NJPW rounds out Dominion card with two more title matches

[cero2k]

Source: f4wonline.com

New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced the full card for Dominion, which will take place on June 11th at Osaka-jo Hall.

In a match that became apparent once KUSHIDA won this year's Best of the Super Juniors tournament, he'll challenge for Hiromu Takahashi's IWGP Junior Heavyweight title at Dominion. KUSHIDA defeated Will Ospreay in the finals of this year's BOSJ to become the tournament champion and receive the title shot.

There will be a gauntlet match for the NEVER Six-Man tag titles as well, with SANADA, EVIL & BUSHI defending against Ricochet, Juice Robinson & Ryusuke Taguchi, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI, Bad Luck Fale, Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi, and Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr.

Tiger Mask W (Kota Ibushi) will also make his return to NJPW as he'll team with Togi Makabe, Tiger Mask IV & Yuji Nagata to take on Jushin Thunder Liger, Manabu Nakanishi, Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan.

Before Dominion, the final build to the event will take place at Korakuen Hall with a "Road to" show on June 9th, airing at 5:30 a.m. ET. The card is mostly comprised of tag team matches, with a big six-man tag headlining the show.

That main event will be Kazuchika Okada & Roppongi Vice vs. Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks. It will be Okada and Omega's final in-ring meeting before their rematch for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Dominion. The Young Bucks will also challenge for Rocky Romero & Trent Barreta's IWGP Junior tag titles in Osaka.

Both shows will air live on New Japan World and will have English commentary. The full cards are:

Dominion in Osaka-Jo Hall (June 11th at 3 a.m. ET) --

IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada defending against Kenny Omega

IWGP Intercontinental Champion Tetsuya Naito defending against Hiroshi Tanahashi

NEVER Openweight Champion Minoru Suzuki defending against Hirooki Goto in a lumberjack match

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Hiromu Takahashi defending against KUSHIDA

Michael Elgin vs. Cody

IWGP Tag Team Champions War Machine defending against Guerrillas of Destiny

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Roppongi Vice defending against The Young Bucks

NEVER Six-Man Tag Team Champions SANADA, EVIL & BUSHI defending against Ricochet, Juice Robinson & Ryusuke
Taguchi, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI, Bad Luck Fale, Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi, and Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr. in a gauntlet match

Tiger Mask W, Togi Makabe, Tiger Mask IV & Yuji Nagata vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, Manabu Nakanishi, Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan

David Finlay, Tomoyuki Oka & Shota Umino vs. Hirai Kawato, Katsuya Kitamura & Tetsuhiro Yagi

Road to Dominion (June 9th at 5:30 a.m. ET) --

Kazuchika Okada & Roppongi Vice vs. Kenny Omega & The Young Bucks

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ryusuke Taguchi, Juice Robinson, Ricochet & KUSHIDA vs. Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, EVIL, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi

Hirooki Goto, Toru Yano, YOSHI-HASHI & Jado vs. Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Zack Sabre Jr.

Michael Elgin, David Finlay & War Machine vs. Cody, Bad Luck Fale & Guerrillas of Destiny

Tomohiro Ishii & Gedo vs. Hangman Page & Yujiro Takahashi

Togi Makabe, Yuji Nagata, Tiger Mask IV, Hirai Kawato & Tomoyuki Oka vs. Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Manabu Nakanishi, Jushin Thunder Liger & Katsuya Kitamura

Shota Umino & Tetsuhiro Yagi vs. El Desperado & Taka Michinoku

[Big Red Machine]

Well... the top seven matches on the PPV all look pretty good. I'm especially interested to see what Elgin can do with Cody because he has been quietly putting together a pretty great year so far.

The bottom three, though... why are they even happening. I hate New Japan for having the NEVER tag belts SOOOO much, not just because of how useless they are, but because I doubt ROH would have their pointless, sh*tty six-man tag belts if New Japan didn't do it first. And the other matches are just such a waste of time. They would be so much better served by letting the young-boys have dark matches and farming the likes of Nagata and Kojima and Tiger Mask and pals out to either other Japanese promotions or to their friends in ROH/CMLL/RevPro.

[cero2k]

Well... the top seven matches on the PPV all look pretty good. I'm especially interested to see what Elgin can do with Cody because he has been quietly putting together a pretty great year so far.

The bottom three, though... why are they even happening. I hate New Japan for having the NEVER tag belts SOOOO much, not just because of how useless they are, but because I doubt ROH would have their pointless, sh*tty six-man tag belts if New Japan didn't do it first. And the other matches are just such a waste of time. They would be so much better served by letting the young-boys have dark matches and farming the likes of Nagata and Kojima and Tiger Mask and pals out to either other Japanese promotions or to their friends in ROH/CMLL/RevPro.

the young lions one is a dark match, it's not part of the broadcast. I don't particularly care that they add those matches, timing rarely affects the quality of the matches in NJ

[Big Red Machine]

Well... the top seven matches on the PPV all look pretty good. I'm especially interested to see what Elgin can do with Cody because he has been quietly putting together a pretty great year so far.

The bottom three, though... why are they even happening. I hate New Japan for having the NEVER tag belts SOOOO much, not just because of how useless they are, but because I doubt ROH would have their pointless, sh*tty six-man tag belts if New Japan didn't do it first. And the other matches are just such a waste of time. They would be so much better served by letting the young-boys have dark matches and farming the likes of Nagata and Kojima and Tiger Mask and pals out to either other Japanese promotions or to their friends in ROH/CMLL/RevPro.

the young lions one is a dark match, it's not part of the broadcast. I don't particularly care that they add those matches, timing rarely affects the quality of the matches in NJ

Yeah, but it's just boring to sit through. Why not start the show off hot as opposed to starting it off boring.

[cero2k]

Yeah, but it's just boring to sit through. Why not start the show off hot as opposed to starting it off boring.

i will not disagree with that, but i rather start the show slow and build and build, rather than have slow matches inbetween bringing my excitement down. I'm not a fan of buffer matches

[Big Red Machine]

Yeah, but it's just boring to sit through. Why not start the show off hot as opposed to starting it off boring.

i will not disagree with that, but i rather start the show slow and build and build, rather than have slow matches inbetween bringing my excitement down. I'm not a fan of buffer matches

They have their purpose, but I think the right way to go about things is either to do what Gabe does where he has a segment between most of the matches to make things flow together and use that segment as your buffer, or to circumvent the need for a buffer by constructing a card where you are using a change of style as your buffer so that the crowd doesn't get burned out by seeing too many dives or weapons shots or whatever all in a row. If you're going to do a PWG six-man, follow it up with a grapplef*ck match then an old-school babyface in peril tag match with a long heat, then a hardcore brawl, then a tried and true babyface vs. heel match etc. etc. It also helps to very things up in terms of multi-man as opposed to one guy/team vs. one guy/team, men and women (and minis if you've got 'em) etc. etc. There are plenty of ways to not burn out the crowd while also not sacrificing quality or making parts of the show feel boring.

[cero2k]

They have their purpose, but I think the right way to go about things is either to do what Gabe does where he has a segment between most of the matches to make things flow together and use that segment as your buffer, or to circumvent the need for a buffer by constructing a card where you are using a change of style as your buffer so that the crowd doesn't get burned out by seeing too many dives or weapons shots or whatever all in a row. If you're going to do a PWG six-man, follow it up with a grapplef*ck match then an old-school babyface in peril tag match with a long heat, then a hardcore brawl, then a tried and true babyface vs. heel match etc. etc. It also helps to very things up in terms of multi-man as opposed to one guy/team vs. one guy/team, men and women (and minis if you've got 'em) etc. etc. There are plenty of ways to not burn out the crowd while also not sacrificing quality or making parts of the show feel boring.

and that's the perfect way to do it, because none of those matches are buffer matches, but it helps change the emotional state of the fans, that's why I like action-packed comedy matches before the main events, blood matches, or super submission matches.

I think the reason WWE does this buffer matches is because they don't really trust their guys/booking to exceed expectations when they're riding off of another big match

[Big Red Machine]

They have their purpose, but I think the right way to go about things is either to do what Gabe does where he has a segment between most of the matches to make things flow together and use that segment as your buffer, or to circumvent the need for a buffer by constructing a card where you are using a change of style as your buffer so that the crowd doesn't get burned out by seeing too many dives or weapons shots or whatever all in a row. If you're going to do a PWG six-man, follow it up with a grapplef*ck match then an old-school babyface in peril tag match with a long heat, then a hardcore brawl, then a tried and true babyface vs. heel match etc. etc. It also helps to very things up in terms of multi-man as opposed to one guy/team vs. one guy/team, men and women (and minis if you've got 'em) etc. etc. There are plenty of ways to not burn out the crowd while also not sacrificing quality or making parts of the show feel boring.

and that's the perfect way to do it, because none of those matches are buffer matches, but it helps change the emotional state of the fans, that's why I like action-packed comedy matches before the main events, blood matches, or super submission matches.

But it doesn't work as well when you're sticking a million comedy matches on the show, or at least doing comedy spots in most of the matches.

I think the reason WWE does this buffer matches is because they don't really trust their guys/booking to exceed expectations when they're riding off of another big match

Also because most of their matches are the same style. They don't have anyone who does grapplef*ck or won't promote a Lucha vs. Lucha feud.