Posted by Seth | 43 comments

New Open the Dream Gate belt

We have a new champion and now we have a new championship belt as well. While I’m still fond of the previous title, there is some nice work gone into this belt. They have kept the locked gate concept going with the current holder’s name locked away on the inside and a bar on front to hold the keys of the defeated challengers.

For a closer look take a look at Wildcat Championship Belts, the makers of this new strap or take a peek at the video below.

Thanks to Poneglyph for the tip.

Posted by Seth | 6 comments

Weekly Pro Wrestling cover features familiar faces

As seen on Jae’s Twitter.

Posted by Seth | 13 comments

Dragon Gate news roundup

I haven’t received any new Inifnities or shows lately so I thought I’d do a quick catch up on some events going on in Dragon Gate lately. Be warned though of course that this will contain spoilers for upcoming Infinities so if you like to get your updates from the shows then you should stop reading.

First of all, and possibly the biggest news in a long time (at least for me ) is that we have a new Brave Gate champion. K-ness is the man to take out Naoki Tanizaki. Naoki had been a bit of a surprise champion, but a popular one nonetheless and his win was certainly a big moment for this career. However, with this win K-ness claims to be back to 100% and that as he is now back to his former best no one can beat him. While I’ve yet to see any K-ness matches since his heel turn apart from the cage match recently it’s hard to tell if that is true, but frankly, as big as a K-ness fanboy as I am willing to take him on his word and begin marking out right away. If K-ness is indeed back to his former best then Dragon Gate will certainly be an exciting place going forward. He also has some new Real Hazard kicks which is nice to see. A slight hearkening back to his Darkness Dragon days.

The other Dragon of the company, Dragon Kid is also having some drama of his own. He officially left Kamikaze and joined CIMA and Gamma in WARRIORS-5. It would appear that with the absence of KAGETORA they are now WARRIORS-3. However, recently KAGE posted on his blog how he was shocked DK was allowed to join the group. One would expect him to form his own unit shortly. Sugawara and ken45 may not be far behind?

The once steady (and currently hot) Real Hazard has begun to show seasonal cracks. Genki Horiguchi, arguably current RH leader has claimed he wants the team to begin winning matches fairly. This obviously doesn’t sit well with Kanda and the two have come to blows on a couple of occasions because of this already. A possible Genki face turn coming? I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the case. However, Real Hazard has finally entered the generation war taking the position of the middle generation. It will be interesting to see how far they take this generation war and to see just where they are going with it. I feel it hasn’t quite hit it’s stride yet but we will see.

So that’s the majority of the news happenings as of late. For those new to Dragon Gate you may not be aware that usually around this time of year they go through a unit shake up so and often this is the time of year when Dragon Gate is most interesting. We have a ways to go until the dust all settles so keep an eye on this site to see what will come next.

Posted by Seth | 5 comments

K-ness revealed as X, joins Real Hazard

Big news today K-ness fans, as Genki called out X and it turned out to be K-ness!

So what this means is the K-ness will be taking SaiRyo’s place in all of his matches, not least of all the mask vs hair elimination cage match at the upcoming FINAL GATE! K-ness mask will be on the line once again, and this will also be his second of such matches. This entry also puts him on the opposite side of his two greatest rivals, Dragon Kid and Yoshino. Will we see some former magic happen? His induction into Real Hazard also reunites the once great KnesSuka team and DoFIXER is pretty much back together in all but name. This is a very exciting turn of events.

Now anyone who knows me knows how much of a K-ness fan I am, despite his recent… lack of form. However, the success of all this depends solely on K-ness’ form in the ring. He is healthy now, but he has been out of the main spotlight since his Triangle Gate run with Mochi and Fujii last year. His few higher profile matches against Yoshino and DKid lately have also stunk, but maybe this return to his heel roots and faith shown by Genki as booker will give him the mental boost he so dearly needs.

Fingers, knees and toes all crossed this one works out.

Posted by Seth | 11 comments

The outfits of Naruki Doi 2009

I got into an interesting discussion with CP Munk over at the SSS forums about Naruki Doi’s outfits. In a previous post I stated how I found Doi’s entrance outfits in big matches to lack taste and frankly, don’t fit his character. Although there is one more PPV this year to come, I’m not sure we’ll see much in the way of Doi’s coats there, so I thought I’d compile a collection of some of his entrance get-ups, some, like the most recent against BxB Hulk, admitedly ok. Others… well, take a look after the jump.

What are your thoughts on Doi’s entrance coats this year? Surely I’m not the only one who finds them foul?

Posted by Seth | 9 comments

Ryo Saito suffers a ruptured tendon

Some terrible news in that SaiRyo has suffered a serious injury to his tendon and will be out for the foreseeable future. Based on the fact he is such a major focus of several storylines right now, most notably the Susumu heel turn, this will cause some serious problems. His replacement for the FINAL GATE match and all upcoming matches has yet to be announced.

This is a terrible shame as I felt Ryo has finally come into his own as a heel after such a poor start earlier in the year and was incredibly interesting to watch right now. Hopefully his recovery will be swift and he will be back as soon as possible.

Credit: dgusa