At 6:47 p.m. Japan time on 8/16, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura laid on the ground, side by side, both having collapsed, selling the total emotional expenditure of a weekend that saw both men involved in two of the year’s best matches.
Girls were crying in the stands. As Tanahashi laid there, some blood was coming from his nose. Moments earlier, the sold out crowd of 10,180 fans was exploding. After about a minute, both slowly got up. Nakamura offered his hand. Tanahashi accepted. The music commemorating the biggest tournament in pro wrestling was playing. The G-1 Climax tournament, a grueling month that has the reputation of featuring the year’s best matches, had come to a close. And it had delivered on that reputation.
The G-1 Climax tournament was debuted over four shows in August of 1991. Riki Choshu was New Japan’s booker, and he and Tatsumi Fujinami were the company’s signature stars since Antonio Inoki was a senator and only working rare events. The story was that Choshu, the B block favorite, lost all three of his matches, to Masahiro Chono, Shinya Hashimoto and Bam Bam Bigelow. In the A block, Keiji Muto beat both Fujinami and Big Van Vader (in one of the great matches of the era), but lost to Scott Norton. When it was over, the theme was a new generation for the company, headed to Muto, Chono and Hashimoto as the top stars, had just emerged. The surprise finishes and match quality was such that G-1 would go on to become known as the week that all the wrestlers went out to have their best matches of the year.
From a business standpoint, everyone was shocked at the success of the idea, selling out Nagoya the first night and drawing turn away crowds of 11,500 all three nights booked at Sumo Hall in Tokyo.
The first G-1 final was August 11, 1991, with Chono pinning Muto in 29:31 in what set the theme for what happened in the finals of the 25th G-1. The two put on a spectacular match, arguably the best of Chono’s career. In those days, because the box seats on the mid level of Sumo Hall don’t have chairs, but you actually set in a metal encased box, it was customary to bring pillows to sit on for comfort. While the Muto vs. Chono finish has been known as pillow mania, it was actually the Muto win over Vader in the main event the night before where fans, so excited over the quality of the young Muto beating the company’s monster foreigner, that they started throwing pillows at the ring, which led to hundreds or more pillows being thrown creating an incredible visual. While that match and scene probably can be found if you search, the match never aired on Japanese television. The same scene happened when Chono upset Muto to win the first G-1, and that aired on television and is thus far better remembered.
The 25th G-1 Climax, instead of being four shows in five days, has expanded to 19 shows over a one month period.
Muto and Chono, who 25 years earlier had set that standard with the classic first G-1 final, were brought to ringside to announce before the finals. Chono, known in Japan as either Mr. August or Summer-Man largely for winning the first two G-1 tournaments (the second one to fill the vacant NWA world heavyweight championship), is best known for his record setting five G-1 wins. Muto, however, became the biggest star to the public from that era, whose only G-1 finals win, in 1995, over Shinya Hashimoto, at a time when he was also IWGP champion, established him as the company’s top star leading to the two famous Tokyo Dome matches against UWFI’s biggest star, Nobuhiko Takada, the following October and January, which was the peak of the company’s business including the first pro wrestling event to do a $6 million house.
When the finals were over, Chono and Muto came into the ring to give the G-1 flag, the G-1 trophy and the traditional oversized check to Tanahashi, as the winner of the tournament for only the second time in his soon to be considered legendary career.
The crowd chanted his name, and the best show closer in the business since the heyday of Hulk Hogan was in the ring another 20 minutes while almost nobody in the crowd left. As he left, girls, and guys, at ringside went to hug him or hand him their Tanahashi towels. Many of them were still crying. In traditional fashion, they would hand him their towels, he’s wide the sweat off his face and body, and hand the towel back, or they’d just wipe his chest or face with their towel. By the time he got backstage, 25 minutes after the match had ended, while the upper deck was by this time largely empty, the floor was still packed.
Tanahashi pinned Nakamura with a high fly flow in 32:15 in what was the best singles match the two have ever had with each other. That covers a lot of ground, including three Tokyo Dome main events, numerous G-1 matches and big card title matches. What was reminiscent of the glory days of Japanese pro wrestling, coverage of the Tanahashi win with a large photo of him with the flag and trophy took up the entire front page of the next day’s Nikkan Sports.
Tanahashi was announced the next day as challenging for the IWGP heavyweight title in the main event on 1/4 at Wrestle Kingdom 10 at the Tokyo Dome, although he still has to defend that No. 1 contendership on big shows between now and the end of the year. It will be Tanahashi’s record-setting tenth Tokyo Dome main event, something no other combat sports athlete has ever accomplished. Many had expected that next year would be the first time since 2010 that he didn’t close the show with a winning performance.
He is expected, for the third time at the Dome, to face current IWGP champion Kazuchika Okada. In both 2013 and 2015, the two knocked it out of park, with Tanahashi winning both times. Tanahashi, whose first Tokyo Dome main event was in a ten-man tag in 2003, lost his first two Dome singles main events, in both 2005 and 2008 to Nakamura. Since then, he’s won seven in a row.
If Okada goes in as champion, and he’ll probably have title defenses against A.J. Styles and perhaps Nakamura and/or Hirooki Goto between now and the end of the year. Nakamura and Goto beat him in the tournament, while Styles pinned him clean in a multiple person match on 8/16 with the Styles Clash in what was clearly the set up for a September or October title defense. Tanahashi’s first defense of his title shot will be against Bad Luck Fale on the 9/27 show in Kobe. Fale and Tetsuya Naito both beat him during the tournament, and the expectation is that the October King of Pro Wrestling show at Sumo Hall would feature Tanahashi vs. Naito for the title shot, along with Okada against either Nakamura or Styles.
The big story for next year at the Dome looks to be Okada in his quest to finally beating Tanahashi, and retain his title, on New Japan’s biggest stage of all, which would be the real torch passing moment where he is established as the company’s top star. The other choice would to have gone with Okada vs. Nakamura, since the two have never faced off at the Tokyo Dome before, just because the other alternative was the third time in four years with the same main event. Okada and Nakamura have only had three singles matches since Okada became a superstar, a win by Nakamura in the 2012 G-1, Okada’s win at last year’s G-1 finals at the Seibu Dome, and Nakamura’s beating him this year in the match to determine the B block champion.
After somewhat low key years for both after each won in the top two matches at the Dome on 1/4, it hadn’t been a year of those kind of highlights for either. Both did work great matches with Roderick Strong in ROH. Tanahashi, with bad knees and a bad neck, had been given a program with Toru Yano to do matches very different from his usual, and was eliminated in the first round of the New Japan Cup. Nakamura was headlining big matches as IC champion, but lost the title clean, and then lost a rematch to Goto leading into G-1.
When the weekend was over, many have suggested that the match of the year may have been decided. But the question is, which match? There were four different matches that people talked about, the A block title win by Tanahashi over A.J. Styles on 8/14, Nakamura’s win over Okada on 8/15, a Michael Elgin vs. Tomohiro Ishii match on 8/15, and the Tanahashi vs. Nakamura final. Ibushi’s opening night match with Tanahashi is up there as well, and Ibushi’s matches with Styles and Katsuyori Shibata weren’t far behind.
Nakamura, in particular, was working with a messed up left elbow to the point he was in a sling a few weeks ago and likely shouldn’t have even been wrestling. But he did two grueling and dramatic match of the year qualifiers in less than 24 hours, going into the ring just after 9 p.m. on Saturday night, and coming back at around 6 p.m. the next day.
There were a number of things that came out of this month-long tournament, the most ambitious in history.
One is that the big five here, Tanahashi, Nakamura, Okada, Styles and Kota Ibushi, put on incredible matches with each other. It really brought back thoughts and the obvious comparisons with the stars of the 1990s All Japan. It’s almost sacrilegious to even consider that point, and all of them may need a few more years at this level to really be compared. The game has changed, but the matches this past weekend felt every bit like a modern state-of-the-art matches, with cross-ups, great selling, which is the hallmark of them matches, the athletic moves, and the storytelling. While different because of the differences in eras, the All Japan trio of Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi and Toshiaki Kawada were doing what was at the time the state-of-the-art matches with each other, and with the other top stars, during that era. And that’s a precautionary tale as well, because the determination to put on such great matches, particularly in a short period of time, often leads to physical deterioration. Even if we look a the major event singles matches and say this group is equal to that great, the All Japan group was clearly superior when it came to the rank-and-file Korakuen Hall show main events, but I think there is also memories of Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi working those awesome matches nightly when they were younger and not hurt, with this group which is mostly mid to late 30 except Okada and the mentality at the house shows is different. Guys like Misawa, Kobashi and Hansen, when they were older, were very much saving their stuff for the big shows as well.
Now, because of how the game has changed, in no way will the modern stars ever be as big, because the television situation is different and pro wrestling is never going to be strong enough to when All Japan sold out Budokan Hall for several years in a row. But just the fact we’re comparing the wrestlers from those two eras speaks volumes, because even two years ago, I wouldn’t have done that.
Another story is the business. It’s hard to compare because New Japan has changed the way they announce crowds this year, going from announcing total attendance to paid attendance. Most of the smaller buildings sold out, but early shows in Osaka and particularly Fukuoka drew the smallest crowds in those buildings in years. The finals at Sumo Hall, always a sellout announced at 11,500 (a fake number since the building maxes out at 11,066 seats), sold out this year the first day tickets were put on sale, but the announced figure was the 10,180 figure.
The first G-1 Climax, in 1991, sold out three straight nights at Sumo Hall, which came to be the home of the tournament. At its peak, the G-1 ran seven days in a row in the building. But it had not booked three dates at Sumo Hall since 2004, running only the last two nights, and only the finals sold out. Last year, there were no events at Sumo Hall, as they built everything for a match at the Seibu Dome, outside of Tokyo, where a typhoon the day of the show held the attendance down to 18,000. While it was the biggest crowd in G-1 history, it didn’t look impressive in a baseball stadium. This year, for the 25th G-1, the idea was to do the longest tournament, lasting a full month, ending with three shows at Sumo Hall.
It really can’t be considered a huge success, as the A block final day on 8/14 drew only 5,658 fans, the company’s smallest crowd in the building since October 10, 2010, even with Tanahashi vs. Styles as the main event. The B block finals, with Nakamura vs. Okada, drew 7,557.
Even with the final night sellout, it was an impressive night in Tokyo for the industry. Dragon Gate, running its Dangerous Gate 2015 show at the Ota-Ward Gym, sold out the 3,800-seat venue. Big Japan drew 1,498 to Korakuen Hall for a light tubes death match with Ryuji Ito beating Daisuke Sekimoto. JWP also ran at Korakuen Hall with an iPPV featuring stars of the past that drew 1,023 fans.
New Japan World topped the 30,000 subscriber mark for G-1, which tells you how far behind WWE they truly are as the No. 2 promotion in the world. They were at 22,000 before the tournament started. The streaming service is struggling, as when it was launched, the hope was to hit 30,000 this past January for the Tokyo Dome, and end the year at about 100,000, a figure they will not come close to.
This has led to some cutbacks. Most notably, a lot of the shows were one or two camera shoots, and many didn’t even have commentary. Last year’s tournament had every show with a full professional set-up, but that’s with a streaming service charging $110 in advance and $160 after it started for the full tournament. This year, with more shows, you got the entire tournament for $17. Still, New Japan owner Takaaki Kidani stated he was overall happy with the business, in particular the big increase in New Japan World subscribers.
It was reported in Japan that the toll of 19 shows with singles matches at that level was too hard on the bodies of a lot of the wrestlers. The competitors had more time between singles matches with the one month tour, but had to do more matches, since they were in multiple man matches on the undercards on the night the other block was headlining. The multiple man matches were there to provide good action, but the key guys would let the non-tournament guys carry the action and nobody was out there trying to steal the show. While everyone was banged up, it appeared the injury toll was less than in prior years. But the month-long tournament seemed to lack the intensity with the crowd that G-1 historically has had.
For next year, they could and should change the talent mix. Pretty much every top guy should return, but it would help if they brought in a few top guys from NOAH and cut bait on Toru Yano and Hiroyoshi Tenzan. Yano had a big push this year with the Tanahashi program, and was fine when they did ten tournament matches a show because it’s good to live light comedy. Tenzan is the legend who has been in more G-1's than anyone, but he wasn’t pulling rabbits out of his hat this year. When there were five tourney matches a night, and a few of them aren’t that good, it makes for less than special shows. Yujiro Takahashi could also be replaced as people don’t take him as a serious threat. Guys like Bad Luck Fale and Doc Gallows are going to have to be there. Fale is a major pushed foreign monster, and Gallows has to be there and get some wins as half of the tag team champions. Still, the best big foreigners last year for actual matches were Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer, and they weren’t back due to the move to NOAH. The loss of Minoru Suzuki definitely hurt, but I can understand not using him. Suzuki has been booked to be the undefeated GHC champion and he’d have to lose here. While you could argue it’s more high profile and all, if he wasn’t going to be at least final four, there’s no point in trying to rebuild NOAH to have its champion be an also-ran. But next year, when he’s presumably not champion, having guys like he, Takashi Sugiura or Naomichi Marufuji, would create new matches to freshen things up.
Over the past two years, the quality of matches in the fall, usually through the tag team tournament in November and December, was well down from the early part of the year because of the toll of G-1.
, but it's cool to see different promotions.
when they come out. 
at his hate for Yano
like he could've done this same thing with any three top wrestlers and just take stuff that fits his narrative to make his point.
status.
