Yota Tsuji and Ryohei Oiwa Advance to Semi-Finals of NJPW G1 CLIMAX 36

By: Noah Leatherland

NJPW hosted the final day of A Block competition in Hamamatsu, with the first pair of G1 Climax semi-finalists decided. The IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Yota Tsuji and Ryohei Oiwa will move on to the next stage of the tournament.

Tsuji was drawn against Jake Lee for his last match in the round robin stage of the G1 Climax, a rematch from their world title bout earlier this year. However, Tsuji made much quicker work of Lee this time around. The Fire Blaster kept Lee down for the pin, moving Tsuji up to twelve points, and stacking the pressure on the other contenders.

Boltin Oleg also started the day on ten points and had a chance to move onto the semi-finals. However, his tournament was derailed by the Great-O-Khan. The result came down to O-Khan driving Oleg through a table at ringside, and forcing a count-out decision to spoil the Kazakh’s tournament campaign. As such, it was all down to the main event.

Konosuke Takeshita walked into Hamamatsu the block leader on twelve points, with Ryohei Oiwa on ten. With Tsuji having a tie break over Takeshita, having defeated The Alpha back in Chicago, Takeshita needed points to advance to the semi-finals. Meanwhile, Oiwa needed a win to move on. In a hard-fought battle with everything on the line, Oiwa managed to defeat last year’s G1 Climax winner. One last tight headlock wore Takeshita down and a final clattering lariat kept him on the mat for the three.

In Takeshita’s post-match comments, he was reflective on his loss and the standard of NJPW:

I couldn’t even make it to the last four. Does that just go to show how high the standard really is in New Japan Pro Wrestling? Or, on the other hand, what am I lacking? Is it physical strength, mental toughness, technique? Experience? I don’t really know much about pro-wrestling. But I believe that pro-wrestling will never let me down.

Meanwhile, Oiwa was looking ahead at what his next few days could bring:

We’ve made it through as runners-up in Block A—we’ve done it! Now there are just two more steps to go to achieve my ‘Big Dream’—winning the tournament right from the qualifying rounds—something only I can do. I’m brimming with confidence right now. The real climax of the G1 is yet to come. I’ll put on an even more thrilling show at Ryogoku. And I’ll make that ‘Big Dream’ a reality!

(Quotes translated via DeepL)

Tsuji and Oiwa will compete in the G1 Climax semi-finals on Saturday, August 15th, with the winners moving onto the finals the next day.

Here are the full results for the NJPW G1 Climax 36 Day 16, courtesy of purolove.com:

• Drilla Moloney & Daiki Nagai def. Toru Yano & Taisei Nakahara (7:15)
• Zack Sabre Jr. & Hartley Jackson def. Aaron Wolf & Tatsuya Matsumoto (9:03)
• OSKAR & Gedo def. Yuya Uemura & Masatora Yasuda (5:42)
• HENARE & Jakob Austin Young def. Callum Newman & Zane Jay (7:49)
• A Block: SANADA [8] def. Shingo Takagi [8] (11:18)
• A Block: Hirooki Goto [8] def. Yuto-Ice [8] (10:08)
• A Block: Yota Tsuji [12] def. Jake Lee [6] (13:58)
• A Block: Great-O-Khan [6] def. Oleg Boltin [10] (17:30)
• A Block: Ryohei Oiwa [12] def. Konosuke Takeshita [12] (15:11)

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

A Block

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

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]