This year’s Dominion followed an excellent Best of the Super Jr. 30 with a nine-match card and a title was on the line in all but two. It took about six months after crowd noise returned, some commitment to old concepts like “pushing wrestlers” and “having good matches,” but New Japan might be “back”!
1. IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title #1 Contender Tournament – Final: Lance Archer vs. Will Ospreay
This was a rematch of the great match they had to open G1 Climax 2019, which went double the time and was a little better. This was good though! There was a fast-moving big guy and a determined small guy and the match delivered on a lot of what that entails, with a few moments of too much determination like when Will couldn’t hit the StormBreaker on Lance Archer (duh) so had to settle for a standing Spanish Fly (huh). Will won to advance to a match with Kenny Omega at Forbidden Door with AEW (where Archer works). ***1/2
2. Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, DOUKI & TAKA Michinoku vs. Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Titan & BUSHI
There were some over acts wrestling on the undercard here. Everyone wrestled like kind of a dick, which is a great way to wrestle. ***
3. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title: KUSHIDA & Kevin Knight [c] vs. Francesco Akira & TJP
I don’t think there were more than a couple tags here but the tag team wrestling was on full display, with double teams and last-second saves and all sorts of impressive and complex pro wrestling sequences. Akira and TJP have developed into a real Team, with a way about their timing in this match in particular that felt like it overwhelmed the champions. That may be why, after Knight popped everyone a few more times with something crazy, they won their belts back. ***1/2
After the match, Clark Connors and Dan Moloney attacked Akira & TJP and challenged them. It may have had something to do with the Bullet Club.
4. NJPW World TV Title: Zack Sabre Jr. [c] vs. Jeff Cobb
The Olympian and the grappler began their match by hitting each other. Classic. Their passions weren’t always so high; Cobb just never feels like enough of a killer and ZSJ didn’t step the physicality up like he does sometimes, so they had a pretty fun but lacking wrestling match. Not what I needed! ***1/4
5. 3-Way Match – IWGP Tag Team Title & STRONG Openweight Tag Team Title: Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi vs. Great-O-Khan & Aaron Henare
Aussie Open stood out as singles wrestlers in the New Japan Cup in March, won the IWGP Tag Titles at Sakura Genesis in April (from YOSHI and Goto), won the Strong Tag Titles a week later at Capitol Collision, and a month later Mark Davis got injured and they vacated both. Then they signed with AEW. It was, simply put, a run.
So here we were, back to YOSHI and Goto carrying the mid New Japan tag team division in a 3-Way Match no one’s really into. Like the Jr. Tag Team Titles match earlier, this didn’t have many tags but it also didn’t have the controlled chaos of that match; this was a match where the sense of chaos came from Dick Togo sometimes interrupting them. SHO did a run-in and so did YOH, then everyone hit their moves: Yujiro got a semi-convincing near fall on Goto with a DDT, O-Khan hit EVIL with the iron claw slam, and YOSHI hit O-Khan with a snap Dragon suplex before Bishamon got their titles back. ***1/4
After the match, Alex Coughlin and Gabriel (GABE) Kidd stared menacingly at YOSHI and Goto and challenged them. Yeah, this was definitely the Bullet Club.
After the match, participants for the 33rd G1 Climax were announced. Notable names beyond the New Japan roster included Eddie Kingston and Kaito Kiyomiya.
6. NEVER Openweight Title: David Finlay [c] vs. El Phantasmo
After Jay White’s exit from New Japan, Gedo and David Finlay took the angriest of the LA Dojo kids plus “Drilla” Dan Moloney from RPW and made themselves a kind of crap Bullet Club. ELP hit a quick tope and springboard plancha over the guardrail, then got distracted by them. Finlay attacked from behind, pushed him into the post, pulled out a table, did a rear chinlock……. before ELP made a comeback and they started bringing out all the crazy guy offense until Finlay did a powerbomb through the table and quietly retained his title with a Trash Panda. This had some cool stuff that can probably be found being used better in other matches. ***1/4
7. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title: Hiromu Takahashi [c] vs. Master Wato
Master Wato won the Best of the Super Jr. tournament last week and when the bell rang Osaka Jo-was on his side, with big WA-TO chants for the late bloomer who seemed to have finally figured out the secrets. They were there for his next big challenge: win the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship from Hiromu Takahashi, who had a Best of the Super Jr. dynasty going the last three years straight.
They went toe-to-toe early and it mostly stayed that way, though Wato had to work extra hard to keep up while Hiromu pulled out out an uncommon aggression himself. Wato kept fighting off Time Bombs until he couldn’t, though he did keep fighting. He used a tope con hilo and tornillo. He used a springboard elbow that Hiromu countered into a German suplex, a cool idea executed poorly. He used the TTD taught to him by Hiroyoshi Tenzan and the spin kick taught to him by whoever trained him in the forest to become a karate master. He should probably ask for his money back. Much better New Japan junior heavyweight. Excellent match. ****
8. NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Title: Kazuchika Okada, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tomohiro Ishii [c] vs. Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli & Shota Umino
Returns from excursion by young Noojies Shota Umino, Ren Narita and Yota Tsuji have rounded out New Japan’s cards and also inspired Kazuchika Okada to become a total dick. It’s re-energized or at least fortified his greatness, and his interactions so far with two of the three so far have been tremendous. He and Umino got right into it here and it was way too early in the match when Umino threw a table at him.
Also: Mox was here and he and Ishii were just giving each other shit all match. He brought Claudio Castagnoli too, who began the match with Tanahashi and did the swing to Okada. Mox started bleeding at some point and they delivered the fun wrestling while saving the spotlight for Umino, who ended the match with Okada and got an amazing near fall on him with the Death Rider. ****
After the match, Bryan Danielson appeared on the screen to challenge Okada. He did not join the Bullet Club.
9. IWGP World Heavyweight Title: SANADA [c] vs. Yota Tsuji
SANADA turned on Tetsuya Naito and his bros Los Ingobernobles de Japon earlier this year, then won the New Japan Cup and beat Okada for the World Title. Throw in a shave and Just Five Guys and this guy was on a run, all until Yota Tsuji returned from excursion and decided he could replace him. He attacked after SANADA’s first title defense at last month’s Wrestling Dontaku with a grin on his face one might describe as practically devious. The grinning continued as he entered here, and why not? He was challenging for the World Title in his first match back.
This was incredible for many reasons and most of them point to Tsuji, as I’ve only seen SANADA in a match this good and interesting with Okada and maybe one or two other people. There was no feeling out process; Tsuji pushed SANADA straight into the big stuff and had him scrambling to keep up, unable to follow much of the formula that’s afforded him a lot of really good matches lacking in life. Tsuji brought the life, wrestling like a force of nature filled with charisma and unafraid of the spot. When that collided with the stoic SANADA who had finally just found his own success, it made some wrestling magic.
SANADA began the match approaching Tsuji like a crashed spacecraft before Tsuji surprised with a spear then again by clearing the top rope with a backflip. SANADA re-entered the ring ready to end the match, but couldn’t keep on a Cold Skull and missed the moonsault before Tsuji went back on offense. His attacks to the back were varied but it was the closing sequence where Tsuji really introduced himself: he blocked a Shining Wizard, cartwheeled out of the Deadfall DDT and superkicked SANADA in the face. SANADA’s “wtf?” reaction for the cartwheel in particular was so good. Tsuji got a great near fall off a curb stomp too before SANADA finally managed a surprise and blocked a spear with a dropkick, quickly followed by the moonsault, Shining Wizard and Deadfall to retain by the skin of his teeth. ****1/2
Happy Thoughts: The wrestling was good, most of it assisted by stakes or new directions or Bryan Danielson challenging Kazuchika Okada. The midcard title matches weren’t all winners but the last three absolutely were, and I can now confirm the question originally asked in the beginning: New Japan is back. 4.25 / 5.0
