NJPW Dominion 2025 Preview & Predictions

This Sunday is Father's Day but it's also NJPW Dominion 2025, New Japan's second-biggest show of the year behind WrestleKingdom.  I guess technically third-biggest now that Forbidden Door exists, but that's a co-promoted show.  Anyway, this lineup looks quite solid, so let's get to it!

Bullet Club War Dogs vs. House of Torture

This is the BCWD B-team vs. three of Evil's lieutenants plus a TBA.  No idea who that'll be.  But since the War Dogs won the big match to determine who gets the Bullet Club name, I'll go with HoT to get some payback.

Pick: House of Torture

Shota Umino & El Phantasmo vs. Zack Sabre Jr. & Ryohei Oiwa

Very odd that Shota and ZSJ are this low on the card in some rando tag match.  Should be a good one though if it gets time.

Pick: My gut says Team Zack

WWE Money in the Bank 2025 Preview & Predictions

Time for another half-assed "premium live event" from WWE.  Ya know, I used to think PLEs and PPVs were the same thing, but WWE keeps proving that theory wrong, don't they?  AEW's Double or Nothing was an absolute banger, one of the best shows they've ever produced, easily the best show of 2025 thus far, but hold up, here comes a near-throwaway PLE from the bastion of mediocrity!

Four matches, two of them Money in the Bank ladder matches, and if you've read my stuff at all over the past several years I've been saying for a long time it's time to retire this concept.  It's a lazy, undisciplined way to elevate new stars and usually doesn't do much to elevate anyone long-term (not to mention the multi-person ladder match is so beyond played out at this point).  Surely the "Booker of the Year" can figure out an effective way to get someone over without resorting to a cheap cash-in after the champion's already wrestled.

Anyway, let's look at the lineup (For the record, only one black wrestler on the card, Naomi.  Never Beating Those Allegations.  N.B.T.A.).....

Women's Intercontinental Championship: Lyra Valkyria vs. Becky Lynch

I expect this to steal the show like it did at Backlash, and it's Becky's "last chance" so I imagine she'll win the title here.  I guess Becky/WWE wanted to give Lyra a big win before taking the belt off her.  It does however follow WWE's tired pattern of "Babyface champion beats heel challenger clean but gives heel challenger another shot anyway."  

Pick: Becky

Oscar Film Journal: Tootsie (1982)

It's been a little while, but welcome back to the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com!

We're heading back to the early 1980s and the Sydney Pollack-directed romantic comedy Tootsie, starring Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr and Bill Murray.  Hoffman stars as struggling New York actor Michael Dorsey who is such an opinionated perfectionist he's burned all his bridges in town, and his agent (played by Pollack himself) has essentially given up on him.  Dorsey's roommate Jeff (Murray in an understated but still very funny performance) has written a quite promising play but the pair have no money to get it off the ground.  Dorsey's other close friend and acting student Sandy (Garr) has an audition for a soap opera but is quickly dismissed by the show's misogynistic director (Dabney Coleman) for not looking the part.  Dorsey then has the idea to audition for the role himself, in drag, and blows away the show's producers with snappy improvisation and a strong-willed presentation.  The character played by "Dorothy Michaels" becomes a sensation with the soap's audience, and Michael finds himself in a conundrum when he not only begins to fall for his co-star Julie (Lange) but the network wants to sign Dorothy to a long-term contract.