NJPW G1 Climax 36: Night 2 (July 18) Results & Review

New Japan Pro Wrestling
G1 Climax 36: Night 2
July 18th, 2026
Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Center
Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

After an eventful night at the NOW Arena in the suburbs of Chicago, New Japan returns to Japan proper to kick off the main portion of this year’s G1 Climax. As is the case more often than not, Sapporo is the host city for a pair of shows in the early portion of the tour, which now splits off into separate A Block and B Block nights (aside from this particular show, which I’ll talk about in a moment). Which wrestlers can continue the momentum from their Night 1 victories? Which wrestlers can bounce back after Night 1 defeats? Will anyone fall into a difficult 0-2 hole? Time to find out!

As always, before diving into the tournament matches themselves, here are the results from the undercard tags:

Aaron Wolf & Tatsuya Matsumoto def. Toru Yano & Taisei Nakahara
House Of Torture (Ren Narita & Dick Togo) def. United Empire (Callum Newman & Zane Jay)
TMDK (Zack Sabre Jr. & Hartley Jackson) def. Yuya Uemura & Masatora Yasuda

G1 Climax 36 – B Block
Drilla Moloney [2] def. Gabe Kidd [0]

Since this match wasn’t able to take place on Night 1 in Chicago (I believe because Gabe Kidd cannot enter the US at the moment), it got moved to Night 2, meaning this was technically another mixed block card. In what has to be seen as the biggest upset in the opening set of tournament matches thus far, Drilla Moloney scored the victory over Gabe Kidd after putting him down with the Drilla Killa in just under sixteen minutes. This match got off to a slow start, as they spent the first five minutes having a brawl on the floor. However, once they got back to the ring (and in particular, once both Moloney and Kidd got busted open), things really picked up. The second half featured some hard-hitting exchanges between the two (as you would expect), but the crowd really got behind Moloney after he survived three consecutive brainbusters from Kidd. At one point, Kidd tried to hit Moloney with the Drilla Killa, but Moloney avoided it and then went on an offensive flurry that won him the match. With Shota Umino’s exit from the tournament, you have to look at a lot of these B Block results from here on out and wonder what might’ve been changed (since Umino was almost certainly going to be a player to advance out of the block), though in this case, I would bet Drilla was always going to win this. Again, looking at all the results from the first set of tournament bouts, this was easily the biggest upset, and we usually get at least one of those early on. I’m not sure how high Drilla will end up finishing, but I have to imagine he’s getting an IWGP Global Heavyweight Title shot after this. ***3/4

G1 Climax 36 – A Block
Great O-Khan [2] def. SANADA [0]

These two were looking to get on the board after losses on Night 1, and when the dust settled, Great O-Khan wound up scoring his first two points via (of all things) count out. In the modern era of New Japan, we usually see a count out or two in the G1, just to establish that they can happen, but the majority of those were comedic in fashion (usually involving Toru Yano). In this instance, there was nothing comedic about this count out finish. The two were having a brawl in the entranceway, and around the count of fifteen or sixteen, O-Khan hit the TTD on SANADA onto a chair. He then limped back into the ring to get the count out. To be completely honest, that was the only cool spot in what was otherwise a pretty boring match. I don’t know what it is, but I just have no interest in watching Great O-Khan at this stage (unless he’s in there with the right guy), and it certainly doesn’t seem like he’s putting forth that much effort either. His story in this tournament is that he’s taking a lot of shortcuts in his matches, which is ironic because he was facing a House Of Torture member who took….zero shortcuts. After how things turned out in Chicago, I was convinced that it’d be back to business as usual for the House Of Torture members in his tournament. However, that wasn’t the case. SANADA wrestled a fairly clean match, and really only used a chair after O-Khan had used it first. I’m not sure if they’re setting up for a SANADA face turn (for what it’s worth, when O-Khan attacked SANADA with chairs after the match, the rest of House Of Torture was nowhere to be seen), or if they’re doing a story where he only goes back to cheating after losing a ton early, but regardless, I’m happy that the bullshit is (thus far) being kept to a minimum. The lack of bullshit didn’t make this match any less boring though, so I’d call it an easy skip if you haven’t seen it. **

I should note that on the English Commentary team, OSKAR from the Knockout Brothers joined Walker Stewart, and overall I thought he did a solid job. In this match, I thought it was very funny to hear OSKAR just bury O-Khan for never making a successful title defense in any of his five IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Title reigns (which is actually true). It was also funny hearing OSKAR lose his mind over SANADA’s gold entrance getup.

G1 Climax 36 – A Block
Konosuke Takeshita [2] def. Jake Lee [2]

After coming up short against Yota Tsuji in the main event of Night 1, Konosuke Takeshita bounced back here in Sapporo with a win over Jake Lee in what was the shortest tournament match of the night at just under nine minutes (though to be honest, it felt closer to twelve or thirteen minutes when I watched it….maybe that’s just me). This was a perfectly fine match that saw Lee really put his knee strikes to good use, repeatedly trying to wear down the NJPW World Television Champion (I keep forgetting Takeshita has that title). The second half featured some solid exchanges between the two before Takeshita (after overcoming the repeated attacks on his midsection) ultimately put Lee away with the Raging Fire. I’ll say the same thing I said in my review of Night 1. As long as Jake Lee is kept in this undercard role, I don’t have any problems with him being on New Japan cards. Just don’t push him beyond a certain level, and everything is good. If we’re talking about United Empire members in this tournament, I’m certainly enjoying him more than Great O-Khan, so he’s got that going for him. ***1/4

G1 Climax 36 – A Block
Boltin Oleg [2] def. Yuto-Ice [2]

For the third straight match on this show, a wrestler who lost on Night 1 got a victory on Night 2, with Boltin Oleg being the one to continue that streak in this instance. He scored a referee stoppage victory over Yuto-Ice after a series of deadlift powerbombs. Following a fun little grappling exchange between the two in the opening moments, the two had some nice exchanges, with Yuto relying a lot on his kicks, while Boltin used his power advantage, and even utilized a Boston Crab to dish out some punishment. Yuto went back to the kicks, and from there, the story became (and this is what the English commentary pushed as well) that Yuto was so wrapped up in chasing this “high” in the ring that he awoke a beast in Boltin, who fought back fiercely enough that he ended up winning via referee stoppage. I do like the idea that Yuto’s whole “Let’s get high on wrestling” shtik, with him wanting to get the best out of his opponents, can lead to him getting more than he bargained for (and in this case, it led to him losing fairly decisively). In terms of evaluating Yuto-Ice as a singles wrestler, this was easily a step above the match with Great O-Khan from Night 1, but well below the qualifier he had with Taichi back in June. Good action throughout, though I can’t say it ever got close to being great. Yuto’s first major test of the tournament will be this coming Tuesday when he battles Konosuke Takeshita in Sendai. ***1/2

G1 Climax 36 – A Block
Shingo Takagi [2] def. Ryohei Oiwa [2]

Shingo Takagi made it four-for-four when it comes to wrestlers who lost on the opening night of the tournament winning on Night 2, as he put away Ryohei Oiwa in just under seventeen minutes with the Burning Dragon. This was a really good match, but I would be lying if I said this met my expectations. While I wasn’t necessarily expecting these two to blow the roof off, I definitely came into this expecting a great match, and that’s not what we got. The action from start to finish was very solid, so there was nothing wrong with the actual work. I was just waiting for this to get to a much higher gear, and it never got there. Oiwa would target Shingo’s arm over the course of the bout (in between their other exchanges), though in the end, Shingo was able to overcome that damage. Once he avoided a choke attempt by Oiwa, Shingo went through a stretch of offense that eventually put Oiwa down for the count (interestingly, Shingo used Last Of The Dragon before the Pumping Bomber, but Oiwa survived both of those, which forced Shingo to use the Burning Dragon). With this win, Shingo joins a growing group of wrestlers in the A Block with 1-1 records at this early stage of the tournament. ***1/2

G1 Climax 36 – A Block
Hirooki Goto [4] def. Yota Tsuji [2]

The main event of Night 2 is the lone tournament match on this card featuring wrestlers who won their opening match in the US, with Hirooki Goto getting a win over SANADA while Yota Tsuji defeated Konosuke Takeshita in a rematch from Wrestle Kingdom. In what was easily the best (and the longest, at just over twenty-two minutes) match of the night, Hirooki Goto scored an awesome come-from-behind victory over the IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Goto would get in a few spots of offense here and there, but for the most part, Tsuji totally dominated the first half of this match. It got to the point where I questioned whether this Tsuji control period was going a little too long, though to their credit, once Goto finally started his comeback, the crowd in Sapporo was totally behind him. Goto actually had a fair amount of marks and bruising on his chest from some of the hard chops that Tsuji was dishing out, though that wasn’t going to stop Goto on this night. Once the second half of this one really got going, these two had some great exchanges, and again, the fans were totally behind Goto. As always, a big smile came across my face when Goto busted out the Shouten Kai (that’s such an awesome move), and from there, the back and forth continued until Goto finally put Tsuji away with two consecutive GTR’s. These two put together an excellent main event that featured strong action and told a story that got the crowd really invested in the closing stretch. From an in-ring standpoint, Tsuji is off to an incredibly strong start, but in terms of the standings, Goto is now the early leader. Probably not a good sign for his prospects of winning the tournament though, so we’ll see what happens in the coming weeks. On this night, the G in G1 Climax did indeed stand for Goto. ****1/4

Final Thoughts

The first of two nights in Sapporo for the 2026 edition of the G1 Climax was a fairly solid show, with an excellent main event and a number of quality bouts underneath. If you’re pressed for time, I would say that Hirooki Goto vs. Yota Tsuji is the only bout that I would call “notebook worthy”, though Drilla Moloney vs. Gabe Kidd came pretty close. Shingo Takagi vs. Ryohei Oiwa and Boltin Oleg vs. Yuto-Ice were both pretty good matches, and Konosuke Takeshita vs. Jake was fine for the eight minutes or so that it lasted. Great O-Khan vs. SANADA is an easy skip that you don’t need to waste a second on unless you are (like myself) a G1 Climax completist.

With two nights down for the A Block, here is how the standings look. Hirooki Goto is in sole possession of the lead with Four Points, while the majority of the rest of the field is stuck in a huge logjam at two points. SANADA is the only wrestler in the A Block that has yet to score any points.