It's been a rough couple of months for New Japan Pro Wrestling ever since Tetsuya Naito won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, the company's biggest prize. The main storyline headed into Dominion was Naito causing nothing but headaches (to say the least) for the CEO of Bushiroad (NJPW's parent company), Takaaki Kidani, much less the former champion, Kazuchika Okada.
All that came to a head at last Sunday's Dominion event, which was primarily a showcase of the war between Los Ingobernables de Japon (the faction Naito leads) and CHAOS (the group Okada leads). It wasn't explicitly stated in any of the matches' stipulations, but everyone familiar with the scenario pretty much knew that whoever walked away from the battles victorious would solidify their hold on the company.
Here's what went down at Dominion yesterday:
- Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi, and Hangman Page) def. Togi Makabe, Yoshitatsu, and Captain New Japan in a six-man tag match
- CHAOS (YOSHI-HASHI and Tomohiro Ishii) def. Los Ingobernables de Japon (BUSHI and SANADA). This was the first CHAOS vs. LIJ match of the evening, proving to be a strong start for NJPW's home team.
- Hirooki Goto (CHAOS) def. EVIL (LIJ). No luck for the rowdy ones in their second faction warfare match of the evening.
- The Young Bucks def. Aerial Warfare (c), RPG Vice, and ReDragon to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships. These titles can never find a home longer than a month. Not sure if that makes it more exciting or more frustrating.
- KUSHIDA (c) def. Will Ospreay to retain the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. Despite Will Ospreay's breakout month, he doesn't get the gold that easily.
- The Briscoes def. Guerrillas of Destiny (c) to win the IWGP Tag Team Championships. It's the first time for the Briscoes, a team from Ring of Honor, to win these titles. They previously held the NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Titles before this, and it's interesting to see NJPW continue to put the tag titles on a gaijin (foreign) tag team after the previous champions won it from Great Bash Heel (Togi Makabe and Tomoaki Honma). After the match, Bullet Club members Adam Page and Yujiro Takahashi attacked the new champs.
- Katsuyori Shibata def. Yuji Nagata (c) to win the NEVER Openweight Championship. This is a little story arc about how relative young gun Shibata needed to respect the generation that came before him. Shibata winning the title back signifies that the arc is over and he has grown as a character.
- Michael Elgin def. Kenny Omega (c) to win the IWGP Intercontinental Championship. This is Elgin's first title reign in New Japan, and one of its biggest championships no less; a likely show of loyalty after winning the crowd over in last year's G1 Climax Tournament.
- Kazuchika Okada def. Tetsuya Naito (c) to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. This was a long, hard-fought battle, and it signifies that the rebellious LIJ have truly lost the battle, if not the war. NJPW regains some semblance of order, but I doubt we've seen the last of the "insurgents."
Have you seen Dominion? What do you think of Okada and CHAOS (and NJPW) winning again?
