Can Rollins Become the Beast-Slayer?
A report over the weekend indicates that tentative plans have “The Kingslayer” Seth Rollins pencilled in to challenge Brock Lesnar for the WWE Universal Championship at this year’s SummerSlam pay-per-view. If plans come to fruition, the entire world can breath a collective sigh of relief knowing that we won’t be subjected to ANOTHER Lesnar/Reigns match on pay-per-view this year. We can dream, at least…
Rollins certainly deserves the spot, if for no other reason than his consistency over the past few months. Since winning the Intercontinental Championship he has continued to elevate the title, picking up where The Miz left off – which, as ridiculously as it sounds, is no small task considering how much he really did put the title back on the map. Rollins has been the best part of nearly every television show and WWE Network special he’s been booked on for the majority of 2018.
Hiromu Takahashi, Best of the Super Juniors
In one of the best junior heavyweight matches I have ever seen, Hiromu Takahashi of Los Ingobernables defeated Bullet Club’s “Bone Soldier”, Taiji Ishimori to win the 2018 Best of the Super Juniors tournament.
Hiromu finished 5-2 in block competition with big wins over “The Villain” Marty Scurll, Chris Sabin, Ryusuke Taguchi, Sho Tanaka of Roppongi 3K and finished with another excellent bout with long-time rival Kushida to win the B Block on Sunday night in Tokyo.
Despite the loss, Ishimori turned himself into an overnight mega star in the junior heavyweight division. On the very first night of the competition he defeated the reigning champion Will Ospreay in a stand-out performance, then proceeded to work some of the best matches of the entire tournament picking up wins over ACH, Bushi, Yohei Komatsu and the legendary Tiger Mask. Considering that just a month ago he was one of the top stars of Pro Wrestling Noah and an X-Division star on Impact Wrestling, Ishimori having one of the best months of his 16-year career is an understatement.
ACH gets our award for Most Improved this year. He’s always been a tremendous wrestler, but in 2018 he noticeable toned down his more ridiculous antics, exhibiting a far more serious and focussed outlook during each of his tournament matches.
Sho Tanaka easily gets our award for Breakout Star, as he came into the tournament more well known for his tag team with Yoh, Roppongi 3K, and not a whole lot of singles experience in a New Japan ring. In fact, the last time he was competing as a singles star in Japan consistently, he was still a Young Lion. While his score (3-4 with 6 points) doesn’t necessarily reflect this, every single one of his performances was in contention for Match of the Night on each of the B Block cards.
Next Stop, Dominion!
We expect that New Japan will put out a full match card for NJPW Dominion – basically the promotion’s version of WWE Summerslam where it’s their second biggest show of the entire year – on Monday afternoon, or by Tuesday at the absolute latest. The show takes place this Saturday in Osaka, but due to the close proximity to the BOSJ tournament it was impossible for them to fully reveal the card without spoiling the outcome of the show.
Here’s what we know for sure:
IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match
Two-out-of-Three Falls, No Time Limit
Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Kenny Omega
IWGP Intercontinental Championship Match
Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. Chris Jericho
IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship Match
Will Ospreay (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi
NEVER Openweight Championship Match
Hirooki Goto (c) vs. Taichi vs. Michael Elgin
IWGP Tag Team Championship Match
EVIL & SANADA (c) vs. The Young Bucks
The rest of the card is somewhat of a mystery. They did plant some seeds for future matches, but not all of them will end up on Dominion as they still have to plan for the show at the Cow Palace on 7/7 and could also feature a few of them on the upcoming Kizuna Road tour.
– Rey Mysterio, Jushin Thunder Liger & Hiroshi Tanahashi are expected to team up in a six-man tag team match against Marty Scurll and two more members of Bullet Club. This was set up during a brawl between Scurll and Tanahashi that Liger interfered in. The Villain has stated that he wants all three of them so that he can effectively end all of the legends at one time.
– Minoru Suzuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii is being teased.
– Roppongi 3K scored a win over El Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru putting them back in contention for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championships.
– Dragon Lee vs. El Desperado is also being teased, and it was even mentioned on commentary about a potential Mask vs. Mask match. It’s unlikely this would take place in NJPW though, and could be taking place back in CMLL or could just fall by the wayside as an angle to wrap up the Super Juniors tournament.
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Upcoming Schedule
Have an event you’d like us to add to our weekly schedule? Email [email protected]
Monday, June 4
NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Finals | New Japan World | 5:30AM ETWWE RAW | USA Network | 8PM ET
Tuesday, June 5
WWE Smackdown Live | USA Network | 8PM ETWWE 205 Live | WWE Network | 10PM ET
Wednesday, June 6
WWE NXT | WWE Network | 8PM ET
Thursday, June 7
IMPACT Wrestling | Pop TV | 8PM ET
Friday, June 8
Saturday, June 9
NJPW Dominion | New Japan World | 3AM ETUFC 225: Whittaker vs. Romero 2 | 10PM ET
Sunday, June 10
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