Chris Jericho vs Kazuchika Okada set for NJPW Dominion

[BestSportsEntertainer]

It will be for Okada's IWGP World Championship. I haven't been following NJPW or really any wrestling outside of WWE (I really don't have the time), but sign me up for this.

[FunKay]

Being billed as "Rainmaker" versus "Painmaker":



Jericho has gone full emo mid-life crisis and its actually weirdly fun. Its silly, don't get me wrong, but its a unique departure and sets him apart from a) the rest of the field in NJPW/AEW and b) from the rest of his career. As for the match itself, seems like a bout to sell tickets and beef up Okada's new reign with a signature win over a major name. It'll be good I've no doubt, but the winner is obvious, espeically given that AEW has yet to establish any working relationship with New Japan as of yet.

[Jack-Hammer]

Basically what FunKay said. Jericho has this weird emo/Alex from A Clockwork Orange/Joker thing going on and while it's silly, it works because Jericho is one of the few guys who can pull it off. Jericho did all sort sof silly stuff in WWE and most of it worked because of Jericho's energy, his passion, his personality and charisma.

Will it be a good match? Most likely, though I also think it'll be one of these matches that'll be heavily, heavily overrated by the various writers who have a major tendency to do it. Jericho isn't what he once was in the ring, he's finally showing physical signs of aging, he's not quite as fast as he used to be but he can still deliver good matches. Jericho is one of the extremely lucky ones who hasn't really suffered any significant injury in his career: no issues with his neck or back, no hip, shoulder, elbow, knee troubles, no history of dislocations or muscle tears, no history of concussions that I'm aware of. As a result, it's helped him maintain a high level of ability in the ring whereas guys who're the same age range like Triple H, Taker, Angle and others haven't aged as gracefully inside the ring. Also, be prepared for a pretty long match as Okada that's what he prefers and, as you imagine and as has been reported, Okada has tons of stroke in New Japan. I'd say most of his matches go around the 30 minute range, though it's not at all unusual for them to go close to 40 minutes. Such long matches can work if you've got two guys in there who have the chemistry with one another and the overall ability and that's what happens with Okada sometimes; however, not everybody is Kenny Omega and there were times in some of those matches that they just dragged unnecessarily and that can happen a good deal in Okada's matches though not enough to keep them from being good, maybe from being as good as they could have been had 10-15 minutes been shaved off, but still watchable and enjoyable matches.

As to who wins, it's obvious that Okada wins as Jericho structures his deals with New Japan similarly to how Lesnar does: he keeps the duration short, just a handful of months, for maybe 1 or 2 matches and then the deal is finished. Putting the IWGP IC title on Jericho was done mostly for publicity. After all, in the 209 days he was champion, he only wrestled two matches for the title, the 2nd of which he lost at Wrestle Kingdom this year. While I doubt New Japan will go that route with their World Championship, I highly doubt it in fact, it's not impossible as it's extremely common for champions to only have title matches at certain shows of the year, which is one of the reasons why it's been more common in New Japan than Impact, ROH or WWE, at least until within the last year or so, for champs to have title runs lasting 6, 8, 10 months or longer; after all, it's "easier" to be a champion for 6 months when the champ sits on the title the entire time. Maybe it works well in Japan, makes the title reigns and matches feel more special but not so much here in most cases.

So yeah, expect a pretty good match, one that might be heavly overrated by the journalists who're total New Japan marks and one that'll probably last a minimum of 30 minutes with Okada retaining.

[#AbsoluteUnit]

LOL. Jericho is only there to put the other guy over and to make him look credible.