NJPW G1 Climax 2019 Night 15 (August 7) - A BLOCK: Every Match Ranked From Worst To Best

5. Hiroshi Tanahashi Vs. Bad Luck Fale

F*cking Bad Luck Fale man for f*cks sake.

With Hiroshi Tanahashi’s elimination from the block coming at the end of his exhaustive and evocative effort with Kota Ibushi a few days earlier, this loss wasn’t the one to put a bullet in ‘The Ace’ in 2019. The earliest G1 Climax elimination in over a decade for Tanahashi was a tough one to take - this was almost a defeat too far.

Fale was at his best this tournament getting ragged by Zack Sabre Jr in the middle of the Korakuen Hall crowd. Kazuchika Okada got little from him, KENTA got even less, and last year’s winner was the latest to suffer Bullet Club bullsh*t and Fale’s fumbling, bumbling offence.

No longer hyper-mobile with his size nor dynamic with his dominance, Fale’s struggled to follow (or simply life up to) fellow A Block giant Lance Archer In 2019, and the placement of this match directly after the Suzuki-gun monster’s mini-thriller with SANADA only exposed the gulf.

Tanahashi sold his multitude of injuries with peerless conviction as usual, but it just wasn’t enough to make the Bad Luck Fale formula feel worth the time. In 2019, so little is.