The Dragon Gate thread

[JLM]

I have it on good authority that $tew has watched World, and thus all spoiler tagging and such can be stopped. Many thanks to the people on here and on MSN who didn't spoil World for me by the way.

 

A small news tidbit that I'm quite happy about:

 

With Magnums' injury, the remainder of the Ryuukon 10 Match series will be completed by Renaissance members.

 

9/20 Osaka Prefectural Gym, 2nd Stadium

#6- Don Fujii vs. Geni'chiro Tenryu

 

10/1 Fukui, Sun Dome Fukui

#7- Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Geni'chiro Tenryu

 

10/20 Tokyo, Korakuen Hall

#8- Don Fujii vs. Geni'chiro Tenryu

 

11/8 Tokyo, Korakuen Hall

#9- Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Geni'chiro Tenryu

 

11/23 Osaka Prefectural Gym Main Arena

#10- Yasushi Kanda vs. Geni'chiro Tenryu

 

Don Fujii vs Tenryu...twice! They spoil us sometimes.

 

Oh, and if anyone's interested, details for upcoming infinity episodes:

 

Infinity #47, Highlights of 4/23 PPV

Infinity #48, Covering 8/6 Nagoya, 8/11 Korakuen

Infinity #49 7/2 Kobe World Hall PPV Highlights

Infinity #50 8/19, 20 Sapporo, 8/28 SITE KOBE

 

Number 47 is available for download but isn't particularly usedul.

 

Hopefully 48 will be available sooner rather than later. 8/6 Nagoya was the WAR jr tag titles tournament, and 8/11 at Korakuen was a card of Triangle Gate League matches. Given the promotion's history for quality tag tournaments, I expect some goodness on this show. It will also mark the televised arrival of Yamato Onodera, who is making his debut in similar circumstances to Shingo.

 

Number 49 is again redundant.

 

50 covers three shows. 8/19 has a Renaissance vs DoFixer triangle gate league match, Tenryu vs Stalker, Tozawa-Juku and Gamma/Magnitude vs CIMA/Evans. 8/20 has the Triangle gate league final which will presumably be shown at length if not in full (26 minutes long) and some more Tenryu/Renaissance stuff. 8/28 was a LIVE GATE show and it has the CIMA/Evans Tozawa-Juku parody, Mochi vs Kanda and a nice looking DF vs Final M2K match.

 

All speculation of course, but that's what I reckon will be covered.

 

Here's Jack Evans practising his Tozawa schtick from his Myspace:

 

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...d6-74d5be0299b0

[BurningHammer]

Heh, it looks pretty funny, but I really need to see it in its full context (ie, catch up to the point that Tozawa-juku actually exists )

[JLM]

So the Owashi Puroresu card for the 18th has been released.

 

9/18/2006 Touru Owashi Puroresu

1. Jumping Kid Okimoto, Mototsugu Shimizu vs. Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei

2. Cherry, Kyoko Kimura vs. Mariko Yoshida, Shu Shibuya

3. Franceso Togo, Mori Bernardo, Milanito Collection a.t, with Antonio Honda vs. KAGETORA, Takuya Sugawara, Manjimaru

4. Chanco Rumble

Sanshiro Takagi, Danshoku Deeno, Gorgeous Matsuno, HARASHIMA, THE MAC, Shogo Jet Takagi, Bear Fukuda, Ken45, Dump Matsumoto

5. Shuji Kondo, brother YASSHI, Touru Owashi vs. El Blazer, Kota Iibushi, Toshiaki Kawada

 

A trader absolutely must get this in. The prospect of Tosh vs YASSHI for even thirty seconds is essential viewing if ever I saw it. On top of this, the rumble looks absolutely mental. Danshoku Dino, JET and Dump fuggin Matsumoto in the same match. Good lord. Oh, and Francesco Togo is of course DICK~!. If this isn't one of the best indysleaze cards of 2006 I'll be bitterly disappointed.

 

And for those who don't read PWG threads...

 

02 Sep 2006 Dragon Gate - Battle of LA Participation -

 

Night 1

 

CIMA defeated M-Dogg20 via Schwein

 

Dragon Kid defeated Quicksilver via UltraHurri. Shingo, with full cast, along with Commisioner Kido were also in attendance.

 

Night 2

 

Genki beat Chris Hero with the godly backslide.

 

Night 3

 

Roderick Strong beat Kido with the Strong Hold

CIMA beat Kevin Steen with a flash pin reversal of the package piledriver

CIMA beat El Generico with the Schwein

Jack Evans beat Genki with a bridging backslide

Super Dragon beat Jack Evans after a horrible sounding botched rana reversal off the second rope.

CIMA lost to Davey Richards in the final after a DR driver 2.

 

A number of PWG fans are calling CIMA/Generico match of the tournament, some are saying match of the entire weekend.

 

Dragon Kid had an off night on night one. The Ultra hurricanrana was botched, and because the fans were so close to the ring he ended up hitting someone with a moonsault.

 

Decent reviews for Genki vs Jack.

[JLM]

Infinity #48

 

1. Yamato Onodera vs. Yasushi Kanda

 

Although this is Onodera's TV debut, he'd been wrestling Kanda in the DG equivalent fo dark matches for a while before it. This, combined with Kanda's relatively low rank as a technically new wrestler means that he's a lot more competitive than Tozawa and Yuki Ono were in their first televised outings. He doesn't get to show much but looks relatively solid. He hits a death valley driver for two, which could become part of his regular offense as no one else is using it at the moment. To be honest I enjoyed watching Kanda do his thing more than anything. Still hard to believe that he's back full time. Post-match, Onodera gets his Kanda-esque outfit and is invited to join Final M2K, effective immediately as part of their Triangle Gate league team.

 

2. Handicap Match: Akira Tozawa, Taku Iwasa & Anthony W. Mori vs. Magnum TOKYO

 

I need to the Tozawa-juku theme as an MP3.

 

Magu is clearly in no mood for the Tozawa-juku schtick, responding to anything they try with brutal lariats. In fact, the match is largely made up of brutal lariats, mostly from Magu with the always welcome addition of Iwasa's picture perfect Axe Bomber. Tozawa-juku are essentially forced to wrestle in serious mode, and aside from the slightly annoying fact that they're still the underdogs in a three on one situation, it makes for an entertaining watch as they throw everything they've got at Magu, who responds with more of the aforementioned lariats. Something a bit different anyway, and a victory for Tozawa-juku.

 

 

3. Taku Iwasa & Takayuki Mori vs. BxB Hulk & King Shisa

 

Cool little match this, with Mori and Iwasa targetting the legs of Hulk and trying to keep Shisa on the apron. All the leg work unfortunately didn't lead to the escargot from Mori (I love that hold), but on the plus side Iwasa busted out the Goliath bird eater~! I truly hope that becomes part of his regular offense again. Anyway, despite their best efforts to isolate Hulk, a mistake from Mori allows Hulk to get the tag and Shisa is able to dispose of Mori in fairly short order. Nice, logical tag team wrestling with some llave goodness thrown in. This also showed further pleasing signs of Tozawa-juku wrestling in serious mode. The good thing is that their comedy spots aren't as contrived as FloBro and generally take the form of offensive moves, and thus they're able to mix the two if necessary rather than having two entirely different styles and having to break character.

 

4. Open the Dream Gate Title Contendership, Key Hunting 3 Way Match:

King Shisa vs. Taku Iwasa vs. Magnitude Kishiwada

 

A truly bizarre line up for a number one contendership match. Curses to Aries and Strong for denying us Ryo vs Doi, that would have rocked. As it was, this was a bit of a clipped up mess. Apparently it went 18 minutes. What we got to see is some half arsed chair duelling, Magnitude getting frustrated and wasting all his turnbuckle searches for an early elimination and then King Shisa dealing with Iwasa with relative ease using the BT Bomb. Was nice to hear the loud support for Iwasa though.

 

- Quick clips of Mochi using his WAR junior title to Pentagon Black (aka King Shisa). Mochi sporting his cool old school attire for a failed defense of a title he's held for ages but done little with.

 

5. Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Yokosuka, Kenichiro Arai & AZ vs. Magnum TOKYO, Ryo Saito, Dragon Kid & Genki Horiguchi

 

After a dull and seemingly aimless start, some clipping leads into a very watchable last ten minutes. The M2K triple teaming on Genki is very cool, Dragon Kid is on fire with his execution and the whole closing stretch is wonderfully fluid. Az's input is kept to a minimum, and unless he's improved a whole lot since I last saw him that's probably for the best. That said, his involvement in the last couple of minutes is perfectly fine and in terms of making up the numbers and chipping in with some flashiness he does alright. Not sure why they felt the need to show so much of this with so many tournament matches to cover, but it was good fun.

 

Hmm, forty minutes left, 7 matches to cover. Great.

 

6. WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Round 1:

Takayuki Mori & Taku Iwasa vs. Ryo Saito & Dragon Kid

 

1 minute shown, couple of nice spots, still loving Iwasa back in serious action.

 

7. WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Round 1:

Gamma & Dr. Muscle vs. Susumu Yokosuka & Kenichiro Arai

 

I would curse Aries and Strong again for denying us the Doi/Gamma team of maximum dickishness, but if we're only getting uber-clipped highlights then it's no great loss. The time for this was 17 minutes, we get considerably less. Gamma does that awesome water dribbling thing, and Araken counters it in a disgusting yet innovative way, catching most of it in his mouth and then spraying it back in Gamma's face in that classic Araken style. Nasty. The part of Dr. Muscle in this match is played by Magnitude Kishiwada.

 

8. WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Round 1:

King Shisa & Super Shisa vs. CIMA & BxB Hulk

 

This looks like it was excellent. What's shown is cool, I especially liked CIMA saving Hulk from the Yoshi tonic with a one man Supaah Draw on Shisa mid-move.

 

9. WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Round 1:

Don Fujii & Yasushi Kanda vs. Magnum TOKYO & Masaaki Mochizuki

 

Mochi vs Kanda, you don't see that every day. Kanda is heart-warmingly heroic here, kicking out of everything he can before succumbing to a Zetsuen for Magu, who needlessly pins him using an arrogant one foot cover. Git.

 

 

10. WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Semi Final:

Ryo Saito & Dragon Kid vs. Gamma & Dr. Muscle

 

I love the DG announcers sometimes. They chat briefly about Dr. Muscle at the beginning, and point out that his finishing hold appears to be the Last Ride. Heh.

 

Slightly more extended highlights for the semis thankfully. Dr. Muscle here is Yoshino, though in the highlights he only busts out Dr. Muscle trademark offense, which amounts to a choke and the sit-out chokeslam. The finish was just beautiful. Muscle takes a release dragon suplex from Ryo, staggers to his feet and gets caught with Kid's Ulta Hurricanrana. With considerable help from Kinta he rolls through into a pin of his own, which leads to the fastest fast count of all time. Genki's furious reaction is what really makes it though.

 

11. WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Semi Final:

Magnum TOKYO & Masaaki Mochizuki vs. CIMA & BxB Hulk

 

CIMA was on fire for this one (aside from that rather careless chop that broke Magu's eye socket!) and Hulk was no slouch either. They didn't have much of a chance given that the WAR titles were basically brought here for Mochi to win but they made a good match of it. We don't see CIMA vs Magnum or CIMA vs Mochi that much these days, so that was nice too. I liked the finish too. Schwein and EVO simultaneously, double kick out, Hulk gets frustrated and careless as he tries desperately to finish off Magu. He makes a mistake by taking his eye off Magu to question the ref's count, gets caught by the Zetsuen and one lariat later it's game over. I like how there's still the occasional sign of his inexperience in more important matches, and that the wily veteran renaissance team were able to capitalise on that.

 

12. WAR International Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Final:

Masaaki Mochizuki & Don Fujii vs. Gamma & Dr. Muscle

 

Twenty minutes of the episode left, only the final to cover. This is a good thing. The Don~! steps in to replace blind Magu, which means Fujii vs Gamma exchanges.

 

Dr. Muscle is Yoshino again. The commentators become slightly suspicious, if he's not careful they might be onto him soon... ("torbellino?"). They're still SHOCKED when he unmasks though.

 

Does anyone in DG do a better job of isolated tag partner than Don Fujii? How can you not root for this guy - him replacing Magu almost certainly made this a better match. Mochi does his one man killing machine act here like he used to do when he captained Shin M2K teams. As for Gamma, if anyone proves that wrestling isn't about how many holds you can do it's him. He doesn't actually do any wrestling moves in the entire match aside from a pinning cradle and a chop. Instead he spends his time poking eyes, kicking groins, spitting into his palms and rubbing it in faces, smacking people with his bamboo sword and cackling like a mad man. He doesn't need to do any more than that either. Special mention to Kinta also, who has developed into a fine heel over the past few months.

 

Everything clicked for me in this match. The now typical screwy closing stretch with Kinta evilness and Yagi intervention can be overlooked because the whole thing is always so dramatic and heated that it all adds to the match rather than feeling overbooked most of the time.

 

The second half of this show was always going to suffer slightly because of how much they had to fit in, but there was still some good stuff on offer. The Tozawa-juku handicap and tag matches at the beginning are worth a watch, the big eight man tag was better than I thought it would be and I enjoyed the main event a lot.

 

Infinity 50 airs on the 21st apparently, and will be heavily focused on the Triangle Gate league.

[alexander]

Does anyone in DG do a better job of isolated tag partner than Don Fujii? How can you not root for this guy - him replacing Magu almost certainly made this a better match.

More like - "Obviously made this a better match"

aside from the slightly annoying fact that they're still the underdogs in a three on one situation

Fuck you, Magnum.

[Jun Kasai]

credit DGUSA

Another wave of North American wrestlers will be arriving in DG in October.Austin Aries will return for his first stay in DG proper. He arrives on 10/13 for the Hiroshima Green Dome convention, and will remain throughout the week, leaving after the 10/20 Korakuen show.Kevin Steen184cm/122kg. Native of Quebec. Trademarks include the Package Piledriver and Moonsault Press.Notably of PWG fame, he will be making his DG debut. Story behind apparently is that Steen was in cahoots with Gamma during the Battle of Los Angeles in attempts to injure CIMA. Or something. He arrives on 10/7 for the Kawagoe show (here's to invoking the spirits of cursed Pepe) and will stay all the way until 11/23 and the big Osaka show.As was noted before, Jack Evans will arrive in mid-September and remain through the end of the year. Matt Sydal will attempt to return in November, after this current stay ends on 10/1. King Shisas' stay is still up in the air, as far as duration goes.

[alexander]

Urrrk.

[Clumsy Dad]

Does Keven Steen still have a moveset that seems to consist almost entirely of finishing moves, or has he toned it down? I haven't seen any of his matches in the last year or so, and used to find his stuff pretty much unwatchable because of this.

[JLM]

Ugh, not Kevin Steen. Aries I don't mind though.

[Carbomb]

Does Keven Steen still have a moveset that seems to consist almost entirely of finishing moves

It's not just Kevin Steen, it's pretty much every fucking PWG, CZW and RoH wrestler around. Seriously, watch just ONE match from any of these promotions' cards, and you have at least six or seven moves to choose from as a finisher. And people ask me why I despise these promotions. I've kept quiet about it, but I have been very unhappy since the day I heard that all these fucking North American smark darlings had gotten into DragonGate. Sydal, Rave, Evans (!!!!), Strong, Aries, and now Steen? They're all fucking balls, completely bereft of any character or psychology. The only US indy wrestler who is of DragonGate standard is AmDrag.

[JLM]

To be fair to Evans, he's been infinitely better than Strong and Sydal in DG. He at least has some charisma about him and is a great whipping boy. Don't get me wrong, I'd sooner not have him on the cards, but he's far from the worst.

[alexander]

I can't imagine anyone who's watched even a little of their work calling Aries and Rave on having no character.I'd also be interested to hear what those two do in matches to over do big moves.

[JLM]

It did seem a little like a generic anti-indy rant. Aries looked to be pretty good on the DG Impact shows, and I'd take him over most of the others. Rave is hilarious. Strong oozes bland from every pore though.

[JLM]

The DG/El Dorado break is over, and the big Korakuen show happened. Here are the results:

17 Sep 2006 Dragon Gate - 9/17 STORM GATE 9/17/2006 Fukuoka, Hakata Star Lanes1. Ryo Saito, Genki Horiguchi{W}, Dragon Kid (Backslide) CIMA, Matt Sydal, BxB Hulk{L}2. K-ness, Keni'chiro Arai{W} (Circus Style Headbutt) Akira Tozawa{L}, Taku Iwasa3. Yasushi Kanda (German Suplex Hold) Yamato Onodera4. Gamma{W}, Jimmy Rave (Pinfall w/ Kinta High Speed Count) Taku Iwasa{L}, Takayuki Mori5. WAR IJ Tag Titles: Masaaki Mochizuki, Don Fujii{W} (Nice German) Magnitude Kishiwada, Masato Yoshino{L}*V1 for Renaissance6. Open the Dream Gate: Susumu Yokosuka (Jumbo no Kachi!) Pentagon Black*V3 for SusumuMO'z were all over this show. They intruded after match 1, Gamma giving the Gamma Special to CIMA. Renaissance saved.Yoshino was out as Dr. Muscle during match 4. Mori ripped his mask off at some point during the match.Fujii apparently bled huge for the semi-main. There were some shenanigans involving Kinta taking out Referee Ohya. Yagi ended up making the save at the end for him. A mis-timed powder attack led to the pinfall. Yoshino may have re-injured his shoulder during the match though.As you can see by the changed main event, some movement occured there. MO'z intruded, again, before the main. They brought out the WAR IJ title, won by Pentagon Black back in July. They said they found it in King Shisas' locker room. King ripped his mask off, revealing a Pentagon Black mask. He attacked Shisa Boy with a Tombstone. The match started officially as Susumu vs. Pentagon Black, with MO'z seconding him. Same result as expected though.Mochizuki and Renaissance entered again at the end. The next Hakata on 11/19 will see the IJ Tag up again, this time the opposing team is Kishiwada and Pentagon. Mochizuki will also attempt to recapture the IJ singles belt in Osaka, but I'm not sure if it's the upcoming Osaka or the 11/23 big show. The negative out of this report is that Susumus' win was clearly overshadowed and lost in the shuffle by the end movement.

King Shisa es rudo! Heel Pentagon black in DG should be fun, and it rules that the promotion has its own Team FAT~! now in Pentagon Black and Magnitude Kishiwada. Every promotion should have one. And The El Dorado results...

9/16/2006 Tokyo, Shin-kiba 1st Ring1. Shuji Kondo{W}, Touro Owashi (11:23 King Kong Lariat) Mototsugu Shimizu{L}, Bear Fukuda2. 3 Way Match: (8:36 No Contest due to Manjimaru Chair Assault) Manjimaru, Shogo Jet Takagi, King Pocota3. Handicap Match: brother YASSHI (9:08 Northern Lights Suplex) Jumping Kid Okimoto{L}, Yuji Hino4. KAGETORA{W}, Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei (11:50 Ikkitousen) El Blazer, Kota Iibushi, Milanito Collection a.t.{L}5. Lumberjack Match: Takuya Sugawara (15:56 Shiisanputa) Ken45$B!k(BKen is now banished from tagging with Kondo and Aagan members. Suga however is still not entirely sure about rejoining Aagan. Kondo demanded Suga tag with him on the 10/1 show. KAGETORA raised an objection, but Suga consented to it, saying he tagged with KAGETORA last time.YASSHI defeated his 2 junior team members from high school, in a clean match. Okimoto and Hino argued, which lead to the finish. They 3 decided to have a 3 way on 10/1.10/1/2006 Tokyo, Shin-Kiba 1st Ring ~THE NOT WRONG SELECTION: October-Shuji Kondo, Takuya Sugawara, Touru Owashi vs. KAGETORA, Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei-Minami-Kyoto High School #1 3 Way Match: brother YASSHI vs. Jumping Kid Okimoto vs. Yuji Hino

Sugawara vs Ken45 sounds good to me, I like that as a feud. As good as the comedy that JKO vs YASSHI provided was, I still think this little feud is a waste of both of them. The opening tag appeals to me, the Fukuda vs Owashi/Kondo exchanges in particular. I like where El Dorado is going thus far.EDIT: Been reading some stuff on DG over at DVDR recently (not much love for the promotion at all there these days), and there was more speculation about the Aagan dismissal. Apparently Aagan were responsible for Naoki's injury that put him in hospital with breathing difficulties. Story goes that it happened in a match and that they kept hitting moves on him and were regarded as being dangerous to work with after that. This, along with Fuji TV deciding that they were unmarketable and a number of the other reasons given, can further help to explain them leaving. It's pretty much accepted now that they (along with SUWA, Milano, Mishima and Tanisak) resigned, and weren't fired as such. Creative differences and a lack of direction have also been cited as a reason for the departures of all of the above. Oh, and I also learned that Ultimo is still involved with El Dorado, and that his cutting of ties with them was just an angle, with the speculation being that there will be an El dorado vs UD/Toryumon mini-war a la T2P vs Toryumon. This seemed obvious to many, but then I haven't been following Ultimo's movement and just took that at face value when I first read it. :blush:Also, regarding Naoki and Mishima:

Naoki got married, in spring. That is one of the prevailing reasons as to why he resigned. He was always so injury prone, so he got out so he could be healthy for his family. Same for Mishima, who had his 2nd child recently. Both have said they will return somewhere one day though. Wouldn't mind them in Dorado. The limited schedule would be easier on them, and it would add them to the familiar faces old fans would pay to go see.

[JLM]

Once again I bump this thread with a reply to my own post. To paraphrase Kano, it's like nobody don't (Social) dance (gate) no more. I don't care, I'm reviewing and posting anyway.

 

Sooo, infinidee number 50 then.

 

This is all about the triangle gate league, covering as much as the league of possible in one hour and forty two minutes. This means four things:

 

1) Quality six man tag team action~!

 

2) Clipping.

 

3) More clipping.

 

4) Even more cli-

 

Ryo Saito, Dragon Kid, Genki Horiguchi vs CIMA, BxB Hulk, Jack Evans

 

This here match has garnered considerable praise, with one guy at DVDR saying it's his DG match of the year. Then again, he hates Don Fujii as well, so he's obviously not quite right in the head.

 

To me it was just a spotty sprint. The execution was first rate (especially from Evans, who tends to be more than a bit suspect), the timing and all round sense of chaos was present and correct and the crowd was all heated for the finish, but it didn't strike me as something truly special at all. CIMA is going a bit overboard with his US indy spots at the moment too.

 

Also, I know that there's a big evil that needs a-fightin' in DG at the moment, but shinsei blood/BloodHearts is an exceptionally lame concept for a team, and one that I truly struggle to get behind.

 

King Shisa/Super Shisa/Shisa boy vs Gamma, Magnitude Kishiwada and Masato Yoshino

 

Just a few seconds of clips. The Shisa family get totally squashed inside five minutes here, and the clips appear to show as much as is necessary. Ouch.

 

Post match was quality though. Muscle Outlawz continue to beat down the Shisa family until Tozawa-juku run in for the save, looking all angry and serious. This leads to Gamma challenging them to a handicap match...

 

Masato Yoshino, Gamma, Magnitude Kishiwada vs. Akira Tozawa, Takayuki Mori, Taku Iwasa, Yuki Ono

 

...which absolutely rules but is sadly clipped fairly heavily despite only being 7 minutes long.

 

Taku Iwasa is the star here. He is making the most of any oppurtunity to wrestle in serious mode and he doesn't take any shit off anyone in this match. Him flooring Magnitude with his Axe bomber is one of my favourite DG moments of 2006. I'd take TJ vs MOz over CIMA and his boyfriends vs MOz without question.

 

Unfortunately for the cram schoolers, their fearless leader is unfortunately the victim of a triple team assault towards the end of the match and ultimately submits to the Sol naciente, which is now surely one of the most deadly finishers in DG again.

 

MOz can't win a match without post-match gloating and shenanigans, and true to form here they cross the line by stealing the Tozawa-juku flag. When flagbearer Oyaji crawls into the ring to save it, Yoshino goes a step further and breaks it in half! Bastard!

 

In another superb moment, Oyaji snaps at this and drops Yoshino with a flying right hook. I'd read about this before I saw it but it was still fantastic, as was his super-angry almost Owashi-like promo. Fear Oyaji. He orders Mori to press Yoshino for a Brave Gate title match, which is duly arranged for September 26th. This, along with a triangle gate league title match and King Shisa's dream gate shot are all set to air on the next Infinity.

 

Masaaki Mochizuki, Yasushi Kanda, Don Fujii vs. Susumu Yokosuka, Keni'chiro Arai, Yamato Onodera

 

Now this, this was good. Quite comfortably smoked the opening match for me. One of those uber-intense heavyweight style matches that we've come to associate with Fujii and Mochi these days. One of Araken's strongest performances in a long time and a very very promising showing from Onodera as well.

 

Plenty of great moments, Araken with the best selling of the triangle enzuigiri ever, Onodera holding onto his jujigatame for dear life, Onodera trying the gekokujoh elbow, just about every exchange between Mochi/Susumu/Fujii... it was all pretty much gold for me.

 

I would have loved to see this in full.

 

Ryo Saito, Dragon Kid, Genki Horiguchi vs. King Shisa, Super Shisa, Shisa Boy

 

Standard fare, watchable but nothing great. King Shisa's strength is impressive - at a few points he seems to have lost his opponent when going for his Gory special or the BT bomb, but both times he's able to hoist the opponent back into position with one arm. Shisa boy gets to strut his stuff a bit and looks quite useful in the process. His commitment to Shisa posing is still quite funny - he seems keen to keep some comedy in his new persona despite dropping the Syachihoko machine gimmick.

 

The result surprised me. I had DF down to win this, but then King Shisa needs a few wins in the run up to his dream gate shot I guess, and Genki tends to be the man to take such falls.

 

Masaaki Mochizuki, Yasushi Kanda, Don Fujii vs Masato Yoshino, Gamma, Magnitude Kishiwada

 

Gamma starts the match by giving us a display of his round house kicking prowess in order mock Mochi. The man lives to wind people up, you have to love it. His exchange with Fujii is a highlight here, but the whole thing is good viewing. It mainly revolves around Fujii and Mochi being caught up with brawls elsewhere whilst poor Kanda is isolated in the ring.

 

This pattern continues through to the finish, where he takes Yoshino's big missile dropkick, a powerbomb from Kishiwada and then, in what is fast becoming traditional Gamma style, falls victim to his own finisher courtesy of the aforementioned water dribbling swine. As if that wasn't bad enough, Gamma then covers Kanda and counts along in the same way Kanda does after hitting the move. Bastard.

 

So, going into the final stage of the triangle gate league, BloodHearts are top with 8 points, and the final fixture between DoFixer and Renaissance (both on 6) will determine who gets to face them in the match to crown new triangle gate champions.

 

Genki Horiguchi, Dragon Kid, Ryo Saito vs Masaaki Mochizuki, Don Fujii, Yasushi Kanda

 

This looks like it was great, but the clipping (about 6 minutes of 18) means we only get glimpses of it. The Mochi vs Ryo exchanges were good, as was seeing Genki get a win with the Godly Backslide on TV after a long drought.

 

 

Don Fujii, Masaaki Mochizuki vs Genichiro Tenryu, Yasushi Kanda

 

This episode of DG TV makes me wish they still ran monthly pay per views. The triangle gate league has been clipped to pieces in order to fit it into this show, and even the final deciding match falls victim to heavy editing. Some would say that cuttng this match would have allowed them to show more footage from the league match, but then we'd have been denied a great little tag match that deserved to be televised. A pay per view event with the final few triangle gate league matches plus this somewhere on the undercard would have rocked.

 

As it is, I guess we have to be thankful that they didn't cut this match up like all the others. Some particularly great moments here:

 

- Don Fujii tries a cheap shot to knock Tenryu off the apron, only for Tenryu to no-sell it and climb straight into the ring to a "oooh" from the crowd.

 

- Mochi lands a kick to the chest so sweetly that it knocks Tenryu back into the corner, accompanied by an even bigger "ooooh" from the crowd.

 

- Tenryu no-sells a lariat and goes into a truly bizarre little dance and pulls insane faces.

 

- Don Fujii has the audacity to use the WAR special on Tenryu, only for the old man to escape it and apply it himself straight afterwards.

 

- Kanda is a god damn hero, kicking out of all kinds of stuff and refusing to accept his role as the weak link in the match.

 

Won't be on any MOTYC lists or anything, but I enjoyed the hell out of this.

 

Open the Triangle Gate League Finals: Ryo Saito, Dragon Kid, Genki Horiguchi vs. CIMA, BxB Hulk, Jack Evans

 

Now what in the hell was the point of showing the entrances in full when they're quite blatantly pushed for time this month? I welcome the sight of the bxB Hulk dancers as much as the next man with a liking for lovely Japanese ladies, but perhaps they could have prioritised a bit and crammed in a couple of extra minutes of match footage here and there?

 

So the clipping in this match is awful. I mean really, really bad. Genki gets locked in a submission, H-A-G-E chant starts, split second later he's just about finishing off his comeback as the chant finishes. As the Muscle Outlawz leave (they run in, cause some havoc, then are fought off), Dr. Muscle appears to run at the crowd to scare some audience members - I say "appears" because this cuts away seemingly at random too. Absolute hatchet job. So, Jack Evans becomes the first gaijin to hold a Dragon Gate title.

 

The highlights make it look like an ok match, though the finishing stretch is overblown. There are certain moves that you do not no-sell and spring right up from, a fisherman buster from the top rope is one of those moves.

 

Also, as pretty as Jack's phoenix splash into a 630 might be, the fact that he lands in something resembling a botched leg drop and is seemingly milimetres away from just landing arse-first on Dragon Kid's chest suggests that he should probably not bust out that variation too much.

 

CIMA's US indy fetish is getting tiresome now (Kevin Steen in a ODG number one contenders' match??) - please send them home.

 

CIMA/Hulk/Evans might just be my least favourite Triangle Gate/UWA Trios champions to date. I like CIMA an awful lot, it's great to see Hulk win his first title and I guess we're just going to have to accept that Evans will be around for a while - but as a team? Nah.

 

To Evans' credit though, he looks genuinely overjoyed to have won, and it's good that Hulk gets to do the closing MC and take much of the glory for the win.

 

A very patchy episode overrall. The tozawa-juku vs MOz stuff is something I'm very much into, so that was all good, and I enjoyed the revolution special match too. The problem, once again, is the one that will plague all DG infinity episodes in the absence of more TV time each month (and especially shows that have to cover tournaments) - clipping. I hope this tournament gets extensive coverage on a future official DVD release as it felt totally wasted when shoe-horned into 90 minutes. If it does, I'd buy it, particularly if they have the Renaissance vs Final M2K match in full.