I finally finished watching the G1 last night, after failing pretty miserably to keep up with the tournament while it was running. I suppose that’ll happen when a tournament is 19 3-5 hour shows long. Once I stopped trying to watch every match, I found I was enjoying the ones that I did watch more, though. I’m not sure if it’s because I was cherry-picking matches with wrestlers I like and which I expected to be good, or if it was because a tournament that long makes me hate 3 star matches. It’s not that 3 star matches are bad, but watching that many of them in such a short time span makes them all blend together, especially since many guys have “a G1 match.” Look at EVIL, for example. I enjoy EVIL, typically, but I don’t need to see him do the same chair spot on the floor – that doesn’t influence the rest of the match at all – in nine separate singles matches. Keeping up with the G1 made me roll my eyes every time a match spilled out to the floor, because all of those spots were the same and ended in a countout tease. Whoo.
That said, if you haven’t watched the G1 and want to check out some of the highlights, seek out Naito/Omega, Okada/Tanahashi, Okada/Marufuji, Okada/Ishii, and Naito/Elgin. You may be noticing that Okada had a great tournament. Goto/Omega has also gotten huge praise, and is pretty good, but it didn’t come close to the heights it was talked up to for me. I much preferred Goto/Ishii.
Also, I do a YouTube show about wrestling now. The first episode, about the Cruiserweight Classic, is up here.
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