NNew Japan Pro Wrestling

How would you rank the G1 Climax tournaments of this decade?

  • August 21, 2025

My ranking would be:

  1. G1 Climax 33 (Most exciting tournament imo, Reiwa musketeers and Gabe Kidd G1 debut and Kiyomiya was fantastic. Two incredible back to back MOTY contenders with Naito vs Ospreay and Okada. C Block felt like it was lagging well behind the others in terms of matches but A Block was solid, B block had Ospreay/Okada/Taichi having belters with each other and D block had Takagi vs Henare killing each other. I wasn't a massive fan of the 20 minute time limit but aside from that it was the most enjoyable of the decade so far for me with a great choice of winner even if I was rooting for Ospreay like my life depended on it.)

  2. G1 Climax 35 (Great return to form in terms of match quality, everyone seemed to be up for it and on it in the ring. The block competition was engaging throughout, a lot of high profile meetings in this one that basically all delivered. Uemura broke into a new tier as a wrestler, Umino bounced back from his G1 Climax 34 performance, Tanahashi gave us everything he had left, Takeshita was a beast, and we got Taichi back for probably the last time. It did start to fall apart a bit towards the end but EVIL vs Takeshita was actually great and I'm personally happy with Takeshita winning the tournament.)

  3. G1 Climax 30 (Probably the best purely in terms of match quality with an extremely stacked line-up, some all time G1 tags in this one, the wrestling itself really carried it though. The block finals felt like a miss compared to what we were used to at the time, I was not a fan of SANADA being in the final and it was probably the most forgettable final in terms of G1 finals. Ibushi winning was great though.)

  4. G1 Climax 32 (Honestly, the final carries this one HARD for me. It's one of, if not my favourite match of all time. It was an absolutely incredible final. I personally didn't mind Okada winning again but man, like with 33, I was dying for Ospreay to win. I really thought this was his time after he beat Naito. The Block setup wasn't great and a lot of matches felt underwhelming and rushed to me, but there were some gems in there – Okada vs JONAH in particular was just perfect, really boosts this one up the ranking for me. The introduction of the semi final round was also exciting.)

  5. G1 Climax 34 (Not great, not terrible. I won't lie, I was pretty bored until the knockouts. Something just felt off to me, like something was missing. There were good matches, Takeshita was a much needed shot in the arm, and I thought the B block did have a few great matches to offer like Goto and Tsuji vs Takeshita. I can't quite put my finger on why didn't enjoy it as much as others did, matches just seemed sluggish and pressed for time a lot and I couldn't get into it. A Block was awful I thought, watching Naito in this tournament compared to the year before was alarming to say the least. On paper it was a stacked block but it was not a good watch at all. It felt like a summary of New Japan last year in general. With that said, the semi finals were great and the final was good but not quite at the level of what the G1 final is synonymous with. I actually prefer EVIL vs Takeshita from this year. Zack winning was a nice moment, it really was, but most of what came before felt really off.)

  6. G1 Climax 31 (Oh dear, we've arrived at the dark times. To anyone who thinks New Japan currently is in a crisis, you either weren't around or have forgotten how bad things were in 2021. Ospreay and White couldn't be involved, Naito got injured on Night 1, and Ibushi was rushing back from a serious illness. Similar to G1 Climax 30 but also way way worse, luckily for New Japan they had just enough world class talent to avoid this one being completely unwatchable. B block…I mean honestly, forget about it. It was a 3 man block for its entirety with Okada and Cobb destroying everybody to set up the Block final, and EVIL lurking behind but not close enough to actually impact anything. EVIL got 14 POINTS and wasn't even involved on the final night…what. Meanwhile, the US champion Hiroshi Tanahashi was completely lost in the shuffle and lost clean to Chase Owens in a nothing match – it wasn't even a spoiler. They also made the decision to have Okada lose before facing Jeff Cobb so that they'd both finish on 16 points with Okada advancing, having sat through it all the could've at least made it historic by having Okada go undefeated because we'll probably never get another opportunity to see that happen. Yes, it was nice for Cobb to be booked like a monster but that booking never returned and we all knew he was losing to Okada anyway. A Block actually had some phenomenal matches between the usual suspects, ZSJ and Takagi stood out above the rest as the MVPs. Like B block though, it was just too obvious the second Naito got injured that Ibushi was advancing despite the waves Zack was making, and throw in a god awful block final between Ibushi and KENTA and it wasn't much better than B block overall – at least Okada vs Cobb was a really good match. A lot of the matches were just way too long for the wrestlers involved and weren't good, and of course it was topped off with the infamous Ibushi injury in the final which just felt like another dagger in the heart to New Japan in an already catastrophic year for the promotion. This tournament was the absolute low point of the pandemic era, for reasons both in and out of New Japan's hands, it was just depressing.)

by SubstantialStill1431