Leave us your feedback and questions coming out of New Japan’s Dominion card.
WH Park & I will have a show up Saturday on the POST Wrestling Cafe.
I love watching New Japan PPVs in England. Breakfast and wrestling. Loved the young bucks match, Osprey was brilliant, underwhelmed by Jericho / Naitio and blown away by Omega / Okada. The crowd in the last 30 minutes was insane. Amazing night.
This was an incredible show. Worth waking up at 3am in the morning and overloading on coffee. So many great matches. The Naito/Jericho match was a war. Ospreay and Hiromu tore it up. The Bucks and Evil/Sanada had a great match. But that main event… if you think selling is dead, you aren’t paying attention. 7 Stars. My questions to you are what do you think is happening at the Cow Palace and who do you want to see in the G1?
James in Japan
I’m exhausted after watching that, and i got to watch it at a reasonable time so god knows how you Americans and Canadians are feeling.
Great show with plenty of solid opening matches.
Ospreay Hiromu was amazing, if not a little scary at points. Will’s one armed reverse that dropped Hiromu on his head had me wincing.
Naito Jericho was crazy. Just beat the shit out of each other and i was surprised Jericho won tbh but excited to see where this goes. Naito’s eye looked nasty.
The main event was just incredible. i’ve watched all of their fights live and every time i say “wow they can’t top that” and i’ve been proven wrong repeatedly.
Even though i wanted Okada to win i will admit to getting a little emotional when Kenny went over.
Overal, a truly great show.
Truly a remarkable show. I’ll start with the low first.
Suprisingly the low was the 6 man tag with Mysterio. He himself was fine. But the booking here was very wierd. Obviously Rey is coming back, so why have the three legends lose in such a anticlimatic way? The crowd seemed deflated by that loss as well. Luckily that was the lone stumble on an otherwise incredible show.
The high spots for me:
The incredible match with the Bucks. Such great storytelling in that match with both Matt and Nick really selling seperate injuries and still managing to fight through for the win.
Chris Jericho, I mean that match was ridiculous. Naito got the crap beat out of him for real, but it sold just how maniacal Jericho is in this persona. I can see an eventual program between him and Okada. now that he no longer has the belt.
The match between Ospreay and Hiromu was stellar, I love that Hiromu put a bandaid on the broken trophy. Not as many crazy spots in this one but there was no lack of them. Chiefly the incredibly scary counter Ospreay had to the triangle where hiromu’s neck looked like an accordion. Ouch.
And the main event. Maybe the greatest match I’ve ever seen taken as a whole. The story at the end with the Bucks, Omega and Ibushi embracing is a image that will forever be associated with this match and show. To much in the match to cover, I won’t even try but I did love Omega using the Styles Clash and the pop that got from the crowd (and we got an AJ Styles chant!) and Omega bringing back that high angle uranage. which calls to mind the great Hiroshi Hase.
10//10 for this show
Pretty sure that Cow Palace show is gonna sell out now. I can’t see them not having Jericho and Omega on it…
Just watched top three matches. Wow!
Gedo is the best booker of his generation. I felt Omega should have won the belt last year. I was so wrong! If that had happened we wouldn’t have had the zsj and Tanahashi matches of 2018 and the terrific break up of the bullet club and golden lovers’ stories.
Now is the time and that was the perfect match!
New Japan tells stories! In a story you can usually guess the outcome but you enjoy the ride.
Compare this to wrestlemania where vince told a year long story then changed his mind at the last second. Im sick of swerves and schizophrenic booking. True storytelling is patient, deliberate, sometimes predictable, but ultimately satisfying.
Thank God for NJPW!!!
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Chris from Australia.
So just when you think wrestling is “predictable” along comes NJPW Dominion.
Michael Elgin wins the NEVER Openweight Championship, Osprey vs Takahashi show what a Junior Heavyweight match should be in 2018, Jericho is a NJPW Champion while still signed to WWE, and Kenny Omega has truly Changed The World.
Without repeating what’s already been stated above it was a great show headlined by three great matches.
Just two quick questions,
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After NJPW toured Australia in February i was under the impression they were looking to tour again, any official word on possible tour details?
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With talk of global expansion where could you see events being held for either Live or VOD on NJPW World outside of Japan & “War of the World tours”?
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Louis from Long Beach.
I stayed up till 5:00am this morning to watch this show.
The Bucks vs Sanada and Evil was solid. Naito vs Jericho was really good with a similar style to his match vs Omega but the thing I’ll remember about this show was Omega v Okada.
Every time I watch them wrestle I think they can’t top their previous match and coming into this match I thought how are they going to top their last match in a best 2 out of 3. Maybe its the sleep deprivation talking or maybe its recency bias but that was the best wrestling match I’ve ever watched. You combine the history between the two, the intensity of the competitors and the unbelievable in ring storytelling.
If someone were to ask me why I love wrestling this match would be the answer. It was 4:30 in the morning and I was standing in my chair yelling at my monitor hoping that Kenny would win the match. The exhaustion, the false finishes, and the seemingly unstoppable Okada. It seemed like it would all be too much but then the final One Winged Angel was hit and everything was right in the wrestling world.
Then the post match, when Kenny pushed away the Championship belt to hug the Youngbucks, I cried, the storytelling over the past year in particular the really strong stuff they’ve done on being the elite makes this by far the best storyline in wrestling.
I’ll be passing out soon but I’ll be doing it with a gigantic smile on my face.
Long Live the Golden Elite.
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It’s hard to put into context what this show was. I guess to steal from Kenny in his post interview - this is a new height of New Japan Pro Wrestling. Greatness to me is continuing to match and exceed expectations that are already extremely high. This show has so much anticipation for what it could be and for me it more than delivered.
The Jr division has been on fire and I am curious where this stacks up historically?
Jericho winning a title in New Japan, anything really does feel possible. While it would feel like Naito would get a rematch the inclusion of Evil makes me thing we have only just seen the beginning of Jericho in Japan - and what a version Y2Japan is!
The Bucks match showed me another level of the guys who actually did the job. Evil and Sanada worked at a nice pace with the Bucks and I look forward to both of them in the G1.
Speaking of G1 - any chance Osprey losing the Jr title is to free him up for a G1 run. That could lead to so many incredible matchups.
Rey feels like an afterthought but certainly something to look forward to going forward.
And Omega did it! He ended Okada’s reign in a match that was so rich in story telling and backstory and history of this rivalry. Coming off the NBA Finals where arguably one of the greatest of all times played arguable one of the greatest teams of all time - I can’t help be feel the same having seen these 4 matches. Omega is the LeBron of Wrestling right now - every time you think you’ve seen his best, he ups it a level. And Okada will go down as having one of the greatest runs and tonight showed every reason why his run was a success. From being in control to selling to story telling to the facials - he was incredible in defeat.
Also - Fox fuxx’d up. Should spend half the money and air New Japan on Friday’s. More wrestling fans need to experience this level of performance top to bottom on a card. There was so much story telling on this show. Don Callis in particular added SO much to the main event with stuff about Omega’s prep with Ibushi.
Don’t known if you saw Omega afterwards but he talked about what NJPW could be and that it’s limitless and features the very best. He is correct. When any guy has the ability and freedom in the ring to have the match of the night, that’s wrestling I’ll wake up at 3am eastern for. I watched the entire main event from my rooftop in NYC as the sun rose and I cheered and gasped and marveled. This is Professional Wrestling I love! What a morning.
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Lara from Vancouver
Phenomenal show. Bucks vs Evil/Sanada was an early gem as was ZSJ/Suzuki vs Ishii/Yano.
Takahashi/Ospreay was very good but lacked a certain fluid connective tissue between spots to make it great, but the belt is back where it belongs so thank god for that.
Naito/Jericho delivered a more gripping story and match than Omega/Jericho did. Incredible work.
Omega/Okada 4 was the greatest wrestling match in history. Nothing else to say.
Here’s the deal though, while yes this show was incredible and surpassed WrestleKingdom 12, as someone with tickets to the Cow Palace I am left still completely unhyped. I’m pretty sure Ishii/Suzuki was to set up a match for Ishii’s belt in the UK. White/Robinson might be good but I don’t care about White at all and I care even less for Goto/Elgin, I legitimately would be more excited for Taichi. I suppose Jericho could be there but he could also vanish for 5 months again and they didn’t even really tease a Rey match. Finally, the Cody/Omega tease was so weak that the show ending would have been stronger without it.
I have less than zero hype for a rematch of an ROH Semi-Main Event that under-delivered the first time, and I feel kind of insulted that New Japan booked such a large arena, which to me signified they planned to do something meaningful, and did absolutely nothing of real value to build to it on their big show 4 weeks out from the event.
I’m sure it will still be fun but you know I want to be excited for something concrete
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@excelsiorlef never doubt Gedo!! In Gedo We Trust. Let’s see what the card looks like now that all the titles have changed hands.
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I loved this show! So happy to see Kenny become IWGP Champion. I was shocked that Jericho beat Naito. I like the intensity he brings to his matches in New Japan. I would like to see Jericho face Tanahashi in the future. Also pretty amazing that nearly every championship is held by a foreigner at the moment. Can’t wait to see what New Japan does between now and Wrestle Kingdom!
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