9 Things We Learned From NJPW Dominion 6.19

1. The G1 Climax Is Tetsuya Naito's To Lose

NJPW Dominion
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And so to the main event. Tetsuya Naito was to defend his IWGP Heavyweight Championship against previous champion Kazuchika Okada, and it was the Rainmaker who prevailed on the night. It took four rainmakers to do so, but Okada proved that in a one-on-one battle against the leader of Los Ingobernables de Japon he was the better man. The CHAOS/LIdJ feud is far from over, but on this night CHAOS were the clear winners.

If Naito had defended the title on this night, the forthcoming G1 Climax would surely have been Okada's to win, leading to another match between these two in the January 4th Tokyo Dome main event in 2017. Okada winning however opens up a couple of other options, although the smart money would still sit on one of these two men winning the tournament.

Okada has openly stated that he wishes to enter the champion and win as champion, something that hasn't been done in the G1 since 2000 (Kensuke Sasaki) and has only happened twice in the tournament's history. He may very well do so, but surely the stage is now set for Tetsuya Naito to win again as he did in 2013.

You could possibly see Shibata continuing his push towards the main event by winning the G1, but Okada vs. Naito is where the story must be headed. I'd plump for a Naito vs. Shibata final, but the G1 Climax may well be Tetsuya Naito's to lose.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.