Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tomoaki Honma

[8.0] "I had this as a 7.5/10 last night, but after waking up today and having to choose between a 7 or an 8 for cagematch, I have chosen an 8. The reason I gave this an 8 is because the following day I still remember parts of it fondly, the match just stood out to me. Honma was so over in this match, and his collapsing headbut is a very fun move! I was so happy when he finally landed it, after many attempts being missed and seeing his face plant into the canvas haha. It was a good back and forth match, both men got their stuff in and the result was the right one. The crowd were great for this match and Honma had great chemistry with Tana."

[7.0] "These two have really good chemistry together and have the hottest crowd of the night to work off of. Others have mentioned that Honma really gets over with NJPW fans even moreso by the end of the G1, and putting in this kind of showing against the Ace, you can see why. Excited to see what's to come."

[8.0] "I thought this was a very well worked babyface against babyface match with good wrestling throughout. The crowd were behind Honma here and he was on a run of banger matches around this time and probably the most popular midcard babyface in any promotion. ****"

[8.0] "Tomoaki Honma wasn't even meant to be in this tournament. He's replacing Kota Ibushi (would've loved to see Tanahashi vs Ibushi here, but we get that match a lot so I shouldn't complain). It's well documented that Honma becomes super popular over the course of this tournament, but going into this match against the ace, he's already got the crowd behind him. Tanahashi, one of the greatest ever, immediately picks up on this and works much more maliciously in order to encourage the crowd to get behind Honma. The pop for that first Kokeshi is great. Great match, 4 stars"

[9.0] "Excellent match. I loved the way they built up crowd excitement with some of the spots like the suplex battle and the missed dropping head butts. Also, the way they put together spots where the crowd thought Honma was gonna possibly pull this off was a thing of beauty. I probably rating this higher than others but this is my review."

[7.0] "Nice first match in what would be a streak of great Honma matches throughout the tournament. Probably could've been better considering the talent involved. I think Meltzer went a little high with this one but still a fun match."

[8.0] "I thought this was a very strong match between these two - I think Big Dave is about a step too high in his rating of it, but it is very good."