NJPW DOMINION

Osaka

BULLET CLUB (CHASE OWENS, EL PHANTASMO, EVIL, TAIJI ISHIMORI & YUJIRO TAKAHASHI) vs. CHAOS (HIROOKI GOTO, SHO, TOMOHIRO ISHII & YOSHI HASHI) & HIROSHI TANAHASHI (11:50): This show, like last year's Dominion, was kind of thrown together at the last second. Usually it's there 2nd biggest show of the year, and they tried, but it ended up being fairly underwhelming but not entirely their fault given the circumstances. Japan is mostly shut down because of Covid-19. NJPW was supposed to have two stadium shows in May that were cancelled; one at the Yokohama baseball stadium and one at the Tokyo Dome. Japan instituted a month long closure of most things and I guess some things are starting to open up there again since this did have fans in the building, albeit socially distant, masked, and they weren't allowed to cheer or boo, just clap. While the May shutdown was in affect, Will Ospreay relinquished the title because of a neck injury. As if all of this wasn't bad enough, Ospreay vs. Okada for the title was supposed to the Tokyo Dome main event at the end of May. It also didn't help that a bunch of wrestlers like El Desperado and Okada got Covid-19. They wrestled on this show so they've recovered. Amidst all of the doom and gloom they had a major show to put on. It was supposed to be on Sunday but Osaka recommended that nothing go on during weekends for whatever reason so they moved the show to Monday. It's kind of hard to fathom that this country is supposed to have the Olympics next month. But this show proved that a show can still go on. It only had 5 matches and of course they had to have some typical, superfluous New Japan multi-man tag matches like this one. This match was entertaining and had a ton of action, though, which was good. By the end there were different wrestlers just jumping in and out of the ring and delivering big moves back and forth at a frenetic pace. The Bullet Club beat up all the good guys after the match and left them lying around the ring. **1/2

LOS IGNOBERABLES DE JAPON (BUSHI, SANADA & TETSUYA NAITO) vs. SUZUKI-GUN (DOUKI, TAICHI & ZACK SABRE, JR.) (11:31): This was okay and fairly forgettable. It did set up a Dangerous Trekkers (Taichi & Sabre) vs. Naito & Sanada tag team title match down the road. That should be a lot of fun. Douki did a through the ropes dive. Zack Sabre was pinned and then was angry so he pinned the ref and told his partners to count. **

EL DESPERADO vs. YOH (23:40): This match, for El Desperado's IWGP Jr. title, was supposed to happen in April but El Desperado and a bunch of others in the company got Covid-19. These two definitely worked hard but the match was probably a bit too long and this deadly silent crowd did not help this match at all. Desperado had a fantastic match against Hiromu last year where he took his mask off. Not only did everyone see his face but the announcers said his name. Why he's back wrestling with a mask is beyond me. It reminds me of how Rey Mysterio lost his mask twenty years ago but these days still wears it. The whole juniors division in New Japan just hasn't been the same since all the greats like The Young Bucks, Kushida, Ricochet, and Rappongi Vice left. **

KOTA IBUSHI vs. JEFF COBB (14:54): This was a really good match and the best match on the show. Ibushi has said that he was injured on Night #1 of Wrestle Kingdom and that's why eventually he lost the title to Ospreay. For whatever it's worth, Ibushi looked better here than he has all year and was doing a lot of top rope high flying that he hadn't been doing recently. He did a top rope moonsault to the floor and a top rope Hurricanrana. Cobb was great as usual. These two definitely have good chemistry together, and this was better than their match in the G1 last year. They did a ton of near falls here and Cobb did Ibushi's patented knee to the face that shocked the announcers. Why is it such a big deal when wrestlers do their opponent's finisher? It happened in the main event when Shingo gave Okada a Rainmaker and the announcers were shouting like they just saw Bigfoot. ***

SHINGO TAKAGI vs. KAZUCHIKA OKADA (36:00): I guess I'm in the minority, since everyone seemed to love this match. I thought this was boring. They definitely did everything they both usually do. Shingo's elbows to Okada's head, though, seemed kind of tamer than usual, maybe because Okada's recovering from Covid-19. And the high drama that's usually the reason New Japan main event title matches are so great was absent here. I'm guessing because the sparse, only clapping crowd was fairly quiet. Maybe I'm just spoiled because AEW just had a PPV in front of a packed, rowdy, ferocious crowd that made pedestrian matches seem like matches of the year. This was for the IWGP championship that Ospreay relinquished. New Japan just randomly put two guys into this match for the title. No tournament, no reasoning. I guess because Shingo lost to Ospreay so he was the #2 contender and Okada beat Ospreay at the Dome in January. Shingo winning the title is great as he's awesome, but it felt like his win was a bit superfluous since he didn't beat the champion and won in a quiet building on a Monday. It also doesn't help that since last July, Evil, Naito, Ibushi, Ospreay, and now Shingo have been champ. They're kind of making the title meaningless these days. There wasn't much that was memorable about this match. Okada did his patented dropkick. Okada applied his sleeper hold twice. Shingo did a Rainmaker that shocked the announcers. The near falls were never that exciting because did it really even matter who won this match? It was just kind of handing them the belt for no reason. There was some action by the end but it never built to anything super exciting. I was pretty disappointed in this match. **