NJPW G1 Climax 35 finals notes: Excursion returns, Wrestle Kingdom 20
Notes from Sunday’s G1 Climax finals.
David Finlay, who has been in a rough patch following his failure to win the G1, seemed to find a new path for the Bullet Club War Dogs on Sunday. After Taichi and Satoshi Kojima won a tag team match, Finlay came out and introduced the two newest members of the War Dogs: Yuto Nakashima and Oskar Leube. The former young lions attacked Kojima then turned their attention to Taichi, laying him out and posing with the IWGP Tag Team title, indicating they wanted the next shot against Taichi and Tomohiro Ishii.
Nakashima and Leube graduated from young lion status after New Year Dash 2024 and have spent the last year in a half working in Europe, including matches in RevPro and wXw.
After the show ended, NJPW revealed the logo for next year’s Wrestle Kingdom 20 event. International ticket information will be announced soon.
In other prelim notes, YOH pinned Desperado in a multi-man tag team match, likely setting up a future IWGP Jr. title match. In the next match, Boltin Oleg gained a measure of revenge over Don Fale by taking him out with a big splash, continuing to set up a possible NEVER title confrontation between the two.
After Bullet Club War Dogs (Finlay, Drilla Moloney, Gedo, and Taiji Ishimori) defeated Daiki Nagai, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi, and Yota Tsuji, Takagi and Moloney had a staredown while Finaly and Tsuji as well as Hiromu and Ishimori met eye-to-eye as well.
In the semi-main event, the House of Torture emerged victorious over TMDK, continuing their winning streak. However it was Kosei Fujita who saved TMDK from a post-match attack, indicating he and a partner wanted a shot at DOUKI and SHO’s IWGP Jr. Tag Team titles.