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All Aboard the S.S. Strong Style: The G1 is Coming: PREPARE.

    • All Aboard the S.S. Strong Style: The G1 is Coming: PREPARE.

      Shelly Deathlock cares too much about Japanese wrestling and, as Captain of the S.S. Strong Style, she’s here to welcome you on board and fill you in on what’s going on in the world of puro. In this series, she’s preparing for the G1 25.

      Do you have everything you need to tackle the G1 Climax 25 this summer? If yes, great! Read this anyway, I have some good stuff. If not, definitely read this, it will help you on your journey. Also, make sure to read my other two posts on preparing for the G1:

      Watching the G1 Climax 25

      GOOD NEWS. NJPWWorld will broadcast all the G1 shows and is offering a free trial until July 17. The tournament starts on July 20, so you can check out the service and see if you want to stay subscribed (you do). It’s ~$9 USD/month with no commitment. If you can’t watch live, don’t worry — every show is available on demand soon after it airs.

      The G1 Climax 25 Blocks Were Announced!

      The G1 Climax is a round robin tournament divided into two blocks: A & B. There are 10 wrestlers in each block. The wrestlers in each block will wrestle each other over the course of the tournament and be awarded points for wins. The wrestler with the most points in each block will then face off at the final on August 16.

      Block A

       

      The Wrestlers:

      Hiroshi Tanahashi, Togi Makabe, Katsuyori Shibata, Tetsuya Naito, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Kota Ibushi, Toru Yano, AJ Styles, Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale

      Notable Stuff:

      Jeez that’s a lot of Bullet Club. Maybe they’ll implode!

      Best Potential Matches:

      Shibata vs. Tanahashi has never not been amazing.

      Kota Ibushi is in this block, so any of his matchups could be interesting.

       

      Block B

       

      The Wrestlers:

      Satoshi Kojima, Yuji Nagata, Hirooki Goto, Tomoaki Honma, Shinsuke Nakamura, Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Michael Elgin, Karl Anderson, Yujiro Takahashi

      Notable Stuff:

      There’s a lot of CHAOS in this block! Maybe they’ll implode! Okada & Nakamura being in the same block guarantees there will be no repeat of the Okada/Nakamura final of the G1 Climax 24.

      Best Potential Matches:

      Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kazuchika Okada

      Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tomoaki Honma

      Nakamura vs. Everyone

      Ishii vs. Everyone

      Honma vs. Everyone

      The G1 Climax 25 Schedule of Matches!

      Not only did NJPW announce the blocks — they announced the entire schedule of matches. I’ve included the entire card of each show in my Google Calendar of live NJPWWorld events for you (for me, but I share with you)!



      Important Matches of the G1 (according to me)

      Not all matches in the G1 are created equal, so I’m just going to highlight the exciting ones that I think will be can’t-miss. This section may not cover what you want to see. Maybe you’re a big fan of Doc Gallows and you want to know when he’s taking on Toru Yano. Check the next section for that.

      Night 1: July 20

      Katsuyori Shibata vs. AJ Styles: This is a fresh matchup, it’ll be really interesting to see what they can do.

      Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kota Ibushi: Two beloved high fliers battling for a shot at the most prestigious title in the world~~! <3 <3

      Night 4: July 25

      Yuji Nagata vs. Shinsuke Nakamura: I liked their other matches. Shinsuke being a brat to Old Man Nagata never gets old, ever.

      Tomoaki Honma vs. Kazuchika Okada: We always believe Honma is going to win every match he’s in, somehow. How great would it be if he got a win over the current IWGP Heavyweight Champ? I’ll be watching this one.

      Night 5: July 26

      Kota Ibushi vs. AJ Styles: Their title match this year didn’t deliver on the competitiveness and finesse I was expecting, so I’ll be interested to see if this one will.

      Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tetsuya Naito: Naito’s got an attitude problem lately, so I think it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out vs. beloved Tanahashi.

      Night 7: July 29

      Tetsuya Naito vs. AJ Styles: I loved all their other matches. I think they’re great together.

      Night 8: August 1

      Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Tomohiro Ishii: Real life best friends never hold back in competition with each other. This will probably be amazing, just like last year.

      Hirooki Goto vs. Kazuchika Okada: Current IWGP Intercontinental Champion vs. current IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Goto has been sassing Okada lately. We’ll see.

      Night 10: August 4

      Hirooki Goto vs. Shinsuke Nakamura: Nakamura has lost twice to Goto this year. Twice. Will he lose again?

      Night 11: August 5

      Tetsuya Naito vs. Kota Ibushi: Golden Stardust explodes!

      Night 12: August 7

      Kazuchika Okada vs. Tomohiro Ishii: CHAOS explodes! For the love of god Ishii be careful with Okada he’s only 27 his brain isn’t even fully formed.

      Night 13: August 8

      Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Katsuyori Shibata: 4.5 snowflakes minimum.

      Night 16: August 12

      Tomoaki Honma vs. Tomohiro Ishii: Honma/Ishii was my other favorite match this year, so I’m looking forward to this one.

      Night 17: August 14

      Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. AJ Styles: I think this will be a good match up and that their styles will play nicely.

      Weirdly enough, this night also has a CHAOS vs. CHAOS tag team match, so we could potentially see Nakamura and Okada lock up before…

      Night 18: August 15

      Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kazuchika Okada: I bet this will be the final-battle-for-B-block-supremacy and also be incredible.

      The G1 Climax 25 Scorecard

      Hey so the NJPW G1 site has scorecards but they’re in Japanese. You could memorize everyone’s name and squint and suss them out probably, but why?

      Better still, the scorecard contains the date of each match, so you can quickly look up when your most-anticipated matchups are going to take place.

      As promised: G1 Predictions!

      Everyone is predicting basically the same thing:

      • AJ Styles wins the A Block;

       

      • Shinsuke Nakamura just edges out Kazuchika Okada to win the B Block;

       

      • Styles and Nakamura have a never-before-seen battle at the G1 25 final;

       

      • Nakamura wins the G1 and the opportunity to face his stablemate Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 10.

      If all this goes down, I will never have been happier for something so predictable to have happened in the world of professional wrestling. It sounds like a dream come true.

      That’s all for now! I’ll check back with you soon to make sure we’re all still alive.

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