G1 Final

Kota Ibushi vs Jay White

This was, of course, ridiculously sick in all the best ways, as Ibushi endures the fire of Bullet Club and Jay White’s total package sickness. I said it already but I’ll say it again, Jay White is Ridley Scott’s version of Ric Flair, a Trans-Pacific nightmare that gets away with it only because he is just that damn good. If you can’t appreciate what this dude is doing, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s everything . . . his sick throws, his insolence, the way he talks during a match, the way he pulls everything around him into his story, including the announcers, the fans at ringside and yes, you and me watching this an ocean away.

Jay White deserves everything he gets and I won’t hear any backtalk on this, not even from you, Murph. Ibushi, meanwhile, is poised to be The Man now that he’s settled down and agreed not to fuck other promotions, and he deserves it too. His willingness to sacrifice his own goddamn brain to the art of professional wrestling deserves to be rewarded, not shunned by weak-knee basement cowboys ready to start demanding brain tissues. Ibushi will wrestle until it kills him and it will be glorious, just like this match.

Okay, so now on to the RANKING OF ALL 20 PARTICPANTS IN THIS YEAR’S G1 WHICH IS TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE AND YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN GODDAMN LIST IF YOU WANT BUT THIS IS MINE AND IT REFLECTS A PATRICIAN’S TATSE LEVEL IMO WHICH IS THE ONLY OPINION THAT REALLY MATTERS.

20. Bad Luck Fale

Man, what can you even say about Bad Luck Fale? He’s fat, too fat to move at a pace anything other than what some might call ponderous, and he’s forever shitting up these G1’s. But I get it, I get the need to have a big ugly who can frustrate our heroes and ourselves before he is ultimately slain and we can all move on to fighting Jay White.

Plus, he gets to fuck Pieter, the Tokyo Latina, although someone did tell me that they broke up, which if true is unfortunate for him certainly, less so for her, but what the fuck, at least you had a good ticket to the show, big man.

19. Jeff Cobb

I have no hate in my heart for Jeff Cobb because that would be ridiculous and unhealthy and we should all let love open the door to our hearts, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him and I really don’t despite his propensity for big throws and hossing it up.

He’s just too bland for me, I think, and also maybe too fat, in that his girth is starting to get in the way of his impressive feats of strength. Then again, if I was a dude from Guam who could toss people around like a sack of kittens I would probably go full hedonist too, just eat everything in sight and fuck everything that moves until finally you OD on an eightball one of the rats gave you. That’s a respectable life in my opinion, and I don’t begrudge him that. It’s just that he isn’t what everyone wants him to be. At least not yet. He is young, and he does have freakish gifts, so hopefully he can put it all together and be the gaijin fuck boss he is destined to be.

18. Zack Sabre, Jr.

Now this is where the whole subjective thing comes into play. I know a lot of people love ZSJ and his whole deal, but not me, man. Not me. Part of that is probably a good thing, as he has the whole smug prick act down cold and I actively want him to be harmed in the ring and out of the ring, but also part of it is his falseness, the haphazard cheap slight of hand shit that he passes off as TECHNICAL WRESTLING but which most of the time just looks like an invertebrate eel flopping around his opponent’s body. Also, his bird chest and complete lack of anything resembling a physique other than heroin user lost in Marrakech is too much to overlook. I mean, his chest is practically concave. I refuse to believe this man could beat anyone in a fight, even a fake fight. I’m sorry, ZSJ, I so much wanted to like you, but the problem is that you are of shit.

17. Taichi

I have written a lot about how I identify with Taichi. We’re both super talented but also super lazy and broken, and at some point you just have to throw the toaster into the bathtub. Still, Miho Abe remains devoted to us and that’s all that really matters. It just would be nice if we could rise to the occasion more often so that people don’t look at us like a joke. I hope Taichi keeps reaching down for his inner Kawada, and I hope that Miho Abe will dance with me under the moonlight.

16. KENTA

Things started so well for KENTA, but then they collapsed as his old broken body gave out on him and the fans turned on him and hated his sorry ass. I am not all out of love for KENTA, though, as he is still a strong echo of what he used to be, and also because I understand what it feels like to make Poor Choices and then have to live with the consequences.

It was striking, though, when KENTA turned on Ishii and joined the Bullet Club on the final show, that when Shibata ran in to whip his ass, you could see that Shibata, even in his broken state was a thousand times better and more compelling than the ruined KENTA. I would love love love to see these two dudes feud and literally kill each other because I am a heartless ghoul and also because I understand and appreciate that great art is often a sacrifice, that it almost has to be to mean anything, and these noble Spirit Warriors have all my best thoughts and wishes moving forward, wherever it takes them.

15. Will Ospreay

Will Ospreay has cut out a lot of the goofy shit that made me not really have time for him, and he is certainly getting better and better, it’s just that life is hard on these ridiculously talented streets, and there is no shame in finishing 15^th here. I look forward to his continued evolution as he straddles the line between junior and heavyweight action. His future, I think, is in the heavyweight ranks, and if he can translate his high flying shit to that heavy, heavy style, we could very well have a true superstar capable of doing anything in that ring. Still, he is a fucking goof and I’ll never forget that tweet, Will. I’ll never forget.

14. Juice Robinson

My man Juice just continues to get better and better, and he has now run through the Moxley gauntlet and come out a better and harder man for it. He can absolutely hang with anyone, and it speaks very well to his favor that the fans over there have adopted him as one of their own and cheer him fervently against even dudes like Tanahashi. I mean, that’s some serious babyface thunder right there. He is a dude who I think is extremely important to New Japan’s plans in the coming years, the perfect bridge to this shithole of America, and I can’t wait to see him just get better and better and better.

13. Sanada

It was kind of a quiet tournament for Sanada, aside from knocking off Okada anyway. He still remains a dude who is on the rise, and I think he should get every opportunity to show that he is his own man now and not just some pale imitation of the Great Muta. His athleticism is obviously off the charts, the fans all love him and he is gloriously handsome even with his gross beard, and now he has gotten that spark that he never really had before. His time came in the New Japan Cup, and the G1 just wasn’t for him this year, but don’t let that fool you into believing he is sinking because he is very much rising to the top and it’s only a matter of time before he wins the real big one, if only for a few heartbeats.

12. Lance Archer

Oh shit, my man Lance Archer came out on fire in the tournament and never let up as he burned his way to Budokan. Sure, he didn’t win as much as I would have liked, but he absolutely rose to the occasion as the gaijin monster New Japan always needs. His presence is just unreal, exuding an unreal feral energy that the entire crowd can feel every time he comes down to the ring and terrorizes all the Young Lions and assorted riff raff.

And he’s mixed into that some serious MOVEZ ability, especially when he just pounces a dude across the ring. I love watching him, and one of my dream matches now is him vs Brock Lesnar in a wild Tokyo street fight kind of deal, Godzilla vs King Kong for no other reason than they are huge monsters who must terrorize humanity. His Everybody Dies mantra along with his claw of the same name have catapulted him to the top of the wrestling mountain and also into the dark depths of my black heart.

11. Toru Yano

My man Yano is a living poem, an extension of the kind of clown energy that fuels all the great tricksters, myself included. He is perpetually in motion and his matches all becomes some sort of exotic dance, and then when the foolishness is done he will roll you up or throw you and remind you that this is a very serious and very real dude who chooses to live the life of a clown. You can’t be a great clown unless you’ve got the goods underneath, and Yano exemplifies that better than just about anyone else I could show you. He can do anything because he is everything, it’s just that he doesn’t need to prove it to you. His heart is a trickster’s. and by following that he reveals the absurdity of us all. We’re not like the others and that’s okay, baby. That’s okay.

10. Tetsuya Naito

I like Naito, I really do. It’s just that, for me, he is just a notch below the best of the best. He makes up for that in a lot of ways with his whole Tranquillo approach, and when he gets into a zone and the heads start getting dropped, he can absolutely stand as one of the best professional wrestlers on this here planet Earth. His charisma is potent enough to make him a top dude and his quickness and willingness to get dumped on his fucking head again and again will always keep him near the head of the line. This wasn’t his year, and I’m beginning to suspect that it will never be his year, but that’s okay. It’s all Tranquillo, baby, and his merch and drawing power suggest that he’s doing just fine.

9. Jon Moxley

Moxley came in with something to prove and I think that he did. He showed that he can wrestle pretty much any style you need him to, and that life for him as a wrestler is much better when he’s not forced to wrestle in fucking jeans. This was always just going to be a vehicle to show that he could go and also to give the rub to Juice, but I would very much like to see more of him in New Japan Pro Wrestling if they can just get their shit together with AEW. Moxley is a rare presence, a ball of energy that doesn’t come along often, and it would be wise of everyone to max him out while he can still go at this level. He is the Real Deal, and he has helped blow open professional wrestling in a way not seen in a million goddamn years. The future is his, and I am very much okay with that.

8. Hiroshi Tanahashi

I struggled with where to put the Ace because for as good as he still is, it’s obvious that he’s lost a little step and that his body is abandoning him as it does to us all. But he is still very much a top level dude, and he can bring it when it’s called for, it’s just that when it’s called for should probably be less and less frequently as we hurdle into the disgusting future, which claims us all in the end. I love Tana, you love Tana, and we should honor him as the Ace of the Universe. He still has it, I just wish he could keep it all together before it finally disintegrates into a storm of knee ligaments and old age.

7. Hirooki Goto

I might be overrating Goto here, but my man had a fine tournament and I dig his style. He can hoss with the best of them, but he can also move with the best of them, and that combination of speed and power is tough to argue with. It sucks that he doesn’t have that *it* thing that you need to have to go all the way to the top, but that’s okay. He can get in there and go with anyone and he deserves to ride along near the upper card for as long as he wants to. I would very much like to see him split off from Chaos and join Shibata and whatever comes out of the LA Dojo as a new faction in New Japan. He is too good to get lost in the middle, forced to kick down with the Yoshi Hashis of the world, and a new faction with him near the top of it would be a good way to keep him up where he deserves to be, just kicking dudes and then throwing them violently, which is something we should all aspire to.

6. Evil

Evil is another one of my dudes that I might be overrating, but fuck it, I love Evil, both the concept and the man here. He is a fucking tank and that allows him to hoss dudes around. Mix that with his wild dark energy and you have a compelling dude who I want to see more of in the years to come. Right now, he’s kinda stuck as the third man in LIJ, which is no insult, but he is ready to get more of the shine for himself, I think. I really thought he would beat Okada, just like his boy Sanada managed to do, but unfortunately that was not in the cards for our sweet Evil, and now he’ll have to regroup and go back to being the tank that wrecks the shit out of anyone in his way. That is not a bad thing, really, but it would be nice to see him run wild on everyone, show them what Evil is really all about. I will stand with him to the end, and then we will toast each other in hell.

5. Shingo Takagi

Shingo has won me over as a dude willing to drop people on their heads and also get dropped on his own head and then get up and brutally bludgeon people with chops, forearms, lariats and anything else he can throw at them. He has a weird body, like a hanging pig, and he is fiercely ugly, but that’s okay, not everyone has to be one of the beautiful people. He is obviously too dominant and too goddamn big to just continue to hoss around juniors all day, and so it will be interesting to see where he lands with New Japan in the coming months. I wouldn’t mind a nice uppercard murderfest of him, Ishii, Goto, Evil and others, just beating the shit out of each other for glory and honor and for the art which is the good professional wrestling.

4. Tomohiro Ishii

Ishii is great as always, and his DNA should probably just be injected into all future G1s so that we can enjoy him forever and ever. He is a little potato man looking dude but my god what thunder he brings from his heart to ours, and what a willingness to get dumped on his neckless head over and over again for the drama and the art as the fans get ever more rapturous and the arena starts shaking and then a voice cries out ISHII in a deranged shriek and there is Ishii again, blowing up the G1 and our hearts at the same time. He will never be The Man, but that’s okay because he’s The Man that makes The Man, if you know what I’m saying. May he chop us all in our throats and then refuse to back down against our pitiful ripostes forever and ever.

3. Kazuchika Okada

Okada, Okada, Okada . . . he remains one of the best in the world at what he does, which is why he is the champion supreme and New Japan’s alpha dog as they throw themselves headlong into the future. This was not his tournament to win because it is never the champ’s tournament to win, and he knows that and we know that, and it’s all still good.

He just does everything right, from the MOVEZ to all the little things, like waiting just an extra breath on a referee’s count to maximize the drama of the moment. He absolutely deserves to be The Man in New Japan Pro Wrestling. It is interesting though how Okada is never really the fan favorite in a match. Part of this is just due to people wanting to see the underdog win, but also a part of it is maybe his inability to really connect with the fans on an emotional level. This is just nitpicking, but I mean on a top, top, top, fever dream kind of emotional level. He is still very great and his matches get everyone rocking, but at the end of the day he’s not the guy you wanna see win. He’s the cool guy who is just too goddamn good at what he does to be truly lovable and that’s okay. This is not a criticism really, just me exploring the depths of the beautiful art that he has helped create over the years. He will always be near the top of any list of the best Dudes, and he will probably be champion or champion adjacent for the next decade or so and I am very much okay with that.

2. Kota Ibushi

IBUSHI! IBUSHI! IBUSHI!  Hell yeah, baby. Ibushi has cemented himself in the core of New Japan Pro Wrestling, and he will die there for all of our sins and it will be beautiful. He is obviously at the top of the game and is so fucking fun to watch even as everyone sucks in a breath every time it looks like he is about to die. His movements are so unique, his style so different from anyone else’s that it’s always fun to watch him be the ping pong guy for everyone else’s offense, and then when he goes on the attack and starts laying in those kicks and knees, it is all just so glorious and ridiculous and you can absolutely understand why Kenny Omega would want to fuck this man.

Ibushi will always remain something of an enigma because he’s really just a weird, weird dude, probably on the spectrum somewhere, but that is part of what is so fascinating about him. I absolutely believe this dude has never read a book in his life or that he didn’t know who Vince McMahon was when he was over there for that 205 cruiserweight tournament. I absolutely also believe that he probably fucks anything and everything that moves, regardless of gender or species, because he is simply a man in thrall to the moment, to its potential beauty, and he humbly seeks to translate some of that beauty for us all to see every time he wilds out in that ring. He will undoubtedly get his time with the strap, and he will absolutely carry New Japan to better heights. He will also die like Misawa, and in between no one will be able to have a conversation with him or figure out what makes him go, but that’s okay because the artist is the art and when you give yourself completely to it, this is just what happens. It’s okay. It’s beautiful.

1. Jay White

You’re goddamn right I have him at number one. I already explained my whole take on him being Ridley Scott’s version of Ric Flair, and I ask you to think deeply on that. He is the perfect villain for New Japan, leading a heat seeking missile of a faction that is pure money for New Japan, reinventing itself again and again and somehow getting better each time. Jay White is the fulcrum of all of that, and he wears it like a king. He is a merciless killing machine in the ring, and he plays the environment so well that he makes the whole thing feel all that much more intimate. He sucks you into his world and you just have to roll with it, baby.

There are people who don’t like Jay White and I find this amazing. I mean, you’re not supposed to like him, but on a deeper respect level, how can you not like him? Everything he does is masterful, from his sick throws and sudden head dropping ability to the way he stalks down the entire crowd and makes them a vital part of the whole show, dragging their hearts and feelings and outrage into a wild dance that always ends in a shattering frenzy, either in agony as he triumphs yet again, or in ecstatic release as the hero finally takes him down. This is the heart of professional wrestling, dudes and lady dudes. This is what it has always been, and it what it will always be when it is at it’s best, and right now, Jay White is the best dude in the world doing it.

G1 B Block Final

Toru Yano vs Jeff Cobb

In a match where Jeff Cobb is the designated Throws guy, Toru Yano actually had the sickest throw. That in itself is a poem written on the heart of a bird and flown into space to exist in stasis forever and ever and ever.  Of course, I would have liked it better if Yano beat Jeff Cobb, but we don’t always get what we want, and I guess I will just have to accept that Toru Yano will never be properly understood by the nerds, but that doesn’t really matter because the masses understand Toru Yano like dogs unconditionally love their masters and it’s all good.

Tomohiro Ishii vs Taichi

I can relate to a dude like Taichi a little bit, and not just because of the whole Miho Abe thing. He is talented yet lazy, and he sabotages himself at times because he’s scared of what will happen when he actually gets what he wants. He makes Poor Choices, and this has left him sort of drifting on a sea of his own burned potential, content to beat up nerds and fuck Miho Abe even though he knows he’s just using her because she’ll do whatever he wants and it is a kind of sickness, to take advantage of someone’s love like that, but people do it because it’s easier than being the man worthy of that love, and it all ends in heartbreak once poor Miho Abe wakes up one day and realizes she has wasted all her prime years on a broken thing like me and Taichi because we’re never gonna get better. Not really. This is who we are, babe.

But then there is a man like Tomohiro Ishii, a goddamn nerd who has worked hard and won in life despite his shortcomings. And he looks at you, and a long time ago you used to be friends, but now he just feels sorry for you, and it wakes something up in your heart, or maybe just your ego or what’s left of it, and you remember that you are better than him, that old man Kawada taught you how to kick everyone’s head off, and so you roll up on Ishii in front of his wife and kids, him thinking he’s made it, and you beat the shit out of him because you can. It feels good, for a while anyway. His kids are crying, His wife is ashamed of him, and Miho Abe saw you at you warrior best. But it doesn’t last because Taichi’s problem is Taichi, and he’ll just go back to being a lazy shithead who knows he ruined his life, and he’ll just wait for that day when Miho Abe walks on him.

And Ishii will pick himself back up and he’ll work hard and he’ll do all the right things, his kids will love him again, his wife will let him fuck her and he’ll just keep grinding while you go back to being a failure, a disappointment, a lazy sideman for old man Suzuki, and you’ll resent Ishii even though you know it’s your fault and Ishii will have a happy life, his kids will love him, his wife will hold him as he dies, and you’ll drive by Miho Abe’s new place with her new dude after she left you and you’ll watch her and you’ll see her smile and you’ll hate yourself forever because you loved her, but you were a coward and now all that’s left is regret and the memory of that time you beat up Tomohiro Ishii to prove that you could have been something once, that you could have had love.

Juice Robinson vs Jon Moxley

This was always gonna be about Juice getting his revenge on Moxley as Mox rides off into the AEW sunset this fall on TNT, and it was a good story, telling a tale of young Juice having to grow up and learn how to fight like a man.

Moxley’s downfall was his desire to destroy Juice, to prove a point that he didn’t need to make, and Juice caught him in his hubris and became the man that New Japan Pro Wrestling wants him to be, which you could hear by the wild shrieks of the Budokan faithful, who have come to love Juice as one of their own, a good boy who does things the right way.

From here, I imagine Juice will win back his US title from Mox, who has nothing to be ashamed of as he did what he set out to do, which was to prove that he was a legit professional wrestler of the best kind and I imagine we’ll probably see him pop up in New Japan here and there in the years to come as AEW does it’s thing and Vince McMahon drifts deeper into the heart of darkness of his own senility, and it will all be fun and these two dudes will meet again, and it’s nice to see professional wrestling be reborn in a way that no one really saw coming.

Hirooki Goto vs Shingo Takagi

Poor Goto. All he had to do was take down Takagi and he would be living his B Block champion dreams, but instead, Goto does what Goto always does and loses when the fire is the hottest, and Shingo gets some momentum as he tries to prove that he’s a heavyweight spirit warrior that deserves to maybe hang around the upper card places with Ishii and the gang.

This was a good match, of course, especially because these two dudes seem especially suited to wrestle one another given their similar size profiles. It made for a lot of fun, and I would like to see them wrestle more, and maybe bring Ishii into it and just have fun fellas, slapping each other and dropping heads now and then. It’s what bros do.

Tetsuya Naito vs Jay White

Naito is spurned again, and I’m surprised because they had me fooled thinking Naito was gonna make a run at the double champion thing, but I’m also not surprised because Jay White is the favored son right now and he fucking deserves it. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, I think he might be the best dude out there right now. He just does everything right, from the character work to the sick throws, to the sinewy movements that let him roll with the most athletic dudes out there. He just has it all down cold, and he makes for the perfect villain, existing as a sort of 21^st century Trans-Pacific Empire Ric Flair.

Naito remains an enigma, never getting to taste the fruits of his popularity, even as he’s willing to spike himself on his head for the love of the game. I feel for him, and I really hope he gets to take it all home at some point.  But yeah, man, this is Jay White’s universe now.

Jay White is Ric Flair as imagined by Ridley Scott and it is amazing to watch. He is just incredible in this role, and I can’t believe there are people out there dumping on him. He is the king of wrestling right now in my very important opinion, and I can’t wait to see him war with Okada and Juice and Ibushi and Sanada and everyone else for years and years and years. You don’t have to like it, but you better respect it because he’s the best thing going today.