Tonight’s show at Korakuen Hall has blown up into a pretty major event, with the final two G1 play-in matches, an IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match, and, surprisingly, an IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship match – the first ever at Korakuen Hall. Let’s see what happened.

(By the way, I’m trying out a new format here, as the play-by-play was getting to be too much and was adversely affecting my enjoyment of the shows. Let me know what you think.)

Yuya Uemura, Taichi, El Desperado & Masatora Yasuda vs. HOUSE OF TORTURE (Ren Narita, SANADA, DOUKI & SHO)

It has come to my attention that “House of Torture” is officially stylized in all caps, which is profoundly stupid. Perhaps notably, there are no guardrails at ringside because the junior title match is the main event. Uemura has his G1 highlights in his hair already, and they make him look more like Hiroshi Tanahashi than ever before. 

This was an energetic little opener that let everyone shine a bit and wasn’t too heavy on the HOUSE nonsense. The HOUSE (sorry, just feels wrong) prevails, with DOUKI pinning Yasuda with Doton-no-Jutsu. Afterwards, Taichi aggressively grabs ref Kenta Sato; Taichi remains extremely over, so maybe NJPW is thinking about doing something more with him after the G1.

Boltin Oleg Comeback Match: Boltin Oleg, Aaron Wolf, Hirooki Goto & Tatsuya Matsumoto vs. Unbound Co. (Yota Tsuji, Shingo Takagi, Yuto-Ice & Daiki Nagai)

Boltin has been out for a couple months with an arm injury, in case you were wondering why he needed a comeback match; he looks noticeably lighter than he did earlier this year. Tsuji’s J-pop music seems to be here to stay, which is unfortunate (with all due respect to May J.).

This was another fun match, highlighted by a physical sequence between Boltin and Yuto (who seems to make himself the highlight of every match he’s in). The Hontai side wins when Boltin hits Kamikaze on Nagai. Afterward, Boltin and Yuto – who were dojo rivals, Chris Charlton explains – face off again. 

Tiger Mask Final 3-Way Tornado Tag Match: Tiger Mask & Jado vs. Unbound Co. (Taiji Ishimori & Gedo) vs. HOUSE OF TORTURE (Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Dick Togo)

This is the antepenultimate match of Tiger Mask’s career, and it’s meant as a callback to his first NJPW match, which took place on the January 4, 2002, Tokyo Dome show and pitted Tiger Mask, Jushin Thunder Liger and Great Sasuke against Togo, Gedo and Jado. Of course, alliances shift over a quarter century, and now Togo, Gedo and Jado are all in different factions, which face off in this match, with Tiger Mask teaming with Jado on the Hontai side.

This was entertaining enough for what it was, and Ishimori and Kanemaru did their best to keep things moving while the old guys were kicking and chopping each other. (It’s strange to tacitly refer to the 49-year-old, 30-year veteran, Kanemaru, as a “young guy,” but in the context of this match, he is.) The HOUSE won when Kanemaru spit whiskey in Tiger Mask’s eyes while the ref was distracted and pinned him with a victory roll.

What’s next? Tiger Mask’s retirement show is tomorrow night, and he’ll be wrestling both Dynamite Kid (Tommy Billington) and Black Tiger IV (Rocky Romero) in five-minute time-limit matches.

G1 Climax 36 B Block Play-In Match: OSKAR (Unbound Co.) vs. Yujiro Takahashi (HOUSE OF TORTURE)

Takahashi has SHO, DOUKI and Narita with him, while OSKAR comes out alone, as he wants to try to get it done by himself. The crowd is calling for Yuto as soon as OSKAR enters, because they’re not dummies.

This was about what you’d expect, which is to say, it was bad, but through no fault of OSKAR’s. OSKAR goes for the win right away with the Nightmare Sleeper, but he breaks it when SHO rings the bell, allowing Takahashi to tackle OSKAR’s knee and take over with his glacially slow offense. OSKAR eventually comes back and hits a sleeper slam for two, but Narita pulls out ref Yuya Sakamoto. This leads to Yuto finally hitting the ring and taking out all five guys (including SANADA, who ran in earlier), then teaming with OSKAR for the KOB on Takahashi, which gets the pinfall and the spot in the tournament.

G1 Climax 36 A Block Play-In Match: El Phantasmo vs. Ryohei Oiwa (TMDK)

It really bugs me that one of these two won’t be in the G1. Realistically, you could ask who I would take out instead, and I would not have a satisfying answer for you – like, I understand why SANADA is in, despite his physical condition, and I would not necessarily argue with it – but it’s still a bummer that you can’t fit both of these guys in. I feel like we’re getting to the point where NJPW could expand the field to 24 and not suffer the same kind of decline in quality that it did when it expanded earlier this decade, but it would need to be judicious about it.

Anyway, the match was good, if a bit short. Oiwa wins with The Grip, although it was on the second try, as El-P stopped short and didn’t bump for the move the first time. The crowd felt the same way I did, cheering loudly for both guys. After the match, Oiwa cuts a short promo and El-P bows and kisses the lion mark, as if he’s leaving. I hope he doesn’t, because he’s become a reliably good babyface. If his consolation prize is a summer trip to AEW, I hope he has a good time.

IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship: Shota Umino (c) vs. Gabe Kidd

For reasons that I’m sure will become apparent in time, NJPW has been trying to get this damn Global title onto Gabe Kidd for months now. Kidd returned to NJPW in April, beating up Yota Tsuji after Tsuji lost the IWGP title at Sakura Genesis; the next day, NJPW announced that Kidd would challenge Tsuji for the Global title at Wrestling Dontaku, but, a week later, Kidd suffered a shoulder injury at AEW’s Dynasty show, and the challenge was taken by Andrade el Idolo. Andrade won the title at Dontaku but then lost the title to Umino at Dominion, after which Umino was jumped by the Kidd, which was meant to set up Umino vs. Kidd at Forbidden Door; however, Kidd had visa issues that prevented him from getting into the U.S., so Umino wrestled PAC instead. Apparently faced with no other way to get this belt onto Kidd before it needs to be on him (which suggests that all this has something to do with AEW’s All In show, which takes place at Wembley Stadium in London on August 30 – two weeks after the G1 wraps up), they stuck the title match on this show with just a few days of lead time. It’s a bizarre situation.

Anyway, Kidd has a newly remixed theme that has the Death Riders intro. He enters through the crowd, then blasts ref Marty Asami with a shotgun dropkick and backs down Tanahashi in the corner. (Tanahashi is in the ring for the formal presentation of the title match.) Umino runs in to save Tanahashi and the match starts with a brawl through the crowd, during which Umino gigs after having his head slammed into part of the building.

The fight eventually makes its way back to ringside, where Kidd throws the title belt and spits in Tanahashi’s face. The match finally starts, and the two have a brief but extremely physical encounter. Umino has the advantage for most of it, but Kidd turns the tables after pretending to re-injure his shoulder, then hits several piledrivers and finishes Umino with the Death Rider. After the match, Kidd makes Tanahashi strap the belt on him, then slaps Tanahashi and throws down the belt.

I know a lot of people don’t like Kidd, but this was red hot. I think Kidd really works as a heel, and the Korakuen crowd was cheering Umino like they never have before. They’ve got something here, and I guess we’ll see why it was imperative that they get this belt onto Kidd in due time.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: YOH (c) vs. Francesco Akira (United Empire)

This starts with a junior heavyweight title roll call intro, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before. Akira comes out with Jakob Austin Young, Zane Jay, Great-O-Khan, Jake Lee and Callum Newman in their Reservoir Dogs suits. (Notably, Charlton mentions that Newman was cleared for the G1 this morning; he injured his shoulder in the IWGP title match with Tsuji at Dominion, which caused him to miss a Forbidden Door match that was scheduled – but never announced – against Jon Moxley.) YOH has Matsumoto in his corner. 

The match starts with some light comedy involving Matsumoto being used as both the shield and the spear; this doesn’t play quite as well as it likely would have if it didn’t follow the heavy heat angle in the last segment. Akira has new, Tajiri-style gear that seems to be giving him some minor problems. Akira battles back with his physical, high-octane offense, and the match alternates between these two styles until it enters the home stretch, when YOH cuts the ha-ha and engages his own uptempo offense. YOH survives a really nasty-looking power bomb through a table that broke like it was made out of concrete, an extended Ground Tarantula submission attempt and two Fireballs, and then wins with Direct Drive. This was very good – Akira looked great, and YOH continues to impress at the top of the junior division.

Tomorrow is Tiger Mask’s retirement show, which has the two Tiger Mask matches and a bunch of preview tags. I’ll be back for that one.