NJPW G1 Climax 2019 Night 14 (August 4) - B BLOCK: Every Match Ranked From Worst To Best

5. Hirooki Goto Vs. Jeff Cobb

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the two coldest competitors in this year’s G1 contested a clash that never escalated beyond strictly serviceable, but this again felt like a missed opportunity for both Jeff Cobb and Hirooki Goto to bounce back from the rather boring booking of their tournament trajectories.

In recent outings, Cobb showed flashes of the monster that tore up Madison Square Garden with Will Ospreay, whilst Goto lit the Climax up with Tomohiro Ishii for the second consecutive year. Together, they were sadly back to worst.

A ponderous (and point-wise, mostly meaningless) battle never really got out of first gear, let alone in to the high octane space others on this card would. It’s been an unfortunately familiar criticism of both this year, and for Goto especially could signal the end of the former winner’s entry into the tournament.

Of Shingo Takagi (more on him later), Kevin Kelly noted how NJPW bosses would be “out of their minds” not to include him in next year’s event. With this, Goto and Cobb sadly stood in dull contrast to that sentiment.