WhiteTail Wrestling

Saturday 10th August 2024 sees NJPW in Sendai for night 14 of the annual G1 Climax. This will be the second last night of block action for block B before the finals kick off later this week.

The opening undercard match features Young Lion Katsuya Murashima team with Hiroshi Tanahashi and Toru Yano against the United Empire team of Great-O-Khan, Akira Francesco and Callum Newman. Basic undercard match with Murashima submitting to Francesco’s Boston crab. **

Match 2 of the undercard and its the BC War Dogs Gabe Kidd, Jake Lee and Gedo take on LIJ BUSHI, Tetsuya Naito and Shingo Takagi. Predictable boring brawl on the outside with War Dogs bending the rules. Th e match does get a little better back in the ring but never rises above mediocre. Lee wins with the guillotine on BUSHI. **

Tomoaki Honma teams up with Shota Umino against EVIL and Dick Togo as the undercard action continues. Predictable jump start hopefully they keep this short. More of the same shitty spots we see every night from HOT. Having poor old broken down Honma in the ring with Dick doesn’t help matters. Going way too long for a snoozefest. Dick choking Umino with the ref distracted. Honma stops the choking. Kokeshi so at least people felt good. Death Rider from Umino on Dick and at least this tripe is finished.1/2*

Finally some block action as Oleg Boltin takes on Konosuke Takeshita. This was an awesome match with a massive upset with Boltin getting the pin after an awesome strength and power battle which made Boltin until very recently Young Lion look like a monster. Massive exchange of German suplexes and some big strikes after the rubbish on the undercard this was a much needed breath of fresh air. Takeshita has been awesome on this tour whether he wins or loses his displays have been MVP level. ****

Henare vs Ren Narita is next. Of course Narita jumps Henare in the aisle. After a long period of nothing we start to get a decent match and then we get a predictable ref bump. Henare has the visual pin while the ref is down. This may have been a good match but the weapon spots and low blows just destroy it after a low blow Narita wins.**

El Phantasmo vs Hirooki Goto is next can Goto continue his dream run in the G1 or will it come to a devastating end against Phantasmo who is already eliminated. This match was getting really good and then they do a flash pin finish to practically eliminate Goto who has been building up momentum behind him. Narita wins the previous match in a stinker has more points than Goto now. No wonder this company can’t build back up to what it was when it screws the fans over with shit like this. Good match but should have been so much more. **1/2

Jeff Cobb vs David Finlay. This was a good match with good work although there was nothing special here. It didn’t help that it followed the Goto match.***

Yota Tsuji vs Yuya Uemura in a battle between two guys that should be the future of NJPW. This should be a great match between two guys that still have a lot to prove. The match was going well until Uemura injured his arm and was holding it for the rest of the match. This sapped all energy out of the match and it ended in a roll up with Uemura somehow winning although it is entirely possible that the ref botched the count as Tsuji had his shoulders up on the finish. Disappointing finish to an overall disappointing show. **1/2

Go out of your way to watch Takeshita vs Boltin it is a must watch match showcasing the genius of Takeshita and why he is one of the best in the world. He made Boltin look like an absolute star here. Finlay vs Cobb is worth a watch but was nothing special. The rest of this card was mostly dissapointing.

We move onto the last two block shows and them the finals. I am still hopeful that NJPW can get this right and we can have a memorable finale to this year’s G1 but this show didn’t do anything to increase my optimism.