G1 Supercard was a professional wrestling supershow co-produced by the American Ring of Honor (ROH) and Japanese New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) promotions. It was the 13th annual Supercard of Honor event and took place on April 6, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. The event was streamed live on Honor Club, New Japan Pro-Wrestling World, FITE TV, and broadcast live on traditional pay-per-view outlets.
The card featured 12 matches. Both the IWGP Heavyweight Championship and ROH World Championship was defended on the card, as IWGP Champion Jay White defended against New Japan Cup winner Kazuchika Okada, while Survival of the Fittest winner Marty Scurll and Matt Taven wrestled for the ROH World Title against champion Jay Lethal in a ladder match. The event's undercard saw two Winner Take All matches between NJPW and ROH champions, and UK partner promotion Revolution Pro Wrestling (RPW) had its top title - the British Heavyweight Championship - defended as well.
G1 Supercard Preshow (FULL Show)
Kagetsu, Jenny Rose and Hazuki def. Hana Kimura, Stella Grey and Sumie Sakai Six-woman tag team match (Dark Match)
Didn't see this match, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's offered on ROH's YouTube channel for the weekly dosage of Women of Honor action.Kenny King won by last eliminating Jushin "Thunder" Liger and The Great Muta 30-man Honor Rumble for a future ROH World Championship match
Let's be honest here. This match was mostly a massive waste of time outside of a few noteworthy entries from New Japan. Ring of Honor's entrants in this were laughable at best, namely Rhett Titus with a his HORRIBLE spray tan.I think I marked out with everyone else with the arrivals of both Jushin "Thunder" Liger and The Great fuckin' Muta in this match towards the end. Muta came out looking like he was the final boss spawned from affair from the creators of Onimusha and Final Fantasy had an offspring. I thought it was pretty damn awesome to see them team up to clear out the opposition until they were the final two. I thought we were going to see something truly special until Kenny King rolled back into the ring and unceremoniously dumped out both Japanese legends to steal the win.
You could see the fans in the front rows flipping him off while the MSG crowd unanamiously booed this finish. This is the only reason why I can see why fans were shitting on ROH after the show was over from this finish. King isn't the guy to be challenging for the top title of the company, especially when you got Muta and Liger in the conversation.
Main Card Match Results:
Jeff Cobb (ROH TV) def. Will Ospreay (NEVER Openweight)
Winner takes all match for both the NEVER Openweight and ROH World Television Championships
I thought this was a nice way to start off the show, much like Ospreay's opener on Wrestle Kingdom earlier this year. The end result here didn't surprise me too much as I like to think that Ospreay is going to be AEW bound since they already announced the signing of his girlfriend, Bea Priestley, not too long ago.
Singles Match
Rush def. Dalton Castle
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| That was all she wrote for Rush to pick up the win here. |
Castle took his frustrations out on The Boys, so I guess this is leading to a heel turn for him? I dunno how I feel about that.
Women of Honor World Championship
Kelly Klein def. Mayu Iwatani (c)
This match itself wasn't bad at all, but I'm sure what everyone is going to be talking about, or still talking about rather, is the debut of the Beautiful People in Ring of Honor. They joined forces with a now heel Mandy Leon to form the faction simply known as Allure. I can't remember anything of note that Mandy Leon has done in the Women of Honor division since her high profile feuds with Hania the Huntress and her lengthy (yet notable) program with Taeler Hendrix. Seriously, go back and watch some of that stuff. I wasn't too crazy about the matches themselves, but the actual builds to them were pretty damn good, especially the video packages.
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| The Allure make their ROH debut collectively. |
I have to say I was shocked to see Angelina Love and Velvet Sky collectively in ROH, especially after Madison Rayne cited in a few interviews that the reason she left was that ROH shot down her TBP reunion idea.
Last but not least, congratulations to the first ever two-time Ring of Honor Women of Honor Champion, Kelly Klein.
Six-Man New York City Street Fight
Flip Gordon and Lifeblood (Mark Haskins and Juice Robinson) def. Bully Ray, Shane Taylor and Silas Young
I thought Bully Ray did us all a favor taking out MegaRan during his musical performance. I'm sure I wasn't alone in being shocked when Flip Gordon came out to answer the challenge from Bully Ray. I was under the impression that his last knee injury had him sidelined for the remainder of the year. I guess that was a load of bull, huh? No offense to everyone involved, but this match wasn't the best thing to put into an already underwhelming position on this card to begin with. This lackluster street fight stipulation just seemed to hinder it even more, even though everyone involved tried to make the most of it. I felt like this was ultimately a waste of time that could have been spent on other matches on this card.
Apparently, Enzo and Big Cass stormed the ring off-camera following the finish of this match but all of the ROH talent fought them off. Originally, the reports going around live at the time were saying it was a shoot, but since then, the truth came out with it being a complete work, just that the on-air crew didn't support creative team's decision on bringing them in. I can't blame them there as it seems like they just want to garner attention off their notoriety. ROH is known for their superb in-ring product and less about WWE-esque gimmicks. Enzo and Cass have like nothing to offer them otherwise in terms of in-ring ability. Both those guys are as exciting to watch as watching paint dry.
Three-Way Match for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship
Dragon Lee def. Taiji Ishimori (c) and Bandido
I have seen Ishimori's work in both NJPW and his duration in Impact Wrestling as their X-Division Champion while I have been familiar with Dragon Lee's work for Ring of Honor in the past, competing for the Television Championship while feuding with Marty Scurll and Will Ospreay when they first joined the promotion. This was my first exposure to Bandido tonight and I have to say I was thoroughly impressed with what I have seen from this guy.
In the end, I was happy that Dragon Lee picked up the win because I couldn't help but think back to how he was robbed in that triple threat between Ospreay and Scurll a few years ago.
Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa) (IWGP) defeated Villain Enterprises (PCO and Brody King) (ROH), Los Ingobernables de Japon (Evil and Sanada) and The Briscoe Brothers (Jay Briscoe and Mark Briscoe) Winner takes all four-way tag team match for both the IWGP Tag Team and ROH World Tag Team Championships
PCO's Frankenstein entrance was pretty damn cool while the Briscoes walking down to the ring cursing up a storm is all the reason I needed to be reminded why those two aren't in WWE after all these years. Seeing Sanada's evolution from his World Elite days back in TNA to present day is definitely something else as I'm sure Muta is beaming with pride with his growth, even in defeat here. I hate to make fun of the guy, but I swear Brody King looks like a fat cosplay of Aleister Black.
PCO's career-resurgence lately has to be the stuff of legends, but damn that dude takes some crazy bumps.
First that apron dive that looked like he hit the side of one of the Briscoes' faces along with the edge of the ring apron and then that Shield Powerbomb by the Guerillas of Destiny out of the ring. Holy shit that was nuts.
In the end, GoD picked up the win and I have absolutely no problem with that. Those dudes never cease to amaze me with their choice of entrance gear either.
RevPro British Heavyweight Championship Match
Zack Sabre Jr. (c) (with Taka Michinoku) def. Hiroshi Tanahashi by submission
I missed this entire match since I was on the phone with my older brother who was asking me about the Hall of Fame that I wasn't watching and telling me about what happened to Bret Hart.
I finally had a chance to check out this match on New Japan World a few days later. This was exactly what I've come to expect from ZSJ's matches and by the end of it all, that damn guy had Tanahashi tied up into a knot like a fucking pretzel, despite his efforts to turn the tide on this methodical breakdown of the Ace.
IWGP Intercontinental Championship Match
Kota Ibushi defeated Tetsuya Naito (c)
Much like his performance in the opener of Wrestle Kingdom this year, Ibushi impressed me here too. Fortunately, he didn't have to "die for our sins" to put on a similar performance here. Naito wasn't no slouch either as this was a great affair from bell to bell. The right man won too as Kota Ibushi is the new IWGP Intercontinental Champion. New Japan are definitely elevating the prestige of that title at a rapid pace, given all of the marquee talent that have held that belt to this date. I'll be surprised if Ibushi isn't wrestling for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship by the time Wrestle Kingdom rolls around next year.
I couldn't believe that Naito took that EXACT same crazy bump Velveteen Dream did the night prior from NXT TakeOver. Sold the shit out of it too.
I absolutely love that Ibushi has been channeling his inner Shinsuke Nakamura lately for his Kamigoye as a homage to the Bomaye.
Three-way Ladder Match for the ROH World Championship
Matt Taven defeated Jay Lethal (c) and Marty Scurll
This wasn't a ladder match on par with the infamous Ladder Wars of old, namely the tag team ones involving the Young Bucks, the Hardyz, the Briscoes, and Bad Influence/So Cal Uncensored or the one between Kevin Steen (now Owens) and El Generico (now Sami Zayn) from years ago, but worth a watch anyway.
All three men gave this performance their all and it was rightfully called the "real" main event by ROH fans on social media. In the end, Jay Lethal took a sickening bump onto the ladder to allow Matt Taven to pick up the win. I have to
IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match
Kazuchika Okada defeated Jay White (c) (with Gedo)
I love Okada as much as the next guy, but man, I went into dreading this rematch against Jay White. I didn't care for this match-up at Wrestle Kingdom and I didn't care for it here much either. Okada carried the fuck out of White throughout this contest to keep viewers and the live audience engaged with action in and out of the ring from bell to bell. I enjoyed the story they told with neither man being able to hit their respective finishers and once they did it garnered a massive shock and awe from the audience that each man found a way to kick out of their opponent's respective finisher. Finishing sequence saw Okada hit multiple Rainmaker clotheslines and a Tombstone Piledriver to pick up the win and become the NEW IWGP Heavyweight Champion.
Everything is right in the world again. I get that New Japan wants to build up Jay White as the next big thing in terms of gaijin stars in the wake of Kenny Omega and all of the Elite guys jumping over to AEW, but he's definitely not the guy who needs to be feuding with Okada at this level. I think it's time to admit that this experiment was a failure and move on.
Afterthoughts:
The number one thing that I noticed once this event was over were the sheer amount of people shitting all over Ring of Honor over on social media, claiming that ROH didn't carry their weight on this show that New Japan carried on their own. I don't know about all of that. There's a considerable difference in terms of match quality from the ROH guys and the NJPW guys, but I didn't go into this match thinking everything on this card was going to be worthy of being in the Tokyo Dome and instantly be a six star match (per Dave Meltzer). Only match I didn't really care for was the New York Street Fight and that was mainly due to all involved. I just don't like majority of those guys personally and I didn't think they clicked well in that type of match. I don't know what everyone else was watching but people were reacting on social media like this was a massive flop. Get the fuck over yourselves. I'm not too thrilled about Matt Taven besting Jay Lethal for the title and Marty Scurll seems like he's not getting a chance at it anytime soon either, but I didn't think that was means for frowning upon this card. Top to bottom, this was a solid show, even if I wasn't too thrilled with some of the talent involved.Now I do agree with some of the critics that it's very unlikely that Ring of Honor would be able to do this type of business to sell out the Garden when they aren't riding off WWE's coattails from WrestleMania weekend along with their partnership with New Japan. Otherwise, I seriously doubt they would have brought in this many people to a venue with the talent they currently have on hand. The few that they do have are struggling to keep things going and I fear what Ring of Honor's future is going to look like when All Elite Wrestling starts going on all cylinders, especially with both Impact Wrestling and Major League Wrestling starting to step their game up in terms of signing the few "major" talent left on the table off the free agent market.
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