5 possible winners of the NJPW G1 Climax 31 tournament

#3 Tetsuya Naito - NJPW

Tetsuya Naito hasn't had his best 2021 in NJPW so far. He came into the year holding the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental Championships. However, Naito lost both titles to Kota Ibushi at Wrestle Kingdom 15. From there, he also lost another encounter with Ibushi for the Intercontinental Championship before deciding to go after another gold.

Tetsuya Naito failed at his ventures after the NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championships with SANADA and BUSHI of Los Ingobernables de Japon. Naito and SANADA then started teaming and decided to contend for the top tag titles. The LIJ pair defeated Zack Sabre Jr. and Taichi of Dangerous Tekkers to win the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships at NJPW Summer Struggle.

However, Tetsuya Naito and SANADA dropped their IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships back to Dangerous Tekkers at NJPW Wrestle Grand Slam. They also failed to regain their belts before the start of the G1 Climax 31. The former IWGP Heavyweight Champion is in a tough A Block and will meet fellow stablesmates and rivals.

He will lock it up with IWGP World Heavyweight Champion and fellow LIJ stablemate Shingo Takagi. He will also face long-time rivals KENTA and Tomohiro Ishii. Naito will also square off again with Great-O-Khan, who defeated him in this year's New Japan Cup 2021. It will be a grueling battle to win his third G1 Climax tournament and return to the mountaintop again.