This one’s going to be late, but here we are, the final block, I haven’t even watched any matches yet, been writing away when I get the chance, didn’t want my opinions to change based on early performances. Just getting more and more excited learning about all the competitors, do can’t wait to get through this one and finally get into some action!
Hiroshi Tanahashi
Hiroshi Tanahashi is one of the most highly decorated wrestlers of all time, he has won it all in New Japan, 23 championship reigns in total, including a record setting 8 reigns as IWGP Heavyweight Champion and another record setting 3 reigns as IWGP United States Champion. He has travelled the world, competing in fellow Japanese promotion Pro Wrestling Noah, Mexico based CMLL, the UK’s RevPro and Ring of Honor and AEW in the United States to name a few, adding a further 4 title reigns across those promotions as well. He had also won the G1 itself on 3 occasions (2007, 2015 and 2018) as well as the New Japan Cup twice (2005 and 2008).
So, we’ve established that Tanahashi is something of a living legend, but how has “The Ace” faired in recent years? Since his last G1 win in 2018 he has won the IWGP Tag Team Championship with Kota Ibushi, he defeated Shingo Takagi to win the NEVER Openwieght Championship for the first time, he beat Lance Archer to win the IWGP United States Championship (becoming the first Japanese wrestler to do so), he would win that title a further two times. Most recently he has won the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship alongside Kazuchika Okada and Tomohiro Ishii and they are still the reigning champions.
Okay, so a stellar recent few years too, how about his recent G1 performances since then? He scored 8 points in G1’s 29-31 and just 6 points at last year’s competition, even losing to Aaron Henare, who finished bottom of their block, scoring just 2 points (the points received for beating Tanahashi). Okay, so there finally seems to be a weakness there, it seems to me that the older he gets, maybe he is struggling to keep up with the intensity of the G1 tournament, it is a hell of a lot of wrestling in a short amount of time after all. I think if there is any reason to believe Tanahashi isn’t going to smash it at this year’s G1, I would say it would be the pattern in these recent results and honestly, I think that is going to be the case, I think he will have another respectable run, similar to the previous 4 efforts, but I think there are others in this tournament more likely to go the distance in this current landscape.
Tetsuya Naito
Tetsuya Naito is yet another competitor on this list to have wagered his hair in a match in Mexico’s CMLL, but get this, not just once, but twice, losing the second match> It’s not important or relevant to this, but is fascinating to me, just a really odd stipulation to be so popular, maybe I should investigate that at some point.
On top of that, Naito is another very well-regarded competitor, he is an incredibly popular figure, he is the leader of the well-liked faction Los Ingobernables de Japón, stemming from his time in CMLL and has a number of prestigious accolades to his name. He is a 3-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion, a record setting 6-time IWGP Intercontinental Champion, which he has also held for the second most combined days in history with 814 days as champion (only behind Shinsuke Nakamura’s 901 total days). In 2020, he became to hold both of those titles at the same time, a feat he would accomplish twice. Not only that, but he’s also won multiple tag team championships, a NEVER Openweight Championship, a New Japan Cup (in 2016) and the G1 Climax, twice (2013 and 2017).
As far as his history in this tournament is concerned, in my research, I found he has had a very interesting run across 13 previous G1 tournaments, even outside of his two wins, it would be considered impressive. He obviously has won it twice, in 2013, he came out on top of a 6-way tie for first place on 10 points, due to having beaten all of the other 5 men when encountering them in the block, advancing to the finals to beat Hiroshi Tanahashi and in 2017, he finished top of his block with an impressive 14 points, advancing to the finals where he would beat Kenny Omega, the previous year’s winner. He has scored 12 points on 4 different occasions, in 2011, it would be enough to see him win his block, losing in the final to Shinsuke Nakamura; in 2016, he would not progress from his block due to losing to eventual winner Kenny Omega in their match, who ended with the same points total; in 2018, it placed him in the midst of a 4-way tie, with Kota Ibushi progressing, having beaten the other men in the block and at last, in 2020, he once again scored 12, but so would EVIL and SANADA, with the latter beating both men in their matches in the block to progress. He has never scored less than 7 points, although he did withdraw from the 2021 tournament due to getting injured in the first match against Zack Sabre Jr. However, a year later, Naito would win C Block, despite finishing on the same amount of points as none other that Zack Sabre Jr. Due to having beaten him on the final night of the blocks, in a hilarious “2 minute” match, honestly, as a sidenote, their whole rivalry is brilliant, I had loads of fun watching some of their stuff together and the nonsense that surrounds that match is worth watching, the pair have brilliant chemistry, luckily they will be crossing paths again this year.
With there now being 2 spots available in each block, I would be surprised if Naito isn’t in one of those spots or perhaps because he’s involved, he will narrowly miss out due to the block being some ridiculous 8-way tie, that they must settle with a rock, paper, scissors tournament instead.
Hirooki Goto
Okay, so there’s a hair v hair match in this one again, but I’ve decided I’m not going to mention it.
I honestly wasn’t going to mention it, I was just going to leave that one line in there as a joke, but I just finished reading about this one and… It’s wild. This one was: In Japan; at Wrestle Kingdom; also a deathmatch; for the NEVER Openweight Championship and against Minoru Suzuki, a man who is famous has a shaved head anyway (I know he wasn’t completely shaved going into this, but still, look at it, feels like Goto was putting more on the line here). See what I mean, madness, glad we didn’t gloss over that one.
Now back to business, Hirooki Goto has had quite a strange career, he has seemingly won everything except for a World Title. This is not because he is in that “tag team specialist” bracket either, he’s accomplished plenty as a single star, he’s a 2-time IWGP Intercontinental Champion and he’s held the NEVER Openweight Championship 5 times. However, he’s also a terrific tag team wrestler, he’s one half of the tag team “Bishamon” alongside YOSHI-HASHI, who have held tag team gold 4 times, including being the current IWGP Tag Team Champions, the pair have also found 6-man tag success, holding the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships twice, once with Tomohiro Ishii and once with Yoh. Goto has also held to further tag team titles before forming Bishamon, the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships with Minoru Tanaka and the IWGP Tag Team Championships with Katsuyori Shibata.
Goto also seems to be something of a tournament specialist he has won: The G1 once, in 2008, on his first ever appearance in the tournament; he has reached the finals once more, losing to Kenny Omega in 2016; the New Japan Cup on 3 occasions (2009, 2010 and 2012); the World Tag League 4 times, with 3 different partners and even as early as 2005, he won the Young Lion Cup very early in his career.
Pretty incredible to me that this man hasn’t won a World Title, seems less and less likely as the years go by as well, which also seems to be the case with his chances of another G1 win, with recent years, his points total trending downwards, in his last 4, he’s scored 10, 8, 6 and 6. It seems to me that although Hirooki Goto isn’t “just” a tag team guy, tag team wrestling IS what he’s doing right now and he’s succeeding at it, his attention will likely be split and I think it will cost him, I see him finishing somewhere around the middle of the pack in D Block.
Zack Sabre Jr.
Hailing from the Isle of Sheppey, Zack Sabre Jr. is a well-travelled, experienced technician. He is the current an inaugural NJPW World Television Champion, which he won at this year’s Wrestle Kingdom event on January 4th against Ren Narita and has held it ever since. He has appeared for a number of notable promotions from all over the world, he actually got his start in Japan with Pro Wrestling Noah, with whom he spent 7 years, notably winning the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships twice. He regularly appears for both Progress and RevPro in the UK, Ring of Honor and, on occasion, AEW in the US, he has formerly appeared for PWG and even WWE where he was invited to participate in the “Cruiserweight Classic” in 2016.
As briefly mentioned, ZSJ is widely regarded as one of the best technical wrestlers on the planet, winning the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s “Bryan Danielson Award” for the best technical wrestler for 7 consecutive years between 2014-2020, until it was taken back by the award’s namesake Bryan Danielson in both 2021 and 2022. Zack is an absolute joy to watch, he is a unique character and performer and excels in both areas.
Debuting for NJPW in 2017, winning back the RevPro British Heavyweight Champion from Katsuyori Shibata at NJPW’s 45th anniversary show and joining the Suzuki-gun faction, where he would remain until it disbanded last year. During his time with the company, he has also become IWGP Tag Team Champion 3 times with Taichi (dubbed “Dangerous Tekkers”), the New Japan Cup twice (2018 and 2022) and has competed in the G1 6 times.
He’s had an impressive run in the G1, despite never progressing past the blocks. He finished his first with 10 points, 4 points off the top spot. The following year, he was part of a 4-way tie (that also involved Tetsuya Naito) where Kota Ibushi would progress due to having beaten the other 3 in their block matches, despite all 4 competitors scoring 12 points. In 2019, he scored 8 points and didn’t progress, his joint lowest total. Scored 10 once again in 2020, just two off the top spot. In 2021, he would score an impressive 12 points, but would fall short by just two points once again. Finally, last year, he led the block with 8 points going into the final night of that stage, agonisingly losing to Naito in just under 2 minutes (which I previously detailed in this list).
I think ZSJ is great, I certainly hope he does well and I believe there is precedent there to suggest he might, he’s had some great showings in the tournament in previous years and he’s currently on a great run defending his NJPW World Television Championship 10 times in the past 7 months. I would say Zack is likely to finish towards the top of the block with an outside chance of progressing to the quarter finals.
Toru Yano
I did not know anything about Toru Yano going into this, but when I read Wikipedia describing him as generally a comic relief character who has become something of a spoiler causing upsets with top talent, I knew I needed to do some investigating, specifically regarding this tournament, to see if there is any chance of him influencing the outcome.
2005-2010, had a mix of performances, didn’t compete in ’06, was 2 points off progressing from the block in 2007 and just 1 point in 2010.
From there though, things get a little wild, in 2011, he scored 10 points, 2 points off the top two, Naito and Tanahashi respectively), beating Tanahashi in the process. In 2012, he only scored 6 points but did manage a win over Minoru Suzuki (that will become important later). In 2013, he scored 8 points, 2 behind the 6-way tie for 1st place, 3 of whom he beat: Suzuki again, Karl Anderson and eventual winner of the whole tournament Naito. In 2014, he also scored 8, beating Karl Anderson again (who finished third in the block) and Minoru Suzuki, for the 3rd year in a row. In 2015, he scored 8, but on his way to doing so, he hilariously beat Kota Ibushi in under a minute, by somehow managing to tie his hands together, low blow him and roll him up, despite somehow being on the back foot for pretty much the entire minute, whilst the ref just didn’t really have a clue what was going on. In 2016, he scored 10 points but also happened to be the only reason Katsuyori Shibata didn’t win the entire block, cheating to steal a win in around a minute again. Shibata had beaten Kenny Omega and Naito who finished 2 points above him tied for 1st, so if it wasn’t for this loss, he would have progressed, which I’m sure eventual winner of the tournament, Kenny Omega is eternally thankful for, given that pretty from this tournament, his fame and position has just risen exponentially. In 2017, Yano scored 8 points, but his real highlight this year was a 4th victory over Minoru Suzuki, who has never managed a win over Yano in this tournament. In 2018, he scored 6 points, but 2 of those 3 wins happened to be against Kota Ibushi and Kenny Omega who finished 1st and 2nd in his block. 2019 is a doozy, he finished bottom of his block this time (with a respectable 8 points to be fair), but still managed to beat Naito, Jon Moxley and winner of the block Jay White. In 2020, he scored just 6 points, but scored wins over Tanahashi, SANADA and EVIL, the latter two having finished 1st and 2nd of the block respectively. In 2021, it seems he just had a genuinely pretty strong showing, ending on 10 points, 4 points off the top spot, although I haven’t actually seen any of those matches, I’m sure there were plenty of shenanigans. Finally at last year’s event, he scored an awful 2 points, but of course, he still had an impact, with his 1 win being against Jonah in just the second match of the block, who if not for this loss, would have won the block, finishing just 2 points behind Okada whom he would go onto beat in their block match.
Well, I can certainly see why he was described in that way on Wikipedia, if I know nothing else about this tournament, I know Toru Yano is going to cost somewhere dearly and quite frankly, I can’t wait, hilarious top notch shithousery.
Jeff Cobb
Jeff Cobb wrestled for a number of promotions before signing for NJPW, a number of independents, but most notably Lucha Underground (a really cool, now defunct, promotion praised for its unique cinematic presentation) and Pro Wrestling Guerilla, where Cobb would find quite a bit of success winning both the PWG World Championship and PWG World Tag Team Championships once, as well as their annual tournament the Battle of Los Angeles.
Since joining NJPW, cobb has enjoyed further success, being a 2-time IWGP Tag Team Champion with fellow United Empire stablemate Great O-Khan and also winning himself the NEVER Openweight Championship. To add to his success, outside of Japan but after having signed for the company, Cobb has even been a 1-time Ring of Honor Television Champion.
This is Cobb’s 5th G1, with last year being his worst performance, still scoring a respectable 6 points, however, it is his performance the year before which is most notable, in 2021, Cobb won all but one of his block matches, unfortunately though, it cost him dearly with his one loss being to eventual overall winner Kazuchika Okada, with the pair ending up on an incredible 16 points each.
Cobb is a really entertaining wrestler, from what I have seen, his finisher the “Tour of the Islands” is a thing of beauty, honestly, you should go out of your way to check it out, but overall, he didn’t really jump out at me as a “top guy” and therefore, I think he’ll probably finish somewhere around the middle of the block, another respectable performance and I’m sure he’ll probably have some good matches. He’s one I actually hope I’m wrong about, I hope he surprises me, there’s a lot to like about him, so hopefully we see the best version of Jeff Cobb at this year’s G1.
Shane Haste
I’m going to be honest, I didn’t know who Shane Haste was, I have since been informed that he was unfortunately the guy who had that unfortunate run as “Slapjack” in WWE and outside of that mess is one half of the TMDK tag team (now a full faction). However, none of that really matters now because the moment I tuned into this year’s G1 press conference and I saw him stood there in his silly orange suit, I instantly knew he would be someone I would be rooting for and then he went up and spoke and I was in stiches, so the first thing we have to get over about Shane Haste is that he is a generally really funny and likable guy.
That isn’t to downplay what he has accomplished though, as I previously detailed when speaking about Mikey Nicholls, TMDK have been a very successful tag team all over the world, he is certainly a good competitor. However (yes there is unfortunately a “however”), like Nicholls, it does seem to me that Haste particularly excels in a tag team environment, which won’t help him here and given that this is his first G1, I do not expect him to pick up too many wins, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt me all the same when it happens, I’m sorry Shane.
Alex Coughlin
The other half of the Bullet Club War Dogs, alongside A Block’s Gabe Kidd. I really do not have a lot to say about Alex unfortunately, I have seen one of the “War Dogs” matches, I thought it was good and I’m sure Coughlin is a very talented competitor, but he doesn’t seem to have accomplished much of anything outside of that one Strong Openweight Tag Team Championship win. That win was recent, so maybe his momentum will aid him in this tournament, but unfortunately (and I’m sorry that I’m going to say it again, I really don’t hate tag team wrestling, it just isn’t all that relevant in this setting), he does seem to me like “just” a tag team guy at the present moment, maybe this will provide good opportunity to shine on his own, but I don’t think so, I expect him to finish towards the bottom of the block.
Conclusion
I think this block has some pretty clearly defined roles, although no clear winner, which makes learning about Yano’s antics has been a lot of fun, looking forward to some upsets, I’d say at least one of Naito, Tanahashi, ZSJ and Cobb will be falling victim to him. Overall, there is potential for some classics in here, a good mix, some veterans, some newcomers and a couple of bona fide legends, going to be very hard to pick just a couple of matches I’m looking forward to in this one.
Key Dates
Opening Block Matches: Night 2, Sunday 16th July
Final Block Matches: Night 16, Wednesday 9th August
My Pick for Most Intriguing Match: Tetsuya Naito v Zack Sabre Jr. (Night 12, Wednesday 2nd August)
I have thoroughly enjoyed every time they have stepped into the ring together so far and given what happened between these two at last year’s tournament, I expect this one to be a particularly heated affair (probably more from Zack, he tends to be the one getting wound up whilst Naito never really seems that bothered).
My Pick for Most Entertaining Match: Jeff Cobb v Zack Sabre Jr. (Night 8, Wednesday 26th July)
This probably is quite heavily dependent on how much you enjoy ZSJ’s style of wrestling, but obviously I really do and I’m really looking forward to seeing how that style meshes with Cobb’s given how different they are on the surface.
I almost put Yano in this spot, I’m sure whatever nonsense he will get up will be fun, probably piss Zack off, but it was always going to be Zack in some capacity.
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