Marveling over the hour plus spent getting in my G1 contest predictions… “Booking” a 91 match arc no small feat, to all of you who also threw your names into the hat and did the same, I salute you!
Just throwing out some noticings from going through it to see if others felt the same or completely different.
Was much easier for me to call Block A, which is not to say that it will be anywhere close to on point.
I have Ibushi going over Okada to get into the finals (and eventually go all the way). I feel like i’ve put all my stock into Ibushi over a few G1’s and NJ Cups and was then let down…Looking at that ovation he got at this past New Beginning, maybe this is his year.
I like how the entrants I considered to be near the top of the food chain ended up clustered pretty closely together point-wise so I did not even try to go back and make edits (no time to anyway).
Ended up looking like this point-wise:
Ibushi (14) Okada (12) Tanahashi (12) ZSJ (12) Sanada (12) EVIL (8) Fale (8) Archer (6) Kenta (6) Ospreay (2)
Wait, whuuuuuuuuut, Ospreay only 2?! I know there is a problem here, and I probably should have revised so he picks up a few more. But feel it will end up being not too far off from this. More on that afterwards…
I noticed my choices were for the most part pretty conservative with very few surprises, even as I went through the B block (I did throw down one the longshot result of Cobb over Naito, hey shake things up for a night and give Jeff some shine!). And then at the end, there was the swerve…I found myself deleting the name Naito as winner of the match with White, and after much hesitation, changed it to the name Jay White to make him B Block winner going into the finals with Ibushi.
Definitely seems counterintuitive; White seems to have cooled off quite a bit, now slotted in a rivalry with Goto. But he does have the record of having beaten both Okada and Tanahashi, and i don’t think Gedo has lost faith in him as a major player, even if he’s lost a bit of steam. Even if that would make for a less predictable final with most of us “smart” fans ruling out his victory, he has the ability to have a match with Ibushi filled with false finishes and suspense.
It also comes down to a question of whether a match that has been repeated over and over (Ibushi vs Naito) would be as big an event as a new matchup…it’s tough but i would go with a fresh pairing. Plus maybe it’s a bit of an outdated way of thinking, but I stopped seeing Naito VS Okada being a likely Dome Show closer after Naito won the IC title back. They could do title for title and that might be big. But I see an IC title defense being a part of the overall Wrestle Kingdom draw. Plus i don’t see Naito suddenly dropping the title in the lead up to January 4. I guess he could win B block and still lose to Ibushi, but it just seems like these factors would make Ibushi seem the more likely winner, thus a less suspenseful match in the finals.
Attempts to book b block was a mess, but got an end result that seemed logical and left it as is. Here are my final point totals:
White (14) Naito (14) Moxley (12) Ishii (12) Goto (10) Cobb (10) Taichi (8) Juice (4) Yano (4) Takagi (2).
I like the clustering of high totals amongst those i perceive as bigger players, especially Moxley finishing near the top. But I feel a bit reluctant about Juice being that far down in the basement. I do really like this scenario playing out that would have Ishii in contention if he both beat Taichi, AND White and Naito fought to a draw…but then that would be off the table after loss to Taichi in last round. Taichi would have chance to play a bit of a spoiler in
that sense, giving him something toward his dickhead heel persona.
The deal with Ospreay and Shingo both being in basement with only two points?? I definitely have some strong reservations…but with Ospreay being Jr. champ and hearing that Shingo said something about wanting to be considered a Jr. that fights heavyweights, i think them taking losses to heavyweights fits with NJPW booking logic. They aren’t diminished, just look strong for standing toe to toe with the heavyweights. Basing this on Jrs taking pins in the multi person tag matches, and a dose of 1999-2001 matches i was exposed to where Jrs were stepping to heavyweights and almost always lost. Maybe it’s outdated, and seems a bit strange after Ospreay’s foray into being a heavyweight, but I hope it holds true for most part and keeps my totals strong in the contest.
Interested in everyone else’s equally overwrought (sorry for that!) explanations of their predictions going into this weekend’s kick off.