Forbidden Door was about to be New Japan’s biggest splash in America yet, 16,000 fans expected at Chicago’s United Center for a long-anticipated joint Supercard with AEW. But first: the fourteenth annual Dominion, in front of about 10,000 less at Osaka Hall! The times… they were still generally driven by pandemic restrictions.
Jay White had at least returned with some regularity and would challenge Kazuchika Okada for the IWGP Heavyweight Title, while the remainder of the card mostly had championship belts or interim championship belts going for it.
1. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Ryusuke Taguchi & Master Wato vs. Aaron Henare, Francesco Akira & TJP
Manabu Nakanishi (who retired right before the pandemic) accompanied old frenemy Hiroyoshi Tenzan to the ring, and Jushin Thunder Liger was on commentary— it was a nostalgic heaven before the bell even rang! Then, the bell did ring. After a shockingly sweet Master Wato tope, the good guys took turns Mongolian chopping TJP and the juniors lit it up a bit before they brought in the heavies, who didn’t, really. ***
2. Tetsuya Naito, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. Taiji Ishimori, El Phantasmo & Ace Austin
Tetsuya Naito, four months removed from crushing it with Okada at the end of the New Year Golden Series and being so quiet on the road to Forbidden Door that it’s actually hilarious, was really enamored with Ace Austin’s baton. He seemed to have a lot of fun with it. Austin and ELP pulled off a few cool double teams towards the end that had them looking like ideal IWGP Jr. Tag challengers, but I guess ELP wants to go heavyweight now. I’m not the decision-maker here. **3/4
3. Toru Yano vs. Doc Gallows
It’s like New Japan really leaned into the dumbest possible match they could have made from two wrestlers available to them. What a silly little special slice of life from 2022 New Japan. DUD
4. NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Title: EVIL, Yujiro Takahashi & SHO [c] vs. Zack Sabre Jr., El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru
EVIL attacked Suzuki-gun from behind (but they were ready!), Kanemaru put Dick Togo in a figure-four leglock (but wasn’t in the match!), SHO begged for his life.. there was a lot going on here in the first few minutes alone, visually at least. Otherwise it was a pretty standard undercard tag before a loaded something or another won SHO the match. **
5. IWGP Tag Team Title: Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens [c] vs. Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb
To be frank, a bunch of nothing until the United Empire got their belts back. Rocky Romero, available, ran out and got beat up after the match to setup an angle for AEW Dynamite. **1/2
6. AEW Interim World Title Eliminator Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Hirooki Goto
Tanahashi is so good at clapping that moments after the bell as the crowd clapped along with him they seemed to not only accept that this quickly announced match was happening but that they’d play along with the possibility of Hirooki Goto winning and going on to headline AEWxNJPW Forbidden Door against Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship.
Elbow strikes and shifts of momentum eventually led to Goto shoving Tanahashi off the top rope to the floor, which led to Tanahashi stumbling and selling for a bit. They threw more elbows, rose the intensity, and eventually Tanahashi fired off a slap so good it knocked Goto down. Nothing must-watch but they never lost their groove and fought for everything. ***1/2
7. 10-Minute Unlimited Pinfall Match – KOPW 2022: Shingo Takagi [c] vs. Taichi
Shingo and Taichi have had great matches together, but I’m not sure about this whole “King of Pro Wrestling” business. Here, the most 1-count pins in 10 minutes wins which gave them a new gimmick to play with if not a better matchup. Shingo went up 7-2 almost right away (though it took whoever was updating the numbers a bit to catch-up), then got blasted with a gamengiri as Taichi worked his way to 6-7 before Shingo got a 3-count on a crucifix to go 10-6 that became 11-6 when Taichi kicked out of the Pumping Bomber at 1. With 10 seconds remaining, Taichi managed to score 5 more counts to lose 10-11. They kept it interesting but it was mostly weird. ***1/4
8. NEVER Openweight Title: Tama Tonga [c] vs. Karl Anderson
Good Guy Tama Tonga storms to the ring and dropkicks Karl Anderson, just like a goddamn champion. Then he got chokeslammed by Karl’s payoff partner-in-crime Luke Gallows and Anderson went to work for a little while. Tonga’s comeback (and babyface shirt-tearing) was good stuff and they delivered a bunch of well-intentioned counters en route to Machine Gun winning the title. Decent match if not that felt, pace and execution-wise, a step behind the good stuff. ***1/4
9. IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title: SANADA vs. Will Ospreay
This had a few badass moves and the last 90-seconds or so are truly phenomenal but it really didn’t all come together, two guys who haven’t been around in a while (SANADA on the injured list, Ospreay out of the country) who don’t seem to connect very well as wrestling characters or just wrestlers having a wrestling match. ***
10. IWGP World Heavyweight Title: Kazuchika Okada [c] vs. Jay White
Here is Jay White just working his ass off to keep a half-hour of wrestling interesting in front of a crowd that was likely going to be responding with claps or silence. He was yelling at them, stumping for Okada chants, wrapping Okada up in the apron, banterin with Gedo… whatever was going to do it beyond more leg work or whatever.
Okada was there too, and gosh — I like Okada. But this was the Switchblade show, with Okada more or less picking his spots in between keeling over in pain. Some of that was a result of getting folded up by a half-hatch suplex from Jay into the guardrail, some the result of Jay tossing him over the top to the floor, and some because he tried mounting one comeback by wrecking his back on a missile dropkick. When he did finally snap and throw an elbow at Jay, it was a moment. Good match that stayed interesting, though it never felt like it reached a peak or anything. ***3/4
Happy Thoughts: Decent show that felt a little distant, probably because they booked a match like Gallows/Yano. Nothing besides maybe the main event is really worth seeking out, though nothing besides Gallows/Yano was explicitly bad or anything. 2.75 / 5.0
