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NJPW Dominion 2018


Raziel

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I think the Infinity Wars intro provides a good point of comparison to New Japan’s current main event style—especially when Omega is involved. There’s all sorts of Easter eggs for lorehounds, combined with broad, emphatic emotion and flashy effects/action. It’s all a bit long, and a bit... much? I can see why it might not connect, and sometimes it’s hard to nail down why. I don’t care about Marvel particularly, for instance, but I will see every Star Wars movie they release until I’m dead or they stop. 

So yeah I can absolutely see why someone might not emotionally connect with something that is both super-spectacle and (admittedly a bit cheesy) melodrama, versus all the other various shades wrestling (and genre entertainment in general) can take. 

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Something about the main I found very satisfying, but didn’t/couldn’t nail down:

They’re talking about the moment right after Kenny hits the final v-trigger, when he lingers on the ropes right next to Okada. It’s not “I’m sorry; I love you” but it serves a similar narrative purpose, and it’s always been one of my favorite things about (generalizing here) Japanese main event style. Steve Williams murdering Kobashi with backdrops was maybe my gateway moment to this whole thing, so I think that plays some part—though there’s always been something very satisfying about fiction making and keeping promises, for all that we rightly value surprise in wrestling.  

In this case, the crowd needed a few moments come to terms with the fact that Okada was actually going to lose—while some skeptical voice insists that he’s Okada, he doesn't lose—and then fill those seconds to bursting with anticipation. 

My comparable live experience would be seeing Bryan win at WM30. That Batista would tap was basically a given, and while we all needed him to do it, we also needed time to demand it.

Wrestling, y’all. 

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I do wish the production crew managed to get a better close-up when Okada and Omega leaned their weary heads on each other at that point. They kind of got it eventually but I think the big moment had passed by the time they did.

Alvarez made an awesome point on today's WOR regarding the second fall. If Kenny had won with anything other than the OWA, it would've probably spoiled the finish in that he'd eventually have to hit it and it also made me, and probably many others, think that Kenny had hit his big move and now was probably going to lose in the third fall. So many nice touches toying with people's expectations. 

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Having Kota second Kenny made sense for storyline purposes, but it also cast doubt on the finish. If Okada won his likely next challenger was ringside, ready with a promo and a staredown. Same goes for the fact that Okada was 15 days / 1 defense short of tying Kobashi's big GHC reign

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trying to decide which of those two reigns I prefer. think they're both amazing.

the one thing missing from Okada's reign, if I am nitpicking (and this is grabbing the smallest nit with an oversized pair of comedy tweezers) then I'd like him to have got his win back over Ishii and effectively take charge of CHAOS. would have obv been a great match too.

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28 minutes ago, John E. Dynamite said:

Having Kota second Kenny made sense for storyline purposes, but it also cast doubt on the finish. If Okada won his likely next challenger was ringside, ready with a promo and a staredown. Same goes for the fact that Okada was 15 days / 1 defense short of tying Kobashi's big GHC reign

It also gave us the (if you squint a little) mirror of Kenny costing Kota, complete with a Styles Clash, the second climbing up on the apron, etc. More than a few people online expected Kota to cost Kenny the match, either with malice, by accident, or throwing in the towel. None of those things happened, but it was a nice “full circle” moment. The real test will be when Kenny has to second him in the G1 finals, Gedo willing. 

Regarding the OWA deployment, I was sure Okada was gonna kick out of one during the third fall, and was prepared not to like that moment, so I was really glad they protected both men by having Kenny hit a halfway version first, not go for the cover, then finish him.

And while Kobashi’s one of my all-time favorites, I think Okada has him beat. That is, in time I suspect this won’t be just “the Okada reign”, as “the reign” plus the Omega matches, Shibata going out on his shield, Tana’s generous put-over, Naito’s tragedy, and some other very good stuff. Kobashi has great matches, but I’m not sure as many stand out. I should note, RECENCY BIAS, but still. I also think, fwiw, Okada’s reign is likely to end better. It ends with New Japan trending up, rather than as a final high before a long downhill.

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Couldn't watch it live so I watched the VoD without spoiling myself before it. And after watching it I looked at the reactions online and it feels a bit like I was the odd man out. But lets get a bit more detailed:

Special tag matches were what they were. Juice picked up a win, Zack picked up a win and we got hot Ishii/Suzuki tease. And I hated, in a bad way, that Cody picked up a win, maybe it was just me but it felt like crowd died at that moment. I get that we are getting Omega/Cody II, but you have Rey Mysterio having his first match in NJPW and he ends up being like third most important person in his match. Wasn't a fan of that at all.

Desperado/Kanemaru retaining was a pleasant surprise. RP3K are still improving and finding their way so it makes sense to keep those titles on evil heels. They also kinda have a match ready with MCMG if NJPW wants to do it.

I hated Evil/Sanada vs YBs match. Looking back at with knowledge about what happened next makes me "get it", but I still don't like it. It felt to me like Bushi match when he is faced against less over people and does heel stuff and it produces weird outcomes. Good thing obviously that YBs are more over than Bushi's usual opponents and that Evil/Sanada are better than Bushi.  Anyway, here, if I'm not mistaken, at one point Evil goes into headlocks and crowd starts chanting Evil. Then they barely hit any of their "big" moves that pop the crowd and Bucks pretty much controlled the match till Matt got his back fucked and Nick fucked his leg. At that point I started thinking that okay, Evil/Sanada are probably winning so as a "compensation" they are trying to make Bucks looks like super babyfaces. But nope, they ended up winning and I was like "whaaa..?", they just moved up division and defeat champions while both being fucked? Not a fan at all.

Speaking about really liking something, Hiromu is champ again. Match was better than their earlier 2 encounters, but it wouldn't make my TOP 3 Hiromu matches in 2018 list. It goes back a bit to what Hiromu said in press conference (and maybe shortly after winning BotSJ) that it is weird that they immediately have a title shot and that maybe BotSJ winner and Jr. champ should stand apart a bit before eventual clash. And well, getting a big win in Dominion is more important than winning BotSJ, but it didn't feel like that. It felt like Hiromu proved himself during BotSJ and here he just took his prize. Thou it is likely that if matches were switched I'd feel different. But then, they probably wouldn't have gotten 34 minutes here.

Triple threat had surprising ending, but I'm happy about it, more or less. I remember writing in the past that NJPW has to make a decision about Elgin since he was pretty much frozen after his loss against Suzuki at Destruction show last year. On one hand Elgin has a bad rep, on the other hand I can appreciate company that doesn't throw away its workers once they become uncomfortable.

Naito/Jericho was mixed bag for me. Lots of emotions, lots of botches and cheap finish that kinda asks for a rematch, but I really don't want to see it. Meanwhile it looks like Evil will be challenging Jericho for Cow Palace. And people are speculating about how it is probably filler before we get Jericho/Naito II and as I said earlier, I'm not sure if I need to see few more botched Destinos. So I want Evil to win. Last year when Shibata got hurt and Evil defeated Okada in G1 lots of people speculated that Evil probably got Shibata's booking so for me it wouldn't be that surprising if Evil defeats Jericho and gets further elevated. Another issue is that Jerciho won't be in G1 (at least I hope so) and NJPW usually likes to set up challengers for IC/NEVER titles during it so Evil bringing it back would make sense to me.

And I'm kinda done with Jericho in NJPW. Match with Omega was also filled with botches, but it had novelty going for it. Match with Naito had less novelty and more botches, maybe not more, but probably more per minutes since WK match was twice as long. On the positive side, Jericho has reinvented himself before so maybe he'll do that again, but if not then thanks, but no.

Naito is fully transitioning into Nakamura. Get IC title, lose it before G1 so that people would have hopes that you can win it. And I don't really get it. So years ago you had really popular guy that you put into this corner and eventually he left your company because he realized that he hit his ceiling and couldn't move past it. So what we learned from that is that we take even more popular guy and put him into same situation and, I don't know, hope that he will not decide to also leave? I hope that I'm wrong, but for me early predictions are looking like Naito/Okada G1 finals (two 2 time winners going for third win) and Naito/X at WK for IC title. God I hope it is not going to be a rematch with Jericho. And well, Nakamura acted like IC title was "his" so it made some sense that he would always return to it. Third "I don't care about this title" reign will look really weird. Alternatively Naito could "grow" and accept his role, which would be same as accepting defeat and kill his character. Third option that has been floated around is Naito beating Omega at KoPW and Naito/Okada at WK with Okada breaking the "G1 winner gets pinned in WK" curse. Which again, means that Naito is getting IC title in the first half of the 2019. Dead end either way. 

And well probably main reason why I'm not very excited is that I found Okada/Omega II too long so when I noticed that main event is about to start and VoD still has like 2 hours left on it I just skipped to the results. Yes I know that it wasn't that long and that VoD had some post-match interviews. Anyway, reading various reactions I can see that it had many things going for it and did many smart things. So I'm happy that it worked for people who cared.

And well that sums up whole show for me. I felt like it wasn't for me. Only two things that I really end up caring about were Hiromu's win and NJPW finally doing something with Elgin, which says a fucking lot.

Another somewhat unrelated note, I think that Chaos lost all their matches. Maybe some shake-up is going to happen? They could use one.

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The only problem with breaking up Chaos, bloated as it is, is no one in the group has shown a hint of ambition and/or disloyalty—with the exception of Jay White, who isn’t nearly over enough to carry a splinter stable. Ishii and Goto seem old and content enough where they are, though I think the crowd would buy a brief run of Ishii deciding fuck it, I’m gonna take a real run at the main event before it’s too late.

As for Naito... I dunno. I haven’t given up on all of *waves hands vaguely* this paying off somehow.

Only quibble I have with the Bucks winning the tag titles so quickly and decisively is we’re now forced to accept that the Golden Lovers are basically the uncrowned champs, but are busy (well, Kenny is) and don’t want to fight their friends again. 

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I think the Omega win is going to lead to Ibushi winning the G1 and going after Omega's title at Wrestle Kingdom.

Jericho's new character is neato - I think he's trying to prove to Vince that he has one more main-event run in him as this vicious heel, when Vince I guess has relegated Jericho to comedy/"The List."

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Damn. Just got done watching.   Easily the best show I've seen all year.  The last three matches were all incredible in completely different ways.  If you like aerial attacks,   brutal street fighting or excellent performers going 60+  it had it all.  

So happy Kenny is IWGP champion and appears to be staying in NJPW for a long time. 

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On 6/9/2018 at 8:49 PM, Oyaji said:

Okada also has the out of winning the first fall, so if he didn't get suckered into the stipulation that favoured the better athlete, Kenny, he would still be champion. And the subtlety of the third fall with Kenny coming into the ascendancy due to his stamina advantage was fucking great. HOWEVER, I still didn't think he'd win because Okada's the guy that takes all of his opponent's arsenal and survives. So many nuanced storylines weaving together in that third fall with lots of callbacks to previous matches too. And Chekhov's Table was not adhered to, thankfully. 

I was afraid that at some point they'd both be too exhausted to continue and Gedo would allow Okada to die but Ibushii would throw in that towel.  I thought that's where it was going,  the old Bob Backlund.

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13 hours ago, Archibald said:

And well probably main reason why I'm not very excited is that I found Okada/Omega II too long so when I noticed that main event is about to start and VoD still has like 2 hours left on it I just skipped to the results. Yes I know that it wasn't that long and that VoD had some post-match interviews. Anyway, reading various reactions I can see that it had many things going for it and did many smart things. So I'm happy that it worked for people who cared..

If it helps, I didn't like the hour long draw either but this went longer and was better timed.

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When I think to Kazuchika Okada's fourth IWGP Heavyweight Championship reign lasting 720 days, it's the Wrestle Kingdom 11/Dominion 2018 matches with Kenny Omega, Katsuyori Shibata, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tetsuya Naito.

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Loved the main event. Probably put this as my second favorite of their series. Them exhausted at the end laying on that bottom rope was amazing.

That said, I’m excited for any and all of Kenny’s upcoming title defenses with the glaring exception of one: Cody. 

If I never have to see Cody and Kenny interact again I’d be thrilled. Kenny against anyone I’m excited. Vs. Naito? Yes. Jericho? Yes. Tanahashi? Yes. Ishii? Yes. Let’s get creative: vs Hiromu? Yes. ZSJ? Yes. Ospreay? Yes. Elgin? Sure why not. Rey Mysterio, Jr.? Fuck yes. Bad Luck Fale? Hell yes! And of course, vs. Ibushi, yes.

Cody? No. 

Cody winning that six man against Tana Liger and Rey was X-Pac winning a serious match. Just takes you right out of it.

I like that Old Broken Down Jericho as a sleazy brawler is a thing that exists only in Japan. Kinda reminds me of Flair in ECW run. Yes, he probably shouldn’t be trying to take Destinos, but it’s fun and different and it pushed Naito in a different direction.

and pumped for Hiromu’s big win. He’s great. Wish I got to see him celebrate with Daryl.

but yeah, Cody is the least interesting man in Japan. 

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