Dominion 2014
(2014/6/21)
1. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Time Splitters (KUSHIDA & Alex Shelley) vs. The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) ©
Finally, the true YOUNG BUCKS match in New Japan, and this was the closest you’ll ever come to the PWG Bucks in Japan. Honestly, one of the best openers ever in Japan, just a top notch contest with such an organic structure and fluidity, the Splitters were insanely over, the Bucks were hated, everything simply clicked. An emotional rollercoaster that tore the house down, this might be a lock for Top 10 of the year.
****1/2
2. Tama Tonga vs. Tetsuya Naito
Not a bad match, it’s just that they had an insanely tough task after DAT OPENER, and it was a filler match anyway. Tonga sucks and is a total jobber, while Naito is in the phase of rebuilding, so this served its purpose, it was short and harmless.
**
3. Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata vs. Yuji Nagata & Tomoaki Honma
“You motherless fuck, I was pissing blood in gore deathmatches back when you were just a skinny Junior who carried Hashimoto’s bags”, said Honma while beating the shit out of Shibata to start off this great match. Shibata looked like an antelope trying to fight off surly leopards, it’s safe to say he got his fucking ass kicked in this one. Honma? Well, no one books underdogs better than New Japan, as evidenced yet again here, Honma even transcended his role, he refused to take the back seat, he was in for the fight. Goto was the weakest link, I mean he wasn’t bad, it’s just that he didn’t match the other three guys, not even close. With someone else instead of him, this would’ve been a legit MOTYC.
****
4. NWA World Tag Team Championship: Killer Elite Squad (Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr.) vs. TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) ©
Much better than expected, it had awesome pacing and structure, the KES guys, especially Davey Boy, looked high as fuck, lel, few hilarious moments right there. Kojima was the undisputed MVP of the match, dude’s a standout veteran, thank fuck they put him in the ridiculously stacked Block A of G1 again.
***1/2
5. IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Ricochet vs. Kota Ibushi ©
Finally, a borderline great title defense from Ibushi. The story here was just great and really catchy, because Kota finally met someone who’s able to not only match him in high-flying stuff, but overshadow him completely by taking shit to a whole new level. Logically, that means Kota has to bust out something devastating, something like a move that he rarely uses. Does Rico have an answer for that too?
***3/4
6. Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka vs. Toru Yano & Kazushi Sakuraba
And here we go, the first stinker of the event. Brief MiSu vs. Sakuraba sequences were totally swell and shooty, but unfortunately the majority of the match is Iizuka botching EVERYTHING, and the really tiresome MiSu vs. Yano crap that needs to end already. Just give me MiSu vs. Sakuraba 1-on-1 already!
bad
7. Kazuchika Okada & Tomohiro Ishii vs. AJ Styles & Yujiro Takahashi
After watching this match, I can’t help but feel like Yujiro’s momentum he gained through heel turn and all those awesome BOSJ multi-man tags - is gone. He couldn’t match the other three guys from the match to save his life, his new finisher sucks and the crowds know it, he totally crapped on what was a very good tag smackdown until his part in the finishing run. Shame.
**3/4
8. IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: King Ace (Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe) vs. Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows ©
First of all, huge props to Makabe, who worked the match semi-injured (Yokohama, Goto, jaw), only to get totally obliterated by Doc’s palm strike, that was SERIOUS. Clearly he was in big pain, but that didn’t prevent him from taking many heavy smacks and busters across the face and neck area. RESPECT! Karl and Doc might be the best duo in the world right now, they’ve found themselves tremendously in the last few months, they’re a well-oiled machine with some awesome intensity, brawling habits and overall sumptuous teamwork, and at this point, they’re better than Bad Intentions ever were. TLDR, this was excellent, high-octane and vivid.
****1/4
9. IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Bad Luck Fale vs. Shinsuke Nakamura ©
Certainly not on the level of their awesome NJC match, but still very good, secretly I was hoping they’d work on the blood detail from that match, but we don’t get those things in this era of New Japan. This was rather clean and calculated, they kept things relatively simple, obviously Shinsuke was leading the game here, but it takes two to tango, Fale was very good yet again. The finishing combo was impressive, I gotta say.
***3/4
Three great and three good matches, ‘nuff said.
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