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G1 Climax Day 3, Machida Municipal Gymnasium, Tokyo, July 23:
Satoshi Kojima, Manabu Nakanishi, Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask defeated David Finlay, Juice Robinson, Captain New Japan & KUSHIDA
These guys were having fun with this one. No one would tag Captain into the match until he made a blind tag, which was pretty funny. Robinson & Nakanishi renewed their bizarre rivalry. Finlay looked good in the closing minutes against Kojima. Obviously, Finlay fell to a lariat. Interesting to note here that Kojima's music wasn't muted. NJPW seem to have gotten the rights to the music for Kojima, Tenzan & Nagata.
YOSHI-HASHI & Katsuhiko Nakajima defeated Tomoaki Honma & Katsuyori Shibata
On paper this looks amazing. There was a lot of intensity to this and there was lots of tension between Honma & Shibata after the match the day before. Honma threw Shibata out of the ring again before the match started. Nakajima was laying in incredibly stiff kicks to Honma. Shibata later tagged himself in and tried to murder both guys with corner dropkicks. This was great stuff. Shibata tagged Honma, to a huge pop from the crowd. He ended up losing the match when YOSHI countered a driver into a roll up.
Yujiro Takahashi & Kenny Omega defeated Gedo & Toru Yano
There was lots of comedy in this. The whole match was everyone trying to out cheat and out trick each other. It was pretty funny. Yano & Omega should have a really fun G1 match. Yujiro pinned Gedo after a low DDT.
EVIL, BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito defeated Ryusuke Taguchi, Michael Elgin & Yuji Nagata
This was a really good tag match. Nagata again had his knee targeted. Elgin & Naito had some good exchanges with the crowd firmly behind Naito. Nagata & EVIL should have a really good hard hitting G1 match. The finish came when Naito got involved allowing EVIL to finish Taguchi with an STO. After the match Naito & EVIL attacked Nagata & Elgin again, going after their knees.
Block A: Hiroyoshi Tenzan defeated Tama Tonga
This wasn't much of a match. The crowd wanted to get into it, but that didn't happen until late in the match. Tonga worked over Tenzan with big moves, but Tenzan wouldn't stay down. Tonga looked good when he was able to slid around the ring and dodge Tenzan. Tenzan won when he hit a moonsault. It looks like we're getting that in every Tenzan match. The crowd loved the finish and exploded with big Tenzan chants.
Hirooki Goto defeated Tomohiro Ishii
This was a strong style war between these two CHAOS team mates. This started with both guys running at each other with lariats. This was the theme of the match. It would always come back to them squaring off face to face with lariats or forearm exchanges. Ishii hit a huge superplex, but couldn't get the Brainbuster. Goto hit lots of moves across his knee, leading to him hitting GTR to pick up his second win. This was great.
Bad Luck Fale defeated Naomichi Marufuji
This was a big win for Fale. He is the sort of guy that can believably pull out these sort of wins over the top names in the block. This was a very good match with the simple story of Marufuji trying to take Fale off his feet. When he did later in the match with a suplex and several kicks, the crowd loved it. Marufuji hit several thrust kicks and knees trying to knock Fale out, but Fale won when he hit the Grenade.
Kazuchika Okada defeated SANADA
This was really great. They had a much better match than they had at Dontaku in May. SANADA went in with a lot of momentum after his Tanahashi win and the crowd believed he could win, especially when he went for Skull End. SANADA controlled a lot of the match. There was some excellent counter wrestling. They countered between Skull End and the Tombstone beautifully. SANADA is such a freak athlete. He hit an awesome looking Tiger Suplex. Okada caught him coming off the top with a hell of a dropkick. Okada barely survived Skull End before hitting a German suplex and transitioning into a Rainmaker. SANADA is proving his worth in this tournament.
Togi Makabe defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi
This was another shocking result. Tanahashi lost his second G1 match. This was a really good main event. Makabe held nothing back and hit really hard. The story of Tanahashi not being himself continued as he struggled to get any real momentum going in the match. They both got nice near falls with German suplexes. The finish saw Tanahashi try to battle out of the spider German, but after hitting his head off the ringpost, Makabe nailed the move and followed up with the King Kong Knee Drop to score a major win.
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2016 G1 CLIMAX COVERAGE:
Day One: coverage. Elite subscribers, click here.
Day Two: coverage. Elite subscribers, click here.
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