Aug 13, 4:45 PM
New Japan’s iconic G1 Climax tournament will have a first-time winner
Cageside Seats
Over the past couple nights, New Japan Pro-Wrestling wrapped up the round-robin portion of its annual G1 Climax tournament. Each G1 field is broken up into Blocks, within which each wrestler faces every other wrestler with the winner getting 2 points and the loser none, or each getting 1 point in the event of a draw. This year’s G1 36 initially had two Blocks of ten men, but Shota Umino had to withdraw from B Block due to injury. Mr Ares, who does a much better job covering NJPW than anyone has around these parts since demand for Claire’s live blogging made her drop her puroresu habit a few years back, caught us all up heading into the always eventful final days of action: Those final days produced four semi-finalists for the G1 36 knockout rounds, and none has ever won the tournament before. For three of them, it will mean a shot at New Japan’s top prize, the IWGP Heavyweight championship. One of the semi-finalists already wears that belt; he’ll get to name his challenger should he wi