By: Bruce Lord
Welcome to POST’s preview of this year’s G1 Climax tournament. Full coverage of the tournament will be provided by the POST staff in the form of podcasts at The POST Wrestling Café, but before things kick off I’ll be offering some analysis of this year’s field in comparison to last year’s and trying to interpret the positioning of wrestlers on individual tournament cards. Finally, I’ll be giving breakdowns of each of the twenty competitors, to help casual or lapsed New Japan viewers get caught up on the year each of them has had thus far in addition to their prospects in the actual G1 itself.
Addition by subtraction can be a somewhat hollowed-out cliche in business and shoot sports, but based on the level of discussion heading into this year’s G1 compared to last year, it’s an approach that New Japan seems to have put to good use. Cutting the field of pro wrestling’s most prestigious tournament back to twenty competitors and two blocks, the number which the G1 held for seven years before 2022’s twenty-eight-man, four-block field, and last year’s staggering thirty-two competitors, may have been a product of necessity rather than a stylistic choice, but it may help to polish away some of the tarnish that the tournament’s legacy has accrued since the pandemic.
Beyond the simple number of competitors, let’s look at what’s different about this year’s G1. Kazuchika Okada. Will Ospreay. The effect that their departures have had on New Japan’s fortunes domestically and abroad simply cannot be overstated. If we care to, we can discuss the decisions Gedo and New Japan made in not having Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii in the tournament, but with all due respect to the Ace of the Universe and the greatest bell-to-bell G1 wrestler in tournament history (apologies to Masahiro Chono), there’s simply no comparison for the vacuums left by Okada and Ospreay (save potentially for the gaps left by Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles eight years ago). Moreover, while Tanahashi and Ishii’s absences are conscious choices (albeit ones likely shaped by medical realities), Okada and Ospreay’s are not. (Tanahashi struggling to qualify next year for what might be his final G1 after missing the tournament for the first time in twenty-two years is a ready-made story for the 2025 tournament.)
Rather than attempting to fill those vacuums and field a bloated G1 light on star power, New Japan cutting the field back to twenty allows for its remaining stars to be given as much spotlight as needed while still having some left over for its developmental projects. This isn’t the time to give a report card on the extant development of the Reiwa Four and other prospects, but it is the time to mention that many of them still need to be tangibly elevated in the eyes of Japanese fans.
So, how can we evaluate and measure the strength of this leaner, trimmer 2024 G1 field? Well, the gates from the nineteen shows which will run from this coming Saturday in Osaka to the finals on August 18th at Sumo Hall will give us the only numbers New Japan truly cares about, but after a year of waning interest in the product from a western perspective, I decided to crunch some Cagematch numbers and compare the ratings of wrestlers in last year’s and this year’s tournaments.
2023 Field
- Okada 9.68
- Tanahashi 9.62
- Naito 9.46
- Ishii 9.44
- Takagi 9.39
- Ospreay 9.26
- Sabre 9.02
- KENTA 8.95
- Kiyomiya 8.74
- Goto 8.4
- Cobb 8.28
- Kingston 8.26
- Tsuji 8.08
- SANADA 7.71
- Phantasmo 7.63
- Umino 7.45
- Haste 7.25
- Taichi 7.24
- Narita 7.20
- Kidd 7.19
- Coughlin 7.11
- Great-O-Khan 6.78
- Yoshi Hashi 6.73
- Finlay 6.62
- Nicholls 6.5
- EVIL 6.48
- Henare 6.47
- Tama Tonga 6.4
- Yano 6.21
- Owens 4.84
- Tanga Loa 4.43
- Hikuleo 4.17
2023 AVERAGE: 7.53
DEPARTING (17) AVERAGE: 7.34
The thirty-two wrestlers in the 2023 tournament have an average rating of 7.53. The seventeen of those who are not returning this year averaged 7.34. That average being lower than the overall field average doesn’t sound so remarkable in itself, but when one considers that those seventeen include Cagematch favorites like Okada, Ospreay, Tanahashi, Ishii, and even KENTA, who enjoys a robust 8.95 rating based on his legacy in NOAH rather than his New Japan walk n’ brawl work, it’s clear that it isn’t just stars and all-time workers who are absent this year: performers whom western fans view as being at the lower end of the roster have been removed, to the point that their deficiencies outweigh the strengths of the departing favorites.
2024 Field
- Naito 9.46
- Shingo 9.39
- Takeshita 9.23
- Sabre 9.02
- Jake Lee 8.47
- Goto 8.4
- Cobb 8.28
- Tsuji 8.08
- SANADA 7.71
- Phantasmo 7.63
- Umino 7.45
- Uemura 7.30
- Narita 7.20
- Kidd 7.19
- Boltin 7.16
- Great-O-Khan 6.78
- Finlay 6.62
- EVIL 6.48
- Henare 6.47
- Newman 6.16
2024 AVERAGE: 7.72
INCOMING (5) AVERAGE: 7.66
The twenty wrestlers in the 2024 tournament have an average rating of 7.72. The five new additions average 7.66, effectively on par with the returning talent. Konosuke Takeshita’s rating is doing a lot of work to lift that average, but even the lowest of the five, the still green in experience as well as faction Callum Newman ranks higher than three of the departing class of 2023.
Obviously, these Cagematch ratings are wholly subjective, but if nothing else they do give a sense of how the western New Japan fanbase evaluates and presumably anticipates cards featuring these wrestlers, and quite frankly going into this exercise I presumed that the phenomenally high ratings of Okada, Tanahashi, Ishii, Ospreay, KENTA, and even NOAH moonlighter Kaito Kiyomiya simply could not be accounted for, and I was surprised to see this year’s average being even marginally higher than last’s (by a potential rounding error of 0.19). I’m not going to make the sweeping claim that a tournament without Okada and Ospreay is better than one with them, but there’s no denying that trimming some of the fat and capitalizing on what buzz has been successfully generated around young talent has helped to ameliorate those absences (not to mention the cagy selection of a pair of outsiders bound to be flashpoints of discussion while avoiding the likes of Nic Nemeth and Matt Riddle whose hotshotting was widely derided as fly-by-night carpetbagging).
Lastly, before getting into possible paths for each wrestlers’ tournament, one of the few concrete means we have of modeling the possible overall shape of the tournament is to look at the actual tournament schedule and headline matches. While in the past just simply looking at the last night’s card was often enough to highlight one or two matches that would decide the fate of the block, G1 booking has become a bit more subtle of late – tie-breakers, logjams late into the tournament, and even a few more ties than usual have muddied the water. Still, a quick glance at the number of headlining matches indicates, if nothing else, the front office’s sense of individual talents as draws.
The match order of the G1 Climax is out and here are the number of main events the Wrestlers have*
Tetsuya Naito 4
Shingo Takagi 4
Yota Tsuji 4
David Finlay 3
Konosuke Takeshita 2
Yuya Uemura 2
EVIL 2
Hirooki Goto 2
SANADA 2
Jake Lee 1
ZSJ 1
Ren Narita 1
Rest 0*(Final day is… pic.twitter.com/DAz34k1rYK
— Peps🪭 (@Peps_Wrestling) July 8, 2024
What to make of this list? Well, it’s no surprise to see Tetsuya Naito atop it regardless of his tournament chances as champ or the state of his knees. Interestingly, all of Naito’s four headlining spots fall in July; the more ghoulish side of me is wondering if legitimate concerns about Naito’s ability to withstand a grueling ten-man block for the first time in three years prompted New Japan to try to ensure that his most important matches would be taken care of first. That Shingo Takagi is tied with him is somewhat unexpected given the Rampage Dragon’s winding descent out of the world title mix and into the midcard, but much like with Ishii before him few things will help to draw casual western New Japan fans back in more than Shingo main events. For all of the rumors about Zack Sabre Jr. finally getting a main event push, his presentation within the tournament pecking order certainly doesn’t make that a fait accompli. Lastly, Yota Tsuji being given equal billing as his former world champ LIJ stablemates should lay to rest any question as to which of the Reiwa Four the office is currently investing in (a certain Shooter seems conspicuous by his absence on this list despite a slew of high profile matches over the past year), or, at the very least, is a reminder of just how popular LIJ remains with domestic New Japan audiences.
All that being said, let’s run through each of the blocks. For those who’ve let their New Japan viewing slide but are tuning back in out of habit or tradition for the G1, I’ll be getting you up to speed on each wrestler’s recent history and how I imagine their individual G1’s might affect those standings. I’m discussing each block’s contenders in descending order of what I roughly predict will be their final tournament standings and/or chances of winning the block (given this year’s MLB-inspired Wild Card playoff round with the first-place finishers effectively getting a one-round bye). I won’t be offering formal record or match-by-match predictions, but this is as good a time as any to plug POST’s longstanding G1 contest in which you can try to get inside Gedo’s mind and compete for G1 honor and glory without having to do sentons off Korakuen Hall entryways or get tossed into guardrails: get your ballots in by this Thursday!
A BLOCK
Zack Sabre Jr.
(2023 G1 record: 5-2)
Buzz about this finally being The Windy Man’s G1 to win has been palpable since Wrestle Kingdom and even earlier. Amongst some hardcore western New Japan fans who’ve felt that the company has been getting the short end of the stick in its relationship with AEW, Zack Sabre Jr.’s declarative win over the relatively well-protected Orange Cassidy at Forbidden Door was taken as proof that the front office wanted him kept strong in the short term. But beyond that match it’s been somewhat difficult to read the tea leaves with Sabre. What should have been a “losing up” TV title loss at Wrestle Kingdom had to be rewound into a brief transitional spell with the microwave dinner belt after Matt Riddle did Matt Riddle things. Non-New Japan one offs with everyone from Daniel Makabe to Connor Mills to Hikaru Sato to Hechicero have all been treats to watch this year, but don’t have much bearing on NJPW itself.
Still, there are a number of more subtle points which have a lot of people placing their bets on Sabre. By all accounts he’s settled, secure, and happy in Japan and has already turned down envoys from North America, while at the same time his connections in both the UK and the US make him an ideal gaikokujin ambassador for the company (sorry, Yano, but it may in fact be ZSJ who is taishi). The wary and at times downright charming respect Sabre and Naito have shown for one another in their on again, off again feud going all the way back to 2017 shouldn’t go unnoticed. As I discuss below, putting the current champ in a position to have the most credible yet risk-averse match should be a priority heading to the Dome, and a Sabre match would certainly fit the bill. Also, having a crafty gaikokujin champ who is always one unforeseeable rollup or submission away from a win could make for an intriguing foil for young native New Japan talent trying to break through in 2025. Being trapped in some non Euclidean pretzel cheekily named after a Mighty Boosh bit or Sleaford Mods B-side isn’t the sort of defeat which permanently buries a young wrestler, and could allow future projects to repeatedly test their mettle against Sabre in championship matches. If anyone in the A Block stands a real chance at winning the entire G1, it’s the man with the vegan tekkers, darling.
Shingo Takagi
(2023 G1 record: 3-3-1)
As indicated by the aforementioned contrast between his high placement on many of this year’s cards and his actual win/loss record and title history within New Japan, Shingo Takagi is at a crossroads in the company. Having never been given a heavyweight championship run outside of the most limiting eras of the pandemic, the question of his ability to draw as champ outside of the most hardcore of Korakuen crowds remains an open one. Shingo could either be effectively shunted into the Ishii role – treated as a god by UK and US crowds but never given a sustained push at home again – or he could be nudged up the card to bolster other vets like Naito and have sustained feuds for real stakes with the company’s still rising youth movement. Personally, I don’t think that Shingo’s easy-going but fiery promo style and his ability to have top-tier main events with just about everyone should be overlooked even as younger wrestlers rise: the likes of Tsuji, Umino, and even Fujita and Oiwa will need to have still-credible stars to feud as they establish themselves atop the company.
Getting down to brass tacks, Shingo would make for a fantastic opponent in the tournament finals for just about anyone who might win the B block, and should Gedo decide that none of the company’s prospects are yet ready for the spotlight of a Tokyo Dome main event, a dark horse Naito/Shingo Wrestle Kingdom main event would not only be just the second time the two met in a singles encounter (Naito defeated Shingo five years ago in an Osaka G1 barnburner), but would also throw some red meat to hardcore LIJ fans who’ve been watching the possibility of a Naito/Hiromu match wither on the vine.
Tetsuya Naito
(2023 G1 record: 5-2)
Despite being in the midst of his fifth heavyweight title reign, New Japan’s biggest star has never held either the original IWGP Heavyweight Championship or the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship during G1 season. Having won three of his previous fourteen G1s (with one of those being cut short due to an injury suffered in his first tournament match), there’s no disputing Naito’s bona fides within the tournament, but as the mediocre match which led to his reclaiming of the title at Forbidden Door showed to those only cursorily keeping up with Naito’s domestic work, the distinction between a classic Naito match and a perfunctory one is no longer simply a question of will. Hell, more so than his actual defeat of Okada in the G1 finals, the lasting image of last year’s tournament is that of a clearly legitimately stunned Naito being guided through a semi-final win by Ospreay in a divisive match which was a nailbiter for reasons wholly unrelated to the booking itself.
In short, Naito is on borrowed time, and while his crafty veteran instincts and sheer determination can still align to produce fantastic matches, there can be no disputing that there’s a schism between the level an entire country’s worth of fans still see him at and what he is able to deliver between the ropes on a nightly basis. Naito will have a strong record in the tournament and may even make it to the playoffs (though I’d be wary of putting him in any matches he does not absolutely need to be in on the road to January 4th), with a couple of key losses (Lee, Sabre, and Shingo are all possibilities) to set up the next few months, but ultimately will not do what only Kensuke Sasaki and Keiji Muto have done before and win the G1 as IWGP champ.
Jake Lee
Few outside additions to this year’s G1 could be as polarizing as that of Jake Lee. Some find his size, promos, and persona engrossing, others (like yours truly) find his offense boring, his pick-up-artist look ridiculous, and his matches incredibly long and turgid. Frankly, figuring out how to get the most out of someone of Jake Lee’s size and middling talent seems like a task that should fall to the promotion that’s actually signed him, rather than a promotion which has its hands full trying to elevate from within.
But regardless of what I or anyone else thinks of Lee’s bell-to-bell from an aesthetic standpoint, tracking his booking in this tournament is going to be fascinating. On the one hand we’re in a circling the wagons period with puro promotions doing more joint shows and exchanging talent than at any time in the last decade, yet at the same time NOAH’s emergent relationship with WWE seems to be growing stronger by the day, with the Stamford behemoth’s scorched earth tactics in the UK still fresh in the minds of anxious puro fans. Will NJPW book Lee with an eye towards future business with NOAH, or will each Japanese promotion’s alliances with the two major American companies overshadow domestic amiability? We just saw NOAH allow what should have been one of their most protected assets be booked into the dirt in last year’s G1, so anything from Lee only scratching out a couple of wins to making it all the way to the block finals seems possible. Hell, does Lee’s disbanding of Good Looking Guys portend a jump to a third puro promotion in as many years, with a solid G1 record providing a formal entryway into New Japan? A defeat of Naito in the main event of the July 23rd card, in the home city of Naito’s beloved Hiroshima Carp no less, would keep both men busy after the tournament with a possible rubber match for Naito’s title as a cross-promotional pit stop on the road to the Dome…though I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for Lee to bring the best out of 2024 Naito.
Shota Umino
(2023 G1 record: 2-3-2)
As I’ve repeatedly said in my New Japan podcasts with Karen Peterson, Shooter simply does not have that dog in him, at least not yet. The somewhat halting and uncertain nature of his in-ring instincts and personality are now only magnified by the tremendous forces which have been leveraged to place him in as glowing a light as possible over the past years: Jon Moxley, Will Ospreay, Tetsuya Naito, his father, the sartorial stylings of Hiroshi Tanahashi, etc., etc., etc. Hell, in the highest rated singles match he’s had this year, Umino was completely pushed out of the spotlight in a match he won by the ghost of CM Punk, a man he’s never even stepped into the ring with, and presumably never will. I recently likened Umino to Tetsuya Naito’s hapless Stardust Genius presentation, and while I recognize that that’s a damning condemnation, it’s also a reminder that the book on Umino’s New Japan career likely won’t be defined by a couple of fumbling opening chapters. Look for Umino to improve somewhat on his mediocre debut G1 record this year, and score at least one win against a major star to set up the rest of his 2024, so long as the hip fracture (!) and strained disc he suffered just a month ago don’t lead to an early medical withdrawal from the tournament.
SANADA
(2023 G1 record: 7-0)
The SANADA title experiment has been mercifully over for several months. As much as it might have put a damper on New Japan gates, SANADA has been as sanguine in defeat as he was as a champ, and after a groan-inducing, unnecessary rematch against Naito in February, SANADA’s spent the rest of 2024 quietly putting together some very enjoyable work, namely his loss to Goto in the New Japan Cup semi-finals and an underrated failed challenge for David Finlay’s Global Championship a month ago. That said, he’s without a title, his faction seems without a clear purpose, and even one of the nominal loss posts in that faction is now strapped up while he isn’t; in short, there’s very little happening with SANADA at the moment and I don’t see that changing in a G1 where he’ll hover around the .500 mark.
But as his title reign proved, he’s always been something of a shrinking violet, and a bit of downtime in which to continue licking his wounds and working in his own stream won’t be the worst thing for him.
Gabe Kidd
(2023 G1 record: 2-4-1)
Can Kidd’s foul-mouthed crowd-baiting wear thin three matches into a tournament like this? Yes, but as always we need to remember that New Japan is still a live house-driven business, and Kidd’s boorish foreigner shtick gets the heat it aims for. More pertinently, Kidd’s 2024 has already been marked by great to excellent matches with HENARE, Shingo, and Kaito Kiyomiya, and he’s proven himself to be a capable and hungry personality and presence whether he’s showing up on American television or appearing in outlandish and divisive matches like the faction warfare cagematch this February. Frankly, I believe a lot of die-hard New Japan fans are overlooking his future value to the company simply because they find his antics (again, aimed at domestic houses) irritating in the short term. Despite likely finishing with a middling record, look for Kidd to continue to threaten to eat the leader of the War Dogs’ lunch.
EVIL
(2023 G1 record: 5-2)
House of Torture going 0 for 3 at the first New Japan Soul show, including SHO’s loss of the Junior Heavyweight belt, coming hot on the heels of Jon Moxley’s defeat of EVIL at Dominion hopefully indicates that President Tanahashi’s promise of a reconsideration of the role of the House Of Torture wasn’t just kayfabe. EVIL will steal a couple of wins here and there using his pro forma, Snidely Whiplash-level tactics, effectively taking on the absent Toru Yano’s role of giving the real contenders some mathematically necessary but largely insignificant losses, but will otherwise not be a factor in the G1.
Great-O-Khan
(2023 G1 record: 3-4)
As O-Khan heads into his fourth G1, it’s become very difficult to forecast whether he’ll be having a collegiate wrestling match or an eel-eating contest, let alone whether he’ll be successful at the former. He’s spent 2024 feuding with the now mercifully departed Tonga Loa in some of the most excruciating torment to ever misrepresent itself as pro wrestling, and having some halfway decent matches with Yuya Uemura. If he makes a show of trying to meet ZSJ in a grappling contest he might be able to make a meal of it, but apart from that I expect O-Khan to continue to flounder in the head-scratching manner he has over the past several years.
Callum Newman
The “it’s an honour just to be nominated” rookie of the A block has already had his feel-good moments in qualifying for the tournament with defeats of KENTA and Yujiro Takahashi (well, nothing involving Yujiro is feel-good, win or lose). Leaving aside the Ospreay endorsement and comparisons (which could become an entirely different seabird hung around Newman’s neck), his first G1 will make for great seasoning for a young talent with a lot of raw potential and athleticism which still needs to be harnessed, controlled, directed, and measured. Expect him to go effectively winless, though his final block match pits him against Gabe Kidd, and a flash pin there could possibly get him on the board at the last minute and set up his first real solo program coming out of the tournament.
B Block
Yota Tsuji
(2023 G1 record: 3-3-1)
Even before the departures of Will Ospray and Kazuchika Okada came into focus, the feeling was palpable: running parallel to the business rut New Japan had fallen into during the pandemic, there was a sense that things needed to change in New Japan. A dearth of new legitimate stars had resulted in aging main eventers rewinding matches which had been played out countless times before. The return of Yota Tsuji to the company to challenge SANADA for the World Heavyweight Title at 2023’s Dominion felt like a breath of fresh air and an acknowledgement that change was coming. While he was unsuccessful in that challenge and in later high profile singles contests against Will Ospreay, David Finlay, and another title challenge against his LIJ leader Tetsuya Naito, it’s become apparent over the past year which of the Reiwa Four is at the front of the line for major elevation, and deservedly so.
The combination of power and freakish speed and flexibility Tsuji possesses is reflected in his hybrid style, a modern spin on lucharesu with the power bar on his character page cranked up to Game Genie levels. Factor in his look, comfort while delivering major promos, and the uncanny charisma carried by that eerie, leering grin, and you have all the elements New Japan could hope for in their top star. While he may not run the table in the B block, Tsuji is the odds-on favourite to win the entire G1 and face Tetsuya Naito at the Tokyo Dome on January 4th for New Japan’s top prize. As I’ve discussed above, Naito is on borrowed time, and Tsuji was explicitly clear when he joined Los Ingobernables de Japon that he planned on testing himself against his stablemates and defeating them in turn. There’s no time like the present.
David Finlay
(2023 G1 record: 5-2)
Heel gaikokujin have been divisive figures in Japan especially since the formation of Bullet Club, with it often being difficult to tell whether puro purists find their programs to be actual turn-offs, or whether supposedly smart fans are simply being worked into that most basic element of pro wrestling: disliking a heel. After sending him packing from New Japan, David Finlay has been carrying on in the tradition of Jay White, who as I wrote about last year, doggedly resisted drifting into modern “cool heel” territory.
From my view, Finlay’s work has been much stronger than many of his impassioned detractors would have you believe, but that doesn’t necessitate a reactionary move to see him as the company’s top heel who should be positioned as the ultimate evil whichever chosen noble member of the Reiwa Four needs to dethrone. Regardless of the head-scratching booking which led to the creation of the Global Heavyweight title, Finlay’s emerged as the face of the company’s secondary title, and his booking has followed suit. Apart from an underrated defense of the title against SANADA last month, and a jarring loss and recapturing of the title in a program with Nic Nemeth which many felt cut off Finlay’s Wrestle Kingdom win, the War Dogs’ larger feud with United Empire has occupied most of Finlay’s 2024, with his faction-wide duties taking priority over individual programs. Finlay does stand an outside chance at winning the G1, but will more likely serve as either a semi-final opponent for Tsuji or a foil for Sabre in the finals.
Konosuke Takeshita
If you didn’t pop off your couch and pump your fist the moment Takeshita’s name flashed across the screen during the G1 announcements on the New Japan Soul card, then you and I are very different people. The former face of DDT has never stepped into ring in any match construction with HENARE, Hirooki Goto, Jeff Cobb, or Yota Tsuji, let alone in a high-profile tournament singles context, and the prospect of those four fresh matches is in and of itself enough to make the B block the more exciting of the two for me. Despite not being a currently pushed commodity, Takeshita’s in-ring work in 2024 has been phenomenal, from the high-octane multi-man matches AEW has recently made a TV priority, a stellar #1 contendership match against Swerve Strickland, and a legitimate Match of the Year contender with Will Ospreay. Factor in a handful of great moonlighting matches back in his old stomping grounds (especially his March match with Yuma Aogi) and it’s no wonder why Voices Of Wrestling’s recent 30 Under 30 panel voted him the second best wrestler worldwide still in his 20s.
If AEW does hold the upper hand in its relationship with NJPW, much to the chagrin of partisans of the latter, we can presume that Takeshita will finish the G1 with a solid record to bring back stateside, hopefully to capitalize on the response given to him at Forbidden Door by AEW fans who are clearly restless and ready to see him get the push he is ready for. Simply put, alongside the possibility of a Tsuji win and tracking the general fortunes of the company’s young talent, watching Takeshita showcase his brand of pro wrestling on one of the most elevated stages the sport can provide will be one of the prime appeals of this year’s G1, regardless of whether any of the likely numerous wins he will accrue and carry to the quarterfinals will lead to future matches or programs with New Japan talent.
Jeff Cobb
(2023 G1 record: 4-2-1)
The path to Cobb’s holding of the TV title was likely a lot less artful than New Japan had hoped for, not being able to capitalize on his long-standing relationship with Matt Riddle, though Cobb’s a long enough tenured presence in New Japan to not need an outside rub to elevate his own title reigns. That being said, it’s been a somewhat quiet 2024 for Cobb, especially in comparison to his United Empire stablemates. He’s had some great matches with the likes of Tsuji and Ishii in addition to the defeat of Zabre for the TV title, and the sheer volume of muscle in the B block should set him up to showcase some feats of strength with Boltin, Tsuji, and HENARE. He’ll likely end up in the winning column with a fair chance at making it into one of the quarterfinal spots.
HENARE
(2023 G1 record: 2-5)
Despite his losing record, HENARE’s 2023 G1 did a lot to bring doubters on board through pure violence, intensity, and explosiveness. He carried momentum forward from a criminally overlooked Korakuen six-man in December into the new year with arguably the best singles match of his career, an all out war of mutually assured destruction with Gabe Kidd, serving as a prelude to the ten-man factional cagematch in which being driven through a table by Kidd infamously severed an artery in HENARE’s head, putting him on the shelf for nearly four months. A pair of game challenges of Shingo Takagi wrested the NEVER title away from the Dragon and set HENARE up to put his own stamp on the de facto company hardman position that title has previously bestowed to the likes of Takagi, Ishii, and Minoru Suzuki. More than wins and losses, consolidating that position and living up to the reputations of those men is HENARE’s task in the G1. Big shoes to fill, no doubt, but anyone who’s been closely watching his work since he unveiled the mataora won’t be skeptical. A NEVER challenge could be spun out of a tournament loss, but frankly trying to get revenge on Kidd with either or both of the NEVER and STRONG belts involved could do wonders for both men.
Hirooki Goto
(2023 G1 record: 3-4)
The “G” in G1 stands for “gonna make the best of it” or “good effort” this year. Look, much like effectively every Ishii G1, unless this is your first time watching the tournament you already know exactly how this is going to go: Goto will latch onto a theme or throughline which will resonate with long-time New Japan fans, possibly involving a family member, and emerge with a barely winning or barely losing record. With his Bishamon partner not in the tournament and the tag division stocked with nearly more belts than teams, now more than ever Goto’s role as a tag specialist is where his overarching value to New Japan lies. Still, he can be counted on to deliver the sort of match quality the G1 was built upon, and should pair up very nicely with the likes of Tsuji, HENARE, Takeshita, Uemura, Cobb, Boltin…hell, basically the entire block.
Yuya Uemura
The first native Japanese NJPW talent making his G1 debut this year, Yuya Uemura has had mixed results in 2024. While he began the year with a defeat of his dojo rival Yota Tsuji, his subsequent hair vs hair loss to Tsuji reminded everyone of the pecking order of the Reiwa Four, and the mixed critical reception to both matches didn’t do much to disrupt that hierarchy. Losses to Shingo in both the first round of the New Japan Cup and in a NEVER challenge were received moderately better, but a feud with Great-O-Khan for the King Of Pro Wrestling belt in a pair of convoluted stip matches felt like Uemura tilting at windmills; the champion of a traditional, Ricky Steamboat-inspired style of wrestling being tossed into the most sports-entertainment side of New Japan more to troll him rather than to fight for the honour of puro. Uemura’s work on excursion impressed me more than that of any of his peers, and while his development hasn’t moved as fast as I might have predicted, I still feel like there’s the potential for him to be a very well-rounded singles star down the road. Uemura would be lucky to emerge from the G1 with an even win-loss record, and an upset defeat of any one of the current champs in the B block (Finlay, Cobb, HENARE) which could set him up for a more productive second half of the year than mucking about with Narita on the undercard.
El Phantasmo
(2023 G1 record: 3-4)
The departure of Haku’s kids from New Japan was a win-win for nearly everyone: the three brothers are spending more time with their families and making that Bloodline bank, while the promotion has some of its staler acts cycled out, as per my earlier thesis. The operative phrase there is nearly everyone. While the tag team with Hikuleo was likely never going to be a permanent arrangement, it ended abruptly and without any sort of payoff for or elevation of El Phantasmo. Now left without friends, a faction, or a clear direction, El-P is effectively twisting in the wind as he heads into his third G1, and his flashy North American style sits somewhat at odds with the smash-mouth bruisers and puro traditionalists who occupy his block. Likely ending with a middling to sub-.500 record, El Phantasmo is going to have to make his own luck this year. The renewal of hostilities with his one-time Bullet Club faction leader, this time with the Global belt in the mix, is probably as much as the pride of Maple Ridge can hope for.
Ren Narita
(2023 G1 record: 2-3-2)
Speaking of twisting in the wind, caught betwixt a reconsideration of the House Of Torture’s role in New Japan moving forward and its need to get the next generation ready, Narita is also in no man’s land in this year’s G1. For brief stretches in his 2024 matches with Moxley and Umino there have been brief glimpses of both the junior technician most of us presumed he would develop into during his Young Lion days as well as a less over-the-top grimy heel persona in the mold of Minoru Suzuki, Shinjiro Ohtani, or Yoshinari Ogawa, but those have been few and far between in a run defined by push-up bar strikes and precious little else. More importantly, failing to get some serious reps in those more serious styles at this juncture in his career could keep him from ever developing them, or at the very least ensure that he’s never taken seriously even if and when HoT dissolves or he breaks from the group. He thankfully won’t be clawing at Umino’s heels again in the B block, but I fear he may be spun out of the tournament with a losing record and siloed into a ‘young guys on the back-burner’ program with Uemura.
Oleg Boltin
I don’t think I’m speaking only for myself when I say that the new qualifying matches to determine the final two block entrants in this year’s G1 did a solid job as a prologue to the tournament itself, offering heartbreak for the likes of Tanahashi and Taichi and some decent to great matches which warmed New Japan fans up for the slew of action we’re about to be delivered. And no one came out of those matches the subject of more talk than Oleg Boltin. As the kids say, Boltin is built different, from his Lesnar-like look and moveset to his Kazakh wrestling pedigree connoting recent Central Asian dominance in MMA. If you’ve been watching his 2024 singles matches you’ll certainly have noticed some holes in his game, but you’ll also have seen how his amateur instincts have ported over well to the professional sphere, and the in-ring charisma and excitement his moveset brings. At 31 years old Boltin does not have the same developmental time frame as other NJPW projects transitioning out of their Young Lion phase, and while he’ll certainly finish at the bottom of the B block I don’t expect him to go winless the way most black-trunked rookies have when they’re thrust into the G1 somewhat unexpectedly.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to tune in this Sunday in the POST Café when Karen Peterson and I will have a review of the first two nights of G1 action including Takeshita/Tusji, Shingo/Naito, Naito/Sabre, and Finlay/Tsuji.
