Reopen the Garoon Gate

Watching the entire history of NXT in three months wasn’t the first time that I became fixated on a wrestling promotion. After seeing the stars of Dragon Gate headline a few Ring of Honor shows live back in 2006, I became completely obsessed with the promotion. I reviewed every match involving a Dragon Gate wrestler that occurred between the inception of the company in July of 2004 through their Kobe World Hall show in July of 2012. The entire archive is available on Amazon in my History of Dragon Gate series. I was so tuned into these wrestlers that I began reviewing shows from Toryumon, the pre-Dragon Gate promotion that trained most of the roster. I never completed the latter project, but recently I’d been feeling an itch to see where Dragon Gate has gone in the six years since the six years in which I was immersed.

So I reached out to a few of the folks I used to talk to about Dragon Gate back in the day asking for recommendations, and when they didn’t answer me I just cross referenced best-of lists from Reddit and Cagematch. I watched dozens of matches, but as I began formulating how I wanted to talk about them, I decided that I would select an elite few. The reason for this is I wanted to revisit the top 10 matches I’d watched from the years 2004 – 2012 and compare them to the top matches from the years 2013 – 2018 (one for each year) and see if the quality had fluctuated at all. For reference sake, here are the top 10 matches from my first stint reviewing Dragon Gate. Don’t @ me:

  1. CIMA, Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino vs. Ryo Saito, Genki Horiguchi & Dragon Kid [Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2005]
  2. Masaaki Mochizuki vs. YAMATO [Dead or Alive 2011]
  3. Shingo Takagi vs. BxB Hulk [Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2010]
  4. CIMA, Susumu Yokosuka & Ryo Saito vs. Shingo Takagi, BxB Hulk & Cyber Kong [Aggressive Gate 2007 – Night 10]
  5. YAMATO vs. CIMA [Primal Gate 2010 – Night 6]
  6. Naruki Doi, Magnitude Kishiwada & Masato Yoshino VS. Ryo Saito, Dragon Kid & Susumu Yokosuka VS. Shingo Takagi, BxB Hulk & Cyber Kong [Gate of Maximum 2007 – Night 3]
  7. YAMATO vs. Masaaki Mochizuki [Aggressive Gate 2010 – Night 1]
  8. Ryo Saito & Susumu Yokosuka vs. Kenichiro Arai & Taku Iwasa [Storm Gate 2007]
  9. Naruki Doi, “Naoki Tanisaki”, Yasushi Kanda, Kzy, Akira Tozawa, BxB Hulk & Cyber Kong vs. Masato Yoshino, Dragon Kid, Rich Swann, Jimmy Susumu, YAMATO, Shingo Takagi & Masaaki Mochizuki [Truth Gate 2012 – Night 3]
  10. Masaaki Mochizuki, YAMATO, Shingo Takagi, Masato Yoshino & Gamma vs. CIMA, BxB Hulk, Naruki Doi, Akira Tozawa & Cyber Kong [Crown Gate 2011 – Night 3]

I’m going to review the more modern matches in chronological order, but I’ll rank them at the bottom of the review.

Naruki Doi & Ricochet def. Akira Tozawa & BxB Hulk in 24:19 {Open the Twin Gate Championship Match – Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2013 – Kobe, Japan}
Tozawa & Hulk were representing Mad Blankey here, Doi & Ricochet were World-1 International. This was a good, high-level reintroduction to the brand and style of the company. The first 15 minutes would have been considered pretty wild in any American wrestling ring, and then the final ten went off the walls with insane spots and combos. I had this memory of the first half of big Dragon Gate matches being boring. This wasn’t boring at all, but it was hard to get the sense that everyone was trying to actually win the match in the first half. That was not the case in the second half, when Hulk really beat the crap out of Doi. Ricochet did some amazing things here, but he’s actually much improved now that he exudes more emotion after his big spots. ****¼

Eita & T-Hawk def. Shingo Takagi & Akira Tozawa in 30:03 {Open the Twin Gate Championship Match – Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2014 – Kobe, Japan}
Takagi & Tozawa, repping Monster Express, spent most of their title reign defended against Mad Blankey. Recently they’d beaten the Veterans and the Jimmyz, but now they have to take on the Millenials. What I liked more about this match than the previous year’s Twin Gate match is that it always felt like Monster Express and the Millenials were trying to win. I also really liked that the Millenials’ offense was designed to disorient their opponents rather than overpower them. But the best element of the match was that it was Takagi’s pride that ultimately cost him the titles, as he asked for a striking battle with T-Hawk after getting his arm ripped apart by Eita, and that led directly to the finish. Fantastic story here. ****½

Shingo Takagi def. Masaaki Mochizuki in 24:55 {Open the Dream Gate Championship Match – Gate of Destiny 2015 – Osaka, Japan}
Takagi came in as champion, representing VerserK. Mochizuki repped Dia.Hearts. Mochizuki is responsible for some of the best singles matches in Dragon Gate history, especially his matches against YAMATO, and this rivaled those. The nuance he brings to every stage of the match is really something to behold, and the way he matches intensity with the younger Takagi is really impressive. The guy was coming up on 46 when this match happened, and he was rushing around the ring as if he was still 25 wrestling in the Super-J Cup. Wild stuff to be sure. ****½

YAMATO def. Shingo Takagi in 33:46 {Open the Dream Gate Championship Match – Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2016 – Kobe, Japan}
Takagi was still champ going into this, still repping VerserK, and YAMATO came after him as part of Tribe Vanguard. These guys have amazing chemistry, and while this didn’t break any new ground technically, it was the most epic match between the two. I’m a little bummed that it didn’t feature any of the funny quirks from their matches years ago, like YAMATO being immune to MADE IN JAPAN, but I am happy that by this time the hurricanrana wasn’t a YAMATO match-ender anymore. ****¼

El Lindaman, Punch Tominaga, Shingo Takagi, T-Hawk & Takashi Yoshida def. Genki Horiguchi H.A.Gee.Mee!!, Jimmy K-ness J.K.S., Jimmy Kanda, Jimmy Susumu & Ryo Jimmy Saito in 34:11 {No Disqualification Elimination Match – Dangerous Gate 2017 – Osaka, Japan}
The losing unit must disband. The Jimmyz had survived unit-disband matches before, but their time came to an end here against VerserK after a five year run. That’s pretty damn good by Dragon Gate standards. This is the first match I’ve watched Yoshida in with his Cyber Kong mask off. For all the sameness that Dragon Gate gets accused of putting out, this match was quite the antidote. There was plunder everywhere, great brawling, and the teamwork you’ve come to expect from these fellas. They did an awesome job of setting this apart from other multi-man matches by making it a hardcore match, and by having VerserK tear down the ropes when Susumu was the last Jimmy standing. I think this was an almost perfect ending for the Jimmyz, with only one caveat; for a match involving as much barbed wire as this one did, there should have been some blood. I’m not a gorehound by any means, but there’s something dumb about watching guys hit each other with barbed wire over and over and having nobody bleed. That’s the only point deduction for this stellar outing. ****¾

BxB Hulk & YAMATO def. Ben-K & Big R Shimizu in 28:15 {Open the Twin Gate Championship Match – Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2018 – Kobe, Japan}
Hulk & YAMATO were looking to bring the belts to tribe Vanguard, tearing them away from the MaxiMuM team of Big Ben. If you can watch this match and come out of it thinking that Shimizu isn’t a serious prospect for the Japanese wrestling scene, then we can’t be friends. I ate this up and even when I was full I wanted more. My only knock is that Ben-K felt a little underutilized. Other than that, this was balls to the wall action, fantastic counters and reversals, and a star-making performance for Shimizu. There was one botched spot, which makes me think Ben-K might have had some issues in this match, but man oh man did I forget about that until quite a bit after the match ended. ****½

There you have it. As promised, here’s my top 10 list for the years 2013-2018. The list is rounded out by matches that came highly recommended, but weren’t to me the best of their year. Hell, I’ll review them and a couple others I watched below the list. Honestly, Dragon Gate probably put on better matches than the ones ranked 7-10 on this list, and I encourage you to tell me about them. Otherwise, I’m just going to go on thinking that Dragon Gate has had a serious dip in quality since I stopped watching regularly in 2012.

  1. El Lindaman, Punch Tominaga, Shingo Takagi, T-Hawk & Takashi Yoshida vs. Genki Horiguchi H.A.Gee.Mee!!, Jimmy K-ness J.K.S., Jimmy Kanda, Jimmy Susumu & Ryo Jimmy Saito [Dangerous Gate 2017]
  2. Big R Shimizu & Ben-K vs. YAMATO & BxB Hulk [Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2018]
  3. Shingo Takagi vs. Masaaki Mochizuki [Gate of Destiny 2015]
  4. Eita & T-Hawk vs. Shingo Takagi & Akira Tozawa [Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2014]
  5. YAMATO vs. Shingo Takagi [Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2016]
  6. Akira Tozawa & BxB Hulk vs. Naruki Doi & Ricochet [Kobe Pro Wrestling Festival 2013]
  7. Jimmy Susumu vs. Flamita [Dead or Alive 2014]
  8. Masato Yoshino & Shachihoko Boy vs. Jimmy Susumu & Jimmy Kagetora [Gate of Passion 2015]
  9. Masaaki Mochizuki vs. YAMATO [Dangerous Gate 2017]
  10. BxB Hulk vs. Uhaa Nation [Champion Gate in Osaka 2015, Night 2]

Flamita def. Jimmy Susumu in 13:26 {Open the Brave Gate Championship Match – Dead or Alive 2014 – Nagoya, Japan}
Flamita was representing the Millenials, and Susumu was doing the same for the Jimmyz. After having watched what feels like a dozen iterations of Susumu vs. Dragon Kid, it was fun to watch Susumu work the formula with someone else of Kid’s general size and style. They did a great job, blazing through the match without any semblance of a rest. It didn’t feel particularly consequential, but it did do a good job of showing that Flamita could hang with and defend his title against the Dragon Gate OGs. ****

BxB Hulk def. Uhaa Nation in 26:20 {Open the Dream Gate Championship Match – Champion Gate In Osaka 2015, Night 2 – Osaka, Japan}
Hulk is the leader of Dia.Hearts and Nation is wrestling his farewell match and repping Monster Express. I’m not such a fan of a wrestler winning by hitting his finisher over and over again, and Hulk had to hit like 5 First Flashes in a row to put Nation down here. This was kind of one dimensional for the most part, with the exception of some great selling from Nation early on (that unfortunately faded away) and the crazy triple powerbomb spot. Definitely on the lower end of the memorable matches from the last few years. ***½

Masato Yoshino & Shachihoko Boy def. Jimmy Susumu & Jimmy Kagetora in 27:46 {Open the Twin Gate Championship Match – Gate of Passion 2015, Night 4 – Tokyo, Japan}
The champs are representing Monster Express here, and the Jimmyz are here for the Jimmyz. Yoshino is still one of the fastest wrestlers on the planet and it’s so fun to watch him do his thing. This had an insane second half, but it felt totally disconnected from its first half. That’s a pretty common criticism of big Dragon Gate matches, and while sometimes I think that criticism is overblown, here it felt jarring and made it hard for me to really engage when things started moving at a rapid pace. ***¾

Masaaki Mochizuki def. YAMATO in 24:20 {Open the Dream Gate Championship Match – Dangerous Gate 2017 – Osaka, Japan}
They weren’t going to be able to top the previous match (the Jimmyz disband match), though if any pair of guys had a chance it was these two. YAMATO is representing Tribe Vanguard, and I think Mochizuki was back to just being one of the veterans. This match was kind of soul-crushing for me, and not because it was bad; it wasn’t bad. It was soul-crushing because twice before these two put on matches that absolutely blew my mind, and all of the creativity of those matches was absent here. What was present here was hard work and thirty minutes of getting by on intensity and will. But it was missing anything truly memorable. I don’t need 30 minutes of that in my life. Is modern YAMATO just tuned out? ***½

Masaaki Mochizuki def. Kzy in 21:27 {Open the Dream Gate Championship Match – Kotoka Road To Final, Night 5 – Tokyo, Japan}
Mochizuki is still just a grumpy veteran here, and Kzy is looking to bring the belt back to Tribe Vanguard. With apologies to Kevin Ford, I didn’t buy much of Kzy’s striking offense here. You’re going to tell me that this little dude who has never been much of a striker is going to control Masaaki goddamn Mochizuki with strikes? No. I did like when he’d use his speed and ingenuity to get believable near-falls on Mochizuki. That was the best part of the match. But I absolutely hated that he no-sold the Sankakugeri. I’m sorry but with Kzy losing anyway, why have him walk through the move that put down YAMATO for the title? I was actually loving the final stretch until that happened, and it totally took me out of it. I can understand why people liked this match; it was fun seeing Kzy competitive for the Dream Gate against one of the most badass wrestlers ever to lace up his boots, but there had to be a better way to give him a shine without killing Mochizuki’s world-ender. ***¼