10 Major Predictions For NJPW Dominion 2018

8. El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru Vs. Roppongi 3K - IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match

Tetsuya Naito Chris Jericho
NJPW1972.com

Another match intended to maintain interest levels without spiking them, expect a short bout with enough daredevil flair and dirty fraudulence to entertain to a degree.

This nonetheless is a far more appealing prospect than it would have been just a few weeks ago, at which point the pairing exhausted itself through arbitrary title changes and profound overexposure - a series of seemingly endless events that hardly helped what was an underwhelming programme to begin with. SHO turned heads during the recent Best Of The Super Juniors tournament by wrestling a more raw and gritty style to which fans of the division are accustomed, while El Desperado shed his one-dimensional heel stigma with a series of good-to-great performances. His match with Hiromu Takahashi in particular was a brutal and believable war. Their exchanges, buoyed by this recent buzz, will, temporarily, forgive Gedo's doubles divisions sins.

Prediction: All that said, you can't help but view the outcome cynically, given the recent 50/50 booking of a division it has to be fair game to criticise New Japan and WWE for equally.

Best to predict a title change, if there's money on it.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!