G1 Climax 36 Final

I watch a lot of wrestling, as you can imagine from a guy who writes a daily wrestling Substack, and I must admit that as much as I love most of what I watch, even on the best matches I watch the clock. I have somewhere to be, I have to throw the laundry in, I want to watch a bunch of Tiger Mask matches today. I often think, okay, fifteen minutes, this will end soon, and I am relieved when it does.

Early Sunday morning I found myself deeply invested in the G1 final, both in the outcome and with the overwhelming feeling: don’t let this end, keep going, go an hour, go an hour, this is so compelling I cannot imagine it being over. In the end it was the breeziest forty minutes I can recall in watching wrestling.

If you have read my G1 coverage this year you will see a lot of me talking about how boring these two wrestlers are, how lacking in personality Yuya seemed and how much Oiwa felt designed to appeal to a certain audience while his utter blandness made me feel nothing. I also often struggled with why I felt these things, especially when many of my most respected wrestling critic peers were telling me these two were so great.

As the block section began to wind down I started to see it. I started to see that Yuya was all personality, that what I had mistaken for a flat affect actually belied a cleverly subtle character built around facial expressions of cool confidence mixed with restrained effort. I began to see Oiwa not as someone with a boring finisher but as a man in possession of a dangerous weapon, his enormous biceps and terrifying grip becoming the ultimate source of tension. Would he get it here? Could the opponent possibly escape? By the time we got to the semifinals I was thirsty for these two to meet.

As the finals began I was also struck by a wrestling rarity: it made absolutely no difference to me who won. I found both of these men collectively great and the winning had already happened. The win was New Japan getting me so invested in these two. The win was making me so excited for what came next. The final was pure enjoyment, pure art to be enjoyed for its beauty and what it would make me feel. The crowd was with me. They were hot in Ryogoku Sumo Hall but unlike me they had a favorite, and that favorite was Oiwa, whose name rang out loudly through the arena all night.

Both of these men are only a few years removed from excursion and you can see it in the way they wrestle. Yuya is a man who can do it all. He is the avatar of the new standard of strong style, someone who can utilize effective submissions, as shown by him beginning the match with his own long headlock, almost daring Oiwa by showing he could do the thing his opponent did best. At the same time he can go off the top rope in a way that thrills me in a manner that has not happened since Ricky Steamboat. Virtually every wrestler in every match goes off the top rope, but when Yuya goes it feels dangerous, a risk he is taking and a devastation to his enemies. He is super athletic, he is strong, and he can pull off a kind of ridiculous outfit. Like the Rankin-Bass Heat Meiser he is called the Heat Storm, and he has fiery highlights and fiery gear. He poses like a Power Ranger mid fight, something you can only learn to do if you spent time tagging with Joe Hendry and feuding with Tommy Dreamer, being forced into ridiculous situations but still getting something out of them and importing those experiences into your character.

For Oiwa the excursion shaped him in a completely different way. His unusual path transformed him from a promising Young Lion into a polished, charismatic heavyweight contender with a distinct technical power hybrid style and a clear self-assured character. He came back not feeling like someone searching for himself but someone who had already figured out exactly who he was. Everything about him is direct. The giant biceps, the feathered hair, the old-school offense, the absolute commitment to the grip. He feels less like a wrestler who developed organically and more like someone deliberately engineered to appeal to a certain vision of what New Japan wrestling should be.

The match itself is largely about Yuya being in control. Ten minutes in he has dictated almost everything. He is quicker, more dynamic, constantly finding angles and forcing Oiwa to react. Oiwa keeps reaching for the grip but cannot quite secure it. Every attempt feels thrilling because of how he goes for it. His arms are already forming the circle before he even reaches his opponent, like a fishing hook being cast into the water, like a trap already closing before the prey realizes it has stepped into danger.

Fifteen minutes in Oiwa finally gets it. The crowd erupts. This headlock is somehow thrilling in a way that sounds impossible on paper. A headlock should not be one of the most exciting moves in wrestling and yet Oiwa has transformed it into something terrifying. Yuya sells it like a man whose oxygen is being slowly drained away while Oiwa keeps adjusting and tightening, always looking for a better angle, always finding a deeper level of control.

The centerpiece of the match comes around the twenty-five minute mark during a long grip section that is, to me, perfect professional wrestling. Everything is hitting. Both men are selling beautifully but so is Red Shoes. He pleads with Yuya, he looks to the outside for advice. He genuinely appears unsure if he should stop this. On commentary Chris Charlton says Oiwa is going to decapitate him, and for a moment that does not sound like hyperbole, it sounds like a reasonable concern.

The crowd is entirely behind Oiwa now, loud and clear. Every tiny movement is met with gasps. Every attempted escape is greeted with hope. Every adjustment of the grip feels like doom. Wrestling at its absolute best is not about convincing you a move hurts. It is about convincing you the move matters, and this grip matters more than almost anything else in the company right now.

Oiwa seemingly removes the Heat Storm’s head with a lariat but Yuya kicks out. Yuya survives things he should not survive. He keeps finding another level. He keeps fighting. The match becomes not about offense and defense and more about two men refusing to surrender their future.

Much has been said already about the return of simple moves and I do think there is something to that. I have written before about how the endgame of Ospreayism seems limited. At some point doing ridiculous athletic movements stops being thrilling and becomes banal. If you can master a basic thing, however, you can build a career around it forever.

I think this match is about so much more than what moves are done. This match is about emotion. It is about eliciting emotion from the audience at the highest possible level. The crowd here is bought in in a way you rarely hear anymore. Nobody is chanting “this is awesome” or repeating things they have been trained to chant. They are reacting. They are living and dying with every moment. I can barely take notes as I watch because I am too engrossed. We are all enthralled. These are two men struggling and only one can win, yet they feel so equal that the idea of either one losing seems impossible.

Eventually it ends the way these fans are so desperate to see: Oiwa gets the grip and Yuya cannot escape. The submission comes and the tournament is over the camera cuts to Tenzan on Japanese commentary, in tears. I understand why, we all do

The story of the G1 is often about finding the future. Sometimes that future arrives fully formed. Sometimes it announces itself with a Rainmaker or a Stardust Press or a shocking upset. This year the future arrived as two wrestlers I spent half a tournament insisting were boring. It arrived slowly. It made me work for it. It made me pay attention. By the time Oiwa finally let go of the grip, I did not want the match to end. I did not want the tournament to end. I only wanted to see where these two men go next, and that may be the highest compliment I can give professional wrestling.