10 Star match. Easy.
Pretty sure the set up for WK is Omega vs Kota Ibushi. Omega wins G1 names Kota Ibushi his opponent would be the right way to do it. The wrong waybis to make him look weak by not being in the finals at least. I think we get Okada vs Kota Ibushi as well in the G1.
– Michael Clark
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Huge Thumbs Up
Best: Okada vs. Omega
Worst: Finlay/Juice vs. White/YOSHI-HASHI
Best. Show. Ever. All I can say is: Wow!
– Nick Randall
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The only matches I’ve really been following closely are The Bucks vs Evil and Sanada, Jericho vs Naito, and Okada vs Omega.The instant I saw The Young Bucks win, it became very clear that there was actually a chance of Kenny winning. Naito dropping the belt to Jericho was a bit confusing. I do not think he has any business being a champion in NJPW, though I hope I am proven wrong. The best match was the main event, hands down. That match is the greatest match of all time. It gets every star. I may stop watching wrestling because it will not get better than that. While there was no bad match on the card in my opinon, I wasn’t really all that excited for the opening match, but that was probably due to me having just woken up at 3am. This show gets a thumbs up from me.
– Nick Mazzaro
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Overall feel of the show: Thumbs up. Dominion didn’t feel plodding or off-paced. NJPW continues to put on shows that are well put together and the ebb and flow of the event gives the viewer an experience. Whereas a five hour WWE show feels like a punishment and a five hour ROH show will peak at some middle point via one great match, NJPW hits the sweet spot in giving the wrestling fan a balance of high energy to get the pulse going, and enough lulls to catch your breath. Every match on the show had an objective, and each succeeded for its part.
Worst Match: NEVER Open Weight Championship between Goto, Elgin, and Tai Chi. To me the three way didn’t make sense. Tai Chi looks more and more out of shape (I understand he moved from Junior Heavy to True Heavy, but it looks like he just packed on weight; he spent much of the match adjusting his tear-away pants due to them bursting at the sides…). Elgin looked great physically. I’d like to see a hard hitting singles match between the new champ and Goto to solidify this championship.
Best Match: Okada vs Omega, 2 out of 3 falls. Each time they meet, I say to myself “they can’t possibly do it again” and I am proven wrong. As a fan of pro wrestling since 1987 at the age of 5, this feud and series of matches holds me in awe. Absolutely wonderful. I’m sad that Okada’s reign had to end, but I am not upset that it was Omega to topple him. Absolutely tremendous.
– Jonah Harper
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I’ve been a pro wrestling fan since the late 70’s. My dad and grandfather used to take me to the Spectrum in Philly to see Bruno, Backlund, Pedro Morales, SD Jones, Hogan, and on and on. Nothing I have seen comes close to what I witnessed tonight. This card was the best event I have ever watched. Seeing Elgin redefine himself, watching The Bucks tell a story like they did, seeing Cody and Rey in the same ring again….wow. And then the big 3…Hiromu vs Ospreay was incredible. Jericho continues to redefine himself at the age of 47. And the main event? Good lord. Best match I have ever seen. Hands down. And I have watched thousands of matches. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Looking forward to the G1 special. I think we’ll see Cody vs Omega and Juice vs Jay White. I hope we see Rey again as well.
– George Hobbs
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Overall: thumbs down. I’m kidding, I don’t hate great wrestling, thumbs way up.
Best Match: Okada vs Omega
Worst Match: Juice/Finlay vs White/Yoshi-hashi
I’m sure I’m biased by live attendance, but I think that main event was the best match I’ve ever seen. I rewatched the three previous Okada-Omega matches this week, and the number of callbacks and detail work with previous sequences was staggering (also true, to a lesser degree, in Hiromu-Ospreay). The emotion was great and the crowd was electric: they wanted that Kenny win so badly. I love the way the match was laid out and hope that the broadcast was as fun as being there was. And how about that Kenny video package? I got chills from it.
I’m guessing that I won’t add much that didn’t come across in the live broadcast. Before the show (around 3:30 local time) they introduced the new ceo/president guy to the crowd. He had a video package and then came out (to a loud pop) and cut a promo: first in Japanese and then in English. The gist was that he was a big fan, had loved NJPW for the past 10 years and wanted to grow the company and make it a worldwide force.
A nice moment of heelery from ZSJ that probably didn’t make the broadcast: after the match, he was going up the ramp when Ishii attacked Suzuki. Taka tried to get Zack to go back and help, but Zack waved him off, and then they both led to the back. Zack’s body language didn’t sell this like a double cross, but more of an: I’m over this and want to leave.
– Brian Reznick
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This is my first time sending an email of my thoughts on a wrestling show, so forgive me if I ramble. I just finished rewatching the final three matches with my group of friends and I cannot believe that Omega and Okada have been able to top themselves again and again. It is truly remarkable and splendid that I was able to watch these four matches they did and never feel like they wore out their welcome. I got to see their first match live; it was actually the first live wrestling show I’ve ever been to.
I desperately wanted to go to this show, but work prevented me. I rushed home and caught the tail end of the Heavyweight tag team match, so I can’t really comment on anything before that. I’m curious about some of the undercard, hopefully I can see it sometime in the next few days.
The trios match of Bullet Club vs. the legends was without question the weakest match I saw from the show, and I enjoyed it for what it was. Rey looked great for the limited time he was in, Liger is always fun to watch, Tanahashi and Cody in the ring doing a flex-off amused me, Paige was fine, and Marty Scurll is just wonderful to see work. No complaints, but nothing like the three matches that came after it.
Hiromu and Ospreay was impressive but concerning in a few spots. That running flip dive off the ramp was just nuts. I thought Ospreay hurt himself on the landing. Thankfully the replay set my mind at ease a little. The crowd reaction to Hiromu was a joy to hear. I remember when he was teaming with Daniels and Kazarian in ROH and to see where he is now is just incredible. Personally, I thought his match against El Desperado was the best match he’s had recently, but the sheer emotion and excitement of this match and the crowd behind him made for a wonderful bout.
Jericho and Naito for the IC belt … this was the match I was looking forward to the most and it did not disappoint. I would have lost my mind if I was at Osaka-Jo Hall to see this live. Ever since I started watching wrestling in 2008, Jericho has been my favorite wrestler year after year, and Naito is probably my favorite Japanese wrestler right now, with the only exception being Suzuki, who may be the absolute best killer heel I’ve seen.
Anyway, I thought this match would be a brawl from bell to bell, so I was only a little surprised when Jericho just started manhandling Naito before the match even started. That DDT on the announcers table looked brutal, as well as that initial powerbomb on the Other table. I was absolutely shocked when Jericho won, and legitimately exclaimed, “OH MY GOD WHAT?!” when he won the match the way he did. I am very curious to see where the IC belt goes from here.
Okada and Omega 4 … I don’t think I can accurately articulate how I feel about this match. To say it was the best match of the show is the very definition of an understatement. One thing I have grown to love about New Japan is how they are not afraid to do this kind of long term story telling but also improvise when unforeseeable things happen. Absolutely perfect.
I think that’s all I’ve got. What an absolutely fantastic show!
– James Douglas Clemons
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Blown away. My match of the year as of now and I think it was as great as any of the prior three. Just incredible storytelling that built off their prior matches.
– Dave Wolf
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I only had one complaint about Dominion, which might not be the most popular opinion. I think Okada-Omega went on for too long. After the second fall the match became so slow and dragged out. I get that the guys went out there for nearly seventy minutes but I felt like that portion dragged on for too long.
– Mitch Fair
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I was live in the building and it was an incredible show. Strong thumbs up. Crowd was on fire all night, and for the last half an hour of the Okada v Omega match it felt like everyone had lost control and was just screaming at every spot. People crying at the end. The feeling was just joy, outside the building afterwards an older Japanese man saw my Omega shirt and we just had this mutual trans-cultural communication of happiness which often doesn’t exist in Japan in other settings, especially between strangers of different generations. I felt like this interaction summarised how much of a big deal this felt like live.
– Cadell Eynon
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Just finished Dominion, I thought it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in recent memory and one of my favourites since WrestleKingdom 9.
I know they’re booking for future cards too, but I selfishly wished they’d booked a singles Elgin/Goto instead of the 3-Way with Taichi and maybe a Suzuki/Ishii singles, which probably would’ve been the deepest modern show ever, but even still, this show was beyond awesome. Personally felt that the last three bouts each topped each other and the layouts all made sense and everything really payed off nicely. Commentary was tops and the overall production really exposes the glaring deficiencies in WWE’s current style and direction, which shortchanges their workers by comparison to this product here.
Best Match: Omega/Okada
Worst Match: None
This was a great show. A+ stuff.
– Jeff.Parker
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All the thumbs up
Best match: Okada/Omega – this is best match I’ve ever seen. I looked forward to watching it many more times to pick up the intricacies I missed on the first viewing. Incredible, absolutely incredible match.
Big fan of Okada’s work, looking forward to see him take on some new a different opponents now that he’s dropped the strap
With Okada setting the match quality at high during his reign Omega has his work cut out for him but he’s certainly the guy for the job
Worst: never title triple threat
– Martin Foster
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Thumbs down…way too predictable.. the build up showing all Okada matches before the event and Harold may coming out before the event to say things are going to the next step made things extremely predictable for the event. Putting belts on jericho, bucks and omega, felt like the equivalent to jinder mahal accept they can all at least work. They booked similar to Wwe when they wanted to break in India.
– Michael Dilorio
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Better than wrestle kingdom 12 in my opinion, and by far better than anything WWE has put out in the last decade. The crowd was really cool.
Omega vs Okada was perfect, best match, lived up to every expectation and exceeded it.
Close to that is Hiromu vs Ospreay, really good too. Hiromu is keeps getting better and better.
Mysterio was very entertaining to watch, he was able to get through to the Japanese crowd and as always Scurll & Cody made that match 100x better being really entertaining bad guys.
Middle: Naito vs Jericho and Young Bucks vs LIJ, not bad but I expected a bit more given the star power of these guys.
– Nardine Solimon
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Just a quick few thoughts on Dominion. This is the first NJPW show I’ve watched entirely and my word it was amazing! Every match seemed to have a purpose and a story and was very well put together. Chris Jericho vs Naito and Okada vs Omega were tied best matches of the night for me. They both told an amazing story and made my jaw drop at every close fall in both matches and I was shocked when Jericho (who has proven why he truly is the best of all time) and Omega individually had there hands raised at the end of the bouts. I don’t want to say there were any weak or poor bouts as I was in to this as a fan and not someone trying to pick faults and as a fan enjoyed what I saw!
After almost giving up on wrestling after some of the crap We’ve all seen this year. This has brought me back to loving the sport again!
– James Hughes
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Thumbs up for Dominion. Best match to me was Jericho/Naito (but I thought Omega winning the title was won of the best moments in wrestling I’ve ever seen). Worst match was Finlay/Juice vs Yoshi/Jay.
Also I watched the show with two people who had never seen wrestling before and they were both blown away, we’re sll early 20’s and this stuff really seems to appeal to my agegroup more than WWE.
– Joel Dellar
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Thumbs UP
Best match: Okada vs Omega
Worst match: Jay and Hashi vs Juice and Finlay… which wasn’t bad at all
I want to say that the Young Bucks match is one of their best matches ever and near five stars for me. On mostly every other show in the world this year, that’s match of the night
– Owen Reynoldson
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Thumbs Up
Best Match: Kenny Omega vs. Kazuchika Okada
Worst Match: Juice Robinson & David Finlay vs. Jay White & YOSHI-HASHI
A fantastic show with a main event for the ages. It seemed impossible to think Okada and Omega could top their amazing 2017 trilogy, but somehow they found a way.
Okada’s reign as IWGP Heavyweight Champion ends on the highest note possible, a fitting finish for such an incredible streak of matches.
The NJPW show at the World Famous Cow Palace on 7/7 should be tremendous fun. Can’t wait to see what they decide on for the lineup.
– Lou Pickney