New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced the official brackets for the 2015 G1 Climax tournament, which begins on July 20th and leads to the finals on August 16th. Each of the shows for July will be broadcast on New Japan World, which will likely be true for August as well, once the schedule for the month is posted.
For those unfamiliar with G1 Climax, it is a month-long tournament that takes place all over Japan. Wrestlers from New Japan are divided into two blocks (seen below), and face off in matches within their block. Two points are awarded for a win, one point for a draw and zero points for a loss; the star with the most points in each block faces off in the tournament finals. While not always a promised conclusion, the winner of the tournament has in previous years gone on to wrestle in the main event of the annual 1/4 Tokyo Dome show, Wrestle Kingdom.
Here are this year’s official blocks:
A Block:
Togi Makabe
Hiroshi Tenzan
Toru Yano
Doc Gallows
Bad Luck Fale
Tetsuya Naito
Katsuyori Shibata
Kota Ibushi
Hiroshi Tanahashi
AJ Styles
B Block:
Hirooki Goto
Satoshi Kojima
Yuji Nagata
Tomoaki Honma
Michael Elgin
Karl Anderson
Yujiro Takahashi
Tomohiro Ishii
Shinsuke Nakamura
Kazuchika Okada
While the tournament has undergone changes since its inception back in 1974 (as the World League, and later as the International Wrestling Grand Prix), it remains the most prestigious wrestling event of the year, anywhere in the world. In fact, some of the most respected wrestling critics have called the last few year’s of G1 the greatest tournaments in wrestling history, producing numerous incredible must-see matches and pushing competitors to extraordinary lengths.
NJPW founder Antonio Inoki was the inaugural winner in 1974 and has won the tournament an impressive ten times. It has also been won by the likes of Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Big Van Vader, Masahiro Chono, Keiji Mutoh, and of course many of today’s current greats including Tanahashi, Okada, Naito and Nakamura.
Wrestlezone will attempt to provide coverage and results for as many of this year’s G1 events as possible, including complete and exclusive live coverage of the tournament finals on August 16th from Sumo Hall.
Sound off in the comments section below – who are you pulling for in this year’s tournament? Who do you NOT want to win? If this is your first year, what are you most excited to see?
