Andrew’s NJPW Dominion 6.7.2021 Results & Match Ratings

Well between matches getting moved around, randomly thrown together and the whole day getting moved over…this definitely isn’t a normal New Japan show. With Will Ospreay’s neck issues he had to vacate the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. Okada put it perfectly in a pre-match interview, the belt seems to be cursed by the old IWGP Heavyweight belt.

We also finally get the El Desperado versus Yoh match for the Junior Heavyweight title. This was delayed from Wrestling Dontaku because of the positive covid tests in their preliminary tag on the first Dontaku day. Lastly, Jeff Cobb finally gets a hold of Kota Ibushi.

Is Cobb the one to step up and lead the United Empire with Ospreay out of action? Will Ibushi continue to fall? Do we just go back to the well and have Okada hold the belt until NJPW figures out how to steer out of all this?

Let’s get to it!

Ratings:

• Bullet Club (ELP, EVIL, Chase Owens, Taiji Ishimori, Yujiro Takahashi) vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, SHO & YOSHI-HASHI: Ishimori wins via Bloody Cross @11:50 – ** ¾
• Suzuki-Gun (DOUKI, Taichi & ZSJ) vs LIJ (SANADA, BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito):  SANADA wins via Tiger Suplex Hold @11:31 – ** ½
• IWGP Junior Heavyweight: YOH vs El Desperado (c): Despy retains via Pinche Loco @23:40 – ****
• Jeff Cobb vs Kota Ibushi: Ibushi wins via Kamigoye @19:54 – *** ½
• -VACANT- IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada vs Shingo Takagi: Shingo wins via Last of the Dragon @36:00 – **** ¾ – TITLE CHANGE!!!

Results:

Bullet Club (ELP, EVIL, Chase Owens, Taiji Ishimori, Yujiro Takahashi) vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, SHO & YOSHI-HASHI

Early on we see Chase Owens trying to test his mettle against Tanahashi. There’s a level of implication that Tanahashi may be leaning toward a program with Chase. Which would be good for Chase and…that’s the only person it’s good for.

Aside from that we also see the Juniors playing a positioning game. They go at each other hard and fast to try and see who could possibly be next up after the title match today. Taiji has a nice counter as he slides through SHO’s legs, flips him upside, catches him, and hits a Double Knee Gut Buster. After a little bit of everyone slides in for shenanigans, Taiji ends up getting the upper hand on SHO, hits Bloody Cross and is most likely the number one contender for the Junior Heavyweight title.

The good thing with Ishimori winning is that doesn’t give away the winner of the Junior title match. Since Taichi & ZSJ have been portrayed as faces lately, or at least sympathetic characters, Bullet Club are the only real heels. So Ishimori is a good foil to either YOH or Despy.

Suzuki-Gun (DOUKI, Taichi & ZSJ) vs LIJ (SANADA, BUSHI & Tetsuya Naito)

BUSHI uses his masks to play mind games again, as he’s wearing a mask with half of the La Sombra mask. Andrade has LIJ ties from the origins in Mexico, so it will be interesting to see if NJPW dates were negotiated into Andrade’s contract.

Things turn into a little bit of a brawl early, DOUKI and BUSHI do most of the heavy lifting since Taichi is still recovering from covid and his championship match. After dealing with Naito a bit, Taichi tags in ZSJ, SANADA makes his way in and we see their usual brand of great technical wrestling. Zack looks for finish things with the European Clutch, but SANADA stop him, hooks the arms and slides the European Clutch into a Tiger Suplex Hold for the pinfall victory! Slick transition and we’re prolly going to be seeing Naito & SANADA challenge for the tag titles.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight: YOH vs El Desperado (c)

El Desperado played loosely with YOH and just kicked him around early. This fired up YOH to not only return the toying favors, but YOH made sure to go at Despy’s legs to even the playing field since Despy made sure to keep on top of YOH’s well known injury.

YOH hits a nice Tope con Hilo and around 16, he slid Despy back into the ring, not wanting to win the title by countout. Then YOH tried to lock in Stargazer right in the middle of the ring, but Despy was able to barely crawl to the ropes. After some back and forth, both men counter the other’s finishers, and it looks like YOH might be keeping his momentum, but Despy stuffs him.

As YOH is rocked, Despy hits Pinche Loco and retains the title! SHO comes out to check on his partner, ELP and Taiji come out as well. ELP and Taiji challenge Roppongi 3k for the tags, and Taiji challenges Despy for the Junior Heavyweight title.

Jeff Cobb vs Kota Ibushi

Cobb definitely tried to keep this match in a phone booth. Ibushi looked to stand up and keep distance, but after Cobb shoots the double we go to the ground and Ibushi has issues. Every time Ibushi tried strike his way out of things, a haymaker, head butt or just smothering power move kept the Golden Star down a bit.

After being on the receiving end most of the match, Ibushi finds daylight with a Nakamura homage in the Bom-a-ye. Ibushi hits one Kamigoye, but Cobb kicks out, counters the next attempt and hits the Cobbigoye. He looks to set up Tour of the Island, but Ibushi refuses to succumb, slips out, rolls Cobb down, Meteora followed by an exposed knee Kamigoye and Ibushi wins!

This match was hurt a little from the delay, from Ospreay’s injury so United Empire seems to just be treading water now, and Ibushi losing a lot of good faith with his disappointing title run. We probably see Ibushi challenge the winner of the vacant title match, so we’ll see.

-VACANT- IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada vs Shingo Takagi

Okada said he was feeling healthy when he declared interest in the title, but it appeared his back was still not fully recovered. You could see Okada was pacing the match a little differently, he was trying to combat Shingo’s unbridled aggression with skill and class.

There were moments when Okada tried to wear out Shingo to attempt to remove the explosion from his offense, and went to the Money Clip a few times. Thankfully that terrible move didn’t come close to finishing the match. When things went to the outside, Shingo finally turned the tide by hitting a huge Made in Japan on the outside.

From that point, Okada was on the backfoot and just searching for an opening. The Million Dollar Dropkick opened up a few spots for the short arm version of the Rainmaker. But every time Okada went for the official Rainmaker, Shingo avoided it with a Rainmaker or Pumping Bomber of his own. Okada tried to keep Shingo down, but Shingo found his second wind the way he tends to, absorbs some shots and fires back in the aggressive Tenryu style. Elbows, chops, Lariats and a quick Death Valley Driver sets the stage. Okada is rocked, Dragon Suplex from The Dragon, Sliding D (shout out to Masato Tanaka) catches Okada in the face, then Last of the Dragon and…SHINGO WINS!

.@Takagi__Shingo "Made in JAPAN"

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— njpwworld (@njpwworld) June 7, 2021

Overall Score: 8/10

This was a solid show for only being a 5 match card with a lot of delays and awkwardness. Ibushi back in the main event has to entertain some, Naito being a player in the Heavyweight Tag division could help to elevate the much malign tags, Okada finding a new motivation could be fun, and Despy has had some great matches since returning from his injury and in doing so; has elevated the Junior division a bit.

But let’s talk about the important part…SHINGO EFFING WON! I don’t think ANYONE…AANYONE, saw that coming. Especially with Okada pointing out a curse from the old belt, it almost made too much sense to have Okada go back to a superman style run for a year or so. Shingo really was the right guy, in the right place, at the right time. Shingo was most likely going to turn into another Tomohiro Ishii, but with travel limitations, injuries and interesting shuffles, Shingo was able to capitalize on his popularity and momentum in these first couple years of his run. LIJ fans get a feel good moment since a member is champion (even if it’s not Naito), plus now we get to see how Naito acts when he’s not the top guy in the group.

A lot of interesting possibilities that hopefully go somewhere and aren’t just macguffins.