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NJPW G1 Climax 35 Participants And Blocks Announced, Play-In Tournament

Originally posted on Wrestling on SI | By Sid Pullar III | Last updated Jun 15, 2025 1:24 PM ET

The G1 Climax 35 tournament is only just one month away and the company has announced the first 16 stars that will compete through the summer series.

The NJPW Dominion event from Sunday, June 15 featured an official announcement of the participants in this year's tournament.

The A Block of the G1 Climax 35 will consist of IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Hirooki Goto, last year's finalist Yota Tsuji, new NEVER Openweight Champion Boltin Oleg, Hiroshi Tanahashi, SANADA, David Finlay, EVIL, Yuya Uemura and two more competitors.

The G1 Climax 35 entrants and play-in match schedule are here!

Full details: https://t.co/hrM8ZWFvdU #G1CLIMAX35 pic.twitter.com/prauXO0q5U
— NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) June 15, 2025

The most notable star part of the A Block is Tanahashi, who will be competing in the final G1 tournament of his career with his retirement match already announced for next year's NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20 show.

Meanwhile, B Block will feature last year's G1 Climax 34 winner Zack Sabre Jr., new IWGP Global Heavyweight Champion Gabe Kidd, NJPW World TV Champion El Phantasmo, Shota Umino, Shingo Takagi, Great-O-Khan, Ren Narita and two more participants.

The final four spots in the G1 Climax will be determined in the upcoming Play-In tournament that will consist of four separate matches instead of the single elimination format from last year.

The Play-In matches will take place on the NJPW Soul series starting on June 23rd and will end July 6th.

The G1 Climax 35 tournament will start on July 18th and conclude with the Finals on August 17th. The winner of the G1 will challenge for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship on January 4th, 2026 at NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 20 in the Tokyo Dome.

This article first appeared on Wrestling on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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