Jushin Thunder Liger weighs in on this year’s G1 Climax 33 in NJPW.
The Japanese legend wrote about the annual tournament in his Tokyo Sports blog, where he criticized NJPW for having too many competitors and explaining that a narrower field would have made things more interesting.
Lastly, I think G1 is New Japan’s biggest festival, but I think there were a little too many people there this year. It is a tournament for the best of the best, and it is named after a horse race, ‘G1’. I thought it would have been better to narrow down the field a little more…
Liger later states that he was impressed by Hikuleo’s performance in the tournament.
The wrestler who impressed me personally (during NJPW G1 Climax 33) was Hikuleo. He’s going to get out of hand sooner or later. He has a good bloodline, good size and ambition. When you have that kind of physique, it’s usually a tengu. I’ve seen a lot of wrestlers like that. But he’s serious, he comes to me for advice and he makes the most of it in his fights. If he continues… he could be in the finals next year, or the year after and maybe even win the championship all at once. On the other hand, Hikuleo’s advance through Block A meant that Shota Umino, Ren Narita and Yota Tsuji were all unable to advance to the tournament finals. In a league like this, we all know that youth alone is not enough to rush through. So there is no need for them to be disappointed.
Tetsuya Naito defeated Kazuchika Okada in the G1 Climax 33 finals. He will now go on to challenge for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleKingdom 18.