G1 Climax Update: Who Is Eliminated?

When the staff at The Wrestling Estate decided to join in on a competition in seeing who could accurately predict the G1, we all knew that we wouldn’t be perfect, but we didn’t know that there would be so many surprises along the way. While we will be determining the true winner based on points predictions for all wrestlers involved, it’s always good to see how every is doing on a nightly basis. I’ll go sports style with this in showing how well each staff member has done based on the standard 5 game record, i.e. 5-0 or 0-5.

As the A-Block reached Night 9, it would present a main event that no one thought would even happen one year earlier, maybe not even a month earlier before Dominion. The match between Kenta and Okada was a great showing from both, each of which were walking in with undefeated records of 4-0. Something had to give. Okada would walk away with the win that night, but Kenta appeared to finally win over the New Japan audience and establish himself within the company, showing that he belonged.

Tanahashi, Ibushi, Ospreay and Evil would all claim victory this night as well, but Okada still stood tall on top undefeated. The Wrestling Estate’s Sam Gladen would go 5-0 on his picks for the day in an impressive showing. John Corrigan and Juan Bautista would finish the day at 3-2 while Steven Jackson went 2-3. Sam was the only person to accurately predict an Okada victory as everyone else picked Kenta except for Neal, who went 1-4 and predicted that this would be the annual DRAW match of the G1.

Night 10 and we are finally half way through the tournament. B-Block took the stage with several hard hitting matches that included a Moxley victory over Naito, Jay White getting his second straight of a self-predicted six over Shingo and Ishii stealing a win away from the left hand of G.O.D. and Juice Robinson. Moxley stayed on top now officially at 5-0 himself and a 4-point lead over the second place Juice. It’s appearing to be a runaway for the Purveyor of Violence. Sam wins the day again for the staff going 4-1 only missing out on Goto’s victory over Yano. The rest of the staff went 3-2 with everyone going 5-0 on Jeff Cobb’s win over Taichi.

The eliminations began on Night 11, July 30th. When Okada knocked off a very game Lance Archer, the reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion mathematically eliminated Archer, Ospreay, Sabre, Sanada and Fale. Like Moxley on the B-Block, Okada was ready to run away with the win and hopefully straight to picking his own opponent for Wrestle Kingdom. In other action, Kenta would lose his second straight match to Sanada, who finally got his first win since opening night. Sabre would defeat Ospreay while Tanahashi beat Evil in a great match and Ibushi would defeat Fale. Staying on a hot streak, Sam went 4-1 because he called for the upset of Archer over Okada and for a while he was almost right. Neal would join him at 4-1, incorrectly picking Ospreay over Sabre. Juan and John would go 3-2 while Steven finished 2-3.

The mighty finally fell on August 1st. John Moxley got duct taped to Shota Umino and counted out. Toru Yano employed his tricks and they worked. Think of the fact that Yano has now 6 points for the tournament and his wins came over Jay White, Naito and Moxley. He lost to Shingo, Juice, and Goto. No, that list isn’t backwards people. Jay White makes it halfway to his 6-0 prediction by going 3-0 defeating Taichi in a rule breakers’ wet dream. Goto would win over Ishii in a hard hitting affair in the main event. For the staff, Steven won the day going 4-1, only missing Yano’s upset. Sam and John would both finish with winning records as well and Neal and Juan would finish 2-3. For context, Juan was the only person to pick Yano’s win. The staff all accurately picked Jay White over Taichi and Naito over Juice, a rarity so far throughout the tournament.

Three nights later, the last unbeaten man went down with only 12 seconds to spare. Sanada would exorcise his Okada demon and beat him in their third match this year. This would also be the third straight year that the reigning IWGP Heavyweight Champion would walk in 6-0 and then finally taste defeat (Okada in 2017 to Evil and Kenny Omega last year to Ishii). The win will likely set up a future title shot for Sanada before Wrestle Kingdom is finalized. In other action, Ibushi kept fighting forward defeating and eliminating Tanahashi. It was the quickest exit from the tournament for “The ACE” in 11 years. Evil would keep marching with a win over Ospreay. Sabre beat his stablemate Archer while Bad Luck Fale would pull an upset (with some Bullet Club help) in defeating Kenta, who has now lost three in a row. Neal and Steven both went 4-1. Steven would be the only one to pick the Fale upset while Neal was the only one to pick Sanada in the main event. Juan, Sam and John would all post identical picks and finish 2-3 on the night.

Thing for the B-Block became even more of a tangled web on August 4. Jay White would defeat Moxley and, not that Switchblade cared, but he kept the tournament alive for over half the field. Ishii would defeat Yano while Taichi knocked off Juice in a stunner and Goto beat Cobb in a match where some said it was two men looking into the mirror at one another. The main event saw another stablemate clash as LIJ member Shingo fell to his leader Naito in a great match. Everyone on the staff, except for Sam, finished 3-2 on the day. Sam finished 2-3. A lot of similar picks this go around, but not one person picked the Goto win over Cobb. Maybe everyone had some higher hopes for the ROH star. By the end of the night, both Taichi and Shingo would be mathematically eliminated from contention.

Night 15 made the A-Block much clearer. With Okada defeating Evil in the main event and Ibushi beating Sabre in the semi-main event, we have officially brought the block down to a winner takes all match on August 10th between Ibushi and Okada. If Okada wins, he will defeat Ibushi by 4 points in the final standing. But an Ibushi win would tie both men with Ibushi winning the block based off the head to head victory. For context, a DRAW would give the block to Okada based off points. EVERYONE on the team had winning records today. Neal and Steven finished 4-1 while John, Juan and Sam went 3-2. The team had two picks that went exactly like all predicted when Sanada defeated Archer and Ibushi beat Sabre. The A-Block is down to one match – winner takes all.

August 8th wrapped up the B-Block going into the final night and while the picture is a little smaller in terms of contenders, it’s not that much clearer. After a night of wars, Jay White (with a victory over Juice), Goto (who defeated Moxley), Naito (who defeated Cobb), and the aforementioned Moxley are the only realistic contenders left to win. As a quick disclaimer, Ishii and Yano are both mathematically still in it, but they would require losses and/or no decisions from the other four contenders. I doubt that is even up for discussion at this point.

Goto has the best chance of winning right now with a victory on the 11th over Shingo and a with Naito win over White, he owns the tiebreaker. Moxley’s road gets even harder now with the loss because he would need to win over Juice and for both Goto and White to loss their matches. I could be here all day and write another long term paper on the scenarios at this point. For The Wrestling Estate, Neal and Juan both finish 4-1 and Juan can be the only one to claim that he picked Goto’s win over Moxley. Everyone accurately predicted Naito’s win over Cobb. Sam, John and Steven all finished 2-3.

Going into the final nights before Monday’s Championship match, there is a cluster still in the B-Block that can be much clearer of how the drama will unfold once the match schedule is announced. Keep checking njpw1972.com for that information. The A-Block is cut and dry: Okada vs. Ibushi winner takes all. Keep in mind that Ibushi has to beat Okada in the match, not the other way around. Any scenario that results in a DRAW, double DQ or double countout benefits Okada on points. This weekend is going to be epic.