Konosuke Takeshita Soars to 10 Points By Defeating Hirooki Goto at NJPW G1 Climax 36 Day 10

By: Noah Leatherland

NJPW took the G1 Climax to Hiroshima for the tenth day of action, focusing on the A Block. While the rest of the pack tried to catch up, Konosuke Takeshita asserted his place at the top of the leaderboard with a statement win over Hirooki Goto.

The Alpha went into this match with two others hot on his tail. Walking in alone on eight points, Boltin Oleg and Yota Tsuji both managed to tie things up at the top. Oleg made very quick work of SANADA, pinning him off a Kamikaze in just a minute and a half. Then, in a much more competitive bout, Tsuji put a resilient Ryohei Oiwa away with a Fire Blaster just inside of twenty minutes. Takeshita needed points from his clash with Goto if he wanted to stay ahead of the two rivals breathing down his neck.

As fans would expect of these two, it was a hard-hitting affair, with Takeshita and Goto landing hard shots and heavy impacts on one another. With Goto’s appearance in Street Fighter on the horizon, both men broke out video game inspired offence in front of the Hiroshima crowd.

The match came to an end when Takeshita dropped Goto with the Raging Fire, scoring the pinfall. Speaking in his post-match comments, Takeshita had nothing but admiration for his opponent:

When I think of the kind of New Japan Pro Wrestling matches I envision, the wrestler I’ve faced in New Japan who most embodies that spirit is Hirooki Goto. He’s the one who most reminds me of the New Japan Pro Wrestling I used to watch as a child. As long as Goto remains strong, and as long as he continues to be a professional wrestler, I want to face him in the ring as many times as possible.

(Quotes translated via DeepL)

Elsewhere on the card, still bruised and battered from his last block match with Tsuji, Yuto-Ice managed to pick up a win over Jake Lee, the Cruella putting the face-painted man down for the pin. Then, Shingo Takagi put the Great-O-Khan away with the Last of the Dragon, but not before O-Khan dragged him into a brawl in the Hiroshima Sun Plaza Hall bathrooms.

Here are the full results for NJPW G1 Climax 36, Day 10, courtesy of purolove.com:

• Callum Newman & Zane Jay def. Toru Yano & Tatsuya Matsumoto (4:56)
• Drilla Moloney & Daiki Nagai def. Aaron Wolf & Taisei Nakahara (7:56)
• Ren Narita & Dick Togo def. Yuya Uemura & Masatora Yasuda (4:45)
• Zack Sabre Jr. & Hartley Jackson def. OSKAR & Gedo (5:13)
• A Block: Boltin Oleg [8] def. SANADA [4] (1:30)
• A Block: Yuto-Ice [6] def. Jake Lee [4] (10:37)
• A Block: Shingo Takagi [6] def. Great-O-Khan [4] (9:56)
• A Block: Yota Tsuji [8] def. Ryohei Oiwa [6] (19:37)
• A Block: Konosuke Takeshita [10] def. Hirooki Goto [4] (18:04)

Here are the updated standings for the NJPW G1 Climax 36:

A Block:

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

B Block:

• Callum Newman [8]
• Drilla Moloney [8]
• Gabe Kidd [8]
• HENARE [8]
• OSKAR [8]
• Ren Narita [6]
• Yuya Uemura [6]
• Aaron Wolf [4]
• Zack Sabre Jr. [2]
• Shota Umino [0]