G1 Climax

The G1 ("Grade One") Climax professional wrestling tournament is a weeklong event held each August by the New Japan Pro Wrestling promotion. The G1 draws standing room only crowds each night, record receipt gates and generates front-page coverage on the sports sections of several of the daily newspapers in Tokyo. Though it has sometimes been held as a single elimination tournament, it is usually (and currently) held as a round-robin, with winners from two blocks wrestling in the final to decide that year's winner. The winner of each block is determined by a points system; two points for a victory, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss.

Tournament history

New Japan had had an annual tournament since 1974 under various names: the World League (1974-77, based on the World League tournament from the old Japanese Wrestling Association); the MSG League (1978-82); the International Wrestling Grand Prix League (1983-87; although the first winner, Hulk Hogan was awarded a belt, this is not the beginning of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship). Most of these tournaments were dominated by New Japan's founding top star, Antonio Inoki. In 1987, all tournaments in the company were suspended, although in 1989 there was a World Cup Tournament which also included wrestlers from the then-Soviet Union.

With Inoki's dominance over New Japan gone, the promotion established the G1 Climax tournament in 1991 as a platform to showcase the company's top heavyweights and have them compete in round robin matches where the winners of the two divisions would then square off in the tournament finals. The first G1 was held from August 7 to August 11, 1991 at Tokyo's Sumo Hall.

The G1 Climax tournament has often been used as a platform for New Japan to push theirrising stars. Wins by young up-and-comers over Japanese legends would usually take theirrespective careers to new heights. Past winners include Masahiro Chono, Keiji Muto, Shinya Hashimoto, Yuji Nagata and others who have gone on to become wrestling superstars.

G1 Climax results

List of winners

tatistics

*Most G1 Climax cups: Masahiro Chono, 5
*Most cups won overall: Antonio Inoki, 9
*Most cups won by a foreigner overall: André the Giant, 2
*IWGP Heavyweight champions who never won the cup: Vader, Salmon Hashimikov, Nobuhiko Takada, Scott Norton, Genichiro Tenryu, Kazuyuki Fujita, Tadao Yasuda, Yoshihiro Takayama, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bob Sapp, Brock Lesnar and Satoshi Kojima
*Won both G1 and Champion's Carnival cups: Keiji Muto and Kensuke Sasaki

References

* [http://slam.canoe.ca/ Slam Sports]
* [http://www.puroresufan.com/ Strong Style Spirit]

External links

* [http://www.njpw.co.jp/ The Official New Japan Website]
* [http://www.njpw.com/ Official New Japan USA website]