Junior title matches set, Rey Mysterio gets a trios dream match against a familiar face, and more at NJPW Dominion

With Best of the Super Jr. 25 finished up and our junior title match set , New Japan Pro Wrestling have seen fit to announce the rest of the Dominion 6.9 card, so let’s list it out and break our new additions down, shall we?

NJPW Dominion 6.9 in Osaka-Jo Hall (June 9, 3AM Eastern / 12AM Pacific)

• Roppongi 3K (SHO & YOH) vs. Suzuki-gun (El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru) (c) (IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship)
• Chaos (“Switchblade” Jay White & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. David Finlay & Juice Robinson
• Chaos (Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) vs. Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre, Jr.)
• Hirooki Goto (c) vs. Michael Elgin vs. Taichi (NEVER Openweight Championship)
• Los Ingobernables de Japon (EVIL & SANADA) (c) vs. Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) (IWGP Tag Team Championship)
• Bullet Club (Cody Rhodes, Hangman Page, & Marty Scurll) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, Jushin Liger, & Rey Mysterio, Jr.
• Hiromu Takahashi vs. Will Ospreay (c) (IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship)
• Chris Jericho vs. Tetsuya Naito (c) (IWGP Intercontinental Championship)
• Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Kenny Omega (IWGP Heavyweight Championship ²⁄₃ Falls No Time Limit Match)

Hiromu Takahashi winning BOSJ came as something of a surprise to me— it seemed like one of those pure Wrestling 101 moments after Taiji Ishimori not only beat Will Ospreay down in his debut as the new Bone Soldier, but beat the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion on night one of the tournament that surely he’d go on to win the tournament and challenge for the title, but Gedo pulled a left turn out of his pocket on us.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you— Hiromu’s incredibly talented and has somewhat gotten the short end of the stick despite being putting white hot performance after white hot performance over the last year plus, and he and Ospreay will surely tear the house down here.

The junior tag titles are a bit more perfunctory, with RPG3K getting their rematch against Desperado and Kanemaru, but the story of them climbing the mountain again after being seemingly unstoppable should lead to a good match here.

Which brings us to our biggest addition. Rey Mysterio was added to the card in the first wave of announcements but his opponent left a mystery, and now we know he’s in trios action, teaming with would-be Strong Style Evolved opponent Jushin Liger and Hiroshi Tanahashi against a Bullet Club team of Cody Rhodes, Hangman Page, and Marty Scurll.

I have to say I’m a little disappointed Rey isn’t getting a featured singles match after all the challenges were thrown around back at SSE, but it’s a neat bit of 2018 business that he goes up against a Bullet Club squad lead by Cody Rhodes, revisiting their WWE feud from 2011. The key difference here, of course, is that Mysterio is in the best shape he’s been in ages and Cody has a character that, as good as the “disfigured” Cody Rhodes gimmick was, is even more compelling.

So, not as cool as a singles would have been, but still a match that should be great fun.

The undercard tags are pretty standard fare, one looking like it’s probably set to build up a IWGP United States Championship match for Juice Robinson, but the other has some (very slightly) hidden depths. You see Ishii holds NJPW’s UK partner Revolution Pro Wrestling’s British Heavyweight Champion and Suzuki and Sabre hold their British Tag Team Championship.

Ergo, above and beyond my probably-too-intense desire to see another round of ZSJ and Yano in action against each other, this potentially has some meaning for RevPro going forward, with a winner on either side perhaps staking a claim to the other’s title.

There you have it, folks

Excited to wake up at butt o’clock on Saturday to catch this one, Cagesiders?