G1 Climax

The G1 Climax is a tournament held by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW). It is considered to be the most important tournament in the company. The tournament was first created by Antonio Inoki and was first held in 1974. The name of the tournament was originally called the World League from 1974 until 1977, the MSG League from 1978 until 1982, and the IWGP League from 1983 until 1988. The tournaments under these names are not viewed as part of the official history of the G1 Climax by New Japan however. The first tournament under the G1 name was held from August 7 until August 11, 1991. Seiji Sakaguchi, president of New Japan, named the tournament after a horse race.

The current rules of the G1 Climax tournament are held in a round-robin format. There are two blocks of wrestlers who fight for points. A wrestler who gets a win gets two points for a victory, a wrestler who gets a draw gets one point, and a wrestler who loses doesn't get a point. The wrestler from each block who has the most points will then fight each other in the finals to decide who the winner of the G1 will be. The tournament is held for four weeks. In 2022, the tournament would go back to having four blocks for the first time since 2000.

The first non-Japanese wrestler to win the G1 was Kenny Omega in 2016. Tetsuya Naito is the current winner.

Tournament winners
TournamentYearWinner  1974  Antonio Inoki   1975  Antonio Inoki   1976  Seiji Sakaguchi   1977  Seiji Sakaguchi    1978  Antonio Inoki   1979  Antonio Inoki   1980  Antonio Inoki   1981  Antonio Inoki   1982  André the Giant  1983  Hulk Hogan  1984  Antonio Inoki  1985  André the Giant   1986  Antonio Inoki   1987  Antonio Inoki   1988  Antonio Inoki    1989  Riki Choshu    1991  Masahiro Chono   1992  Masahiro Chono   1993  Tatsumi Fujinami   1994  Masahiro Chono   1995  Keiji Mutoh   1996  Riki Choshu   1997  Kensuke Sasaki   1998  Shinya Hashimoto   1999  Manabu Nakanishi   2000  Kensuke Sasaki   2001  Yuji Nagata   2002  Masahiro Chono   2003  Hiroyoshi Tenzan   2004  Hiroyoshi Tenzan   2005  Masahiro Chono   2006  Hiroyoshi Tenzan   2007  Hiroshi Tanahashi   2008  Hirooki Goto   2009  Togi Makabe   2010  Satoshi Kojima   2011  Shinsuke Nakamura   2012  Kazuchika Okada   2013  Tetsuya Naito   2014  Kazuchika Okada   2015  Hiroshi Tanahashi   2016  Kenny Omega   2017  Tetsuya Naito   2018  Hiroshi Tanahashi   2019  Kota Ibushi   2020  Kota Ibushi   2021  Kazuchika Okada   2022  Kazuchika Okada   2023  Tetsuya Naito  

References

Other website
 (in Japanese)

Category:New Japan Pro-Wrestling