. Omega downright ignores him at the bell, turning to the crowd and peacocking. Some taunting corner breaks get Juice fired up, and he starts surprising Omega with some punches and lariats and even a crossbody, all done at a deliberate pace so as not to forget his leg.
Finally, Omega catches the kid and suplexes him out of the ring before going to work on his leg, punishing him with a figure four around the ringpost, then lifting him over a rail to bring down down on the commentary table on his knee. Juice beats the count at 16 and probably regrets it immediately as Omega breaks out the Bret Hart Leg Targeting Playbook, dragging the limb, wrapping it around other posts, the whole nine. Juice DDTs his way to a break but cannot follow up with an intended piledriver and Kenny throws a snap dropkick to the leg and does his Finlay roll/moonsault gimmick right onto the knees of Juice, who screams louder than Kenny over the blow. Kenny runs the ropes into a lariat and slam. Kenny gets Juice down and teases the V-trigger, but Juice kicks his head off and screams from the agony of his desperation move. Compare how Juice sells the leg here to how Omega did with Suzuki; Omega sold the impact of using his weakened leg but nonetheless used his same offense without attempting to change it up. Juice, on the other hand, spares the leg until he has no choice but to use it, and his whole body buckles from the pain. WE gets some finisher teases before Omega plants Juice with a rana and Juice kicks out as if by reflex. Another V-trigger leads to a setup for the One-Winged Angel, but Juice slips down and cradles Omega in a small package, One...Two...Three!
The crowd was flat for most of this, with everyone in the building expecting Juice to take his lumps and put in a fun showing on his way to adding another notch on Kenny's G1 record, and one might knock the match for the diminished atmosphere. But there's something even more special about the chance to feel the shock take place when Juice gets the pin and the crowd abruptly loses their minds, as if someone had been holding in all their energy and released it like the un-pinching of a hose. Absolutely everyone in the room is in disbelief. Kenny doesn't even realize he's lost, Juice's entire face goes wide as he screams "Oh fuck!" with more stunned confusion than joy, and even Red Shoes points at the victor as if to confirm that it is him and not to officially crown him the winner. Juice is so beside himself he literally continues to scream the f-word as he walks up the goddamn ramp as Kenny just slumps in shame. God, this was so much fun. The only way Omega could done more to pay tribute to Bret Hart would have been to lock a Sharpshooter or cut a shoot promo on which canonical wrestlers he found overrated, and they capped it off with a throwback roll-up. ****1/4
Kazuchika Okada vs. EVIL
Okada heads out to the ring like an absolute goof, hyperactively getting right into the camera and almost dancing his way to the turnbuckle when he gets in the ring. Cutaways to EVIL are bracing in the severity on his face, his complete focus. They start off at Okada's usual slow beginning, though the champ starts targeting EVIL's head after his nasty knock-out with Omega. He gets a light strangehold on EVIL, who makes the ropes and then punches Okada off the apron with the latter goes for a springboard. Outside, EVIL whips Okada into a barricade so hard the entire thing moves. Back inthe ring things are heating up as Okada recovers from the beating EVIL laid in at ringside, including a gorgeous DDT that flips EVIL completely over. But EVIL has Okada scouted, and he counters Okada's offense all over the place and knows when to give up on a move when the ace might find a reversal of his own. Okada gets a flapjack off a charge, eats a few corner counters before grabbing an Alabama slam. Okada gets him up top and kicks EVIL to the floor. When he goes for his crossbody over the rail, however, EVIL grabs a chair from nearby and wings it right into Okada's face in the single best counter to that move I have ever seen.
This opens up the field for EVIL, who proceeds to rain terror down on Okada with everything at his disposal. He drags multiple chairs from under the ring and sets up a pile deep into the crowd aisle, then drags Okada to them and hits Darkness Falls right onto the stack as everyone nearby shrieks but also takes enough photos to give the move a strobe effect, flashes of pure light staggered by black. Darkness falls, indeed. EVIL gets back in the ring but then rolls out to go fetch Okada to beat him the decisive way. This is a surprisingly solid heel move, honorable but done to ensure that Okada is properly embarrassed. Another darkness falls gets two and EVIL blocks the Rainmaker. Okada battles out of a superplex and hits a missile dropkick. Okada, nursing his neck, hits two more dropkicks in a fit of rage, but EVIL elbows out of a Rainmaker setup. EVIL removes Okada's head with a lariat, followed by a suplex and second lariat for an insanely close near-fall. Okada hits a Rainmaker to stop EVIL's finisher, holds the wrist and hits another, then goes for a third that EVIL ducks. Okada gets a German but EVIL finally connects the Everything is EVIL and pins Okada in the champ's first singles lost since his Osaka match with Ishii in last year's G1. Milano pops even bigger than he did for Juice's win, and EVIL is instantly a made man. One of the tournament's most bloodthirsty matches, with EVIL having fully shaken off the legit damage he took from Omega to deliver a passionate beatdown on the cocky ace, who finally ate it big for giving in to his fury. ****1/2
OVERALL: This was the best B Block show yet, not merely for its frequent spoilers but for the sheer match quality mixed with the block's strong storytelling chops. The crowd was surprisingly muted for an Osaka event, at least until Robinson scored the upset and then EVIL followed down with a merciless beating on Okada. EVIL has progressed so much this year, and it looks like LIJ has yet another star on its hands. Go out of your way to watch this show, even after the tournament ends.
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