On Sunday, June 9, New Japan Pro Wrestling held their Dominion PPV, and several big things took place throughout this show. The Best of the Super Juniors 31 tournament winner was crowned in the double main event, and an IWGP World title defense along with several championships changed hands. Let’s get down to this recap, shall we?
NJPW Dominion Recap and Results
El Desperado was crowned the Best of Super Juniors tournament winner after defeating Taiji Ishimori in the headliner. Post-match, a war of words occurred between Desperado and SHO until the former Suzuki-gun member issued a Steel Cage challenge for a future IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship match.
Jon Moxley retained the IWGP World Championship against EVIL in a Lumberjack No Disqualification match in the semi-main event. House of Torture got involved but was combatted by the 3rd Generation of NJPW (Togi Makabe, Yuji Nagata, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Tiger Mask 4), and Shota Umino.
Post-match, Moxley called out Tetsuya Naito as his next challenger and the match has been set for June 30th at Forbidden Door.
Shingo Takagi versus HENARE for the NEVER Openweight championship went to a double knockout on the undercard, therefore Takagi remains atop the NEVER division.
TMDK (Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste) defeated Hirooki Goto/YOSHI-HASHI, KENTA/Chase Owens, El Phantasmo/Hikuleo in a 4-way elimination tornado match on the undercard to win both the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships along with the NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Championships.
Jeff Cobb retained the NJPW World TV Championship against Tomohiro Ishii on the undercard in a thrilling match.
Yota Tsuji, Hiromu Takahashi, and BUSHI captured the NEVER Trios Championships on the undercard from Team Hontai (Hiroshi Tanahashi, Toru Yano & Boltin Oleg).
Great O-Khan regained the KOPW Provisional Championship against Yuya Uemura on the undercard in a special “catch rules” match.
Kosei Fujita, Robbie Eagles, and Zack Sabre Jr. defeated Clark Connors, Drilla Moloney, and LJ Cleary in a trios match on the undercard.
Naito defeated Callum Newman in the opening match.
*NJPW dropped information regarding the upcoming G1 Climax during the Dominion PPV in Osaka. The prestigious tournament will start on July 20 & 21, with a 20-man field this year (2-block format).
The first 18 entries will be revealed on June 16th while the remaining 2 slots will be determined via a mini tournament taking place this month and culminating on July 5th at Budokan Hall. This year, the finals are gonna be different.
The top 3 will advance (a mini-tournament runs from August 15 until August 17), and the semi-finals are on August 17 with the tour finale the following day (August 18).
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – NJPW. Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can rewatch all 2021 NJPW events and plenty more tremendous wrestling content from New Japan Pro-Wrestling on NJPWWorld.com; The King of Sports Streaming.
