8 Major Talking Points From NJPW Dominion In Osaka
1. New Japan Has Surpassed 1990s AJPW As The Best Wrestling Product Of All Time
New Japan is clearly the best pure wrestling league on the planet.
Its closest competition is the All Japan Pro Wrestling scene of the 1990s - the King’s Road mapped out by Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu was paved by the Four Pillars Of Heaven, who fought a near decade of classic, intercorrelated matches as psychologically profound as they were viscerally brutal. If wrestling is storytelling, the King’s Road was an anthology of dense novels rewarding both an immediate reading and those obsessives paying strict attention.
New Japan has now surpassed that body of work because theirs is more eclectic. The junior heavyweight scene is light years beyond anything AJPW managed. The tag team division falters in comparison, but New Japan’s bravery of experimentation - something that ultimately led to AJPW’s demise as a major entity - has ultimately benefited the product.
New Japan does pure wrestling so well (and often so subtly) that it doesn’t necessarily need Americanised add-ons, but the Lumberjack Death match - with its ref bumps, interference and brutal face-first chair shots - was sorely needed instant gratification on a show that otherwise demanded strict focus. An unnecessary influx of ultra-violent action is creeping onto the scene, mind, erecting a ceiling above both performers and the overall sustainability of the product.
New Japan surely cannot maintain this standard. Then again, many said that same thing when AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura departed last year.