14 Ups & 3 Downs From NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard
3. The Authentic NJPW Main Event Experience
It took serious, serious balls to do what Kazuchika Okada and Jay White did last night, and they pulled it off.
After the absurd Junior Heavyweight and Tag Team Title spotfests, the fluid technical mastery of Sabre vs. Tanahashi, the career-shortening Naito vs. Ibushi neck destruction fest, and the hard-bumping ladder match, Okada and White worked the classic New Japan main event format. That long, drawn out, slow-burning style should have bombed, but guess what? It didn't.
They took the show from sixth gear back down to first, then worked through them once move, building towards an electric conclusion that had everyone in the Garden enraptured. They could (and should) have lost the audience; instead, they crafted the G1 Supercard's most memorable climax.
A riveting closing stretch concluded with 'Switchblade' falling to two consecutive Rainmakers. We'll talk about Okada's victory later, but credit to White. His IWGP Title win drew much criticism, but he keeps knocking it out of the park between the ropes in 2019, and he did it again last night.