NJPW Announces Block Lineups And Elimination Phase For G1 Climax 33

By Dylan Murray
Kazuchika Okada celebrating his NJPW G1 Climax 32 victory inside the ring Etsuo Hara/Getty Images

The 2023 edition of NJPW's G1 Climax tournament is just weeks away, and this year's event is shaping up to be an unpredictable tournament for the ages. While the participants were announced last week at NJPW Dominion, the most recent New Japan Road provided further information on the block lineup for this year's round-robin tournament. Showcasing four blocks of eight men, the G1 Climax 33 will be the largest in the tournament's history.

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Here are the block lineups for G1 Climax 33:

A BLOCK

  • SANADA

  • Chase Owens

  • Hikuleo

  • Ren Narita

  • Shota Umino

  • Yota Tsuji

  • Gabriel Kidd

  • Kaito Kiyomiya (NOAH)

B BLOCK

  • Kazuchika Okada

  • YOSHI-HASHI

  • Tanga Loa

  • El Phantasmo

  • Taichi

  • KENTA

  • Great-O-Khan

  • Will Ospreay

C BLOCK

  • Tomohiro Ishii

  • Tama Tonga

  • Mikey Nichols

  • Shingo Takagi

  • Eddie Kingston (AEW)

  • Aaron Henare

  • EVIL

  • David Finlay

D BLOCK

  • Hiroshi Tanahashi

  • Hirooki Goto

  • Toru Yano

  • Tetsuya Naito

  • Zack Sabre Jr.

  • Jeff Cobb

  • Shane Haste

  • Alex Coughlin

Following the block lineup announcement, the schedule for this year's tournament was also announced. The schedule announcement revealed that there would be a total of eight finalists in this year's tournament in contrast to the four last year and two in years prior. While block action concludes on August 9, the Elimination Phase of the G1 will begin on August 10, putting the top two competitors of each block into an eight-person single elimination bracket to determine the true winner of the G1 Climax 33.

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While only consisting of two blocks, this year's Best of the Super Juniors tournament featured a similar format to this year's G1 Climax, with the top two competitors from each block advancing to semifinal matches. This made for a completely unexpected final of Master Wato vs. Titan, both of which were the runners-up of their respective blocks.

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