The foreigners are back Juice, Kenta, Jeff Cobb, Ospreay and Jay White
A
Kota Ibushi
Kazuchika Okada
Tomohiro Ishii
Shingo Takagi
Yujiro Takahashi
Taichi
Minoru Suzuki
Jeff Cobb
Will Ospreay
Jay White
B
Hiroshi Tanahashi
Hirooki Goto
Toru Yano
YOSHI-HASHI
SANADA
Tetsuya Naito
EVIL
Zack Sabre Jr
Juice Robinson
KENTA
Block A looks loaded with Ibushi, Okada, Ishii, Takagi, Ospreay and Suzuki. I’m guessing Yujiro is A block Yano.
I’m surprised Hiromu didn’t get a spot this year.
G1 Climax field is pretty good. Wasn’t impressed by Jeff Cobb last year so hoping he can get in a better run. Would of liked to see Hiromu in G1 but its probably smart to keep him off the grueling schedule. Looks like he will stay a Jr Heavyweight a little bit longer. Maybe New Japan decides to run a best of Super Jr’s to finish the year off if they can bring back some foreign talent.
Honestly the only internationals I was expecting was Bad Luck Fale & Toa Henare from New Zealand.
Happily supprised by this outcome thought.
Guessing Hiromu isn’t in this because if they have international wrestlers back, they could conceivably put on a BOSJ now and he’d be a big cog for that tour and the Ospreay double from last year seems like a huge task for any one wrestler.
Lots of juicy Finals possibilities here. I could totally see them completing the story of the year and having Ibushi conquer his hero Tanahashi on the way to the Tokyo Dome main event. The B Block seems wide open…Goto goes all the way and beats Okada? Shingo vs. EVIL to try and make an all LIJ Dome Final? Okada getting revenge on EVIL for costing him the NJ Cup? SANADA running through Naito, EVIL, and Shingo to finally get to the top? Naito toppling anyone in the A Block and picking BOSJ winner Hiromu to face him and finally getting the Anniversary match everyone wanted to see?
I still think the favorite is probably Jay White coming off a strong showing last year, but that block is so deep that Gedo has at least created a lot of uncertainty there.