[7.0] "Seemingly the biggest surprise of the tournament, but was it really' The KKhan ripoff's legit grappling background and longtime UK sojourn makes him a legit good opponent for what ZSJ likes to do. Z was the man during during O'C's stay, so it must be kinda surreal and an honor to face him at Korakuen. His unique submissions also work well w/ Z's lanky build. My only disappointment was the kinda flat finish as I didn't think the bout had yet to properly climax. 3 2/5, best match of O'Carn's career up to this point."
[8.0] "I knew this would be a sleeper hit and one of the best matches of the tournament. Sabre Jr is on an absolute tear and O-Khan is at best when against a hot babyface like Tana or showcasing his grappling skill. They spend quite a lot of time on the mat going 50/50. All of it looked smooth without a hint of choreography. They struggled to find an advantage until O-Khan went for Zack's leg. Zack sold the urgency of O-Khan's holds perfectly by quickly getting rope breaks. Zack's selling is often criticized for his slim frame and awkward bumps but I've always liked his selling and it was remarkable here. Loved the way he sold those Mongolian Chops and the damage to his back later on. There was a struggle for everything. O-Khan looked excellent as he applied some painful looking submissions holds like that sick looking abdominal stretch and torture rack. Zack used his PURE TEKKERS to lock in one of his submissions out of nowhere which made O-Khan tap out instantly. This was different and great. Give me a feud with these two please. ****"
[7.0] "This felt very UWF/UWFi-inspired featuring a lot of interesting grappling all throughout. O-Khan got to show off his amateur wrestling skills here, and it was very nice getting to see him counter and go 50/50 with Sabre's grappling expertise. It was a nice change of pace when they then switched their game up and decided to start trading strikes. I loved Sabre's selling of the Mongolian Chops, especially his delayed selling when it came to trying to hit his own strikes and then being unable to apply his usual pretzel holds due to the damage done. O-Khan's submission holds all looked very overwhelmingly powerful, perfectly matching his character work. Sabre's crazy holds out of nowhere were fantastic as always, especially how he got crazy inverted-triangle armbar for the immediate tap-out. O-Khan had taken Sabre to his limit, but Sabre was still able to rely on his pure technique to pull out the win. ***1/4"
[8.0] "Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Great-O-Khan was an unexpected technical showcase. Great-O-Khan really showed off in this match keeping up with arguably the best technical wrestler in the world. Great-O-Khan really becoming one a solid wrestler. The United Empire will be a force to be reckoned with when they reunite. ZSJ is really on fire with the performances this year."
[9.0] "4.25 Stars - This match fucking ruled. Awesome counter submission wrestling. O Khan plays so well into his character and added a layer of brutality to his submission offence. as a standout amaruer he shows his skills so well but the ending despite him stretching and keeping up with Sabre, Sabre is able to catch him out and O Khan goes for quick tap as hes caught and needs to fight for another day rather than milk it for the drama"
[6.0] "Damn, I'm conflicted right now, cause I don't know how to feel about this. I definitely understand pro wrestling as a performance art form instead of a legitimate combat sport, but while I'm no grappling/BJJ mastermind, I've seen enough and practiced these disciplines a decent amount that my brain just kept leaning towards the actual martial arts side throughout the entire match, making it a very weird viewing experience. Rating it as an exhibition grappling bout, I think I would be really harsh, but as a pro wrestling match, which it is, of course, I thought it was okay. My words maybe a bit contradicting cause I find this matchup genuinely hard to rate and value - **3/4."
[8.0] "As a lover of shoot-style, I'm kinda liked this bout. GOK's performance was great, I know he has some technical background and ZSJ exploited it very well. That was so fluid. GOK's nose bleeding add some epicness to the match. Surely Oka's best match, for now, I hope."
[7.0] "It's for me the best match of the show, like always with Zack Sabre Jr, even if it's clearly his least good match since the beginning of the G1, what is clearly impressive. Great O-Khan maybe did his best performance since his return to New Japan, I was surprised to see him doing a good technical performance. At the other side, ZSJ is incredible. ***1/2"
[8.0] "The best match I have ever seen Okhan have. Grappling doesn't thrill me in pro wrestling unless the guys actually work for submissions and pins which they both did. Zack made Okhan look like a threat more so than any opponent he has faced while still showing fire himself. I still hate Okhan's gimmick and the Mongolian chop exchange I thought was a step down from the grappling I saw but still overall great stuff. Really hoping Zack wins his block it's getting me excited for this g1."
[8.0] "WHAT A DAMN MATCH! Technical wrestling in beautiful form with tributes to Antonio Inoki and Billy Robinson throughout. Zack Sabre Jr. is legitimately on one of the best runs in modern wrestling history right now. Great-O-Khan is really proving himself in his own right. Together, the modernized Catch Wrestling of ZSJ blended perfectly with the amateur background of Great-O-Khan. The counters, the holds, the striking contest, the selling, the finish? Unbelievable. Going 4.25 stars, 8.5 out of 10. Will definitely be watching this one again."
[9.0] "This is a real sleeper hit. O-Khan's matwork is shockingly smooth as silk, and that sets up a contest of two guys trying to one-up one another. Sabre's experience and focus vs O-Khan's raw physicality while jocking for position on the mat and striking is the story here and it's so simple but perfectly gotten across. The way they move from sequence to sequence is again simple, but perfectly paced as they escalate from feeling each other out to their strike battle to the finish moments. Sabre's selling is awesome here, he made O-Khan's mongolian chops look deadly, and the selling of the arm when he goes for his uppercut is great. I loved the portion where O-K goes from clawing the face during an abdominal stretch, to just choking the life out of ZSJ, to stretching Zack's spine perpendicular to his own in this weird variant of a torture rack while his gloved hand was still across the throat the whole time. Ultimately, despite having a bunch of convincing near-wins and counters to Zack's stuff, Zack has one crucial counter to the attempted "curl the armbar up into a powerbomb" spot into a hold that torques the arm in a way that immediately gives him the submission win. This was fantastic, yet another top-tier performance from ZSJ in this G1 and a real showcase of the talent O-Khan has behind the gimmick. This is one of the best matches of the tournament so far, easily, behind Shingo/ZSJ and maybe Shingo/Ishii. ****1/4"
[8.0] "Wonderful match. Perhaps the only match I've ever seen between two people who look like legit shooters submission wise. Could have done with even more time and a more centre stage slot on the card. Loved the flash submission finish. ****1/4"
[9.0] "Very weird and unique match. Didnt knew Great O-Khan was this good in technical wrestling. Catch wrestling was so good and the mid match convos were on point too"
[6.0] "Weird match. I didn't find this interesting. It was correct, of course, the two wrestlers are good technicians but... that's not really interesting for me."
[8.0] "Wow it was very good match. Great O Khan was so impressive in this match, maybe best performance of his career. Both produced a great technical wrestling match. GOK had to switch to submission games to handle ZSJ and that ending choke submission from GOK was so deadly! (****)"
[8.0] "This was truly a surprise. O-khan finally put on a great showcase after series of mediocre and so-so performances. ZSJ was great as usual without a doubt. Love the first part, O-khan uses Zack's own strength: technical stuff to combat the British man. He then mixed it with his usual power stuff to challenge his opponent. Zack was smart enough to apply his submissions and suddenly locked O-khan for the hard-earned win. Really interesting to see how impressive o-khan's performance was in this match. Great stuff."
[6.0] "Great O'Khan created a surprise by coming to Zack's field. It was a submission battle from start to finish, with many great ideas adding to the game. Not my favorite wrestling style, but a decent G1 match"
[6.0] "Solid encounter between Zack Sabre Jr. and Great-O-Khan to continue the good pace of this show but a little too overrated for my taste here, I found the content pretty convincing because it's always the case with ZSJ and even more so with his form at the moment but at no point did I find it particularly amazing or exciting. There's nothing I can do, try as I might, it really doesn't click with O-Khan and it certainly never will because to me he's just an annoying wrestler. He's not bad at all and in all honesty he performed well here (probably one of the best matches of his career) but it's impossible for me to get invested in a match he's in because he gives off so little, ZSJ was clearly superior to him in every way. The mat stuff was intense and all of that but it was so inferior to ZSJ's matches against Naito, Takagi and Ibushi recently."
[10.0] "There's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said. The Dominator and the Human Udon Noodle put on an amazing technical bout and above all, a completely fair, clean match, despite both men being heels."
[9.0] "Amazing technical match between the two current block leaders, with O-Kahn surprisingly going hold for hold, submission for submission with ZSJ, and I didn't even know he really had any submission skills! These two have amazing chemistry, I would love for a rematch down the line."
[6.0] "I mean, this wasn't bad or anything, but they showed a lot of grappling and submissions, which was logical indeed, but it just dominated the content of the match and they barely did anything else, like it is still good for what it was. It just dragged at times, due to lack of variety so to speak. They also showed some shots here and there, but the best part is obviously that Zack got another win! #ZSJG1"
[9.0] "Great match! Started out as a shoot-style tribute of some sort with pure grappling work on the mat, and ZSJ reminded me of Tamura with some of his moves (lofty comparison, I know). Then it transitioned into an old-school NJPW match from the 80s with nice submission work and more traditional pro-style spots. One of the best matches of the tournament so far. ****1/2"
[8.0] "I didn't expect this match to be that good. They had an amazing Chemistry and O-Khan is so good on the mat while Zack is imo the best technical Wrestler in the World. The best Singles Match O-Khan ever had (****)"
[10.0] "WOW. I didn't expect Zack Sabre Jr and Great O-Khan to have an incredible match but they did. The story of the match was mat work, and the mat work was masterclass. I could have watched this go for hours with them just trading back and forth submissions or strikes. 10/10."
[7.0] "Battle for the top of the snow-peaked mountain way down south AND IT WAS GREAT! Zack Sabre Jr and The Great O-Khan trash talking and showboating was amazing and the technical parts were simply incredible. I knew that O-Khan would have a good match on the G1 Climax AND I KNEW that it was going to be against the Technical Wizard! What a good display of what a tecnician bout is. ****"
[8.0] "This was exactly the kind of match I wanted from this pairing and right now it's my second favourite match of the G1 behind Shingo vs Ishii. O-Khan is at his best when he leans into his grappling background and he did exactly that here. Sometimes when pro wrestlers grapple like this they can be really exposed. O-Khan looked more legitimate to me here, which is to be expected with both his size and his background, but Zack held his own well enough. Even flow-sparring is exhausting and that was evident in this match but they did a good job of breaking things up into "Rounds" of action, and I liked how suddenly the end came about. Likely not every pro wrestling fan's cup of tea but I really liked it."
[8.0] "Chemistry was top between the two and worked out a very good story during the match, by far one of the best performances of GOK. ZSJ is just him like always adding storytelling and hype to the match."
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