Boltin Oleg, Yuya Uemura and Callum Newman all make their G1 debuts. And they all win their first ever G1 match! Boltin beating Ren Narita isn't that impressive, but Callum gets a win over Shota Umino, a man many picked to win the whole thing, and Yuya Uemura beats David Finlay, current leader of Bullet Club and IWGP Global Champion, both of those wins being huge deals.
Boltin also has a new look and entrance theme, paying homage to his Kazakhstan roots.
El Phantasmo seems out of it and not at his best, as even with Jado by his side, he's still doing the "broken heart" gesture after losing Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa (and it seems like Hikuleo will be next)
Kosei Fujita seconding ZSJ is great. I always love seeing them together.
Jake Lee fucking smashed SANADA, longest reigning IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, in UNDER FIVE MINUTES LMAO. That Yakuza Kick might be totally lethal in this tournament.
The Osaka crowd fucking LOVED Gabe Kidd's antics, and it helps that his opponent was EVIL. I feel like even heels like Gabe get temporarily turned face by the audience when facing House of Torture. The crowd was even doing the War Dog barking chant, and even Gabe couldn't help but get into it. Awesome stuff. This was honestly the best EVIL singles match of 2024 so far, although I think Gabe should've won it after all those counters to EVIL trying to use the referee shields and low blows resulting in that big fuck-off lariat.
Takeshita does Takeshita things to beat Yota Tsuji. I love both these guys.
Shingo Takagi beats Naito, almost confirming that Shingo won't be winning the tournament cuz now he has a pretty much guaranteed shot at the World Heavyweight title anyway.
I predicted 7 out of ten matches correctly! I missed on all three debuting G1 entrans of Oleg, Uemura and Newman getting wins.
There were 733 entrants to this G1 Climax predictions contest. Zero people have perfect results coming out of Night 1. Lol. Lmao. Rofl, if you would.
by DJ_Aftershock