NJPW G1 Climax Tournament 2017 Competitors and What might happen?

NJPW G1 Climax Tournament 2017 Competitors and What might happen?

Today June 20th 2017 New Japan pro Wrestling announced the participants for NJPW annual G1 Tournament.

New Japan has announced the following 20 talents for the tournament

Togi Makabe
Michael Elgin
Juice Robinson
Minoru Suzuki
Kazuchika Okada
Hirooki Goto
Toru Yano
Hiroshi Tanahashi
YOSHI-HASHI
Kenny Omega
Bad Luck Fale
Tama Tonga
Tomohiro Ishii
Tetsuya Naito
SANADA
EVIL
Satoshi Kojima
Yuji Nagata
Zack Sabre, Jr.
Kota Ibushi

New Japan will shortly split these 20 wrestlers into 2 blocks, Block A and Block B.

Each block will consist of 10 Wrestlers and each wrestler faces each other once and points are awarded as follows

 two points for a victory, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss.

Once all matches have taken place the 2 wrestlers with the most points from Block A and Block B face off the determine the Winner of G1 2017.

The winner receives a briefcase for a IWGP World Title match at Wrestlekingdom 12 on Jan 4th 2018 at Toyko Dome.

However the Winner of G1 has to defend his briefcase on the road to Wrestlekingdom and their is a possibility that they could lose the case, if that were to happen the wrestler that defeated the G1 Champion would then become the briefcase holder themselves.

What could happen this year?

There are so may potential winners to this years G1 Climax there are so many matches to look forward to also.

I really hope that NJPW put Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi in the same block, a match between those two at this stage of their careers could break the ratings system even further.

I'm really interested to see what my fellow Englishman Zack Sabre will do in this tournament and interested to see how he develops and evolves in this tournament. Zack goes into his first G1 representing Suzuki-Gun I feel Zack could have seen great standout matches against the likes of Sanada, Yoshi-Hashi and more. 

Zack Sabre

I have a scenario in my mind of how I would like to see the G1 Tournament go and it involves Kenny Omega.

If it was me I would book Okada and Omega in separate Blocks and have both men win their blocks and have the final G1 Match be Omega Vs Okada because the story you can tell with this is incredible.

Kenny Omega won the last G1 Tournament, Kenny went all the way to Wrestlekingdom 11 but was unable to wrestle the title away from Okada. Omega and Okada then met again at NJPW Dominion and went to a 60 minute draw in one of the greatest matches in the world.

If Okada vs Omega is the final match in the G1 final you can tell the story that Omega has not beaten Okada in a big match situation.

Omega has to win here in order to win the briefcase to get his title shot at Okada.

If Okada wins the G1 Match he cements himself as the greatest champion of this generation and has no number one contender.

If Omega wins he and Okada are tied at 1 match each and one draw.

Omega has the briefcase and gets one final shot at Okada at Wrestlekingdom 12 and its the rubber match to decide the NJPW IGWP champion once and for all.

It will be a perfect set up and a great story whether it happens or not we will have to wait and see.


Other contenders to Win the G1 for me are Naito who after losing the IGWP intercontintal Title will be looking to gain the briefcase and have his eyes on IWGP World Title.

Thanks For Reading

@jon422002

Jonathan Orchard