The G1 Climax 28 winner, Hiroshi Tanahashi, has stated he will defend the briefcase against Kazuchika Okada and Jay White.
The winner of NJPW’s annual G1 tournament receives a briefcase with a contract for the title shot at WrestleKingdom inside. In recent years, the G1 winner has had to defend the briefcase before advancing to the Tokyo Dome. No G1 Winner has yet to lose the briefcase before WrestleKingdom, however.
Jay White was the only wrestler to defeat Tanahashi in the tournament while Okada and Tanahashi went to a 30-minute draw on the final night of the round-robin.
His post-match press conference comments were translated by the owner of PuroLove.com:
In his post #g128 press conference now 3 time winner Hiroshi Tanahashi said there's no doubt that the G1 champion will become the center of attention in the second half of 2018. He already has an opponent in mind to whom he lost at Wrestling Dontaku and who he drew with in the G1 pic.twitter.com/YlhVyI3cV5
— STRIGGA (@STRIGGA) August 13, 2018
Tanahashi wants to go to the dome after knocking down Okada. He said he understands Okada's strengh well enough so he thinks there's a need to defend his briefcase against Okada even there is a risk of losing.
— STRIGGA (@STRIGGA) August 13, 2018
Even though he considers his G1 victory a "complete resurrection" (kanzen fukkatsu/????) he thinks it's impossible to avoid Okada. When he was asked about Jay White Tanahashi also added that he would like to defend his certificate against him.
— STRIGGA (@STRIGGA) August 13, 2018
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Kazuchika Okada
As it stands right now, Okada would have to either defeat Hiroshi Tanahashi for the G1 briefcase or Kenny Omega for the IWGP Heavyweight title in order to be in the main event of WrestleKingdom.
If Okada is not in the main event at WrestleKingdom 13 it will be the first time since WrestleKingdom 8 he hasn’t been.
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Jay White
Tanahashi’s post-match comments centered more around Okada than they did Jay White. Still, as the only person to defeat Hiroshi Tanahashi in the G1, White will likely be given a shot at the briefcase.
White and his CHAOS stablemates have not been seeing eye-to-eye as of late. It’s unclear what White’s future with the faction is.