What’s the story?
New Japan Pro Wrestling has officially announced the competitors for the G1 Climax 27 tournament. The announcement took place during the Kizuna Road Show on 20th June 2017.
In case you didn’t know...
The G1 Climax tournament is a yearly affair organised by New Japan Pro Wrestling. The tournament is held in a round-robin style, which features the winners of two blocks going up against each other. There is a points system that decides the winner of each block, with 2 points being awarded for a victory, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.
Also read: 10 things you didn’t know about New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW)
The winner of the finals of the tournament gets to face off against the IWGP Heavyweight Champion at the annual Wrestle Kingdom for the Championship. The last three winners of the G1 Climax tournament are Kazuchika Okada (2014), Hiroshi Tanahashi (2015) and Kenny Omega (2016).
The heart of the matter
The full list of participants in the G1 Climax 27 tournament (2017) is as follows:
Hiroshi Tanahashi
Togi Makabe
Michael Elgin
Kazuchika Okada
Hirooki Goto
Tomohiro Ishii
Toru Yano
YOSHI-HASHI
Kenny Omega
Bad Luck Fale
Tama Tonga
Tetsuya Naito
SANADA
EVIL
Satoshi Kojima
Yuji Nagata
Juice Robinson
Minoru Suzuki
Zack Sabre Jr.
Kota Ibushi
This will be Yuji Nagata’s 19th G1 Climax tournament and is said to be his final appearance at one. Zack Sabre Jr. and Minoru Suzuki will be making their G1 Climax debuts, while Kota Ibushi will be participating as a freelance “outsider”.
What’s next?
The blocks and match cards for the G1 Climax 27 Tournament will be announced during the Kizuna Roadshows in the upcoming weeks. Further, NJPW will be organising two "G1 Special" events in Long Beach, California on 1st and 2nd July 2017, in the build up to the event.
The G1 Special itself will take place on two separate dates, 17th July 2017 as well as 13th August 2017. All the aforementioned shows will be airing live on NJPW World.
Author’s take
The tournament seems to have some very interesting participants. There are plenty of choices to root for as there are quite a few competitors in the list released by NJPW that could very well go on to win it all.
Anyone who wins the G1 Climax gets a rocket towards stardom strapped on their back by NJPW. It would, therefore, be really interesting to see who gets to call themselves the champion this time.
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