September 18th NJPW G1 Climax Night 1

Sho defeats Ryohei Oiwa – 06:11

• Sho used a submission to get the victory.

Tournament Matches

Yujiro Takahashi w/Pieter defeats Kota Ibushi – 11:12

• Ibushi won the whole tournament in 2020 and 2019. He’s also coming back from a long bout of Aspiration Pneumonia that kept him out of action for several months.
• Yujiro Takahashi hit a low blow followed by Pimp Juice for a near fall. Yujior followed up with another big move for the pinfall victory.

Great-O-Khan defeats Tanga Loa (w/ Jado) – 17:46

• This is Tanga Loa’s first G1 match ever. He hasn’t had that many singles matches ever in New Japan.
• Khan used the Eliminator to get the pinfall victory.

Time to clean and disinfect the ring.

Toru Yano defeats Kenta – 11:08

• Yano is fun in these tournaments. A lot of times, he’s mathematically in the game until the last 3-4 nights. He’s the guy that you can expect to beat a lot of the main event guys.
• Kenta came to the ring with a long list of accolades for the ring announcer to go through. Yano insisted that the referee check Kenta’s trunks for foreign objects. The ref found a roll of tape . . . I’m sure that won’t be the last time we see tape in this match.
• Kenta taped Yano’s hands together and tossed him under the ring. Kenta got back in the ring and picked up the referee (who took a bump a few minutes earlier). As Kenta assisted the referee with his count, Yano appeared on the other side of the ring. Yano hit Kenta with a pair of low blows (somehow concealed from Kevin Kelly and the referee) and rolled up Kenta for the pinfall.

Zack Sabre Junior defeats Tetsuya Naito – 27:32

• In a thrilling final 3 minutes, we saw Naito counter the Zack Driver right into a Destino. Ultimately Sabre tied up Naito like a pretzel. With absolutely nowhere to go, Naito had to tap out.
• The trainers appear to be working on Naito after the match. Not a great place to be on Night 1.

Shingo Takagi defeats Tomohiro Ishii – 27:56

• Like most solid NJPW matches, the last 5-10 are incredible.
• The match concluded with a bunch of headbutts and a Last of the Dragon by Shingo for the pinfall victory.

Standings After Night 1

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