G1 Climax 30 Night 19 - 10/18/2020: Winner Determined; Wrestle Kingdom 15 Announced, Will Be Two Nights Once Again
It’s finally here -- the Final for this year’s edition of G1 Climax, in a show that saw other challenges and angles laid down as well. You can see it now on NJPWWorld.
- 10/18/2020, Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan
Taichi, Zack Sabre Jr., El Desperado & DOUKI [SZKG] d. Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI & Toru Yano [CHAOS] (DOUKI > YOSHI-HASHI, Pinfall [after Zack Mephisto], 10:34)
Shingo Takagi & Hiromu Takahashi [Los Ingobernables] d. Minoru Suzuki & Yoshinobu Kanemaru [SZKG] (Hiromu > Kanemaru, Timebomb, 11:54)
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Juice Robinson, Jeff Cobb [FREE] & Master Wato d. Jay White, KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & Gedo [Bullet Club] (Tanahashi > Gedo, Texas Cloverleaf, 9:12)
Will Ospreay & Great O-Khan [The Empire] d. Kazuchika Okada & SHO [CHAOS] (Ospreay > SHO, 9:12)
EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi [Bullet Club] d. Tetsuya Naito & BUSHI [Los Ingobernables] (EVIL > BUSHI, Scorpion Deathlock, 14:14)
G1 Climax 30 Final: Kota Ibushi d. SANADA [Los Ingobernables] (Kamigoye, 35:14)
- Ibushi wins G1 Climax 30
Kota Ibushi becomes the first repeat winner since Hiroyoshi Tenzan had his brief era of dominance in the competition, winning both 2003 & 2004 consecutively, and three in four years (he also won in 2006, then never again). As Ibushi has been in the past 3 Finals, and won two of them, I’d say we’re in a dynasty period for Ibushi now as well. They are touting this as the longest G1 Climax Final match in history, which it is, by a mere 14 seconds, beating the 35:00 even mark for G1 Climax 28′s Final, with Hiroshi Tanahashi beating Ibushi at that time. As is traditional, the record-winner of G1 Climax, Masahiro Chono, was on hand to congratulate the winner. Ibushi said he wanted to turn his G1 Climax win into the IWGP Heavyweight title, and declared he would become as a God in NJPW. Backstage, Jay White challenged Ibushi for those challenge rights, as Jay did beat Ibushi during the tournament.
EVIL attacked and knocked out Naito (with help from Dick Togo) post-match, holding the Double Gold over Naito once again. Will Ospreay’s new unit is known as The Empire, and it appears Bea Priestley will be an active part of this unit, interfering as she did today and Friday. Tomoyuki Oka is now Great O-Khan, dropping the R that was in the name previously. Who knows how much The Empire will expand in the coming weeks. On the one hand, fuck Ospreay and Priestley, but on the other, it’s good we have an actual new unit for the first time since Los Ingobernables in 2015.
Hiromu challenged Kanemaru for the junior tag belts. DOUKI of all people made a challenge for the NEVER 6-Man titles following their match. No word on who will be DOUKI’s partners, with all the rest of Suzuki-gun currently holding titles.
During the intermission of the show, NJPW officially announced Wrestle Kingdom 15, the latest they’ve ever done so. It will once again be at the Tokyo Dome (one assumes with limited seating), and surprisingly, it will be two nights once again, January 4 & 5, 2021. Kind of surprising, since there are no huge angles or events going into this year’s, i.e. Jushin Thunder Liger’s retirement matches or the Double Gold Dash. Plus, because of Leap Year, the 4th and 5th are on a Monday and Tuesday.
At the same time, NJPW’s model for shows lately is capped at 6 matches per show, what with the pandemic. With two nights, they can keep it to that amount per night, and then are able to run all their title matches, and gives more fans a chance to attend WK15 with the attendance capped. There is every possibility they can and will expand the number of matches. But also, at this moment, one title match would be out of play, as Naito is holding both IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental titles, and NJPW has chosen to have him defend both at once in the current scheme. But things can change, and often do, so we will see if this remains the case by the time WK15 rolls around.
That’s it for G1 Climax! Unfortunately, no real chance for the wrestlers to rest before the next tour, Road to Power Struggle, which starts this coming Friday. No cards are announced for that tour yet, although I expect that to change within the next 24 hours or so. There will also be an Upcoming NJPW Events post coming this week, before the tour starts. I’m also hoping to get the next podcast squeezed in as well this week, but time isn’t on my side for that one, so that may have to wait until the tour is already going on, sadly. We’ll see. Hope you enjoyed G1 Climax 30.