The Best And Worst Of NJPW: Hinokuni, Dontaku, And The Pre-Dominion State Of New Japan

Previously on NJPW: David Finlay stopped washing his hair, Lancer Archer fully committed to making children cry, and Hiromu vs. Desperado started looking like it could be the next Hiromu vs. Dragon Lee.

You can watch New Japan Pro Wrestling shows on their streaming service, NJPW World, which costs 999 yen (about 9 USD.) They have their show schedule on the homepage. They also feature a new free match on the site every Monday and you can do a free trial month, so it’s a pretty easy service to test drive. You can also watch certain NJPW shows with commentary by Jim Ross and Josh Barnett on AXS.

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Best: Each And Every One Of You!

Seriously, your feedback is EXTREMELY appreciated, and really did help us keep up the NJPW coverage. As regular With Spandex readers/people who follow me on social media might be aware, there was a sudden restructuring of the site that resulted in a lot of very talented people being laid off. I was really moved by the response to this I read on Twitter and in comments sections here. I’m happy to be back, and I’m so grateful for you all and Brandon for expressing your interest in getting me back to write here. Also, I love [your local sports team!]

Also: Housekeeping!

So… during the week I was laid off, there was kind of a ton of New Japan Pro Wrestling! It’s too late to do a regular Best/Worst about it and way too early to do a Vintage, but I didn’t want to leave this huge gap in the column before Best Of The Super Juniors and Dominion. Partly because then I would feel the need to add way more context to those columns and they would get really long! So here’s a mid shot view of the bigger events from Wrestling Hinokuni and Wrestling Dontaku, looking forward to BOSJ and Dominion. (I already talked about most of the junior heavyweight division stuff in my BOSJ preview article, so this will be more heavyweight-centric.) If I describe it that way, does that make the timing of this article feel less random? Let’s find out!

Best: A Hell Of A Japanese Pro Wrestler

The build to Juice Robinson vs. Goto for the NEVER Openweight Championship wasn’t as exciting as a bunch of the other builds going on at the same time, but fortunately Juice has enough charisma to, like, carry two feuds at once and still have their parents love him when they’re over. “We’re about done with this tag team bullshit. It’s about to be mano y motherfucking mano,” was both an extremely relatable aside to the camera and PEAK JUICE. (Well, besides maybe this.)

He cuts an INCREDIBLE promo about how he’s sorry (but not ashamed) he didn’t get the full hardcore dojo training, he’s sorry he only grew up watching WWF, he’s sorry he’s American, but now he’s fully dedicated to being an NJPW wrestler and he’s going to prove it. Goto, who is Very Japanese to the point where Shinsuke Nakamura once mocked him by dressing as a ninja during his entrance for a match against him, is the perfect opponent against whom Juice can prove he’s not really a gaijin anymore in his heart.

It’s hard to tell who’s getting more cheers during their match, in a perfect babyface vs. babyface way. I wasn’t into the bout at the beginning, but holy heck did it pick up after Juice escaped that GTR when it looked like he might be knocked out. I was all about the MANY COOL REVERSALS, and watching Goto try to figure out how to beat this guy.

I was super confused that Juice lost. It seemed like the perfect time to put a belt on him, with this the perfect feud to take his career to the next level. But wow, Gedo, why do I ever doubt you EVER, because it turned out there was an even perfecter feud and much more meaningful belt in Juice’s very near future!

Best: How Are Those Young Boys Supposed To Breath With The Switchblade When You’re Choking Them, Jay
Worst: Unfit Finlay

The best part of the David Finlay vs. Jay White IWGP United States Championship feud was BY FAR the now fully self-aware Knife Pervert from the beginning. New Japan’s leading joth just keeps getting better in and out of the ring. Little highlights: the super duper extra way he put Finlay into the Indian Deathlock, yelling “Still the champion! Jay White? Jay White!” during his first entrance after retaining, getting all chokey with Young Lions and then being a perve about it on the ‘gram.

Finlay, however, I still have a problem with. Here is that problem: I do not believe he would ever fight a man. This applies to both Shoot David Finlay and Wrestling Character David Finlay. And I’m all for body type diversity in pro wrestling, but David Finlay is the least athletic-looking person I’ve ever seen in a wrestling ring, and I’ve seen wrestling fans get in a wrestling ring. I know he is actually athletic, but he just looks so much like he baristas at a cafe attached to an independent bookstore.

Still, though, I dug this match. Even though I didn’t buy what Finlay was selling, I think both men did a good job telling the story here of their years-long rivalry. That moment when White put Finlay in a freaking BOSTON CRAB because GET IT, HE’S STILL A YOUNG BOY, was SO GOOD. White’s suprise pin with the Blade Runner while it felt like Finlay was on a roll offensively was a nice touch, making the match feel extra competitive and making them both look strong.

After the match, White cuts a VERY MEAN and VERY GOOD Alexa Bliss post-Elimination Chamber promo (but better, maybe?) (Also, do I ship them now?) and asks “WHO’S NEXT?” IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN JAPANESE GOLDBERG KITAMURA, but he may or may not have been forced into retirement. So Mr. Robinson will do very nicely!

Robinson and White have the shared dojo history, both are great at cutting promos and playing to the crowd, and Juice doesn’t like or respect “this dark, mystical son of a bitch.” Plus, the FinJuice friendship makes things a little more complicated. Good stuff.

Slow Burn Best: Toa Aotearoa

(That’s what Henare’s been saying at the end of his promos, by the way. When I DM’ed him on Twitter (MODERN JOURNALISM) he told me it “kind of means ‘I’m a warrior for my land,'” in Maori, with “toa” meaning warrior/fighter and “Aotearoa” meaning New Zealand (more literally “the long land,” but the Maori name for New Zealand.) Don’t say you never learned anything from this column!)

Anyway, Henare still has a ways to go, but continues to make speedy progress right in front of our very eyes. He’s been making every match in this rivalry with Ishii mean something. Their singles match was the tough guy battle you’d expect, and it was respectably over with the crowd. They were so bummed out by the nearfalls! Whenever Henare pins Ishii it’s going to feel important and we’re all going to be so happy for him.

Henare also continues to make himself a more engaging character ever time he cuts a promo, although he’s not consistently hot fire on the mic yet. He’s gone from “literally Tatanka,” as someone I watched Wrestle Kingdom 12 with said, to this super intense dude who’s obsessed with unlocking his thousand year warrior destiny, of which Ishii is the gatekeeper somehow, in the NJPW undercard. Like Makabe pointed out, when he gets good, he’s going to be scary good. Also, I like that he swears now.

Best: The Tape Splitters

Speaking of swearing, why the FUDGE does Will Ospreay keep SCREAMING SO LOUDLY to sell that neck injury? I don’t know whether that or his promos were harder to listen to during this feud. (It was the screaming, but it was close!) And it still wasn’t as good as Matt Jackson’s Cross-Promotional Long Term Back Injury storyline, which never gave me the urge to mute anything!

Everything else about this feud and the Ospreay vs. Kushida IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match, though? Amazing work by two of the best in the game.

Ospreay needed to prove that beating Kushida before wasn’t a fluke, and Kushida needs to cement his legacy as one of wrestling history’s great junior heavyweights. Kushida is a more well-rounded wrestler, but Ospreay is a freak of nature. Both are absolutely plastered with athletic tape.

Kushida plays the more strategic athlete, not fully heeling until the end, but still letting Ospreay shine with his overcoming-injury spots throughout. And although oh my gosh I can’t stress enough how much I hated that screaming, I loved how he sold his injury by not recovering from his aerial moves as quickly. He couldn’t exactly flub their execution in storyline without probably paralyzing himself in real life, and this alternative got the point across.

The third act of the match was great from an athletic and storytelling perspective. It started with both men REMOVING THEIR TAPE and then engaging in the dumbest strong style strike exchange of all time, especially for Ospreay, who I’m starting to think doesn’t even WANT a neck. Kushida gets ruthless enough to get full-on BOOED trying to end the match via ref stoppage. And Ospreay earned the heck out of that babyface comeback when he smiled and asked for more, because at that point we could see he knew he’d achieved his goal, if this was what Kushida had to resort to.

But Ospreay got almost no time to bask in his well-earned victory, because the lights went out and…

Best: WHAT’S TAIJI ISHIMORI DOING IN THE BONE ZONE?

In all my over a thousand words of speculation/jokes, I never imagined the Bone Soldier reveal would be this amazing and insane. I was so prepared to be disappointed. I was so prepared for, like, the plushie skeleton version of Bury/Burnard the Drug-Free/Business Bear(s.)

After the immortal line “Why don’t you turn around, you ho-ass monkey?” from Tama Tonga to Will Ospreay, which is absolutely how people should talk to Will Ospreay like 80% of the time, Bone Soldier was revealed to be SUPER HOT NOW and also TAIJI ISHIMORI.

For those unfamiliar, Ishimori is way more than a pretty face and torso! He’s a sixteen year vet and an amazing athlete and wrestler! He’s had good recent matches in Impact and was X Division Champion (although he didn’t have much of a character, from what I saw), and has a long history with Pro Wrestling NOAH. If you want to check out some of his stuff before BOSJ, I’d recommend his NOAH matches tagging with Kenta/Hideo Itami and his NJPW stuff with ACH (his last match in New Japan until now, vs. Roppongi Vice in 2016, is awesome.) He’s exciting, new-ish blood to have in the juniors division.

Ishimori is also exciting to have in Bullet Club. I love that he 100% joined them for t-shirt money. Tama introducing him lends him more Secret Shadow Leader cred, and he seems… happy? to have this dude around. Even more so in that INSANE backstage segment. Here’s what Tama has deemed it important for us to know about the new Bone Soldier so far, mostly while gesturing at his abs:

• He is gold that has been turned into a diamond by joining Bullet Club
• He is a “beautiful specimen”
• He is “the new wrecking ball of the junior-weights.”
• Again, he is a “beautiful specimen”
• “Every man wants to look like this!”
• “And every woman wants to feel and suck on that.”
• “That is the image. That is Bullet Club, you stupid motherfuckers!”

Oh, okay, gotcha. Wait, what?

Sidenote: Bullet Club Is Very Sexual Right Now

Do we need to address how when Chase Owens said he and Yujiro should go celebrate after their second win in a row, Yujiro said “You. Me. Threesome.” and then Chase rejected it and then Yujiro said, “Okay. I will introduce to Fale?” IS THIS SOMETHING WE NEEDED TO HEAR? JUST FOOD FOR THOUGHT.

Best: Bullet Club Is… Fine?

Now we’re in the true Biz Cliz section of this Best/Worst, and boy does it have both Best and Worst things about it. This faction has thirteen active members, storylines going on in two different promotions and a web series, a sold out 10k seat indie show, and like a million Funko Pop units to sell in July. In some ways, the Bullet Club Civil War storyline that’s been going on in earnest since January but also really since last Dominion is still really working as this engaging, multi-platform, in-depth epic! In other ways, not so much!

The ten-man tag on the second night of Dontaku felt fresh, and like the best type of thing they could be doing if this storyline is going to continue. We saw wrestlers we haven’t seen fight each other, but who know each other really well, finally go at it.

My main Actual Wrestling Stuff takeaway was give me a full Young Bucks vs. G.o.D. Heavyweight tag titles match like yesterday, please, and my Storyline Takeaway was Tama Tonga Secret Bullet Club Shadow Leader #Confirmed. With the Ishimori thing and the leading everyone in the tossing of it up now for an anniversary group Too Sweet that may or may not cost Matt Jackson 15oK and the great backstage promo where he basically said I’M THE SECRET BULLET CLUB SHADOW LEADER, this felt like an actual factual significant new development in this story. Call me old fashioned, but I find Tama and Fale’s dedication to good old fashioned Bullet Club values like “faction dominance” and “intimidating people” kind of heartwarming.

Worst: Number One With A Bullet

The ten-man tag ended with Cody sabotaging Kenny, and Kenny chasing him to the back, and my feeling was “… Again?” Of course it made sense, but, especially after that extremely goofy Supercard finish, Kenny vs. Cody needs to either make actual progress, or they both need to move on to other feuds.

The last two matches on Dontaku Night 1 felt really stale and off, unusually un-engaging matches for these wrestlers (or at least three out of four.)

The Cody vs. Ibushi Handsome Battle at Wrestle Kingdom 12 was an effective mix of both wrestlers’ styles, and it worked really well. Cody vs. Ibushi II, however, was way more a Cody Match, and showed why Cody is a way bigger deal in ROH than NJPW. Cody can hang with a variety of opponents, but his style is very old school North American, and it really shows when he dominates a match. His stuff is designed to get loud boos, the type of reaction he’s not going to get in Japan. We just watched him beat up Ibushi for a while at a slow pace without enough heat (the type he got at Supercard and SSE) to make it worthwhile.

Things picked up with Ibushi started to get his offense in, and then that table spot happened. The table did not fully break and CODY WAS STUCK IN THE TABLE, OH MY GOSH. Why does this type of thing keep happening to Cody during this feud???

Honestly, the thing I appreciated most about this match was Don Callis on commentary acknowledging that when Cody kisses Ibushi without consent, it’s sexual assault. He says Ibushi “doest not take those kisses as a joke. He finds it a version of assault and he’s not impressed,” and makes the point to compare it to if Kenny went into Cody’s house and forcibly kissed Brandi. Way to be responsible about this, guys! Pro wrestling isn’t great at that type of thing most of the time!

Omega vs. Page did a fine job of further establishing Kenny as a top babyface, I guess, but it was by far the least compelling main event in this whole Dontaku/Hinokuni series of shows. These two men barely have a feud as individuals, and it didn’t help that we were immediately reminded that Hangman = Cody’s Goon by Cody interfering before the bell even rang. These dudes sure went hard, but it was basically Kenny defeating a jobber.

Worst For Now: The NEVER-Cared-About-It Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship

I know literally all of these dudes are involved in more important things (the Bucks challenging for the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, Scurll competing in BOSJ) so maybe it shouldn’t bug me so much that Nick said they found out the titles were on the line on the fly upon entering the ring (this match had been scheduled as a title match for like a month) and thought they might as well go for them! But it really bugged me!

Here is a thing that I like: good six-man tag matches, especially when they don’t feel like borderline random people thrown in the ring together. So when the NEVER 6-Man tag titles were the hot potato tag titles for, um, most of their existence, it really bummed me out! With the L.I.J. team and then G.o.D. + Fale holding them, the titles felt like actual valuable things that groups of people cared about gaining and retaining. With the Supervillains, who all have things they care about much more going on (especially if you think of the ROH title feuds in which they are also embroiled), wearing these belts, it feels like these titles might return to their original, low value. I hope they don’t! I guess we’ll see!

Worst: Mic & Elgin

Man, the NEVER… governing body of a defunct series of promotional events? Thing? was really not making it easy for me by the end of Dontaku. On the one hand, we’re having a singles triple threat title match (Goto vs. Taichi vs. Michael Elgin), and that’s very usual for New Japan. So that’s interesting. On the other hand, we’re getting a Michael Elgin push, possibly through the G1!

I haven’t talked about The Michael Elgin Situation in this column before because 1) I didn’t want to because it’s gross and 2) he hasn’t been doing much besides participating in the midcard, so I felt fine just saying “Wow, he caught a guy!” every once in a while. But now it looks like he’s getting a push, and that’s really not something I want to see. And I’m not alone; this guy does not get booked much outside of Japan since all the stuff came out about him treating women terribly, his heat with War Machine, the Jeff Cobb incident… If you don’t know about it, it’s all out there on the internet when you google “Michael Elgin Peed On Woman!” There’s enough of it that it’s not fun for me to watch Elgin in more than very small doses.

At least it looks like Taichi is having fun.

Best: Dad Army

Suzukgun’s new song and VTR takes their aesthetic to the next level as they become an even more unified, army-like faction. These dudes are just angry, mean dads who hang out and drink in a warehouse where one of them just sits on a motorcycle he doesn’t know how to ride (If you show me a video of Davey Boy Smith Jr. riding a motorcycle, I will still chose to believe his character can’t do it) until their boss tells them to go beat people up. It’s great.

Best: Leader Of Punks And Teenagers

The sleazy dad army vibe has been the perfect foil to their rivals, punk found family Los Ingobernables de Japon. In these ten-man tag, we’ve seen so many solid teamwork moments, L.I.J. saving each other and Suzukigun working together to cheat and brutalize people. Some of it got repetitive, but stayed fun due to the super hot crowds consistantly loving seeing their biggest hero (Naito) going against their biggest villian (Suzuki.)

Naito vs. Suzuki for the IC title was an excellent match, although it felt a lot like what we’d seen from them in the past. This whole feud has honestly been a lot more interesting for Naito’s character, because he’s one of those guys it’s easy to stress out about because his real life story seems so close to his character story.

The speech he gave in Kumamoto, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2016, shows the deeper level on which people connect to Naito, besides the coolness and charisma and great wrestling. The story of his failed babyface run, including being voted out of the main event of a Wrestle Kingdom, his excursion to Mexico, his return as a heel who didn’t give a single heck about what the people who rejected him thought about him any more, and his ascension back to the WK main event and babyface-hood has been inspiring. But there’s still the element of frustration. He’s unquestionably one of the top guys in the company, but why didn’t he beat Okada at the Tokyo Dome? Why doesn’t he get to be The Guy, after working so hard and achieving so much?

But then again, being an anti-establishment underdog is such an important part of Naito’s character. He acts like he doesn’t care, but he’s been fighting for years to be respected by both the fans and the company. That loss at Wrestle Kingdom hasn’t been forgotten. Suzuki dadsplains the whole situation pretty well, “You don’t believe in yourselves, so you try to enrage others… Now you want to be Suzuki because you can’t be Tanahashi?… You’ll stay a nobody… the leader of punks, teenagers, something like that… That suits you well.” And it does! And that’s so much cooler than being the ace! But goshdangit, doesn’t he deserve to be the ace? Is he really just going to hang here on the IC title scene again?

But then Y2J struck at the opportune moment, and before people got sick of L.I.J. vs. Suzukigun tag matches! This Jericho feud might be the actual best possible way to get Naito even more over without sacrificing that anti-establishment cred. He’ll get more international attention and almost certainly a great match out of it, if he doesn’t first lose all the blood in his body from his head.

Best: Katsu For Kazu

Bona fide aces Okada and Tanahashi wrestled well in their tag matches on the Road to Dontaku, but that was NOTHING compared to their IWGP Heavyweight Championship match

It played off both their recent history (that Tombstone Piledriver spot!) and years-long rivalry. Okada ended Tanahashi’s record streak of eleven title defenses when he returned to NJPW from TNA as the Rainmaker. He was a bratty upstart challenging the established ace, and Tanahashi has resorted to darker tactics against him to try to keep his status over the years. However, since his return from injury, the Ace has been an extremely beloved, fully white meat babyface again. He’s a nostalgia good guy who’s easy to root for with the air guitar and the beautiful mom hair, while our champ doesn’t always make it easy. We saw Okada vulnerable and sympathetic recently against ZSJ, but he’s really at god level right now, and he tends to get heelier when he feels challenged by New Japan vets.

But was Tanahashi ever really a threat? At age 41, after all his injuries, does he have it in him to truly be the Ace again? This match was ultimately the story of Tanahashi’s doomed endurance, his body betraying his spirit. Tanahashi is such an incredible performer, and it’s so much easier to appreciate in this role for me than it was when he was full on Super Cena a few years back.

His greatest moment for me in this match was when he went for that High Fly Flow to Okada in the ring, HIT IT PERFECTLY, had the perfect opportunity to cover, but then went for one more due to either lack of confidence (in his own abilities) or overconfidence (wanting to play to that hot crowd again.) We could see he was doomed when he got up on the turnbuckle that second time, and it made me emotional.

Okada, of course, blocked it, and got his fighting spirit moment after a series of big moves from both men. He fought to MAINTAIN WRIST CONTROL while Tanahashi was literally slapping him in the face, lost it for A SECOND, then got it back and pinned Tanahashi after ONE (1!!!) fast Rainmaker. It was an incredible finish to an incredible match

For Tanahashi, it was followed by a heartbreaking backstage promo in which he CRIED to the backing track of a Gedo promo. “I will build myself up again,” he promised us and himself, delusionally. What does Tanahashi do but be the top guy? How does he live in an era that isn’t his, and clearly never will be again?

Meanwhile, our victorious champ is already looking to the future. He lists his defenses, and one of them is not like the others. At least year’s Dominion, he and Kenny went to a legendary 60 minute time limit draw. That’s a blemish on the Rainmaker’s record. He and Omega are 1-1-1, and the tie needs to be broken.

Soooo we’re going no time limit! Two out of three falls! Are they going to go for like three hours? Will Okada play heel again against recently-built-up-as-a-super-babyface Omega, or will it be a battle of mutually respectful rivals? What will this mean for the Golden Lovers? Whatever happens, it’s going to be epic.

But before Kenny and Kazu cause nuclear fission and Jericho tries to murder Naito with a hacksaw or something for criticizing him literally once, I’ll see you back here for Best Of The Super Juniors, the tournament that makes everyone feel worse about their cardio than every other wrestling tournament!