New Japan Pro Wrestling G1 Climax 26: Full List of Participants, Blocks Revealed & Key Matches For This Year’s Tournament

New Japan has announced all 20 participants for this year’s highly anticipated G1 Climax tournament, as well as both blocks and several of the key matches taking place between July 18th and August 14th.

There are a few pieces of news coming out of the G1 announcement. First off, after being written off the Best of Super Juniors tour and removed from Dominion with an injury, Hiroshi Tanahashi will compete in this year’s tournament after all. Secondly, to fill in some of the gaps left by big New Japan names such as AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson and Kota Ibushi, who have all left the promotion since last year’s tournament, both Naomichi Marufuji and Katsuhiko Nakajima are on loan from Pro Wrestling NOAH. 

Here’s the breakdown: 

A BLOCK

Togi Makabe
Satoshi Kojima
Tomohiro Ishii
Hirooki Goto
Bad Luck Fale
Naomichi Marufuji
Tama Tonga
SANADA
Kazuchika Okada
Hiroshi Tanahashi

B BLOCK

Katuyori Shibata
Yuji Nagata
Tomoaki Honma
Michael Elgin
Toru Yano
EVIL
Tetsuya Naito
Kenny Omega
Katsuhiko Nakajima
Yoshi-Hashi

Note: We will be putting together a deep, comprehensive Beginner’s Guide to the G1 for all those interested in following along with this year’s tournament, which is consistently the best annual series in pro wrestling, bar none. Our guide will break down the history of the G1, each of the participants, and the basic Who, What, Where, When and Why’s for all our readers looking to dive into the world of New Japan. Look for that some time in the next few days. 

While we will have a full tournament match listing in the weeks leading into this year’s tournament, New Japan has provided several of the key matches to hype many of the major shows. 

7/18

Tanahashi vs Sanada

Okada vs Marufuji

7/22

Nagata vs Naito

Shibata vs Honma

7/23

Tanahashi vs Makabe

Okada vs Sanada

7/24

Shibata vs Nakajima

Honma vs Yoshi-Hashi

7/25

Makabe vs Sanada

Okada vs Goto

7/27

Yano vs Naito

Shibata vs Elgin

7/28

Ishii vs Marufuji

Goto vs Sanada

7/30

Elgin vs Omega

Shibata vs Naito

7/31

Makabe vs Marufuji

Tanahashi vs Goto

8/1

Yoshi-Hashi vs Nakajima

Honma vs Naito

8/3

Tanahashi vs Ishii

Makabe vs Okada

8/4

Nakajima vs Naito

Omega vs Shibata

8/6

Tanahashi vs Marufuji

Okada vs Ishii

8/7

Omega vs Nagata

Naito vs Evil

8/8

Ishii vs Sanada

Tanahashi vs Kojima

8/10

Honma vs Elgin

Shibata vs Nagata

8/12

Goto vs Marufuji

Tanahashi vs Okada

8/13

Shibata vs Evil

Naito vs Omega