The Dragon Gate thread

[Jun Kasai]

I was looking through some old results and i was wondering if anyone can shed a little info on this match.

 

9/26/2003 Budokan Hall

 

5 Way Escape Cage Match

Order of Escape: Araken (17:15- Escape), SUWA (22:10 Escape), Magnum TOKYO (22:35 Escape), Milano Collection AT (28:05 AT Lock) Genki Horiguchi

 

I've seen the Escape the Cage match from 2001 (I think) which is really good and on paper this looks it might have great too.

[Jun Kasai]

NOAH, 2/15/07 (NTV/G+ Live)Tokyo Korakuen Hall2,100 Fans - Super No Vacancy 4. Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Naruki Doi & Genki Horiguchi beat KENTA, Ryo Saito & BxB Hulk (18:15) when Kanemaru used the Touch Out on Hulk.

Really looking forward to seeing this one purely for the Doi/KENTA exchanges.

[JLM]

I was looking through some old results and i was wondering if anyone can shed a little info on this match. 9/26/2003 Budokan Hall5 Way Escape Cage MatchOrder of Escape: Araken (17:15- Escape), SUWA (22:10 Escape), Magnum TOKYO (22:35 Escape), Milano Collection AT (28:05 AT Lock) Genki HoriguchiI've seen the Escape the Cage match from 2001 (I think) which is really good and on paper this looks it might have great too.

Yeah, the previous escape cage match was at Absolutamente in 2001. The 2003 budokan show is also known as Absolutamente 2003. As I'm planning to move in the next couple of weeks, I've been sorting out all my stuff and actually had this show to hand today. So I rewatched a good chunk of it. The full card if you're wondering is:Susumu Yokosuka vs Dragon KidTARU vs Touru OwashiYossino (Masato Yoshino) and K-Ness vs Condotti Shuji (Shuji Kondo) and Brother Yassini (Brother YASSHI)CIMA, JUN and Don Fujii vs Antony W. Mori, Masaaki Mochizuki and 2nd Doi (Naruki Doi)5 Way Escape Cage Match Milano Collection AT vs. SUWA vs. Genki Horiguchi vs. Kenichiro Arai vs. Magnum TOKYOI ended up watching from the Yossino match onwards because my dusty old VCR gets angry if you ask it to rewind and that's where the tape (old school!) was up to. TARU vs Owashi was a wild brawl with clubbering in various locations. I can't remember that particular Susumu/Kido match, but it was undoubtedly very good. Yossino/K-Ness vs Condotti Shuji/Brother YasshiniThe pre-match recap covers Kondo and Yasshi betraying the Italian Connection, and their frankly despicable assault and beheading (fine, "unmasking") of Venezia. This is all leading up the formation of Aagan Iisou at the end of the year, and the two are already figures of much hatred amongst the Toryumon fans. To further rile everyone, Kondo comes to the ring carrying a flag-pole bearing masks from previous victims. Berlinetta Boxer, Venezia and a K-Ness mask. What a bastard. The match is good. It has an insanely overbooked finish, but you can't help loving it. The basic premise is that K-Ness and Yossino can dominate Yasshi with ease, but are unable to handle the raw power of Kondo unless they're using double team moves. This, mixed in with Yasshi being a dick as usual and a sprinkling of awesome llave submission holds, makes for a fun 15 minutes. Turntable, Sol Naciente, Sol Noches Es, a Gory special from Yasshi and a hold from Kondo that I don't think has a name and cannot be described easily enough for me to bother. Kondo is a monster here. Lariats and lanzarses all round, a full on powerhouse performance from the big man. The best moment comes when, having failed to get the submission win with synchronised finishing holds because of a ref bump, K-Ness and Yossino decide to both put a triangle choke on Kondo at the same time. This is going great until Kondo tires of their efforts and just stands up. A fully grown man on each arm. He just stands up, and then powerbombs them both. It is awesome. Even the crowd in attendance that *hates* the guy can't help but be impressed. Shortly afterwards it descends into madness. Ref assaults, tables, blue boxes, baguettes to the head and a run-in from Susumu featuring the best JUMBO NO KACHI! of all time. Fun fun fun. CIMA/JUN/Don Fujii vs Antony W. Mori/Masaaki Mochizuki/2nd DoiHoly shit this was good. CIMA is over like a god. His work throughout 2003 was gold and he came accross as a charismatic super-athlete. He had to work very hard to get any heel reactions out of the live crowds, though he did manage it occasionally. I'll try not to go overboard with praise for JUN, but suffice to say he was brilliant and I wish he was still wrestling. In this match he's all about the growth. In the early going he does alright, but Doi eventually gets the better of him and starts to take him to school. At one point, Doi has him in a leg lock which prompts CIMA to come in, stomp on Doi to break the hold and then stomp on JUN and tell him to show some god damn hustle. From then on he just gets stronger and stronger as it goes on, eventually even managing to make a respectable attempt at going toe to toe with the ever-dominant Mochi. Sub plots~! Mori appears to vanish for a good chunk of this match, but makes up for it by returning as they move up through the gears and has an absolutely phenomenal exchange with CIMA. He gets whipped into the corner, CIMA runs at him, he gets a boot up and hops onto the turnbuckles for a tornado DDT. Quick as a flash, CIMA forward rolls out of his daze and hits the Venus palm strike. He grabs Mori for the Iconoclasm, Mori spins out in mid air and gains control with an arm-wringer. He yells "Ikimasyou!" and runs up the ropes, CIMA drags him down and catches him mid-air for the Schwein which is instantly reversed into a flash crucifix pin for two. The speed and fluidity of this is absolutely breathtaking. Later on CIMA and Mochi take their fight up the ramp to the stage. Big bad Owashi turns up and slaps CIMA around for a bit. The people are pissed. TARU runs in for the save and their arena-wide brawl picks up where it left off. TARU is great when he's fired up. CIMA/SUWA/TARU/JUN/Fujii... what a line up. I miss CrazyMAX. :(The closing stretch is as frantic as you'd expect, with the usual Toryumon touches like partners working their arses off to stop the opposition partners breaking up pinfalls. I was quite surprised by the finish having totally forgotten about this match. Sure, CIMA takes the Owashi beating, one of his signature sickening DDT bumps and a Twister before eventually taking the Bakatare sliding kick, but it was still a big win for young Doi. There was no specific build-up to this match - Antony was on the Final m2K team for no particular reason at all. Despite that, it was infinitely better than many of the 'filler' matches on the monthly Korakuen PPVs.5 Way Escape Cage Match Milano Collection AT vs. SUWA vs. Genki Horiguchi vs. Kenichiro Arai vs. Magnum TOKYOThe rules for this are as follows:- All five men start in the cage.- After ten minutes have passed, wrestlers are allowed to try and escape. - The object initially is to escape the cage.- When three have escaped, a referee enters the ring and pinfalls/submissions will count. - Whoever loses out of the final two faces a forfeit. - Whoever escapes first gets the next shot at the UDG title. The forfeits were different depending on the wrestler, though for this one I believe it all revolved around hair. Genki, Milano and Magu would have to have their heads shaved, SUWA and Araken would be forced to grow their hair out. SUWA's was originally that he had to perform the Magnum dance with Do Fixer, but this was changed shortly before the match.In the run up to the show, Magnum and his DoFixer stablemate Genki had not been getting along. Magu was in his run of being a leader who treated his underlings like crap, and had been costing Genki matches intentionally and attacking him at will. He claimed that this was designed to teach Genki that there would be no friends in the cage match - Genki was unimpressed by this explanation. Magu was the UDG champion at the time, and Milano, SUWA and Araken all had their eye on his title. The match revolves around two things. Firstly, Magu is a coward and is desperately trying to avoid facing SUWA or Milano for his title. Second, Magu is a bastard and is trying to ensure that Genki will be the loser here. After many twists and turns and some frankly deplorable devious scheming, he achieves both of his aims. The first ten minutes are ok, but it's a little bit obvious that they're just killing time until they're allowed to escape. Once the ten minutes passes, the rest of the match is exciting stuff with many near escapes and constantly shifting alliances. Genki and SUWA take some mean bumps against the cage, Milano stretches people and Magnum dictates the flow of the match by playing everyone against each other. At one stage everyone ends up on the deck aside from SUWA and Magnum. Of course, pussy Magu wants no part of psycho-brawler SUWA, so he agrees to just let him climb out of the cage un-challenged. However, as SUWA climbs, Magu drags Milano and Genki up off the mat and tells them that SUWA is trying to escape. THEN, while they're trying to stop SUWA, Magu drags Araken up and tells *him* to sneak out whie the others are distracted. Magu spends the whole match scheming in this fashion, aside from when Genki is beating him up after losing patience with his bullshit and when the rest of the participants beat him up en masse after tiring of his antics. As it turns out, Araken does manage to squirm his way out first, which is a huge upset because he's the lowest rank guy in the match by some distance. SUWA's escape is more difficult with three men trying to stop him. He is ultimately able to struggle free when Genki accidentally pulls his boot off. Magnum climbs out while they're dealing with SUWA, which leaves Genki and Milano for the final showdown. This is great. It follows the simple HAGE-mania 2003 formula. Put Genki in there with a high profile opponent, give him just enough of a chance to make people believe, and the rest takes care of itself. Milano's stretchy arsenal is made for H-A-G-E chants, and the pop for a near fall off the backslide from heaven is insane. Milano was a huge star with plenty of fans, but I think Yossino was the only guy in the building who didn't want Genki to win this. In classic Genki style however, this is not to be. A ref bump means that even the Beach Break isn't enough, and when Magu gets his hands on the keys to the cage and a blue box, you just know that this isn't ending well for him. Blue box betrayal, AT lock, game over. K-Ness, Susumu and Ryo are angry with Magu and urge Genki not to honour the stipulation because he's been shafted. When they confront Magu, not only does he remain unapologetic, he kicks Ryo's broken arm! Whaddaprick! Anyway, Genki is a man, and he takes the head shaving, administered by a reluctant Milano. In a further attempt to duck the challenge from Milano that everyone knew was coming, Magnum invites the Italian to team with him in the forthcoming tag league. Milano accepts, but doesn't seem too enthusiastic. Iiinteresting. Good main event with an absorbing story. It isn't a classic though, and the novelty value is mainly what makes it worth seeing. If I were to recommend the PPV, I'd probably focus on the strength of the undercard as much as this match itself. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Milano vs Magnum eventually happened at the December 2003 PPV. It was outstanding.

[JLM]

NOAH, 2/15/07 (NTV/G+ Live)Tokyo Korakuen Hall2,100 Fans - Super No Vacancy 4. Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Naruki Doi & Genki Horiguchi beat KENTA, Ryo Saito & BxB Hulk (18:15) when Kanemaru used the Touch Out on Hulk.

Really looking forward to seeing this one purely for the Doi/KENTA exchanges.

There's that, and there's also KENTA vs Genki exchages~!

[BurningHammer]

Looking at the T2P photo, YASSHI looks so much like Taiji Ishimori it is scary. What could have been...

[BurningHammer]

From todays AJPW Sumo Hall show:

 

TARU & SUWA beat Kensuke Sasaki & Raimu Mishima (15:02) when TARU used the TARU Driller on Mishima.

 

As well as Owashi teaming with Akebono.

[JLM]

I love that Mishima is now in with the Kenskee office, hopefully some of Sasaki and Nakajima's greatness will rub off on him.

 

Here he is decked out in his Kensuke family garb:

 

[Jun Kasai]

I was looking through some old results and i was wondering if anyone can shed a little info on this match. 9/26/2003 Budokan Hall5 Way Escape Cage MatchOrder of Escape: Araken (17:15- Escape), SUWA (22:10 Escape), Magnum TOKYO (22:35 Escape), Milano Collection AT (28:05 AT Lock) Genki HoriguchiI've seen the Escape the Cage match from 2001 (I think) which is really good and on paper this looks it might have great too.

Yeah, the previous escape cage match was at Absolutamente in 2001. The 2003 budokan show is also known as Absolutamente 2003. As I'm planning to move in the next couple of weeks, I've been sorting out all my stuff and actually had this show to hand today. So I rewatched a good chunk of it. The full card if you're wondering is:Susumu Yokosuka vs Dragon KidTARU vs Touru OwashiYossino (Masato Yoshino) and K-Ness vs Condotti Shuji (Shuji Kondo) and Brother Yassini (Brother YASSHI)CIMA, JUN and Don Fujii vs Antony W. Mori, Masaaki Mochizuki and 2nd Doi (Naruki Doi)5 Way Escape Cage Match Milano Collection AT vs. SUWA vs. Genki Horiguchi vs. Kenichiro Arai vs. Magnum TOKYOI ended up watching from the Yossino match onwards because my dusty old VCR gets angry if you ask it to rewind and that's where the tape (old school!) was up to. TARU vs Owashi was a wild brawl with clubbering in various locations. I can't remember that particular Susumu/Kido match, but it was undoubtedly very good. Yossino/K-Ness vs Condotti Shuji/Brother YasshiniThe pre-match recap covers Kondo and Yasshi betraying the Italian Connection, and their frankly despicable assault and beheading (fine, "unmasking") of Venezia. This is all leading up the formation of Aagan Iisou at the end of the year, and the two are already figures of much hatred amongst the Toryumon fans. To further rile everyone, Kondo comes to the ring carrying a flag-pole bearing masks from previous victims. Berlinetta Boxer, Venezia and a K-Ness mask. What a bastard. The match is good. It has an insanely overbooked finish, but you can't help loving it. The basic premise is that K-Ness and Yossino can dominate Yasshi with ease, but are unable to handle the raw power of Kondo unless they're using double team moves. This, mixed in with Yasshi being a dick as usual and a sprinkling of awesome llave submission holds, makes for a fun 15 minutes. Turntable, Sol Naciente, Sol Noches Es, a Gory special from Yasshi and a hold from Kondo that I don't think has a name and cannot be described easily enough for me to bother. Kondo is a monster here. Lariats and lanzarses all round, a full on powerhouse performance from the big man. The best moment comes when, having failed to get the submission win with synchronised finishing holds because of a ref bump, K-Ness and Yossino decide to both put a triangle choke on Kondo at the same time. This is going great until Kondo tires of their efforts and just stands up. A fully grown man on each arm. He just stands up, and then powerbombs them both. It is awesome. Even the crowd in attendance that *hates* the guy can't help but be impressed. Shortly afterwards it descends into madness. Ref assaults, tables, blue boxes, baguettes to the head and a run-in from Susumu featuring the best JUMBO NO KACHI! of all time. Fun fun fun. CIMA/JUN/Don Fujii vs Antony W. Mori/Masaaki Mochizuki/2nd DoiHoly shit this was good. CIMA is over like a god. His work throughout 2003 was gold and he came accross as a charismatic super-athlete. He had to work very hard to get any heel reactions out of the live crowds, though he did manage it occasionally. I'll try not to go overboard with praise for JUN, but suffice to say he was brilliant and I wish he was still wrestling. In this match he's all about the growth. In the early going he does alright, but Doi eventually gets the better of him and starts to take him to school. At one point, Doi has him in a leg lock which prompts CIMA to come in, stomp on Doi to break the hold and then stomp on JUN and tell him to show some god damn hustle. From then on he just gets stronger and stronger as it goes on, eventually even managing to make a respectable attempt at going toe to toe with the ever-dominant Mochi. Sub plots~! Mori appears to vanish for a good chunk of this match, but makes up for it by returning as they move up through the gears and has an absolutely phenomenal exchange with CIMA. He gets whipped into the corner, CIMA runs at him, he gets a boot up and hops onto the turnbuckles for a tornado DDT. Quick as a flash, CIMA forward rolls out of his daze and hits the Venus palm strike. He grabs Mori for the Iconoclasm, Mori spins out in mid air and gains control with an arm-wringer. He yells "Ikimasyou!" and runs up the ropes, CIMA drags him down and catches him mid-air for the Schwein which is instantly reversed into a flash crucifix pin for two. The speed and fluidity of this is absolutely breathtaking. Later on CIMA and Mochi take their fight up the ramp to the stage. Big bad Owashi turns up and slaps CIMA around for a bit. The people are pissed. TARU runs in for the save and their arena-wide brawl picks up where it left off. TARU is great when he's fired up. CIMA/SUWA/TARU/JUN/Fujii... what a line up. I miss CrazyMAX. :(The closing stretch is as frantic as you'd expect, with the usual Toryumon touches like partners working their arses off to stop the opposition partners breaking up pinfalls. I was quite surprised by the finish having totally forgotten about this match. Sure, CIMA takes the Owashi beating, one of his signature sickening DDT bumps and a Twister before eventually taking the Bakatare sliding kick, but it was still a big win for young Doi. There was no specific build-up to this match - Antony was on the Final m2K team for no particular reason at all. Despite that, it was infinitely better than many of the 'filler' matches on the monthly Korakuen PPVs.5 Way Escape Cage Match Milano Collection AT vs. SUWA vs. Genki Horiguchi vs. Kenichiro Arai vs. Magnum TOKYOThe rules for this are as follows:- All five men start in the cage.- After ten minutes have passed, wrestlers are allowed to try and escape. - The object initially is to escape the cage.- When three have escaped, a referee enters the ring and pinfalls/submissions will count. - Whoever loses out of the final two faces a forfeit. - Whoever escapes first gets the next shot at the UDG title. The forfeits were different depending on the wrestler, though for this one I believe it all revolved around hair. Genki, Milano and Magu would have to have their heads shaved, SUWA and Araken would be forced to grow their hair out. SUWA's was originally that he had to perform the Magnum dance with Do Fixer, but this was changed shortly before the match.In the run up to the show, Magnum and his DoFixer stablemate Genki had not been getting along. Magu was in his run of being a leader who treated his underlings like crap, and had been costing Genki matches intentionally and attacking him at will. He claimed that this was designed to teach Genki that there would be no friends in the cage match - Genki was unimpressed by this explanation. Magu was the UDG champion at the time, and Milano, SUWA and Araken all had their eye on his title. The match revolves around two things. Firstly, Magu is a coward and is desperately trying to avoid facing SUWA or Milano for his title. Second, Magu is a bastard and is trying to ensure that Genki will be the loser here. After many twists and turns and some frankly deplorable devious scheming, he achieves both of his aims. The first ten minutes are ok, but it's a little bit obvious that they're just killing time until they're allowed to escape. Once the ten minutes passes, the rest of the match is exciting stuff with many near escapes and constantly shifting alliances. Genki and SUWA take some mean bumps against the cage, Milano stretches people and Magnum dictates the flow of the match by playing everyone against each other. At one stage everyone ends up on the deck aside from SUWA and Magnum. Of course, pussy Magu wants no part of psycho-brawler SUWA, so he agrees to just let him climb out of the cage un-challenged. However, as SUWA climbs, Magu drags Milano and Genki up off the mat and tells them that SUWA is trying to escape. THEN, while they're trying to stop SUWA, Magu drags Araken up and tells *him* to sneak out whie the others are distracted. Magu spends the whole match scheming in this fashion, aside from when Genki is beating him up after losing patience with his bullshit and when the rest of the participants beat him up en masse after tiring of his antics. As it turns out, Araken does manage to squirm his way out first, which is a huge upset because he's the lowest rank guy in the match by some distance. SUWA's escape is more difficult with three men trying to stop him. He is ultimately able to struggle free when Genki accidentally pulls his boot off. Magnum climbs out while they're dealing with SUWA, which leaves Genki and Milano for the final showdown. This is great. It follows the simple HAGE-mania 2003 formula. Put Genki in there with a high profile opponent, give him just enough of a chance to make people believe, and the rest takes care of itself. Milano's stretchy arsenal is made for H-A-G-E chants, and the pop for a near fall off the backslide from heaven is insane. Milano was a huge star with plenty of fans, but I think Yossino was the only guy in the building who didn't want Genki to win this. In classic Genki style however, this is not to be. A ref bump means that even the Beach Break isn't enough, and when Magu gets his hands on the keys to the cage and a blue box, you just know that this isn't ending well for him. Blue box betrayal, AT lock, game over. K-Ness, Susumu and Ryo are angry with Magu and urge Genki not to honour the stipulation because he's been shafted. When they confront Magu, not only does he remain unapologetic, he kicks Ryo's broken arm! Whaddaprick! Anyway, Genki is a man, and he takes the head shaving, administered by a reluctant Milano. In a further attempt to duck the challenge from Milano that everyone knew was coming, Magnum invites the Italian to team with him in the forthcoming tag league. Milano accepts, but doesn't seem too enthusiastic. Iiinteresting. Good main event with an absorbing story. It isn't a classic though, and the novelty value is mainly what makes it worth seeing. If I were to recommend the PPV, I'd probably focus on the strength of the undercard as much as this match itself. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Milano vs Magnum eventually happened at the December 2003 PPV. It was outstanding.

Cheers for that, the cage match sounds awesome, definately going to pick this show up from somewhere.

[Jun Kasai]

Just watched the NOAH 6 Man, really fun match, the main focus is on KENTA/Doi who try and get at each other all through the match and have to be pulled apart post match, hopefully this leads to a singles match. Hulk impressed me in this one too, he put on a really good performance and got a standing ovation at the end. Saito was just kind of there, which was surprising as you would have thought he

[JLM]

Just seen it now. Agreed on Ryo being surprisingly understated, though Maraha vs Issapa needs to happen in front of a Dragon Gate audience anyway. Genki does indeed look friggin great, the contacts are an inspired touch. He's switched his ring style a bit too, added more kicks and generally seems a bit more vicious and violent. Hulk looked fantastic, in for most of the match, hit everything beautifully and sold like a trooper - the NOAH fans took to him quickly. Doi vs KENTA is a mouth-watering prospect indeed, can't wait to see it. Fun match that, NOAH and DG is an interpromotional agreement I can get behind. In other exciting interpromotional news, Stalker vs Akiyama is in the pipeline.

[Gwailofilms]

In a further attempt to duck the challenge from Milano that everyone knew was coming, Magnum invites the Italian to team with him in the forthcoming tag league. Milano accepts, but doesn't seem too enthusiastic.

I'm going to dig out my tape of the Tag League, just for the Magu/Milano combined entrance.

[Philjax]

Wanting to get into Dragon Gate, i spent a few hours last week skimming through this entire thread familiarising myself with who's who's etc. I'd really enjoyed any Dragon Gate involvement in ROH proceedings from 2005-06.Would it be safe to say that due to the clipped nature of the Infinity show the slightly better matches (maybe from a viewing point of view) occur on the monthly PPV's? I ask because having downloaded Infinity 51 and 52 i found very little to enjoy which was quite suprising to me. I have a bunch of matches from the November PPV to watch and the possibility to get Infinity 55 and 56 and the "King Of Gate" show. Were the shows i watched inferior to normal or is this what i should expect from the prospective downloads?Maybe someone could offer a Top Ten Matches Of 2006 list?

[stylesclash05]

Looking to get into Dragon Gate after seeing some in ROH. Any advice about where to start with DVDS??

[JLM]

Would it be safe to say that due to the clipped nature of the Infinity show the slightly better matches (maybe from a viewing point of view) occur on the monthly PPV's? I ask because having downloaded Infinity 51 and 52 i found very little to enjoy which was quite suprising to me. I have a bunch of matches from the November PPV to watch and the possibility to get Infinity 55 and 56 and the "King Of Gate" show. Were the shows i watched inferior to normal or is this what i should expect from the prospective downloads?Maybe someone could offer a Top Ten Matches Of 2006 list?

Going through this in order: The heavy clipping of Infinity episodes actually came about as a result of them cancelling the monthly PPVs. Every month Dragon Gate runs a big show at Korakuen Hall showswith a more stacked card than the usual tour shows and usually with one or two significant storyline happenings. The old monthly PPVs were live coverage of these Korakuen hall shows, and the monthly Infinity TV covered the major happenings from the other shows, usually leading up to the PPV. When they cancelled the PPVs, they found that they still needed to cover these major Korakuen shows in as much detail as possible, and had to try and force extended Korakuen coverage as well as all the usual coverage into just the single two-hour Infinity show. However, more recently they've added extra episodes of Infinity to ease the strain, and the clipping hasn't been nearly as severe as a result. In terms of PPVs now, they only do live pay per view coverage of major events. These include the annual big show at Kobe world hall in July (known was "World" in these parts), which is DG'a Wrestlemania, and December's King of Gate Finals. King of Gate is sort of like King of the ring, except it hasn't been devalued - the winner is regarded as the man in DG, and receives a shot at the top title shortly afterwards. The problem with getting into DG now is that 2006 kind of sucked. 2005 had the electric BloodGen vs DoFixer feud, 2004 had Aagan Iisou, 2006 is struggling because the top heel group (Muscle Outlawz) has been booked so poorly that they're not credible enough. Gamma is an amazing heel, but he hasn't been booked as a true threat to his main rival CIMA. Tozawa-Juku got over big time as babyface heroes after starting out as comedy, but they've taken a back seat to CIMA and his US Indy buddies. I've still enjoyed quite a lot of it, but it isn't clicking nearly as well as in previous years. Shingo being absent for so long didn't help either. As is traditional in DG, they're doing their big spring shake-up at the moment, where old Units disband and new Units are formed. This year's has been bigger than ever, with Final M2K, Blood Generation, Do Fixer and presumably Pos. Hearts all dissolving, so as a new fan it's as good a time as any in terms of figuring out what's going on and who's alligned with who. Right now it's basically every heel in existence is joining Muscle Outlawz and everyone else is banding against them. I'll have a think about the best of 2006 list and get back to you.EDIT: Oh, and by all accounts the King of Gate final was a cracking match. My torrents have fucked up and thus I'm behind on my viewing. If you do download the shows and fancy putting them on the Gzone I'd be most grateful. ;)Another EDIT: You should note that Dragon Gate is less like NOAH in that it's not as easy to dip into random matches and just appreciate them as they are. Whilst the best DG matches can be watched in isolation and be tonnes of fun, a lot of them, especially on the TV blocks, are enhanced considerably if you're in touch with the feuds and storylines. In that sense they have more in common with WWE than your more stoic puro promotions.

[alexander]

Looking to get into Dragon Gate after seeing some in ROH. Any advice about where to start with DVDS??

The trouble with DragonGate at the moment, is that the proper native wrestlers will be out numbered by the whites in my lifetime