DAY 3 7/21/2017, KORAKUEN HALL (A BLOCK)
Yuji Nagata vs. Hirooki Goto
Nagata looks for the armbar almost out of the gate, constantly slowing Goto before he can gain any momentum. Goto gets pissed, takes it to the floor and repeatedly whips Nagata into the guardrails. This in turn pisses off Nagata, who kicks Goto's block off. Only two matches into this tournament, Nagata already looks more like a star than he has in years. He fights far faster and stronger than a man his age should, but he consistently sells the effort of keeping up, so that every xploder suplex or armbar might just be the move that wins it because you cannot conceive how he can keep going after it. Nagata has already trained so many of the promotion's new generation, but he is offering a masterclass in in-ring acting, making him profoundly sympathetic while also putting himself over as a credible threat despite the increasing certainty that he will, at best, score a single pinfall this entire tournament. Nagata consistently hangs with his opponent, nailing a wild driver for a near-fall that has the crowd in the palm of his hand, no-selling Goto's lariats while Goto himself sells the dawning awareness that his usual attitude is insufficient for this match and that he needs to take Nagata seriously. A sleeper and GTR lands a victory for Goto, but the crowd deafeningly shouts for the legend as he recovers on the mat and heads to the back. ****1/4
Togi Makabe vs. Tomohiro Ishii
The best argument for Ishii's perennial MVP status as New Japan's most consistent performer is that he can drag just about anyone to a four-star match. He gets damn close with Makabe here, making his slow, dull opponent look equally brutal in brawls and charges. Makabe actually looked motivated here, keeping control for most of the match to build heat and to get an even bigger crowd reaction from Ishii's monstrous comebacks. There's a great spot of Makabe hitting a lariat to the back of Ishii's head, then the front and getting a killer near-fall that's not even near the end of the match. The nasty hoss glory comes to an end with a brainbuster from Ishii, giving Makabe what will probably be his best match of the tournament. ***3/4
Kota Ibushi vs Zack Sabre Jr.
Man, just think: last year this was supposed to be the final of WWE's Cruiserweight Classic until neither man opted to sign contracts. Now the cruisers are having pre-show and bathroom-break matches while Sabre and Ibushi are given major pushes in the second biggest promotion in the world. So really, both men are the winners of this match no matter what happens, but they decide to go out and tear the place down anyway to be polite. Sabre pulls out the same strategy he used against flyers like Ricochet and Ospreay in Evolve, immediately seeking to ground Ibushi with knee attacks to negate his strongest offense. But Ibushi's well-rounded training leads him to opt for strikes that throw devastating wrenches into Sabre's plan. Ibushi should train wrestlers on where on their thighs to slap when they go for kicks to get that striking sound because every single time he does it the noise echoes in the venue. An ongoing work/shoot element of Sabre's work in New Japan is that his frail-looking uppercuts and non-PK strikes stand out even more among the strong style of so much of the roster, so he gets down to brass tacks with each submission, laying into it with malice to cripple an opponent. His holds and Germans are flawless, but Ibushi can ground him with a single well-timed blow, and a lariat and knee combo toward the end looks like it legitimately shattered bones in Sabre's body. Ibushi eventually powers out of a triangle to convert it into a last ride, but Sabre keeps looking stronger and stronger in the company as he solidifies his position. Ibushi, meanwhile, is insistently putting over his versatility in this tournament to remind audiences just how much he can do. ****1/4
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Bad Luck Fale
No one gets better matches from Fale than Tanahashi. After contending with Sabre's highly targeted offense on night one, Tanahashi here withstands the more generalized beating from the lumbering Tongan. Of course, even Fale cannot pass up the obvious target, and a relatively even early stretch shifts when Fale grabs the arm and pulls it down on the top rope, followed by a tie-up in a guardrail. An early count-out tease gets things back to Fale just bruising Tanahashi, but the ace kept grabbing desperate comebacks, though for every sling blade or suplex he hit, Fale nastily blocked another by ragdolling the poor man. A great Bad Luck Fall counter sends Fale to the floor and is followed by a High Fly Flow to the outside. Before Fale can get back inside, Tanahashi hits a sling blade on the apron and slides in at 19 in time for Fale to get counted out. This was an extremely well-booked match that played to Fale's limited range, as well as shocking the crowd by actually paying off one of New Japan's endless count-out teases. ***1/2
Tetsuya Naito vs. YOSHI-HASHI
YOSHI-HASHI, neither a young lion nor a seasoned veteran, is in the same sweet spot that the current stars of the company occupy, but that does him no favors as his reliable ring work fails to stand out against the wave of innovation and ambition represented by the likes of Naito, Okada et al. The savage contest that Naito had with Ibushi on night one provides an angle for HASHI to distinguish the match, or lat least it would if Naito didn't immediately take control and himself target HASHI's own neck. HASHI does manage to chain some impressive counters, stopping Naito's tornado DDT and worming out of a Destino into a face first slam. The two did a fine job shifting some of the crowd sympathy off the overwhelming Naito love into mutual support, and HASHI's comeback sequence kicks into high gear when he catches a diving attack from Naito into a codebreaker and locks in a sleeper. From there, though, a series of submission holds from HASHI combine into an arduously overextended stretch of Naito's escape attempts that only made his opponent's moves look weak. A late-stage Destino kick-out is a step too far, giving a rub to HASHI but making it look perfunctory and like a favor more than endurance. A second Destino gets it done about five minutes after this should have ended. HASHI looked good here but this match went for the epic sweep of a New Japan main event and didn't quite earn it. ***1/2
OVERALL: Another good showing from the A Block, with good booking in the Tanahashi/Fale match and Ishii proving that he is perhaps the only person who can get Makabe to a great match. The long-delayed match-up between Ibushi and Sabre delivered spectacularly while leaving ample room for a hopeful rematch to top it, and Nagata, weirdly, may end up being the breakout star of the entire tournament.
DAY 4 7/22/2017, KORAKUEN HALL (B BLOCK)
This was a standard filler tag right up until the moment that Fale went to ringside, grabbed Hiromu Takahashi's beloved Darryl and ripped the sweet stuffed cat to shreds. This should set up a vicious Takahashi reprisal, but his offense is quickly cut off with a beatdown, and from there Naito takes over, which makes sense given that he is in the tournament and not Hiromu but still loses a bit of its impact. Nonetheless, the post-match interactions of a heartbroken, catatonic Takahashi and a sincerely concerned Naito, is brief but great and arguably the highlight of the match. **1/4
Toru Yano vs. Satoshi Kojima
Yano's 10-minute match with Okada was a marathon by his standards but was earned by how hilariously infuriated Okada got with him. By comparison, Kojima doesn't have the same chemistry with the comedy wrestler, and going 10 minutes here was a mistake. After the usual Yano antics and cheap near-falls of the start, this settles into something honestly resembling a wrestling match, which does neither man any favors. Yano loses his gimmicky charm while Kojima looks profoundly weak for having an actual fight go so long with his jokey opponent. It's difficult to understand the booking of this match, which takes a fun trifle and reduces it to just a disposable spot on the card. The worst match of the tournament so far. *1/2
EVIL vs. Juice Robinson
Two increasingly can't-fail performers went out and killed it yet again, each proving why they are the underdogs of this block. Juice wastes no time taking the fight to EVIL, heading to the floor with a plancha before getting thrown into some chairs. Juice beats the 20-count but is immediately set upon by a fired-up EVIL. Juice rallies with a killer spinebuster and heads up to do Honma's kokeshi. Both men fight like their lives depended on it, throwing hail mary moves in an attempt to halt the other's momentum. The crowd kicks into next gear when Juice levels EVIL with a lariat and an outstanding reversal sequence finds EVIL slipping out of multiple pulp friction attempts before EVIL gets a tiger suplex. A lariat and STO ends things with both fighters getting huge pops. At 12 minutes, this was wonderfully compact, with no extended rest period so EVIL and Robinson looked like they were going to run until their hearts gave out. This is the kind of match you only get out of New Japan at G1, feeling big and important even as it took up only a small chunk of time. ****
SANADA vs Minoru Suzuki
This match has a novel solution to the inevitability of Suzuki-gun run-ins by sending Suzuki out with Desperado from the start. SANADA was on fire here, working more as a face to offset the heat that Suzuki gets just by breathing. The story told was not entirely unlike Okada's matches with more shoot-style fighters like Suzuki and Shibata, that of the well-rounded wrestler being able to withstand the disciplined punishment of MMA within the context of a wrestling match. Suzuki looks like a killer, nailing his hanging apron armbar early and even scoring a PK on the apron, but SANADA showed off incredible versatility. He strikes, goes aerial, and he has a counter ready for most of what Suzuki can throw at him. Of course, that only pisses off his opponent, and Suzuki is a man possessed, particularly after SANADA successfully ties him in the paradise lock (a move ordinarily so goofy as to be filler but here gaining power from its silliness to enrage the no-nonsense Suzuki). A flurry of counters to Suzuki's sleeper and SANADA's skull end build to the finish, Suzuki finally losing all composure and landing a Gotch piledriver. ****
Kenny Omega vs. Tama Tonga
Omega's mega-watt star power and his ingenious merchandise branding with the Young Bucks has been threatening to pull him away from the remainder of Bullet Club for months now, and it appears that New Japan is all-in on a teased breakup. Carrying over from the BC tag match from the night before, Tonga makes clear his resentment over his ostensible leader's increasing solipsism, grabbing a mic mid-match to cut a promo demanding that Omega either lead all of the Bullet Club or leave. The promo was great story setup but killed the flow of the match, though both men did great work in calling back to Omega's abuse at Suzuki's hands on Night 2, with Tonga taking a keen interest in Omega's knee. Once again, though Omega goes back to the V-Trigger well too many times, and at no point did the crowd, even factoring in the spoiler possibilities of G1, buy that Tonga might grab a pin. Still, it was a good match with complementary styles, marred by the two largely setting aside Tonga's significant issues with Omega after the match, setting back the budding BC implosion. ***
Kazuchika Okada vs. Michael Elgin
Big Mike has been struggling to get his groove back in NJPW after his eye socket injury, and what better way to do so that stepping in the ring with the ace? Early exchanges make Okada pay for his minor shows of arrogance, catching stiff forearms and chops for his impudent gestures. Elgin has a counter for nearly all of Okada's early moves, and they head out to ringside where Okada's running high cross spot ends with Elgin catching his opponent and tossing him like a rag doll. An apron slam and quick shove back into ring gets a two-count and Elgin keeps up the punishment until Okada rolls away from a slingshot splash and lands a basement dropkick. Okada gains control on the floor and back inside until Elgin catches a running corner strike into a deadlift suplex and then lands several Germans and a wrist-clutch suplex for another near-fall. Elgin looks like a monster here, not malicious or heel-like in any way but nonetheless a brick wall. But Okada is Okada, and he endures all of this, even kipping up after a particularly taxing run by his opponent.
Per Okada big match formula, the pace exponentially increases as the match continues, though the longer it goes the more the crowd throws support behind Big Mike, knowing that a win would score him a title shot against the ace. Elgin's strikes get great, brutal sounds. A dropkick on the top turnbuckle sends Elgin to the floor, but back in the ring he catches another missile dropkick attempt into a sick powerbomb. Lariats and counters follow, Elgin ducks a Rainmaker and hits an enziguri before Okada lands one German and pops up for a dropkick to the head after Elgin blocks a second suplex attempt. Elgin hits a savage lariat, another and then an Elgin bomb for a 2.99 count that absolutely explodes the crowd. Okada slips out of a falcon arrow and catching a diving Elgin with a dropkick to the gut. Elgin's superplex gets two, and a follow-up buckle bomb gets yet another wild near-fall. Elgin goes for an honest-to-god Burning Hammer but Okada lands on his feet, hits a Rainmaker, holds on to lift Big Mike into a second, then goes for a third that Elgin avoids and hits a nasty back fist. Okada cuts off this last wind with a tombstone and a Rainmaker for the win.
This was an outstanding match, one in which Big Mike managed to go in as an underdog thanks to how carefully Okada has been built up as a champion, completely win over the crowd and push Okada to his limit, landing so many power moves that the champ has to actually improvise and take hits where he can get them. Okada skeptics will likely call this another of his epic slogs of big moves, but this is yet another instance of him adapting with each opponent and shifting his approach. Here, he plays mongoose, realizing that he cannot meet Elgin on equal ground with strength and opting to sneak in whatever counter will give him a breather. And for all the complaints about Okada's selling, he came across as utterly exhausted here, kicking out of Elgin's moves but looking for all the world like he might just faint after every effort toward the end. Okada has done a killer job of putting over not merely his superhuman match booking but the toll that it is taking, setting up the inevitability of him pushing himself too far to remain on top and tumbling from the mountain peak. ****3/4
OVERALL: With the exception of the Kojima/Yano match and the wonky structure of Omega/Tonga, this show was a blast, with the second-best match of the tournament so far and two four-star affairs that made all four wrestlers look like stars. The A Block may have gotten a lopsided share of the top talent, but the exceptional story and character building going on in the B Block may make it the more ultimately rewarding aspect of G1 27. In its own way, this is starting to resemble as super-concentrated riff on the Raw/Smackdown split, and it's increasingly likely that this block will cement at least two rising stars (SANADA and Robinson) while moving several of New Japan's top factions into new directions.
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