New reactions provide new ways to think about bond construction and thus more, and often greener, options for achieving greater step, [1] atom [2] and time economical, [3] if not ideal, syntheses. [4] Guided by these considerations, we previously introduced a reaction for seven-membered ring synthesis involving metal-catalyzed [5+2] cycloadditions of vinylcyclopropanes (VCPs) and p systems. [5] While rhodium complexes have shown the greatest generality in catalyzing this process, working both intra-and intermolecularly and with absolute stereocontrol [6] and even in water, [7] ruthenium, [8] nickel, [9] and iron [10] catalysts have also been effective in many cases. We report herein the first studies of a new family of catalysts for [5+2] cycloadditions based on relatively little studied rhodium cyclooctatetraene (COT) complexes. We describe the synthesis and metal complexation of our dinaphtho[a,e]cyclooctatetraene (dnCOT) ligand 5 derived from a recently introduced [2+2+2+2] cycloaddition of diynes. [11] The resulting Rh-dnCOT catalyst provides [5+2] cycloadducts in high yields, often in minutes at room temperature, is compatible with a variety of functionalities, and exhibits enhanced or even reversed regiocontrol in selected cases, relative to known catalysts.The [2+2+2+2] cycloaddition of diynes has proven to be an excellent reaction for the synthesis of highly substituted COTs. [11] In addition to the value of such COTs as synthetic building blocks and components of novel materials and devices, [12][13][14][15][16] a further motivation for our interest in this process was the potential use of COTs as ligands for catalysis. Due to their tub-shaped conformation, certain COTs can coordinate transition metals in a 1,2,5,6-h 4 manner analogous to dienes such as cyclooctadienes (CODs). [17] Interestingly, the distance and bite angle between the binding alkene moieties in metal complexes of both COD and COT are the [*] Prof. .) for financial support. We also thank Allen Oliver at the University of Notre Dame for X-ray crystal structures. Justin P. Christy is acknowledged for his supporting work on the syntheses of COTs and for helpful discussions.Supporting information for this article (full experimental details, characterization of new compounds, preparation and characterization of dnCOT and its rhodium and iridium metal complexes, and procedures for [5+2] cycloadditions) is available on the WWW under http://dx.