Nippon Budokan was the host of New Japan Pro-Wrestling’s G1 B block final between Kazuchika Okada and Jeff Cobb. Cobb went undefeated in this year’s G1 but that streak came to an end when Okada did the ‘Tombstone piledriver’ onto Cobb and finished him off with ‘The Rainmaker’ to secure the win.
Okada is a two-time winner of the G1 tournament and he’ll be taking on fellow two-time winner Kota Ibushi in the finals on 10/21. Ibushi will be seeking his third consecutive G1 win as he won the tournament in 2019 and 2020. The winner of the G1 will earn themselves a shot at the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 16 which is a three-day event in 2022.
I’m sure Okada vs Ibushi will be a good match, but I think the main event scene is in big trouble at the moment with big stars elsewhere. This was the perfect time to elevate a Cobb or ZSJ and I would even go as far to say Taichi or Great O Khan.
And no disrespect to the 2 legends but G1 feels a bit ‘meh’ when the idea is to face the champion at Wrestle Kingdom but there’s 3 nights and the champ will most likely wrestle twice? Which will likely be G1 winner then winner faces Osprey. Kind of dilutes the importance of the tournament.
I hope when things go back to normal NJPW becomes a force again because at the moment I feel like they are trying to drive people away.
I was all for Cobb winning, but they’re clearly thinking business. Okada/Ibushi and Will Ospreay challenging Shingo Takagi in separate Tokyo Dome main events sound like they could draw more than title shots for Cobb or Zack Sabre Jr. (which I imagine happens before the end of the year), but they’ve done a lot to build up Cobb this year.
Couldn’t agree more @Alex_Patel I sat out the entire tournament and have been bummed I just couldn’t get into it but it all feels like the same matchups I’ve been watching til the point I just tapped out (the 35-60 minute matches that didn’t warrant them also drove me away earlier this year)
I desperately wanted to get into it because I have been in years past but this year I just found so many of the matches were way too long, and they were stuff I’ve already seen before. Also very strong feeling that Ibushi and Okada we’re going to win again and that’s exactly what happened. We literally just had this main event.
In the end there’s just a lot more wrestling to watch now with the emergence of AEW and I couldn’t find the time to devote to this with the extra long repetitive matches even if some of them were very good.