We know that the best match of the tournament was the Kazuchika Okada .vs. Will Ospreay meeting from night seven. It was given five-and-three-quarter stars in Dave Meltzer's review.
Now, the question is - did it perform better than any of the previous G1 Climax matches in history?
The answer is no.
But, it came very close.
The record for the best match in a G1 Climax is currently the six stars that Okada and Kenny Omega earned for their bout from night eighteen in the 2017 tournament.
When Kambi opened a market, allowing its punters to wager on whether the record would be broken this year, the 'No' was a 7/10 favourite over the 'Yes' at EVS.
As you'll see below, the gamblers backed the favourite. It descended all the way down to 2/13 by the weekend of the last round of matches.
With 5.75 stars being this year's highest rating, it would be quite obvious to state that the overall Wrestling Observer star rating record was also not beaten.
Okada and Omega are the wrestlers who hold the record with the seven stars they had for their two-out-of-three falls match at last year's NJPW Dominion show.
The 'No' was a 6/25 favourite when the market was initially priced up. It was moved down to 1/40 on the Friday before the last rounds of block matches.
On the topic of records from 2018, the G1 Climax 28 tournament had the most most amount of matches rated five stars or above. The bookies priced up a market - titled '5 Star Galore' and gave punters the opportunity to wager whether or not the record of seven tournament matches with five stars or more - would be broken.
In the table, there's enough evidence to point to the consensus initially believing there was no chance of a record breaking as the price for the 'No' fell from EVS to 11/50 within the first month of activity.
By the weekend of the final three nights of action, the 'Yes' was an 11/20 favourite over the 'No' at 5/4. At this point, Dave Meltzer had handed out six ratings of five stars or more. They recipients were:
Night 5) Ibushi .vs. Ospreay 5 Stars
Night 6) Ishii .vs. Moxley 5 Stars
Night 7) Okada .vs Ospreay 5 3/4 Stars
Night 13) Okada .vs. SANADA 5 Stars
Night 14) Naito .vs. Takagi 5 Stars
Night 16) Ishii .vs. Takagi 5 1/2 Stars
For the record to be broken, two more matches had to be graded five or more stars with eleven matches left.
And it was broken.
Kota Ibushi .vs. Okada - the main event of the final round of A Block matches - was given five stars. Then, for the final, Ibushi versus Jay White received five-and-a-half.
The record was broken by one match and - as a result - those who may have backed the 'Yes' in the '5 Star Galore' market had their wagers settled in their favour.
In future posts, I'll look at other G1 Climax props and O/U markets.
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