Yuya Uemura Joins Five-Way Tie Heading into Final Day of B Block in NJPW G1 CLIMAX 36

By: Noah Leatherland

NJPW brought the penultimate day of B Block action in G1 Climax 36 to the Nissho Highway Arena. With Yuya Uemura pulling off a vital win in the main event, B Block will have a tight finish with half of the field tied on ten points.

Uemura came up against Gabe Kidd in the main event. Kidd was already on ten points, and a win for him here would have been a big step towards punching his ticket into the semi-finals. Though Uemura has struggled to find a good run of form in this year’s tournament, he turned it on when he needed to here. Weathering the storm of Kidd’s violent attacks, Uemura caught the IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion in a small package and earned the pinfall.

Speaking in his post-match comments, Uemura could not take total credit for his win:

Of course, my own strength plays a part in what I do as a wrestler, but it’s really down to the support from the fans that I was able to win today… Still, Gabe—I don’t really know why, but I’ve got such strong feelings about him. He really is something special, isn’t he? … Ah, he’s definitely one of those special opponents.

(Quotes translated via DeepL)

As well as Kidd missing out on a valuable pair of points, Ren Narita and Callum Newman will also be kicking themselves. Both of them walked into the Nissho Highway Arena on ten points and failed to put themselves ahead of the field. Narita fell to Drilla Moloney, the Drilla Killa interrupting his hopes to reach the next stage of the tournament. Newman dropped points to a very motivated Aaron Wolf, who wowed fans with his offence in this bout.

As such, Uemura, Kidd, Narita, Newman and Moloney all enter the final day tied on ten points. With how the schedule has fallen, Moloney has wrestled all of his block matches already, and will just have to observe the final day from the undercard. Uemura will face OSKAR and Newman will face off against his United Empire stablemate HENARE. However, HENARE will not make it easy on him, saying:

Callum, you’ve been my little bro since you first got here. You’ve been to place that I’ve only dreamed of… In Korakuen, you don’t hold back. You want to be the king? You wanna be the man on top? You wanna be the leader of the United Empire? You wanna be the man? I’m the crucible that you have to go through. Burn all those impurities in your heart and come pure iron.

Newman shared the same sentiment:

HENARE, I’m telling you now, mate. I ain’t the same Callum you met three years ago. The young boy, no mate. I’m the f*cking prince. I’m one of the best foreigners that’s ever stepped foot in this f*cking company. Twenty-three years old giving everyone a run for their f*cking money. I refuse to do whatever [Lee and O-Khan] did, whatever the f*ck that was… We’ve got points on the line now, mate, and I want all your mana and you’re gonna get every f*cking little bit of grit outta me, mate.

Meanwhile, Narita and Kidd will face each other, with the potential to make or break each other’s campaigns.

Here are the full results for NJPW G1 Climax 36 Day 15, courtesy of purolove.com:

• Great-O-Khan & Jakob Austin Young def. Boltin Oleg & Masatora Yasuda (7:12)
• Shingo Takagi & Taiji Ishimori besiegen SANADA & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (6:21)
• Jake Lee & Zayn Jay besiegen Yota Tsuji & Daiki Nagai (6:30)
• Hirooki Goto & Tatsuya Matsumoto def. Yuto-Ice & Gedo (7:09)
• B Block: Zack Sabre Jr. [8] def. HENARE [8] (15:32)
• B Block: Drilla Moloney [10] def. Ren Narita [10] (11:54)
• B Block: Aaron Wolf [8] def. Callum Newman [10] (16:57)
• B Block: Yuya Uemura [10] def. Gabe Kidd [10] (22:10)

Here are the current standings for NJPW G1 Climax 36:

A Block

• Konosuke Takeshita [12]
• Boltin Oleg [10]
• Ryohei Oiwa [10]
• Yota Tsuji [10]
• Shingo Takagi [8]
• Yuto-Ice [8]
• Jake Lee [6]
• SANADA [6]
• Hirooki Goto [6]
• Great-O-Khan [4]

B Block

• Callum Newman [10]
• Drilla Moloney [10]
• Gabe Kidd [10]
• Ren Narita [10]
• Yuya Uemura [10]
• Aaron Wolf [8]
• HENARE [8]
• OSKAR [8]
• Zack Sabre Jr. [8]
• Shota Umino [0]