{"id":145829,"date":"2022-09-06T10:01:35","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T15:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=145829"},"modified":"2022-09-07T13:34:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T18:34:52","slug":"exclusive-david-finlay-talks-in-detail-about-his-g1-climax-tournament-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2022\/09\/06\/exclusive-david-finlay-talks-in-detail-about-his-g1-climax-tournament-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: David Finlay talks in detail about his G1 Climax tournament experience (part one)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-3541097912\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>New Japan Pro Wrestling star, David Finlay, said that this year&#8217;s G1 Climax tournament run had many memorable moments for him, but the biggest was defeating IWGP United States Champion, Will Ospreay.<\/p>\n<p>In an exclusive interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2022\/09\/05\/video-fireside-chat-special-episode-discussing-cm-punk-all-out-media-scrum-situation\/\">PWTorch Assistant Editor, Zack Heydorn,<\/a> Finlay discussed the G1 in detail, including insight on managing the grind of the tournament and his match against Juice Robinson.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel I had a lot of really good moments in the G1 this year, but I think the most memorable moment would have to be beating Will Ospreay,&#8221; Finlay said. &#8220;Not just because I beat Ospreay, but because I beat Juice Robinson (3x IWGP US Champion), Shingo Takagi (Former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion), and Will Ospreay (former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion and current IWGP US champion) consecutively. I feel that\u2019s when I had the most momentum and after being away from Japan for over a year, it was the perfect\u00a0\u00a0way to show the fans and the roster that I mean business. I said all tour that this is my year and this is my time. I feel I proved that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the grueling G1 Climax tournament schedule, Finlay simply said that it didn&#8217;t affect him very much.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Managing the grind of the tournament was easy, honestly,&#8221; Finlay said. I hadn\u2019t been to Japan in about 14 months so I actually missed being on the road and wrestling most nights. Wrestling makes me happy and the G1 was a great opportunity to prove to everyone that I\u2019ve leveled up, so I welcomed the grind with open arms. Yes, the travel and hotels suck and your body is constantly hurting from fighting your heart out every night, but I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way. Don\u2019t forget, I grew up in and around wrestling. I was built for this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Finlay&#8217;s match against Juice Robinson was a classic and something rooted in a deep history between both men.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That match was building from the first day we were in the dojo together,&#8221; Finlay said. &#8220;Seven years of being on the road together. We won World Tag League together. We won the Impact world tag team championships. We were even IWGP Heavyweight tag team champions at one point.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Juice and I had been through a lot of hard times and done a lot of hard things together and I viewed him as a big brother. Then one day juice said he was retiring but a month later he joined Bullet Club instead. He then went on to win the IWGP US championship for the third time. He then claimed I was dead weight and that my greatest\u00a0\u00a0accomplishment was tagging with him. This got me fired up because I was tired of being stuck in his shadow. I always believed I was better than Juice and I proved that when I beat him at Korakuen.&#8221;<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-2888598477\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Because he defeated Will Ospreay in the G1 Climax 32 tournament, he&#8217;s likely in line for a shot at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/njpwglobal\/status\/1566992083327414272\">Ospreay&#8217;s IWGP United States Championship<\/a> at some point this year.<\/p>\n<p><em>Part two of Zack Heydorn&#8217;s interview with David Finlay will drop on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\">PWTorch.com<\/a> later today.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>CATCH-UP:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2022\/08\/18\/wrestle-kingdom-set-to-return-as-one-night-event\/\">Wrestle Kingdom set to return as one night event<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-901272901\"><div id=\"pwtor-2892396714\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>New Japan Pro Wrestling star, David Finlay, said that this year&#8217;s G1 Climax tournament run had many memorable moments for him, but the biggest was defeating IWGP United States Champion, Will Ospreay. In an exclusive <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2022\/09\/06\/exclusive-david-finlay-talks-in-detail-about-his-g1-climax-tournament-experience\/\" title=\"EXCLUSIVE: David Finlay talks in detail about his G1 Climax tournament experience (part one)\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":145907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[2786,2149,404],"class_list":["post-145829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prowrestlingnews","category-news_japan","tag-david-finlay","tag-new-japan-pro-wrestling","tag-njpw"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2022\/09\/David-Finlay-2.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145832,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145829\/revisions\/145832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}