By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
New Japan Pro Wrestling announced the following wrestlers for the G1 Climax 32 Tournament.
-Kazuchika Okada
-Hiroshi Tanahashi
-Tetsuya Naito
-Hirooki Goto
-Tama Tonga
-Shingo Takagi
-Chase Owens
-Bad Luck Fale
-Yujiro Takahashi
-Evil
-Tom Lawlor
-Juice Robinson
-Jonah
-Yoshi-Hashi
-Toru Yano
-Tomohiro Ishii
-Jeff Cobb
-Great O Khan
-Will Ospreay
-Aaron Henare
-Sanada
-Jay White
-Kenta
-El Phantasmo
-Taichi
-Zack Sabre Jr.
-Lance Archer
-David Finlay
Powell’s POV: The tournament will have four blocks of seven wrestlers rather than the two-block, ten wrestler approach used in past years. The semifinals will be held on August 17, and the finals will be held on August 18 in the Nippon Budokan. The blocks and full schedule will be announced at a later date. While there are sure to be some great matches, I’m disappointed that there some heavy hitters from AEW in the tournament.
With Jay White now champion, the G1 winner has to come from a set of only four: Okada, Naito, Ospreay, SANADA. No?
NJPW has a lot of filler in this years G1. I guess it represents their decline the past couple of years.