The first of 19 dates in the NJPW G1 Climax took place on Saturday night at the Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center in Sapporo, Japan, providing talent in both Block A and Block B their first chance to earn points this year.
Hiroshi Tanahashi kicked off what is expected to be his final G1 Climax with a win over Taichi, going 20 minutes in Saturday’s main event to earn a pinfall win. The back-and-forth battle only came to an end after Tanahashi came off the top with three consecutive High Fly Flows, earning him a pinfall victory.
Stand-out matches earlier on the card included AEW’s Konosuke Takeshita scoring a win over Gabe Kidd in 13 minutes, and Ren Narita overcoming Zack Sabre Jr. in a 16-minute contest.
Another big win also went to Yota Tsuji, who overcame SANADA’s dirty tactics to beat him in a brisk five minutes.
The card opened with an upset, as YOSHI-HASHI scored a backslide pinfall on former IWGP champ Shingo Takagi at just 4:45.
With only one night down, nobody is truly leading their block. A few names will start to emerge at the front of the pack in the coming days after each conference in the tour faces off a few more times.
NJPW will host a second night in Sapporo on Sunday, another card which will see all A and B Block wrestlers in action. It’s expected that a clash between Kidd and ZSJ will headline that card.
Here’s a look at the full results from Saturday’s show, plus how the standings look:
Results
- YOSHI-HASHI def. Shingo Takagi (B Block)
- EVIL def. Callum Newman (A Block)
- Drilla Moloney def. Great-O-Khan (B Block)
- Yuya Uemura def. Boltin Oleg (A Block)
- Shota Umino def. El Phantasmo (B Block)
- Ryohei Oiwa def. David Finlay (A Block)
- Konosuke Takeshita def. Gabe Kidd (B Block)
- Yota Tsuji def. SANADA (A Block)
- Ren Narita def. Zack Sabre Jr. (B Block)
- Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Taichi (A Block)
A Block Standings
- EVIL (2)
- Yuya Uemura (2)
- Ryohei Oiwa (2)
- Yota Tsuji (2)
- Hiroshi Tanahashi (2)
- Callum Newman (0)
- Boltin Oleg (0)
- David Finlay (0)
- SANADA (0)
- Taichi (0)
B Block Standings
- YOSHI-HASHI (2)
- Drilla Moloney (2)
- Shota Umino (2)
- Konosuke Takeshita (2)
- Ren Narita (2)
- Shingo Takagi (0)
- Great-O-Khan (0)
- El Phantasmo (0)
- Gabe Kidd (0)
- Zack Sabre Jr. (0)
