NJPW DOMINION

 

Osaka, Japan

WILL OSPREAY vs. LANCE ARCHER (8:01): Thank God this show started with a real match and not the usual, lame series of multi-man matches that everyone can't wait to be over so they can get to the meat of the show. Unfortunately, this was not a great Will Ospreay match like we're used to. It was too short to be much of anything, and Lance Archer didn't do much of interest. Archer is signed to AEW but I think he's only been on an AEW show once all year. Even Tony Khan is baffled what to do with him. Ospreay won this U.S. title tournament and will face Kenny Omega at Forbidden Door. Considering Omega and Ospreay's first match this year was one of the greatest matches in history, they have a pretty high bar for the rematch. Ospreay's been injured for awhile but he's back and beat up. Maybe he should do what Omega did and take a year off and go get some surgery. **1/2

LOS IGNOBERNABLES DE JAPON (BUSHI, SHINGO TAKAGI, TITAN & TETSUYA NAITO) vs. JUST 5 GUYS (DOUKI, TAKA MICHINOKU, TAICHI & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU) (9:24): Do you think anyone in this company knows there's a hamburger chain in America called Five Guys? I always bash the fact that Bullet Club is still around because that was cool ten years ago but at least Bullet Club is a decent name. Just 5 Guys? It doesn't help that it's stacked with losers. This match at least had so many people in it a lot was happening so it wasn't boring. **1/2

CATCH 22 (FRANCESCO AKIRA & TJP) vs. INTERGALACTIC JET SETTERS (KUSHIDA & KEVIN KNIGHT) (10:38): Good match. Catch 22 won the Jr. tag titles. I didn't even know Kushida and some guy I never heard of had the Jr. tag titles. Wasn't Kushida out of action since last year because of foot and mouth disease? How did he have a title? Kushida looked good here, which kind of surprised me because he's aging fast. Kevin Knight was a bit green and sloppy. Akira and TJP are a lot of fun. ***

ZACK SABRE, JR. vs. JEFF COBB (8:46): Zack retained the TV title. This company has too many titles. This title has a 15 minute time limit because I guess there's commercials after 15 minutes on TV? Match was okay. **

BISHAMON (HIROOKI GOTO & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL & YUJIRO TAKAHASHI) vs. UNITED EMPIRE (GREAT O'KHAN & AARON HENARE) (13:46): Good match. Aussie Open won the tag titles but then one of them got hurt so they forfeited them. Goto and Yoshi-Hashi won the tag titles here. House of Torture of course interfered throughout the match. Evil even knocked the announcer over again like he always does. There was a lot of action and a lot going on and it was a wild melee and the good guys won. Good stuff. ***

DAVID FINLAY vs. EL PHANTASMO (18:51): The one true dud on this show. Finlay retained the NEVER title. Finlay is the new leader of Bullet Club. Bullet Club is stocked with all of these new American wrestlers that I don't know. I feel bad for Finlay, because the leader of Bullet Club always gets beat up and kicked out of the company. Or maybe that's a good thing, since Prince Devitt and AJ Styles went to WWE and Omega and Jay White went to AEW after they all led Bullet Club. El Phantasmo was great as a heel so I have no idea why he's a babyface now. This was just dull. 1/2*

HIROMU TAKAHASHI vs MASTER WATO (19:50): Wato won the Super Jr. tournament by beating Titan in an awesome match last week. Wato lost here, though, so his push is moot. I do recall him being the Jr. title champ awhile back, though, right? Or was that not a thing? The last five minutes of this match were awesome. Before that it was hit-or-miss. Hiromu isn't as great as he once was, but they both delivered with some high drama and great near-falls at the end. The crowd was super into the final few minutes of this match. ***

KAZUCHIKA OKADA, HIROSHI TANAHASHI & TOMOHIRO ISHII vs. JON MOXLEY, CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI & SHOTA UMINO (20:38): This was a good match. Supposedly Claudio didn't make it to the building until 25 minutes before this match because of Visa issues. You wouldn't know it, though, as everything looked seamless. The big spot was when Ishii delivered a lunging head butt to Moxley that busted him open. That looked brutal and probably was a botch. This was very entertaining although Shota Umino didn't really look all that great to be honest. ***

SANADA vs. YOTA TSUJI (17:01): Dominion is the 2nd biggest show of the year for New Japan. I remember loving this show in the glory days. They had some awesome matches on this show. AJ vs. Okada for the title. Omega vs. Elgin in a ladder match. The Omega/Okada 60 minute draw. Omega winning the title from Okada in a 2 out of 3, 65 minute match. I was thinking of all these great matches when they announced that the main event for this show was going to be Sanada defending the title against a guy I never heard of. What? This is the main event of your 2nd biggest show of the year? Really? Yota Tsuji was a young lion and wrestled in RevPro and CMLL previously. I guess they wanted to make his main roster debut a big deal. Everyone raved about his performance here, so I guess it paid off. Tsuji is a big dude and does some high flying and big moves. He's still a bit green and figuring it out, though, but he will probably be a big star in the company moving forward. Sadly, this match wasn't very good. Sanada is boring. The crowd really wanted Tsuji to win but, c'mon, Sanada just won the title, he wasn't losing this early. There were some good matches on this show but this wasn't one of them and was too short to be a main event. **