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NJPW Dontaku tour 2019


Archibald

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Lots of cards so I'll just post key things here.

Sengoku Lord April 20th:
Mikey Nicholls/Chase Owens
Juice/Bad Luck Fale for USA title
Ibushi/ZSJ for IC title

Road to Dontaku April 22th:
Taguchi/Yano/Makabe vs GoD/Hikuleo for trios titles

Kuni SENGOKU EMAKI April 26th:
Sho/Yoh vs Shingo/Bushi for Jr. Tag titles

Hi no Kuni April 29th:
Yano/Makabe vs GoD for tag titles
Goto/Jay White

Dontaku Day 1 May 3th:
Cobb/Taichi for NEVER title
Dragon Lee/Ishimori for Jr. title

Dontaku Day 2 May 4th:
Dragon Lee/Ospreay vs Ishimori/X, this will probably be El Phantasmo's debut
Evil/Ishii
Okada/Sanda for heavyweight title

 

Since there are lots of cards it is possible that I missed something, but I think I got most of the relevant stuff here.

Edit: added likely El Phantasmo's debut match.

Edited by Archibald
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So few things that pop to me:

NJPW is giving more stuff for Juniors. Tag titles are main eventing one show and Dragon Lee/Ishimori are main eventing over Cobb/Taichi. Thuo I'd guess that might be more due to Cobb not being that well known to Japanese audience.

White is in interesting spot. On one hand beating Goto might lead to rematch with Okada. On the other hand Juice is going (or at least I hope so) beat another BC member in his USA title run so logical next step would be for Juice to face White. But then Mikey is also having a match against Chase, in theory I guess Mikey could win and ask for a "friendly" title match against Juice, kinda like what Trent did.

I know that Okada promised to give Sanada a title shot during his NJ Cup promo, but it feels a bit weird. Sanada is already 0-5 against Okada so getting another L will be painful. And with how cards are structured it looks like Evil might beat Ishii and get a title shot at Okada? Is Evil big enough to get Dominion main event?

NJPW talked a lot about Heisei era ending and new era, if I'm not mistaken, starts at May so you'd think that this probably will somehow play into main Dontaku cards? If this is transitional period and we already got two 0 defences title reigns in these uncertain times then what is one more 0 defences reign? And maybe new era starts with new face as the champion?

Big matches are spread out thru the cards and some big names are either missing or not doing much like Tanahashi, Naito and Suzuki. Ibushi with ZSJ will also be gone, if I'm not mistaken, after their title match. Will be interesting to see if attendance doesn't suffer due to that. On the other hand it probably shows at what level NJPW is in Japan that they feel comfortable with this stuff and that at the same time it looks like it is pushing storylines further.

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Dontaku Day 1:

Lee/Ishimori

Cobb/Taichi

Okada and Ishii/Evil and Sanada

Goto, Juice Robinson and Mikey Nicholls/Jay White, Fale and Chase Owens

R3K with Rocky Romero/Bushi, Takagi and Naito

Makabe, Yano, and Ospreay/Tama Tonga, Tango Loa and Hikuleo

YOSHI-HASHI, Liger, TM IV, and Taguchi/Suzuki, Kanemura, Desperado and TAKA

Honma, Umino, and Narita/Henare, Tsuji, and Uemura

Dontaku Day 2:

Sanada/Okada

Evil/Ishii

R3K with Rocky Romero/Bushi, Takagi and Naito

Lee and Ospreay/Ishimori and X

Goto, Robinson, Nicholls and Honma/White, Fale, Owens and Hikuleo

Makabe, Yano and Liger/Tama, Tanga, and Jado

Cobb, YOSHI-HASHI, TM IV, Taguchi and Henare/Suzuki, Taichi, Kanemaru, Desperado, TAKA

Umino and Narita/Tsuji and Uemura

Edited by lostinube
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Also: Since it was mentioned above, the new emperor's reign starts on May 1st  (Heisei to Reiwa). And it will also mean that we are getting a super Golden Week this year in Japan from April 27th to May 6th. Fukuoka is usually packed during the Dontaku Festival but I don't know how the extended break will affect attendance this time around.

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None of those title reigns were transitional reigns but hot-shotting the belt.

Okada is the last IWGP H.W champion of the Heisei period, so that should be a big deal moving towards the Reiwa period. Will have to see if Gedo will break his patterns some more or not,  or they could just hotshot it back to Okada. Or another long run.



 

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14 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Yeah, I have absolutely no idea why they are running Okada/Sanada again right now.

Not just that but with the White vs. Goto match, inferring from their booking patterns, it looks they’re running back Okada vs. White at Dominion.

If they do a consecutive stretch of SANADA-White-SANADA-White matches for Okada, that feels like lazy booking to say the least.

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CHAOS needs to split or something there is such a lack of coherence to it these days with the other groups they feel like groups that belong together. Taguchi JAPAN feels like a stronger group than Chaos now. I’m hoping we may be seeing a slow split with stuff like Yano teaming with Makabe more and more frequently again

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13 hours ago, Sublime said:

CHAOS needs to split or something there is such a lack of coherence to it these days with the other groups they feel like groups that belong together. Taguchi JAPAN feels like a stronger group than Chaos now. I’m hoping we may be seeing a slow split with stuff like Yano teaming with Makabe more and more frequently again

I read that as 'I don't want YOSHI-HASHI's contract to be renewed next time it comes due".

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I wonder if they would've actually gone through with the whole Bullet Club/Elite split if the Elite guys hadn't been on their way out. Remember how at first the Tongans were the BC Firing Squad and The Elite were also still Bullet Club? Then all of a sudden they just basically said the Elite had been kicked out.

I wonder if they would've still gone down that path or just ended up with another Bullet Club reunion later.

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I think even if they had been able to stay in NJPW or if AEW hadn't become a thing, the Elite would still have been split off into another faction.  They were big enough to stand on their own.  I do think Chase or Yujiro would have been thrown into the Elite and not come back so they had a jobber.

 

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6 hours ago, alstein said:

I think even if they had been able to stay in NJPW or if AEW hadn't become a thing, the Elite would still have been split off into another faction.  They were big enough to stand on their own.  I do think Chase or Yujiro would have been thrown into the Elite and not come back so they had a jobber.

Plus, it's weird having clear heels and tweeners/babyfaces in the same faction. Jay White being in Chaos at least made some sense given the storylines and where it was leading to. They weren't going blow that off with Omega vs. Tama Tonga or Fale IMO. At best, they would have done Golden Lovers vs. GoD for the tag belts. Other that than, it would have been perplexing to have two different groups still in the same stable as far as multiple man matches go. Unless Omega was going to turn on Ibushi for whatever reason, the Elite had to be their own thing at some point. 

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10 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

I wonder if they would've actually gone through with the whole Bullet Club/Elite split if the Elite guys hadn't been on their way out. Remember how at first the Tongans were the BC Firing Squad and The Elite were also still Bullet Club? Then all of a sudden they just basically said the Elite had been kicked out.

I wonder if they would've still gone down that path or just ended up with another Bullet Club reunion later.

There is conspiracy theory that things fell apart after Dave wrote that talent isn't happy in NJPW and when Tama in response wrote some tweets basically calling out The Elite for fabricating those rumours. Shortly after that Jericho cruise happened when Cody, I think, said that they are no longer Bullet Club. So maybe there was supposed to be some match, but due to things getting heated nothing got worked out.

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11 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Idea: Group turmoil over Okada's conscious decision of wearing jean jackets after the year 1994.

Denim jackets have been a thing again for a few years now. We had a discussion about this last fall.

 

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