New Japan 2015 G1 Climax July 29 results: Naito vs. Styles; Fale vs. Tanahashi

by Bryan Rose, WrestlingObserver.com

Welcome today’s coverage of the G1, taking place tonight at the Fukuoka Kokusai Center. Tonight’s show is the usual deal of no commentary but a multi camera setup. Hopefully the crowd is more into this show than yesterday’s crowd.

Jay White and David Finlay vs. Tiger Mask and Mascara Dorada

This was short, but pretty fun. White and Finlay are a good young lion team, Tiger Mask was fine and Dorada was his usual great self. Tiger Mask took out White on the outside with a suicide dive which allowed Dorada to pick up the win with the Dorada Screwdriver.

Yuji Nagata, Yohei Komatsu, Satoshi Kojima and Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Yujiro Takahashi, Karl Anderson, Cody Hall and Tama Tonga 

Just a match. Everyone paired off with someone and had the usual eight man tag but in abridged form. When Nagata and Anderson were in it was pretty great, though. It boiled down to Tama Tonga and Yohei Komatsu. They had some back and forth for a bit before Tonga pinned him clean with his waistlock DDT.

Tomoaki Honma and Michael Elgin vs.  Yoshi-Hashi and Tomohiro Ishii

The last few minutes were super heated with Honma and Yoshi Hashi scoring great near falls on one another. The crowd was white hot for it. Honma actually hit his top rope kokeshi headbutt and managed to pin Yoshi Hashi to a strong ovation. Elgin, Ishii and Honma had to be separated after the match as they all got into it. 

Kazuchika Okada and Gedo vs. Hirooki Goto and Jushin Thunder Liger

Decent tag match. Liger and Gedo worked a lot, as well as Goto and Okada. Not much to it beyond that. Liger won with a surprise leg clutch hold on Gedo.

Toru Yano vs. Doc Gallows 

Good for what it was. Yano stalled a lot early. He tried to jump Gallows after a hand shake spot but Gallows no sold it. Mostly comedy spots but Yano’s able to work them really well here. It wasn’t the best match workrate wise but it was fun. Yano took out Hall and Tonga from the apron, but Anderson comes in as he and Gallows give him the Magic Killer and Gallows pins him.

Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Togi Makabe

Another pretty solid bout. Nothing fancy, as most of the match was just back and forth brawling. Makabe did take it to the outside early, but most of this was in the ring. At one point it seemed like he was working over Tenzan’s eye. Tenzan kept taking Makabe’s offense until Makabe pinned him with the king kong knee drop.

Kota Ibushi vs. Katsuyori Shibata

These two exchanged some great offense in the early minutes of the match, including some great mat wrestling. Crowd is SUPER into this match, it was insane. Ibushi did Shibata’s penalty kick at one point that Shibata did not take lightly and returned with one of his own. Just an insane match with incredible heat and super stiff offense. There was one period where they were constantly kicking out at one and just going insane with offense. This is a surefire match of the year candidate and required viewing if you have New Japan World. They were exchanging offense when finally Shibata slapped him HARD, put him in the sleeper and pinned him with the penalty kick.

Bad Luck Fale vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi 

Good match; it’s becoming more and more clear that Tanahashi’s one of the best ring generals in pro wrestling right now. There was a ref bump at one point that caused Hall and Tonga to come in and interfere. Fale took out one by accident and Tanahashi took the other out and sent Fale to the outside where he gave them all the big high fly flow on the outside. Tanahashi came back with two high fly flows but the Bullet Club pulled the referee out. Fale tried for the Bad Luck Fall twice but Tanahashi managed to escape both times, but did not escape the grenade. Fale went to the top rope, nearly tripped but came back and hit his own high fly flow for the win.

AJ Styles vs. Tetsuya Naito 

The crowd was dead for most of this match. I’m guessing it’s due to the heel/heel dynamic, and no one wanted to cheer either guy. Nothing wrong with it early, as they were wrestling a good technical match, going back and forth. The crowd started to come back and chant for Naito for whatever reason. They were going back and forth after Naito spat at AJ. He hit a pele kick and went for the bloody sunday DDT but Naito countered and hit his new finisher, the sliced bread #2 into a reverse DDT that he calls Destino for the win. Just good, not great.

Naito took out Red Shoes after the match with a bodyslam and running dropkick and cut a promo, basically saying he’ll win and said his catchphrase to close the show.  

Current Standings

Block A

Katsuyori Shibata- 6

Bad Luck Fale- 6 

Tetsuya Natio- 6

AJ Styles- 4

Hiroshi Tanhashi- 4

Kota Ibushi- 4

Togi Makabe- 2

Hiroyoshi Tenzan- 2

Toru Yano- 2

Doc Gallows- 2

Block B 

Tomohiro Ishii- 6

Kazuchika Okada- 6

Karl Anderson- 4

Hirooki Goto- 4

Yuji Nagata- 2

Shinsuke Nakamura- 2

Satoshi Kojima- 2

Michael Elgin- 2

Yujiro Takahashi- 2

Tomoaki Honma- 0