13 Ups & 3 Downs From NJPW Dominion 6.9 2019

5. Rainmaker Beats Painmaker

Did Chris Jericho deserve to face IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada in Dominion 6.9's main event? From a kayfabe standpoint, probably not. His last NJPW match saw him lose the Intercontinental belt to Tetsuya Naito at Wrestle Kingdom. In business terms, though? Absolutely. His New Japan appearances have yielded tangible bumps in the promotion's western viewership and he's still a big, big star, even at this stage in his career.

The Canadian worked smartly. Rather than trying to keep up with the younger Okada's workrate, he was in shortcut-taking mode, springing various traps for 'The Rainmaker' inside the ring and out. When 'Y2J' does this, he's still an excellent performer, and spots like the announce table DDT and Codebreaker to counter Okada's leap over the barricade highlight the best of his new plunder-brawling style.

He was c*nty as hell too, Jericho. Mocking his opponent with sarcastic "O-KA-DA!" chants, eye pokes, and slaps, he was in top heel form. How did 'The Rainmaker' respond? By hitting his own d*mn Codebreaker on the challenger. Eat it, 'Painmaker.'

The more the match progressed, though, the more Jericho's faults were exposed. At 48 years old, he can't last the pace in these long, gruelling battles, and it showed towards the end. The Canadian was gassing. This prevented the bout from reaching anything like the same heights as the Omega or Naito bouts, though it wasn't enough to spoil it entirely. A great match - just not to the level of recent Dominion main events.

... Okada won, by the way. Of course Okada won. A weird finish (Okada countered the Codebreaker into a pin), but the right outcome.