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It's that time of the year. The time of the year where we dust down our New Japan World subscription, we look at our screens and wonder why the picture quality is worse than the year before. It's that time of the year when we get our abacus’ out because Dave Meltzer’s recaps and standings calculations didn't make sense and when our friends ask us if you want to go for a drink and you have to tell them you're catching up on the G1 Climax which then gets them asking if you're watching too much PornHub.
And while we are looking forward to the next few weeks of the grandest tournament in wrestling, questions have to be asked. What does a G1 without Kazuchika Okada, Will Ospreay, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii look like?
But also, we are asking, does the G1 come back to form? After 2020-2022's tourneys were defined by “clap crowds”, 2023, the first edition back t normality didn't hit the heights we wanted it to. That could have been for many reasons but in my mind, the booking of the Grade One Climax has got stale. So in this edition of We Need to Talk About… I am going to look at the booking of the G1 and what ideas we can put forward with how you could book the G1.
Doing a Raducanu (The Young Prospect)
Sports Precedent: In the 2021 US Tennis Open, in both singles tournaments, as the tournament progressed, the young guns in the sport rising through the ranks made their impact. Carlos Alvarez showed the world that he was the next big deal in men's tennis with his win over Novak Djokovic but in the women's draw, an 18-year-old teenager ranked outside the Top 100 in the world representing Great Britain went on a miracle run (and got some advantages in the draw) to become the longest shot to win a Grand Slam.
Historic G1 Equivalent While a 18 year old winning the G1 is always going to be longer odds than the Scotland football team qualifying for the knockout stages of a major football tournament, the piece of trivia that only 3 out of the 17 men that have won the G1 when under the age of 30
While the above can be defended by the nature of the caution of New Japan’s booking historically, in a time where New Japan needs to build new stars after the exits of Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay and the phasing out of Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii as seen by their exits from the play-in tournament this year, could this year be the year that a under-30-year-old wins the G1 for the first time in 12 years
2024’s fit- Six of the 20-man field are under the age of thirty (Shota Umino, Gabe Kidd, Callum Newman, Yuya Uemura, Ren Narita, Konosuke Takeshita) and with each man looking likely to play supporting roles, the chances of a fourth man under 30 winning the G1 is unlikely but in a world where NJPW need to make new household names a under-30 winner of the Climax is a booking idea that needs to be looked at going forward.
Doing a Leicester (The longshot)
Sports Precedent: When Claudio Ranieri was appointed Leicester manager in the summer of 2015 less than a year after a disastrous run as Greece manager, everyone had Leicester as getting relegated in the season to come and the bookmakers agreed with odds of Leicester winning the Premier League at 5,000-1 being higher than Elvis still being alive and The Loch Ness Monster being discovered (the latter is obviously true) Yet the unthinkable happened.
Leicester won the Premier League Title being the first team who had finished in the bottom half of the table the season before to win to lift the league title the next year in the “Premier League era”
G1 Equivalent- With the award for winning the G1 being a title shot at Wrestle Kingdom being in place since 2012, the chances of a Chase Owens winning the G1 is more unlikely than James Dean coming back to life and running for President. But what of outside shots getting to the final of the Grade 1?
If you look at a surprise being someone with a losing record getting to the final then the closest we have ever got to a shock finalist is Karl Anderson’s run in 2012 before losing to Okada in the final (2012 Anderson would look at 2024 Anderson with utter contempt)
With a 4-4 record in singles’ matches in the 11 months in between G1 21 and 22, Karl went 5-3 to summon 10pts to top Block A with 5 of the 9 in that block going 4-4. Also 7 of the 9 wrestlers in Block B went 4-4 (holy 50/50 booking Batman)
2024 Fit? Three of the twenty G1 entrants having losing record in the last 11 months (Umino- 2-4, Callum Newman- 4-5, Yuya Uemura- 2-4) and if one of those three or play-in tourney winner Oleg Boltin have a deep run in this year’s G1, it would be an interesting wildcard booking call. An Uemura or Boltin getting into the Top 3 would be a good rocket to put on either young guy.
Doing a Bryson Dechambeau (The Outsider)
Sports Equivalent Last month’s US Golf Open might have been most memorable for a “choke” from Rory McIllroy that would have made Greg Norman wince but the story of the winner is insane when you look into the detail.
A player from a rival golf organisation winning the US Open is one thing that was seen as unfathomable years ago (as well as fans chanting USA to support a player on the payroll of a government that funded 9/11) but when Bryson Dechambeau won the US Open for the second time, it was different circumstances to his 2020 win not just for reasons that would bore non-golf fans but because he is now one of the faces of a rebel tour.
Historic G1 Equivalent The G1’s history has been filled with wrestlers from outside promotions from Ric Flair (WCW) in 1995, Jun Akiyama (NOAH) in 2003, Naomichi Marufuji (NOAH) 2016 and Lance Archer and Eddie Kingston (AEW) in the previous two years and while Jun Akiyama's appearance ended in a final, Satoshi Kojima won the G1 in 2010 entering as a freelancer and with mid table showings from Archer and Kingston in their excursions, maybe the last great “outsider” showing at a G1 was Marufuji, who beat Kazuchika Okada during his almighty run as IWGP Champion.
The 2024 Fit Two spots in the 34th edition of the G1 have gone to Pro Wrestling NOAH (or has Jake Lee actually joined NJPW) and AEW wrestlers. First, let’s talk about the merits of Jake Lee and the benefits to seeing him wrestle nine matches in three weeks
Moving onto Konosuke Takeshita, his entry into the G1 comes as a welcome escape from being sucked into the Don Callis Vortex in AEW, a now frequent entrant into the Top 10 in Most Underrated in the Observer Awards, Konosuke has the chance to prove his worth in Japan over the next few weeks, but a raising of the G1 flag is out of the equation with Jon Moxley’s recent IWGP World Title run. On an aside note, why is Hechicero not in the G1 under the CMLL banner?
Doing a Spursy
Sporting Equivalent Full disclosure, I'm a Tottenham Hotspur fan. The most frequent taunt to one of the English Big 6 football clubs is that Tottenham “bottle” it. The fact that Tottenham have not won a trophy since 2008 can be explained by numerous factors such as bad luck in cup competitions, Daniel Levy taking Champions League qualification as a priority, bad transfer win…. (Sorry, I forgot I was writing a wrestling article for a moment)
But the word Spursy has made it into the English Dictionary
A Spursy performance, is to have success in reach but to ultimately chuck it away.
I mean, by that definition, Paris St. Germain are worse than us when it comes to “chucking it way” when in positions to advance in the Champions League and don't even get me started on Arsenal in the Premier League the last two ye…
Historic G1 Equivalent Hot take time, Tomohiro Ishii is to NJPW to what Spurs are to the Premier League.
Why are you all throwing things at me?
Hear me out, wrestling in an era along with Okada, Tanahashi, Naito and Omega and joining them as an Observer Hall of Famer is a remarkable feat but in the kayfabe world, Ishii’s lack of IWGP Heavyweight title wins and zero finals appearances let alone wavin’ flag moments is rather Spursy.
Seriously, why are you throwing things at me?
2024 Fit In a booking philosophy that has seen Gedo book his stars to have to climb their personal Everest, an idea of having one of the Reiwa Musketeers have his Everest be the G1 would make very good wrestling television. Someone like Shota Umino coming close but yet so far and then winning one of the biggest prizes in wrestling would make for a happy ending like when Tottenham finally won a major trophy
Seriously, why are you guys throwing things at me?
Doing a Manchester City (The Dominant Champions)
Sporting Equivalent- To be honest it's hard to compare anything in wrestling to what Man City achieved in the 2022-23 season (and also can you book a 115 charges of Financial Fair Play breaches storyline in wrestling?) when they achieved the holy grail in English football and won the treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League. But the point I wanted to make was to talk about the booking of a World Champion in the G1 and Man City’s dominance of English football in the last decade is the closest idea I had to dominacne in sport in the last few years.
Past G1 Equivalent- Kensuke Sasaki (2000)
Kensuke Sasaki is the last IWGP Heavyweight champ to win the G1.
2024 Fit- Tetsuya Naito
Tetsuya Naito is the current IWGP Heavyweight Champion.
With the prize of being the challenger at NJPW’s biggest show of the year going to the winner of the G1, the champ winning NJPW’s grandest tournament is going to be very unlikely going forward (the champ winning G1 and picking his own Jan 4th opponent is a cool story beat though) and with the obvious booking trope of wrestlers pinning the champ getting a title shot later in the year, it makes sense to see the following records of the champ entering the G1
And in a year where making new stars is the prerogative, Naito winning the G1 this year makes as less sense as Hikuleo getting out of Block A last year but limiting Tetsuya’s losses to just one in the Block stage and having him lose in the KO stage would be a good call and I would have said that guy to beat him in the block stage should be Shota Umino but then I remembered their match at the start of 2023.
It still would be better than having EVIL beat Naito though.
Doing a Jack Nicklaus/Tiger Woods
Sporting Equivalent- At 46 and 44 years old respectively Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods won the Masters in what people claim are two of the greatest moments in golf history. Sport can sometimes not be a country for old men but when people north of their prime, heading to the end of their career succeed at their sports biggest competition, it ends up often being their sports biggest deal which was the case for Jack at the 1986 Masters.
Historic G1 Equivalent- Riki Choshu (1996)
The age of 44 in pro wrestling in 2024 might be seen as not that old when you consider that Claudio Castagnoli turns that age on December 27 but in 1996 it felt like an age that meant you were nearly done as a wrestler. To emphasise this, Riki was born in the same year as Greg Valentine and Steve Keirn.
So when Riki won the G1 in 1996 at the age of 44, it was seen as an historic moment in New Japan history, to the point that Dave Meltzer accompanied his live report of Riki’s run with a history of NJPW in that week’s Observer newsletter (which is a informative read).
Also fun trivia fact, the plane journey to Japan was where Dave first sketched out his idea for the Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame.
Like Nicklaus and Woods Masters wins, Choshu’s G1 victory was the climax of his time at the top of his craft as all three never won a major again.
2024 Fit- Three men (Naito, Takagi, Goto) enter the G1 with an age over 40 but with Naito coming in as Heavyweight Champion and Goto now being a tag team guy, the most realistic opportunity for a Nicklaus/Tiger/Choshu moment is Shingo Takagi and considering the criminal misuse of Shingo since crowds came back in full force, I’m not holding my hopes up on Shingo winning this years G1 (please prove me wrong Gedo)
Yes, I'm conveniently forgetting for the benefit of this section that Naito at the age of 41 won the G1 last year.
Doing an Portugal
Sporting Equivalent- In injury time of the Euro 2024 Last 16 tie between England and Slovakia, this section was called Doing an England but then Jude Bellingham did Jude Bellingham things and Ollie Watkins did Ollie Watkins things in the Final Four and England while being really meh all of the 2024 Euros did get to the final. Luckily Roberto Martinez did Roberto Martinez things and one of the most talented squads of this years Euros went out in really disappointing fashion (they played well against Turkey though)
Historic G1 Equivalent Hiroshi Tanahashi, with a 9-2 record in a New Japan ring in the 11 months before the 2008 G1 Climax and a IWGP Title reign, a New Japan Cup win and a run to the final of the AJPW Champion Carnival (Hiroshi’s brief time in All Japan as a heel is awesome) also to his name in that period, was one of the favourites if not the favourite heading into the 08 G1. However with a record of 2-4 in the seven-man Block A meaning a joint last place finish in the block, Tanahashi's 2008 G1 was a flop. He turned out alright in the end I guess.
2024 Fit? In Chris Samsa’s G1 Predictor competition, as of June 17th, these are the percentages of picks from those participating
To focus on the the three names with double digit figures, the trio of Sabre, Umino and Tsuji start as favourites and with Sabre's name coming up more and more with the smart people, he starts as heavy favourite. Whether or not, it's a good idea to have Sabre Jr. have a worst group stage this summer than the England football team would be a very brave call. It would be an even more braver (and weirder) decision to have Tsuji do a Portugal in this years G1 especially when Yota won his first major earlier in the year.
Maybe the role of disappointment could end up with Umino underperforming. As we mentioned before, an interesting character arc for Shota would be the G1 being his Everest and a lack of success in the G1 would make for interesting wrestling.
Doing a Jannik Sinner
Sporting Equivalent- With men's tennis Fab Four one by one retiring bar Novak Djokovic who will obviously outlive us all (I typed this before the Wimbledon final this year), the sport has needed it's young guns to produce and the next gen are Carlos Alcaraz aside, getting there gradually and one of those guns, Italy's Jannik Sinner has a grand slam to his name and a Number One ranking and looks to be the second column of tennis's next attempt to construct Four Pillars.
Past G1 Equivalent Kensuke Sasaki (2000)
Back to Kensuke. The 2000 G1 was a G1 without historic names from the NJPW Heavyweight scene for the first time in a long time such as Keiji Muto and Shinya Hashimoto and Kensuke Sasaki took an opportunity (as reigning IWGP Champ) to seize glory. While it didn’t work out with Inoki-ism helping build up a black cloud over the company and Sasaki struggling to leap out of the shadow of his mentor Riki Choshu until he got to the freelance stage of his career, the 2000 G1 saw NJPW make a definite decision to who they thought the man was to take the company deep into the 21st century.
2024 Fit? The 2024 G1 is a G1 without historic names from the NJPW Heavyweight scene for the first time in a long time (you see where I’m going with this this)
The 2024 G1 feels like one of the most important in a long time with the need for the company to escalate their need to find new people to carry the main event scene with so many of those that carried that torch either getting old, leaving for pastures new or being EVIL and while this, if the biggest percentage of people in Samsa’s Predictor are correct in thinking that Wrestling is Coming Home, may not be the year that we see someone take the ultimate step to the top of the Wrestle Kingdom card. In this transition year, it would be good to someone make a name for themselves this summer in Japan.
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