At today’s Kizuna Road show, New Japan Pro Wrestling announced the entire field for this year’s G1 Climax (which begins on July 14 and runs until August 12), so without further ado, let’s list ‘em out and break ‘em down.
- Bad Luck Fale (Representing Bullet Club and participating in his fifth G1 Climax)
- EVIL (Representing Los Ingobernables de Japon and participating in his third G1 Climax)
- Hangman Page (Representing Bullet Club and participating in his first G1 Climax)
- Hirooki Goto (Representing Chaos, participating in his eleventh G1 Climax, Goto won the tournament in 2008)
- Hiroshi Tanahashi (Participating in his seventeenth G1 Climax, Tanahashi won the tournament in 2007 and 2015)
- “Switchblade” Jay White (Representing Chaos, participating in his first G1 Climax)
- Juice Robinson (Participating in his second G1 Climax)
- Kazuchika Okada (Representing Chaos, participating in his seventh G1 Climax, Okada won the tournament in 2012 and 2014)
- Kenny Omega (Representing the Golden Elite, participating in his third G1 Climax, Omega won the tournament in 2016)
- Kota Ibushi (Representing the Golden Elite, participating in his fourth G1 Climax)
- Michael Elgin (Participating in his fourth G1 Climax)
- Minoru Suzuki (Representing Suzuki-gun, participating in his eighth G1 Climax)
- SANADA (Representing Los Ingobernables de Japon, participating in his third G1 Climax)
- Tama Tonga (Representing Bullet Club, participating in his third G1 Climax)
- Tetsuya Naito (Representing Los Ingobernables de Japon, participating in his ninth G1 Climax, Naito won the tournament in 2013 and 2017)
- Togi Makabe (Representing Great Bash Heel, participating in his fifteenth G1 Climax, Makabe won the tournament in 2009)
- Tomohiro Ishii (Representing Chaos, participating in his sixth G1 Climax)
- Toru Yano (Representing Chaos, participating in his thirteenth G1 Climax)
- YOSHI-HASHI (Representing Chaos, participating in his third G1 Climax)
- Zack Sabre, Jr. (Representing Suzuki-gun, participating in his second G1 Climax)
My first and most obvious takeaway is that this is not a field with a lot of surprises. There are no guests, no outsiders, and the two first-timers are Jay White and Hangman Page, who have both been featured players on one level or the other all year.
But that’s not a bad thing— the current New Japan roster is stacked to the gills with talent, and while I certainly would have liked to see some of the talent that isn’t around every month like Jeff Cobb or Chuck Taylor pop in, or guests from further afield like Jun Akiyama (to fulfill our sadly-lacking Dad Quotient now that both Nagata and Tenzan are retired from G1 participation) or Daisuke Sekimoto, I’ve got no real complaints with what we’ve been given.
Granted, this is just the barebones field, and that makes it hard to predict the quality of the tournament in more than the broadest strokes. The block announcements tomorrow will fill in some of those gaps and we’ll be able to start getting excited about matchups.
There you have it, folks
The twenty men that are set to participate in this year’s G1 Climax. Excited, Cagesiders?