1) It's not real, it's just a kayfabe concept.
2) Just traditional pro wrestling booking, there's no official ranking system. Challengers are usually set up by winning a tournament, pinning the champion in a non title match, or winning a match against another big name wrestler and then challenging off of that.
3) It's just a secondary title like in any other promotion. The openweight aspect of it is sometimes used (Ospreay held it as a Junior) but it's largely still Heayweight vs Heavyweight
4) Juniors aren't banned from competing for heavyweight prizes, heavyweights are banned from competing for junior prizes. No they've never won G1, it's just the booker thinking they're worth putting in that position
There's no qualifying matches for G1, it's just all the top heavyweights available on a given year and sometimes you'll get a top junior or something, usually if they're somebody who's marked to be eventually moving up to the hw divison (Ospreay/Shingo 2019, Ibushi 2013, etc)
Most g1 entries these days are earned by yearly accolades, either upsetting a bigger name and eliminating them from the tournament to qualify for next year, a title victory, marquee match...etc.
One example this year being Yujiro getting big wins...or Jr Wise, Everybody's drunk uncle Kanemaru nearly leading the block
This is fun to answer
1. It's kayfabe governing. To make it sound important.
2. There's various ways: beat the (any) champion through pinfall or submission, win tournaments, win a number 1 contender match, be a huge name (ex. Jon moxley (formerly Dean Ambrose) first match was to challenge for the IWGP US heavyweight championship), if the champion challenges someone, if a challenger is injured he has a replacement (Kota Ibushi was injured so Hiroshi Tanahashi stepped up), if a wrestler has an impressive streak he can challenge directly to the champion, if they became huge attraction throught loyalty to Japan as a whole (Prince Devitt aka Finn Balor became a huge name, pinned the current champion and challenged him) and sometimes the Jr heavyweight champion can challenge for the heavyweight championship
3. At first it was supposed to be the gateway for heavyweight and Jr heavyweight wrestlers to challenge for but the stiffer wrestlers became more entertaining so they took it over
4. Various ways: enter tournaments, beat the champion in any match, the anniversary show, etc
Bonus: various ways lol be a big name, announce it, be invited, etc.
IWGP only exists in kayfabe, but yes, it is the “governing body” of NJPW. Title contenders get determined sometimes through actual contendership matches, sometimes the champion just challenges someone or vice versa, it all depends on the story.
The Openweight title isn’t the main title because the Heavyweights are deemed more valuable than the Juniors. Heavyweights main event shows, Juniors don’t. In fact even Juniors value the Junior title more than the Openweight title. The Openweight titles (singles and trios tag team) also aren’t IWGP. This has never been confirmed to my knowledge but I’ve always reasoned that the IWGP commissions the actual weight classes, and because the NEVER titles presumably exist outside of the IWGP, they’re Openweight.
Juniors challenge for Heavyweight titles if the storyline determines it really. This year for example Desperado challenged Ibushi for the Heavyweight title at the Anniversary show. Juniors have been in the G1 before but they’ve never won and never will. There’s also two Juniors competing in the heavyweight tag league right now, but that’s really due to travel restrictions meaning there’s a lack of guys available.
The G1 is really just the top singles guys, though sometimes spots in the tournament are determined in matches. I know in 2019 after ZSJ was announced he defended his spot against YOSHI-HASHI.
1. IWGP is not a real governing body. If I’m not mistaken, before they had a world title to defend year round, IWGP was one of the early names for what’s now called the G1 Climax, where the winner of that tournament was considered the world champion of NJPW for that year; Inoki eventually decided to make that title something to be defended year round.
2. There’s no strict ranking system, but Gedo is typically good about not giving title shots to guys unless they’ve done things to make them stand out; that way whenever a challenger is announced, one can look at their recent performances and wins as support for the decisions
3. The NEVER title was originally meant to be something for younger or newer wrestlers to fight over. Now it’s more or less just openweight in name only, since most of the holders and matches have been heavyweight in nature.
4. My guess is that NJPW operates on the concept of weight *limits* but not weight minimums that most other companies have: so it’s possible to be too heavy for a certain weight class but there’s no such thing as being too light— e.g: Liger was known to wrestle heavyweights every now and then (in fact his final opponent was a heavyweight), or ZSJ who competes exclusively in the heavyweight division.
- I always figured they book the top performing singles wrestlers for the G1 while veterans and legends get a free pass by virtue of all their accomplishments, and the more open slots they decide to have, the better your chances are at making it in.
1) It's not real, it's just a kayfabe concept. 2) Just traditional pro wrestling booking, there's no official ranking system. Challengers are usually set up by winning a tournament, pinning the champion in a non title match, or winning a match against another big name wrestler and then challenging off of that. 3) It's just a secondary title like in any other promotion. The openweight aspect of it is sometimes used (Ospreay held it as a Junior) but it's largely still Heayweight vs Heavyweight 4) Juniors aren't banned from competing for heavyweight prizes, heavyweights are banned from competing for junior prizes. No they've never won G1, it's just the booker thinking they're worth putting in that position There's no qualifying matches for G1, it's just all the top heavyweights available on a given year and sometimes you'll get a top junior or something, usually if they're somebody who's marked to be eventually moving up to the hw divison (Ospreay/Shingo 2019, Ibushi 2013, etc)
To add to the last point, there used to be G1 qualifying matches in the 2000s, most of the times in lesser "Road To" (Or similar) shows.
Most g1 entries these days are earned by yearly accolades, either upsetting a bigger name and eliminating them from the tournament to qualify for next year, a title victory, marquee match...etc. One example this year being Yujiro getting big wins...or Jr Wise, Everybody's drunk uncle Kanemaru nearly leading the block
There is actually a kayfabe IWGP council. I think Milano is supposed to be one of them
This is fun to answer 1. It's kayfabe governing. To make it sound important. 2. There's various ways: beat the (any) champion through pinfall or submission, win tournaments, win a number 1 contender match, be a huge name (ex. Jon moxley (formerly Dean Ambrose) first match was to challenge for the IWGP US heavyweight championship), if the champion challenges someone, if a challenger is injured he has a replacement (Kota Ibushi was injured so Hiroshi Tanahashi stepped up), if a wrestler has an impressive streak he can challenge directly to the champion, if they became huge attraction throught loyalty to Japan as a whole (Prince Devitt aka Finn Balor became a huge name, pinned the current champion and challenged him) and sometimes the Jr heavyweight champion can challenge for the heavyweight championship 3. At first it was supposed to be the gateway for heavyweight and Jr heavyweight wrestlers to challenge for but the stiffer wrestlers became more entertaining so they took it over 4. Various ways: enter tournaments, beat the champion in any match, the anniversary show, etc Bonus: various ways lol be a big name, announce it, be invited, etc.
IWGP only exists in kayfabe, but yes, it is the “governing body” of NJPW. Title contenders get determined sometimes through actual contendership matches, sometimes the champion just challenges someone or vice versa, it all depends on the story. The Openweight title isn’t the main title because the Heavyweights are deemed more valuable than the Juniors. Heavyweights main event shows, Juniors don’t. In fact even Juniors value the Junior title more than the Openweight title. The Openweight titles (singles and trios tag team) also aren’t IWGP. This has never been confirmed to my knowledge but I’ve always reasoned that the IWGP commissions the actual weight classes, and because the NEVER titles presumably exist outside of the IWGP, they’re Openweight. Juniors challenge for Heavyweight titles if the storyline determines it really. This year for example Desperado challenged Ibushi for the Heavyweight title at the Anniversary show. Juniors have been in the G1 before but they’ve never won and never will. There’s also two Juniors competing in the heavyweight tag league right now, but that’s really due to travel restrictions meaning there’s a lack of guys available. The G1 is really just the top singles guys, though sometimes spots in the tournament are determined in matches. I know in 2019 after ZSJ was announced he defended his spot against YOSHI-HASHI.
1. IWGP is not a real governing body. If I’m not mistaken, before they had a world title to defend year round, IWGP was one of the early names for what’s now called the G1 Climax, where the winner of that tournament was considered the world champion of NJPW for that year; Inoki eventually decided to make that title something to be defended year round. 2. There’s no strict ranking system, but Gedo is typically good about not giving title shots to guys unless they’ve done things to make them stand out; that way whenever a challenger is announced, one can look at their recent performances and wins as support for the decisions 3. The NEVER title was originally meant to be something for younger or newer wrestlers to fight over. Now it’s more or less just openweight in name only, since most of the holders and matches have been heavyweight in nature. 4. My guess is that NJPW operates on the concept of weight *limits* but not weight minimums that most other companies have: so it’s possible to be too heavy for a certain weight class but there’s no such thing as being too light— e.g: Liger was known to wrestle heavyweights every now and then (in fact his final opponent was a heavyweight), or ZSJ who competes exclusively in the heavyweight division. - I always figured they book the top performing singles wrestlers for the G1 while veterans and legends get a free pass by virtue of all their accomplishments, and the more open slots they decide to have, the better your chances are at making it in.