Yota Tsuji and Ryohei Oiwa Score Vital Points Heading Into Final Block Matches of NJPW G1 CLIMAX 36

By: Noah Leatherland

NJPW were in the G Messe Gunma for the penultimate day of A Block action in this year’s G1 Climax. Heading into the final round robin bouts, Ryohei Oiwa and Yota Tsuji both gave themselves a fighting chance to advance to the next round.

Oiwa was drawn against Jake Lee in the G Messe Gunma. Making a change to his latest outings, Lee made his way to the ring without any face paint, seemingly taking a more straightlaced approach to this match. However, once things spilled to the outside, Lee found some paint and smeared it across his face to dip back into that side of his persona. The mental side was not enough to thwart Oiwa, though. In the middle of the ring, Oiwa applied a tight reverse half crab to make Lee submit. The win bumped Oiwa’s total up to ten points.

Tsuji stood across from Great-O-Khan later on, and was sucked into O-Khan’s world. O-Khan attacked Tsuji before the bell, used foreign objects and targeted the bad shoulder of the world champion. Tsuji fought through the pain, adjusting his attacks and hitting the Gene Blaster on his opposite side to put O-Khan away. Tsuji also moved up to ten points with this victory.

Meanwhile, the man who began the day in the lead pushed his name out further in front of the field. Konosuke Takeshita came up against SANADA, with the Raging Fire acting as the final blow to put his opponent away. Takeshita moves up to twelve points, the first to do so in this year’s tournament. Boltin Oleg started the day tied with Takeshita, but failed to capitalise on his total like The Alpha had. Oleg fell to a tough opponent in Hirooki Goto, the GTR stopping the man from Kazakhstan in his tracks.

As such, Takeshita heads into the final day of A Block action in front, able to advance to the semi-finals even with a loss. Below him, Oiwa, Tsuji and Oleg are tied at ten points. On the final day, Oleg will face O-Khan, Tsuji will collide with Lee and Oiwa will square off with Takeshita.

Elsewhere, in the main event, Shingo Takagi was hoping to join that group tied on ten. But his hopes were thwarted by Yuto-Ice, who finished The Dragon off with a kamigoye-like knee after a hard-hitting encounter.

Here are the full results for NJPW G1 Climax 36, Day 14, courtesy of purolove.com:

• OSKAR & Gedo def. Toru Yano & Taisei Nakahara (4:31)
• Callum Newman & Zane Jay def. Aaron Wolf & Tatsuya Matsumoto (5:05)
• Ren Narita & Dick Togo def. Drilla Moloney & Daiki Nagai (7:46)
• Zack Sabre Jr. & Hartley Jackson def. HENARE & Jakob Austin Young (5:57)
• A Block: Ryohei Oiwa [10] def. Jake Lee [6] (12:47)
• A Block: Konosuke Takeshita [12] def. SANADA [6] (14:02)
• A Block: Yota Tsuji [10] def. Great-O-Khan [4] (13:14)
• A Block: Hirooki Goto [6] def. Oleg Boltin [10] (15:20)
• A Block: Yuto-Ice [8] def. Shingo Takagi [8] (20:25)

Here are the updated standings for the 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]
• Gabe Kidd [10]
• Ren Narita [10]
• Drilla Moloney [8]
• HENARE [8]
• OSKAR [8]
• Yuya Uemura [8]
• Aaron Wolf [6]
• Zack Sabre Jr. [6]
• Shota Umino [0]