NJPW G1 Climax 2019 Night 1 (July 6): Every Match Ranked From Worst To Best

How history-making New Japan Pro Wrestling will consider the opening night of the 2019 G1 Climax could be entirely dependent on how the spectacular tournament concludes on August 12th.

Night One, creatively, was a success. The five-match format adopted in recent years generally gives bangers breathing room with minimal space for fans to lose patience with battles that fall slightly below expectations. The points all had maximised value as wrestlers enjoyed or endured dream or nightmare starts respectively, whilst most competitors appeared keen to make a great impression on those in attendance.

But this piece wouldn't have balance without addressing that elephant in the room. A literal elephant would still have had his pick of the spare seats.

NJPW proffered a louder, more energetic crowd than the one that piled into the same venue for last week's Monday Night Raw, but the empty seats instead damned the event as a dismal commercial failure. Nowhere near as deft at producing these half-empty arenas as Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn, the sparse sections made for a number of awkward visuals that threatened to diminish some of the energetic action very much in keeping with the glory and prestige of the event.

Fortunately - and is it's likely to do on almost every one of these shows - great pro wrestling prevailed...

Bad Luck Fale's mere presence is a G1 Climax gift for Gedo more than the wrestling audiences his matches are intended to entertain. As a giant, he can believably defeat everybody in the field, which in turn massages the complex mathematics of a series so crucially determined by logical, cohesive booking.

It's thus understandable, if not all that enjoyable, that some of his matches are more about tying the tournament together than satisfying the crowd. A meaty scrap with EVIL was marginally better than low expectations, but couldn't compete with everything else on an at-times spectacular card.

The LIJ member worked hard to find drama in a contest bereft of it, but teases leading up to steel chair spots as the referee hit the deck brought back memories from the horrific misfire that was last year's BC OGs angle with Fale and The Guerrillas Of Destiny. Rather than building to any climax, the echoes of 2018 were a touch too pronounced, even if a Bad Luck Fall conclusion was cleaner than the multitude of disqualification losses suffered last year.

Against different A Block opponents, these two will both benefit from elevated significance. Paired with each other, they were devoid of purpose.