Goodbye, Uhaa

Dragon Gate 2015/2/28

Open the Brave Gate Championship: Akira Tozawa vs. Kzy ©

Good shit, Kzy worked over Tozawas’ arm in the beginning and it was a nice subplot for the first half, the climax was dramatic with fine struggle to survive and few very exciting nearfalls, all in all I enjoyed the match even with Tozawa playing a godawful character.

***1/2

Dragon Gate 2015/2/28

Open the Triangle Gate: Mad Blankey (Naruki Doi, Cyber Kong, CIMA) vs. Dia.HEARTS (Masaaki Mochizuki, Dragon Kid, Big R Shimizu) ©

Oh man, I gave up on this 8-9 minutes into the match, life IS short after all, garbage wrestling 101.

didn’t finish

Dragon Gate 2015/3/1

Open the Dream Gate Championship: Uhaa Nation vs. BxB Hulk ©

Well, fuck me sideways, this was so amazing, reminded me a lot on Uhaa/Ricochet from the last year, truly incredible title match. Uhaa should open a school of selling after this marvelous performance, my god he sold that leg perfectly, Hulk went after it early in the match as an answer to Hulk’s nasty powerhouse moves and it turned into a major plot point that eventually slowed Uhaa down during key sequences in the closing stretch, the legwork paid off big time for Hulk. Uhaa’s selling was really amazing and elevated the match to great heights, but Hulk deserves tons of credit as well, especially considering this match came after his horrendous performance in the Susumu title match where he flat out refused to sell any leg damage, here it was the opposite, he was constantly attacking Uhaa’s leg and was relentless in doing so, very Tanahashiesque I’d say. Not only that, he also sold his back very well after Uhaa’s brief work over it at the beginning.

So yeah, all things considered the match was basically flawless, and everything clicked and was executed perfectly. This was Uhaa’s last match for Dragon Gate and he went out in such a style, with the ageless performance, now he’s the owner of two arguably the greatest matches in company history.

*****

It's Dragon Gate Time!

This is probably the first Dragon Gate content I'm watching since February/March. Funny thing is, I like that league and respect its style and entity, it's just that I couldn't manage to find more time for them. /lame excuses.

The Gate of Destiny 2014

(2014/11/2)

Open the Brave Gate: Jimmy Kanda vs. Flamita ©

Good match with a great finishing run, that ending was so swell. Before that we had Kanda working over Flamita’s back section a little bit, the whole match was kind of slower than Flamita’s usual norm, but not in a bad fashion, it was still effective here, minus a dry minute or two. How long until Flamita gets signed by WWE? One of the best youngsters in the world, the kid’s gonna go places.

***1/4

The Gate of Destiny 2014

(2014/11/2)

Monster Express (Masato Yoshino, Shingo Takagi, Syachihoko BOY) vs. Dia.HEARTS (Masaaki Mochizuki, Dragon Kid, Big R Shimizu)

There’s nothing worse than when you sleep on something for a very long time and finding out you missed something great. That’s the feeling I got after watching this match, I’m talking about SHIMIZU, a young powerhouse who seemed to have a breakout performance here. His chemistry with Shingo is off the charts and just checked and fuck yeah – they met in a singles match recently, I’m going to see that, mos def. Like I already said, Shimizu/Shingo was the money here, they were throwing bombs at each other mixing New Japan and American styles of slugfests.

***3/4

The Gate of Destiny 2014

(2014/11/2)

Open the Twin Gate: Osaka06 (CIMA & Gamma) vs. T-Hawk & Eita ©

Shit son, this match was so mediocre two thirds in but then the magical finishing stretch happened and elevated the match massively… MASSIVELY! The middle of the match dragged unnecessarily and the match would’ve been amazing without it, but waddaya gonna do, overall this is still a damn fine match we’re talking about, by far the best Gamma match I’ll ever see.

***3/4

The Gate of Destiny 2014

(2014/11/2)

Open the Dream Gate: Akira Tozawa vs. BxB Hulk ©

Pre-match video package was glorious and really puts into perspective what this match means to both, Tozawa especially. Great stuff as expected, they worked a big match style with lots of careful movement and gradually build to the finish, the fighting spirits sessions were well done and there was a lot of pure struggle that was sold nicely. Great, highly emotional match.

****1/4

The Gate of Victory 2014

(2014/10/28)

Big R Shimizu vs. Shingo Takagi

Shingo’s got himself a nice young powerhouse rival in Big R and I hope they get a big singles match on PPV down the road. This looked like an early stage in the rivalry, it was all about Big R making statement to Shingo, but the latter is a much more experienced dog who can do more than bomb-throwing, Big R doesn’t have his mat skills. Good match.

***1/4