Honestly, this has taken a lot longer than expected, I start researching someone, I go off on a big tangent and learn loads about something completely unrelated to these blocks, but I’m having a lot of fun learning all about New Japan, so I wish I could say I will pick up the pace, but probably won’t to be honest. I am really hoping to get these last two blocks done before I watch their first day tomorrow though as I don’t want my opinion to be affected by the opening round, haven’t even got around to watching the actual first day yet.
David Finlay
David Finlay, son of Fit Finlay, signed for NJPW in 2015, was entered straight into that year’s Best of the Super Juniors tournament, where he finished bottom of his block with 0 points. Not the most glorious start, but an honour to be invited straight into the tournament and he would be thrust into big positions, just a year later. At destruction of Kobe 2016, Finlay, Ricochet and Satoshi Kojima would defeat Bullet Club’s Matt and Nick Jackson (The Young Bucks) and Adam Cole for the vacant NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships, which is certainly no small feat. They would hold the titles through to Wrestle Kingdom in January 2017, losing to Los Ingobernables de Japón’s EVIL, Bushi and SANADA. Later that year he would form the tag team FinJuice (awful name, sounds like a drink that involves animal cruelty), alongside Juice Robinson, with whom he would find quite a bit of success over the years, winning the World Tag League in 2019 and the IWGP Tag Team Championships once, travelling the world, notably competing in Ring of Honor and Impact (formerly TNA), even winning the Impact World Tag Team Championships.
As a singles star, Finlay is just starting to find his footing. Earlier this year, he became the seventh leader of the villainous Bullet Club faction following Jay White’s departure from the company. During his relatively short time as leader so far, he has kicked El Phantasmo out of the group; recruited some fresh blood in the form of Clark Connors, Dan Moloney, Gabriel Kidd and Alex Coughlin; reached the final of this year’s New Japan Cup and even won himself the NEVER Openweight Championship from former Bullet Club member and fellow C Block competitor Tama Tonga.
He did also compete in last year’s G1, scoring 6 points, but it is Finlay’s recent success and the backing of Bullet Club that lead me to believe he will have a much better tournament this year. I think Finlay is one of the most likely to progress from this block and I think he would likely follow it up with a strong showing in the knockout phase of the tournament, with an outside chance of winning the whole thing.
Tomohiro Ishii
Ishii is a well-regarded veteran, with several championships to his name across multiple promotions in a number of different countries. The “Stone Pitbull” is known for his toughness and brawling style, who has consistently produced good matches over the years, he is someone I was aware of before I got into New Japan, he was someone I was fond of. Right now, he’s one part of the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champions alongside Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada and even at 47, continues to deliver success in a hard-hitting and entertaining manner.
He has also become something of a linchpin competitor in the G1 today, with this being his 11th outing, usually scoring around 8-10 points, having some incredible matches against the likes of Jon Moxley in 2019, Kenny Omega in 2018 and Katsuyori Shibata in 2013. However, he has never managed to progress from the blocks and last year scored his WORST point total ever with 4.
I expect Ishii to continue as he usually does in the G1, have some excellent matches and finish towards the top of the block but unfortunately probably not progress. Ultimately though does it really matter? He’s going to make this block a hell of a lot of fun to watch and that’s what it’s all about for us spectators.
EVIL
Born and formerly wrestling under the name Takaaki Watanabe, he joined NJPW as a “Young Lion” in 2011, doing an awful lot of nothing in that period as is common amongst these fresh recruits in New Japan. Watanabe had his learning excursion in the US, wrestling for Ring of Honor, where he wrestled fairly notable names such as Adam Page, Dalton Castle and Donovan Dijak, even at one point challenging for Jay Lethal’s ROH World Television Championship, although he was unsuccessful.
In October 2015, Watanabe returned to Japan to join forces with Tetsuya Naito and his stable Los Ingobernables de Japón, where he would be dubbed “King of Darkness EVIL.” EVIL would go onto team with Naito, even reaching the finals of the 2015 World Tag League together, but it would be his later partnership with fellow LIJ stablemate SANADA that would prove more fruitful, with whom he would win the IWGP Tag Team Championships twice and the World Tag League twice (2017 and 2018). The pair would find further success with LIJ stablemate Bushi, they would hold the NEVER Openwieght 6-Man Tag Team Championships together 3 times. Bushi and EVIL would go on to hold those titles a further 3 times, with a couple of other partners, taking their total to 6 reigns, the most for any individual with those titles.
In 2020, after a lot of success from teaming with LIJ for half a decade, EVIL returned to NJPW after the company’s hiatus due to the pandemic, with something of a new attitude. Activities resumed with the 2020 New Japan Cup, which this time round, the winner would receive a shot at Tetsuya Naito’s IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Championships. EVIL stormed through the tournament, beating the likes of Satoshi Kojima, Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI and even his teammate SANADA to get to the finals, where he would face Kazuchika Okada. In the finals, EVIL astonishingly beat Okada, with the help of the Bullet Club, it seemed as though EVIL was unaware of Bullet Club’s involvement, as he appeared unconscious the time, however, his true position was revealed when Naito came out to congratulate him on his win, he threw up the “two sweet” hand gesture used by the Bullet Club and attacked Naito, joining the Bullet Club in the process. EVIL would then beat Naito just the next day to be crowned both IWGP Heavyweight Champion and IWGP Intercontinental Champion. To make the whole situation even more incredible, due to the fact he was still a part of the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champions, EVIL became the first ever triple champion in NJPW’s history.
So there’s no question he has had an impressive run so far in New Japan, with a lot of that success coming in the past few years too, but how does he fair in this competition, having already entered 7 times previous to this year? Historically, he’s a pretty good G1 competitor, normally getting at least 8 points, but there are a couple of stand out performances. At G1 Climax 30, he scored an impressive 12 points, which is actually the same amount that the winner of his block (SANADA) would score, although he would fail to qualify due to the fact that SANADA pinned him on the final match day and this was still at the time when only one competitor would progress from each block. At G1 Climax 31, he scored even more points (14) but missed out because both Kazuchika Okada and Jeff Cobb scored an unbelievable 16 points.
EVIL is a pretty incredible performer, I expect him to have another strong showing in the G1 given what I’ve learnt about him and honestly he’s someone I’ve had a lot of fun learning about and watching clips of, really looking forward to see a full run of his in this tournament, I’m hoping he does well.
Tama Tonga
Tama Tonga is a founding member of Bullet Club, he broke away to form another cool group in Guerillas of Destiny (who have an awesome theme) and he’s a fairly well-decorated competitor, being a 7-time IWGP Tag Team Champion, 2-time NEVER Openweight Champion and a 4-time NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Champion.
The majority of his success has come with his brother Tanga Loa, with whom all of the tag team title runs and one World Tag League win (2020) has come with. It seems like he’s trying to branch out on his own a little more now though, recent runs with that NEVER Openweight Championship have gone a decent way to prove that and it was certainly the impression I got when we saw him compete live at last year’s Royal Quest II in London.
As far as his G1 performances go, his first 3 outings he scored a respectable 6-8 points, however, last year was his real stand out performance. At G1 Climax 32, Tama Tonga topped his block by defeating Bullet Club Leader and then IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Jay White on the final match day, in a terrific match. He would unfortunately go on to lose to eventual winner Kazuchika Okada, but a very good performance overall.
I feel like I’ve said I expect everyone in this block to do well so far, just goes to show the level of quality of performers in this block but I honestly think Tama Tonga will have a strong showing here, if I had to push myself to pick winners though, I’m not sure he’d be one of them and so think ultimately he may just fall short in this brilliant block.
Shingo Takagi
Shingo started his career in fellow Japanese promotion Dragon Gate, where he achieved great success and won so many championships, travelling the world, even winning championships on American soil in the form of the ROH World Tag Team Championships with Naruki Doi in 2007. He made a big splash debuting for NJPW in 2018 as the foreshadowed sixth member of the previously mentioned LIJ stable. From his debut, he competed in the Junior Heavyweight Division, where he would be undefeated all the way until the finals of the 2019 Best of the Super Juniors tournament, where he would lose to Will Ospreay in a critically acclaimed bout.
During is short time with the company Shingo has already accomplished so much, he won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships with LIJ comrade Bushi, he held the NEVER Openweight Championship (in his first of two reigns) and the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship at the same time in 2020, making the first person to ever hold both NEVER titles at the same time and finally, he won the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at Dominion 2021 making him the first person to have won both NJPW and Dragon Gate’s top championship.
This is Shingo’s 5th appearance in this tournament and like many others on this list he has been a fierce competitor so far. He scored a respectable 8 points on his first two attempts, at G1 Climax 31 he finished second in his block by a heartbreaking 1 point with 13 and although it was his lowest point total last year with 6, it came in a very difficult block seeing him end just 2 points off the top spot.
Shingo is great, he’s going to do really well, blah blah blah. Shingo does genuinely stand out to me though, he’s a well-respected performer, he’s won everything else in such a short space of time, he’s someone I expect to either be occupying one of those qualifying spaces or just narrowly losing out.
Aaron Henare
Aaron Henare debuted for NJPW in 2016 and doesn’t really seem to have done too much of anything for the majority of his time there. His big moments have come seemingly out of nowhere. He was quite unfortunate in the fact that not long after joining the United Empire, he severely injured his neck and spent quite a long time out injured, perhaps this could have been the start of something for him, frustrating.
As previously alluded to though, he has had some big moments, he impressively managed to beat Hiroshi Tanahashi at G1 Climax 32 and earlier this year he even pinned then KOPW Champion, Shingo Takagi in his hometown leading to a very highly regarded rematch, this time in a losing effort though.
Henare’s win over Tanahashi really is the only highlight of his G1 career though, with that win earning him 2 points which was his final point total at said event, in his solitary appearance at the tournament.
Sorry Aaron, but I’m pretty confident this isn’t going to be your year, this is a really tough block and I don’t really see him beating anyone, any win he does get over the majority of this block would be a big deal though, so it would be possible for Henare to get something out of this experience, even if he doesn’t do particularly well. Hopefully he causes an upset somewhere and has something positive he can take away from the tournament.
Eddie Kingston
I love Eddie Kingston; I just think he’s neat. He is the quintessential underdog because, historically, Eddie Kingston doesn’t get nice things, he busts his ass, he puts in the work, he is so passionate about what he does and is so good at it, but so often heartbreakingly falls just short of his goals.
He is a well-travelled veteran, often overlooked by many of the larger promotions, he was a mainstay on the independent scene for 18 years before finally signing for AEW in 2020. One thing I have learnt about Eddie during his AEW run is that he is a huge fan of Japanese wrestling, he clearly takes a lot of inspiration in his style of wrestling, he credits tape trading in the 90s with saving life and honestly, I believe him, I believe every word he says because he embodies every word he says, not only is he a tremendous brawler he is one of the best talkers I have ever seen.
Seeing Kingston win the NJPW Strong Openweight Championship earlier this month having just landed in the company, was a wonderful moment and I was honestly so happy for him and that he was getting this opportunity, very few performers can evoke that kind of emotion, but Eddie Kingston is no ordinary performer.
I am obviously bias but I do believe Eddie will do well in this year’s tournament because he is a very talented fighter, I think he will fly the flag for AEW and hopefully we continue to see the relationship between those two companies flourish too. Kingston coming in as an outsider makes him such an unknown quantity here and I think that will lead to some intriguing matchups, hopefully he can use that to his advantage and smash it.
Mikey Nicholls
Mikey Nicholls has only been with NJPW since 2019, but his career extends far beyond that, he and his eternal tag team partner Shane Haste have travelled the world as TMDK (The Mighty Don’t Kneel). Getting their start in Pro Wrestling Noah, where they are 2-time GHC Tag Team Champions, TMDK quickly became an established part of the tag division. From there they would also have a stint in America to varying success, notably in Ring of Honor and WWE’s development brand NXT. Finally landing in NJPW a few years ago, where they haven’t found much success yet, but have managed to grow TMDK, recruiting established New Japan stars such as Bad Dude Tito and Zack Sabre Jr.
You’ll notice I have only spoken about TMDK as a whole and that’s because, unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much else to speak of, it’s by far the most interesting thing about Nicholls, which isn’t a bad thing, I actually really like what I’ve seen of TMDK, they’re entertaining and impressive in ring, but it just isn’t going to help him in this tournament. He has so little singles experience and is going up against some tremendous singles stars here, I do not expect him to do very well in his debut tournament.
Conclusion
This is one hell of a block, the one I’m most looking forward to now as a whole I think, there is so much talent, a couple of wrestlers I am a big fan of and the prospect of some great, likely hard-hitting, matchups. So, who do I think progresses here? My heart says Eddie, but honestly my head and my gut think those two space will be going to any two of Finlay, EVIL or Shingo, the guys in this block are just so good, I really couldn’t pick just two. I guess we’ll just have to watch to find out.
Key Dates
Opening Block Matches: Night 2, Sunday 16th July
Final Block Matches: Night 15, Tuesday 8th August
My Pick for Most Intriguing Match: David Finlay v Tama Tonga (Night 8, Wednesday 26th July)
Former allies, turned enemies, this will also be the first time the two cross paths since Finlay beat Tonga for the NEVER Openweight Championship in May, I expect there to be drama.
My Pick for Most Entertaining Match: Eddie Kingston v Shingo Takagi (Night 2, Sunday 16th July)
I so nearly put Kingston v Ishii in this spot, but it’s a match we’ve already seen, so I went with this one for the same reasons, they are both great wrestlers who I fully expect will beat the piss out of each other on the night.
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