I started my G1 Climax Fantasy League in 2021, each year it has grown by a few people, last year we had 11. I’ve experimented with different formats each year. I wanted to share my current concept and see if anyone else does something similar?
Example is in format of 2 blocks of 10 wrestlers.
Each team has 4 wrestlers (A1, A2, B1, B2) and their points are your team points. Each playoff victory also counts as 2 points. Every owner also picks a G-1 Winner (must be one of your 4 picks), you get a 5-point bonus for guessing the correct winner.
In the event of a tie between teams, A1+B1 breaks the tie. After that, I either come up with a special extra tie (i.e. if one of them picked the tournament winner), or we’ve previously had two people win a year. Obviously no two teams can have the same 4-wrestler combination.
In prior years, picks have been first come first serve, with no limits on how many teams can have a specific wrestler. This has proved to be an imperfect and unfair format.
Last year, our eventual winner was the first to make their picks, and the two people who picked after had also initially wanted his pick (Tsuji/Finlay/ZSJ/Takeshita). 7 of 11 teams picked Tsuji as their A1 (6 picked him as Winner), 6 of 11 picked ZSJ as their B1, 5 teams had Takeshita. There were 4 teams that had Tsuji/Finlay/ZSJ with their B2 pick being the only differentiator.
This is my proposed new format:
It’ll take a lot of coordination, but I want to hold a live draft with all team owners present virtually. It’ll be a 4-round snake draft, and each wrestler will be locked after a 3rd team picks him. This will force owners to make wildcard picks in the 4th round, and better diversify the teams. I will allow teams to trade wrestlers through the first half of the tournament, and have the ability to drop a wrestler to add from any available.
I have also thought about adding a 2-point bonus if your pick finishes 1st in their block. If two wrestlers tie at 10 points, currently i’d want the wrestler who lost the tie-breaker and fell to 2nd place, because they’d have one more match and the first round bye becomes a disadvantage in my league.
What do you all think about my proposed format? Have you all tried anything similar? I’ve been looking for ways to host this outside my Excel spreadsheet (i.e. fantasizr).
These were the standings in 2025:
1st place – Tsuji/Finlay/ZSJ/Takeshita (Tsuji win) – 54 points. Slid under radar in 3rd/4th whole tournament before taking off in playoffs.
2nd place – Tanahashi/EVIL/Takeshita/Phantasmo (Takeshita win) – 53 points. Was in bottom half of standings throughout the tournament, jumped up to 2nd when Takeshita won.
3rd place – EVIL/Uemura/Takeshita/Narita (Narita win) – 52 points. Led the entire tournament, fell when Finlay beat Uemura and Takeshita beat Narita.
4th place – Tsuji/Finlay/Umino/Takeshita (Umino win) – 52 points. 2-time Defending Champion
5th place (me) – Tsuji/Uemura/ZSJ/Umino (Tsuji win) – 48 points. I have never won, despite being the only person in our league who “consistently” watches NJPW.
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11th place – Uemura/Sanada/Narita/Takagi (Uemura win) – 38 points. 6 points behind 2nd-to-last.
by beingbrettisfun