Ranking all favorites to win the 2018 G1 Climax

#2 Kazuchika Okada

During this year’s Dominion 6.9 event, Kazuchika Okada’s legendary 720-day run as IWGP Heavyweight Champion finally came to an end when Bullet Club’s Kenny Omega defeated him in a dramatic 2 out of 3 falls match.

Okada, however, is now determined to get back to the top of the mountain once again and what better ways to start other than win the prestigious G1 Climax for the third time in his career and subsequently book his ticket to the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 13.

But, in order to do so, Okada will the uphill task of going through the likes of Tanahashi, Evil, and fellow CHAOS stablemate Jay White.

#1 Tetsuya Naito

This year’s G1 Climax is going to be a two-way dance between A Block’s Kazuchika Okada and B Block’s Tetsuya Naito, whose NJPW career is currently in a very weird state. The year 2018 hasn’t been kind to Tetsuya Naito so far after he first lost the main event of WK 12 to Okada, which was followed up by a recent IWGP IC Title defeat to Chris Jericho at Dominion.

However, Naito is now on the verge of creating history yet and will look forward to becoming the first ever superstar to retain the G1 Climax crown and finally get his hands on the IWGP Heavyweight Title once again.

About the author

Soumik Datta is a professional wrestling journalist who has been following the business for more than a decade.

In 2017, Soumik joined the Sportskeeda Wrestling team and is best known for his work with the WWE team. He has previously contributed to the Sportskeeda AEW, MMA, and the football team where he specifically covered the Major League Soccer.

In 2024, Soumik crossed 50 million reads for Sportskeeda WWE. While working under Sportskeeda MMA, he interviewed prominent UFC fighters, including Justin Gaethje, Sean O'Malley, and Cory Sandhagen, among others. He is also being followed by John Cena on X (formerly Twitter).

Apart from his love for professional wrestling, Soumik also watches Football and has been a lifelong follower of Liverpool FC and Mohun Bagan. He has also been following the Indian Super League and remains the only content creator to have traveled across India to watch 7 ISL Matches in 7 Days, a video which currently sits at 26K views on his YouTube channel. His channel currently amasses over 120K views.

As aforementioned, Soumik also likes to make content for his YouTube channel and travel to various places either with family, friends, or solo, or go on road trips.

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Edited by Kishan Prasad