I’m salty about this year’s G1 Climax tournament. It’s the 36th edition of the annual round robin affair in New Japan Pro Wrestling and it starts this Saturday. Yep, this Saturday near Chicago and just about 30 minutes from the Brass Ring Media offices.
I’m not going.
If you aren’t familiar with the G1 Climax tournament in New Japan Pro Wrestling, it’s an annual round robin tournament in the company’s heavyweight division. There are two blocks that are each filled with 10 stars. Those stars wrestle a series of matches and earn two points for each win, one point for each draw, and zero points for each loss. At the end of the tournament, those with the highest number of points in each block compete in a finals tournament to crown a victor.
The winner of the entire thing earns a shot at the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom next year. Wrestle Kingdom is the WrestleMania of New Japan. Each year on January 4 the show emanates from inside the Tokyo Dome in Japan and is the company’s largest show of the year. The tournament kicks off on Saturday from inside the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates, just outside of Chicago.
And again, I’m not going. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.