G1 Day 7

Bad Luck Fale vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

ZSJ is more urgent than usual with his submissions, with a good example of that being him opening the match by going for a Guillotine on Fale immediately -- its the result of him losing all of his first three matches, so now he REALLY wants & needs the win, so he is more focused than usual, and it creates for a real fun dynamic between him & big Fale here. The count-out finish absolutely ruled too. ***

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Lance Archer

The best match of the night. Archer absolutely dominates, even when Tana came into the thing with a rock solid game plan of attacking him right away during entrances. Archer continues to shine with his real good work on top, and Tana was just fabulous from underneath getting wrecked by this monster of a man. ***1/2

EVIL vs. KENTA

This actually legit made me fall asleep, so I had to re-watch it to see if it actually was that boring or was I truly just very tired, but yeah, this sure was disappointing. There's a few awesome moments of KENTA being an asshole like him wiping EVIL's eye make-up + him grinning proudly after Korakuen boos him very loudly after he had kicked EVIL in the ear, but overall, his work wasn't very compelling at all. He really needed to be more of a cocky prick here imo. EVIL wasn't interesting in the slightest during his times on the offense either. Extremely underwhelming stuff, and also disappointing coming off KENTA's awesome first-3 G1 match run. **

Kota Ibushi vs. SANADA

Really loved the early stuff with them showcasing their athleticism, as they try to one-up one another. Them milking the crowd to the max after the classic WE'RE EQUALS-sequence was really fun too. "A showcase of showmanship" was kind of perfectly put by Kevin Kelly there. Even the signature move stealing felt like it belonged here, which is something that can't be said about that kind of stuff very often. Overall this sure was good fun. ***1/4

Kazuchika Okada vs. Will Ospreay

Pretty much exactly how I imagined this match would be. Okada doing some super forgettable work on top, Ospreay getting some flippy comebacks w/ a few strikes here & there, and then a finishing gear full of counters that we've seen about 10 million times already in New Japan. A match that felt longer than it was, and a match that sure wasn't for my tastes. Extremely generic & predictable stuff. *1/4